Technology and the Laws of Thought
by Gopi Krishna Vijaya, PhD
Editor’s note: Some months ago we received a very clear and
readable document which traces how the logic used in and
essential to today’s computers and mechanization branched
off from the fuller logic of human experience. Though it
offers only a restricted subset of human capacities, machine
logic has become the measure even for human development. Dr. Vijaya’s sixty-page book is too long for us to publish, so we asked him to share a summary of his research
and insights. A PDF document of the full text is available on
request; e-mail [email protected] for a copy.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to
one who is striking at the root.
Henry David Thoreau
There has been such a massive emphasis on technology around us that in its glare the condition of man is
like a deer caught in the headlights. In this condition,
understanding the very nature of technology, particularly
computing technology, appears quite tricky—especially
when there is a natural antipathy generated in almost everybody who has a wholesome human sense for things.
Yet, in one way or another, it is absolutely essential to get
to the bottom of it. My booklet Technology and the Laws
of Thought is an attempt at doing precisely that.
The work arose due to graduate research where the
author had to tackle several problems in theoretical physics utilizing computer programs and hardware-software
interfaces. The question “What is a computer, really?”
began to stand right at the forefront