The Hidden Forces of Life (2)

Technē & Terraforming

‘We must learn to recognize what is working in the world and

respond accordingly for the sake of the world.’

Rudolf Steiner

As human civilization passes further into a materialized existence, particular forces shall arise that find their domain within such an environment. That is, each epoch of civilization contends with forces, known and unknown, according to humanity’s state of development, awareness, and in correspondence to the form of existing cultures and societal structures. Forces that impinge and participate within human life in this realm do so relative to the time and place. In other words, it can be said that consistent forces involved within the evolutionary journey of humanity are consistently adapting according to the epoch. Human life upon this planet is now transitioning into an era of techne (technē). In its original sense, in Greek philosophy, this term signified the mechanical arts; whilst Aristotle viewed techne as representing the imperfection of the human imitation of nature. That is, the mechanical arts were imperfect in attempting to imitate, reproduce, and/or substitute the processes of Nature. The mechanical arts also represented not only the mechanical objects/structures themselves but also the sets of ordered practices and skills that went along with them. In other words, techne is not only, in modern terms, a piece of technology, but also the behaviour, lifestyle practices, attitudes, skill sets, and more, than run alongside, or are instigated, by technology in order for its inclusion into human life. If human behaviour becomes more automated by a piece of technology, such as the use of a spell-checker (as is being used here), then the laziness in personal grammar that results from this is also a part of the techne of the computer and word processing software. What I am saying here is that the direction that humanity is taking, in the name of progress, is towards establishing a new environmental infrastructure that will reorganize and recalibrate human behaviour. It will also require a readaptation as this is not a minor transition, such as a generational linear progression, but a major transformation in how life is experienced upon this planet. Human adaptation also requires an adaptation in consciousness.

            Each aeon, or major period of history, brings with it a particular mode of consciousness. For example, the Swiss philosopher Jean Gebser noted how human consciousness is not continuous but is in transition; and that these transitions, or switching of modes, are not continuous but rather ‘mutations.’ They undergo a leap, or jump – a sometimes radical switching – that is not linear. Gebser outlined the following consciousness structures: i) the archaic; ii) the magical; iii) the mythical; iv) the mental; and v) the integral. Each of these structures framed how people perceived the world around them and the forces within it. Such consciousness structures also influenced how particular worldviews, behaviours, and environments emerged. At each stage, how we think affects what we create. Since humanity has now, according to Gebser, entered into the ‘integral structure,’ then this is being projected into how our cultures and civilizations are being reconstructed. The world-building of each aeon of history is influenced by the incumbent structure of human consciousness (which is itself influenced by cosmic factors).[i] According to Gebser, the integral consciousness structure was made evident by a new relationship to space and time. In some ways, we can see how this is manifesting through our increasingly digitalized cultures that have drastically altered how people experience space-time relations. Consciousness, and intelligence, are themselves unseen (and often unrecognized) forces that have huge influence upon human life. Conversely, how an environment is built-up also then reflects back certain influences and impacts upon a person’s consciousness. A very basic analogy here is the difference between being immersed in Nature, in a natural environment, as opposed to being immersed within a high-density urban environment. In this context, the human being is now being exposed not only to a digitized ecosystem but also to an unprecedented electromagnetic one. We are literally existing within a sea of unseen, and hidden, forces. It can be said that the planet is undergoing a mode of terraforming. And the ‘form’ that is under construction will be amenable to a certain type of intelligence. For starters, it will be kind to an intelligence that understands how to use digital tools, apps, and software. And it will be unkind to those intelligences that find it difficult to get their heads around all this ‘online stuff.’ It will be kind to those who are willing to accept a life ‘within the grid’ of digital-everything – finances, surveillance, internet-of-bodies, 5G/6G/7G/8G, etc – and it will be unkind to those wishing for an off-grid, or less digitally-dense, lifestyle.

            For some, what is being described here is the shift into transhumanism, alongside the rise of a civilizational technocracy. What is also being described is a new mode of materialism that does not need to rely on physical solidity for it to be material, as the immersion into the physical-digital ecosystem is still a mode of materialism, albeit more ethereal. I have referred to this as the ‘material fallacy’ that represents a reterritorializing of physical matter. This fallacy is that the continuing encapsulation of the human being into artificial constructs (such as the Metaverse) is a deepening deception of materiality. And such an environment also affects the cognitive functioning of the mind as it becomes ever more deeply immersed into an electrified realm. This will designate the new domain of techne where different cognitive skills will be necessary. It will also frame how humanity is tracked, monitored, catalogued, and processed. Humanity will become symbiotic. New processes of integration are being established between the biological world, the digital, and the electronic. What may be emerging here is a wholly different form of planetization that merges genes, machines, and societies. The human intelligence that will result from this is, as yet, unformed and, in most ways, unknown. And it may become home to more than one form of intelligence. As I have mentioned previously, there is the danger that as people slip further into an ecosystem of automation, not only their behaviour but also their state of cognition will be affected. The unconscious human may, by degrees, be transformed into the robosapien where behaviour sets and cognitive perception are limited to a very low level. Such a person will, effectively, be little more than a cog in the machine. And the machine will be well-oiled by AI-regulated infrastructures. Yet the real ‘hidden force’ in such an electrified world may be something more nefarious than the automated human being.

The ongoing terraforming of the natural, organic world opens itself up for a replacement by a ‘machinic civilization’ based on technocratic governance and processes of techne. When the ecosystems of Nature are broken down, reduced to material systems, then the building blocks for artificial structures – structures devoid of organic life – are established which give host for the manifestation and expression of anti-developmental forces (or what I sometimes refer to as entropic forces). The present times are hyper-materialistic and heavily intellect dominant. This allows for an organization of human thinking where free speech, human imagination and intuition, is highly controlled and subjected to monitoring, management, and technocratic administration. If this continues then it is likely to lead to a state where the human species, unknowing to itself, will have lost the ability for true, genuine thinking. The inner world will have become diminished, and any inner, developmental impulses become over-ridden by material forces. Furthermore, we may be oblivious to the many unseen fields that make up our ecosystem of electro-energies. These energies are sub-nature. They are part of living existence, yet they are a lower form of life vibration. According to Austrian mystic-philosopher Rudolf Steiner, electricity is light in a sub-material state. That is, it is a form of light that has fallen below the level of nature and has become what he termed ‘sub-nature.’ It is because of this that Steiner warned humankind to be cautious not to build cultures dependent or based on electricity. An electro-ecosystem will only serve to draw us farther away from our natural environments and into a lower vibrational state of sub-nature. In a lecture from 1925, Steiner says

There are very few as yet who even feel the greatness of the spiritual tasks approaching man in this direction. Electricity, for instance, celebrated since its discovery as the very soul of Nature’s existence, must be recognised in its true character — in its peculiar power of leading down from Nature to Sub Nature. Only man himself must beware lest he slide downward with it.¹

Rudolf Steiner made great efforts to outline aspects of the various forces acting against humankind’s development. One of these forces he termed as ahrimanic, and the intention of these forces was to draw humanity into their realm; that is, to drag human beings further into deep material entanglement.

It can be said that those forces that wish for deeper immersion into materialism (whether physical or digital) are entropic forces for they act against the inner development of the human being. And for the large part, they are unseen or hidden. For Steiner, Ahriman is a very real intelligent being, or form of intelligence, and it represents a realm (or reality) that is dry, mechanistic, intellectual, devoid of vital energies (what we would call as ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’) and may even be devoid of organic life. What this intelligence – these ahrimanic forces – strive for is to persuade humankind that such a mechanistic environment is good for them. Not only this, but also that such a thing is positive, necessary, and even progressive. The goal here is to present such events as the best direction for the future of human evolution. In a nutshell, think transhumanism. The advent for such forces to ingratiate themselves into an electrified realm of sub-nature is being prepared by an Earthly environment where electricity is replacing our need for genuine light, and chemical skies are increasingly blocking the reception of the sunlight. Furthermore, such forces, being highly materialistic, are primarily focused upon the dominance of an economic realm; a reality where humans are coerced into thinking of economy as the main driver and principal concern. The focus is upon the quantity and not the quality, exemplified by a culture that is governed by numbers, statistics, algorithms, data harvesting, and evidence-based proof. It is these unseen forces of cataloguing, identifying, and accrediting (see also the China-led social credit score system) that are dividing people away from their natural, organic relations.

Many cultures are already separated by ‘identity divisions’ – social, racial, and sexual – that are encouraging strife and polarizations within our societies. Whatever separates groups, keeps people from mutual understanding and divides them, can be utilized to support the entropic forces. It is precisely within human divisions where antagonistic forces are more likely to intervene. As Steiner wrote in his notebook in November 1920: ‘Where are the ahrimanic forces? They are there where forces separating people can intervene’.² As I have said, we do not need to personify such forces here, only to recognize the presence of counter developmental forces that, through whatever function, are hostile to the inner growth and perceptive capacities of the human being. In this respect, the greatest danger is that people are sleeping through these times; as such, they remain ignorant or unaware of such forces operating within their midst. To be conscious of such forces, and the instruments/vessels through which such forces operate, is paramount now so that we are not seduced by these impulses unknowingly, and thus do not unwittingly become their puppets. Also, it is through awareness and knowing that such forces can be transformed into serving humanity by compelling individuals into increased understanding and a wish for development and a betterment of the human condition. It is through increasing awareness that people are able to see how seemingly ‘good intentions’ are being hijacked by groups (political, financial, social, etc.) to become tools and channels for nefarious intentions and goals.

The terraforming of modern life, through techne (automatism) and technocratic governance, is having the result of desensitizing people and separating them from the realm of vital, creative forces. People’s thoughts have become more and more like dead shadows – opinions that mimic social programming, limited attention spans, and cognitive dissonance. For some time now, human intelligence has been instrumentalized, splintered, and fractured so as to produce an increased sense of alienation from the natural world and from connection with the inner being’s elan vital (vital spirit). Yet, it may be that we have to encounter such forces in these times in order to make choices regarding our own path of development. It is this present encounter, however, that is causing dissonance amongst so many people in the world today. If a person falls too much into materialism, distraction, psycho-emotional fog, then this can result in a number of factors such as automatism, instability, depression, anxiety, and a general state of disquietude. In short, they become detached from the inner being.

Furthermore, the deepening entanglement with a technological ecosystem is driving people into sub-nature and lower states of consciousness. In such cultural circumstances as we find ourselves in, people need to dig deeper to find the inner strength in order not to be overwhelmed by these external forces. It is precisely through conscious discernment that we can find the inner strength to face the conditions of the world. It is this discernment that will enable an individual to see through the manufactured narratives that are programming people into supporting the external forces of ‘efficiency,’ ‘rationality,’ and ‘progressiveness,’ that are seemingly more and more anti-human. As one recent popular cultural historian said: ‘People will no longer regard themselves as autonomous beings who follow their own wishes according to their life, but rather as a collection of biochemical mechanisms that are constantly monitored and directed by a network of electronic algorithms.’³ Such ideas, agendas, and their supporting forces, view the human being as a component within a technical system; that is, as part of the processes of techne. And through this perspective, the human being is a flawed creature that requires to be technologically improved. Again, this is a view that moves further and further away from the understanding of the human being as a vessel of spirit – as a manifestation of Source-consciousness within a physical body. These are part of the unseen forces of life that are acting through, and orchestrating, physical events across the planet. One Anthroposophical[ii] researcher and writer even went as far as to state the following:

Ahriman’s objective of the comprehensive capture in digital form of all human souls and bodies on Earth, their “digital identity”, requires the biometric capture of every individual, their immunization and other data, right into their molecular structure, and was planned and already set in motion some time ago with the aim of creating a universal health information system.’⁴

A destiny such as this lies upon a path of ignorance and an abandonment of the inner life. Such a future can only come about by the continual accumulation of present trends acting one upon the other to form a stairway to a determined end. If this is seen as destiny, then it is one that emerges through either ignorance or laziness. In other words, it is through purely physical circumstances and does not accept or acknowledge the presence of metaphysical truths. It is within such a barren landscape, devoid of the transcendental impulse, that such entropic forces can pry and play upon the weaknesses of an unseeing, unperceiving humanity. There are unseen, hidden forces in life that are striving for such anti-human ambitions – yet it is their lack of grace and vital energy that also is their greatest weakness.

For individuals – especially those with perceptive capacity and compassionate understanding – to walk into the future blind to such forces and their influences shall be our greatest weakness. That is why there are tremendous efforts to keep as many people as possible unawares to events beyond the programmed narrative. As the opening quote from Rudolf Steiner says, we must learn to recognize what is working in the world so that we have the capacity to respond accordingly for the sake of the world. For this is our human world, and there is no place in it for anti-human forces.

Kingsley L. Dennis, October 2022

References

¹ Rudolf Steiner, “From Nature to Sub-Nature,” Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts - https://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA026/English/RSP1973/GA026_c29.html

² Selg, Peter (2022) The Future of Ahriman and the Awakening of Souls. Forest Row: Temple Lodge Publishing, p53

³ Yuval Noah Harari, cited in Selg, Peter (2022) The Future of Ahriman and the Awakening of Souls. Forest Row: Temple Lodge Publishing, p49

⁴ Selg, Peter (2022) The Future of Ahriman and the Awakening of Souls. Forest Row: Temple Lodge Publishing, p44

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[i] See Richard Tarnas’s monumental work Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View (2006)

[ii] Anthroposophy is a spiritual-science movement founded in the early 20^th century by the mystic-philosopher Rudolf Steiner.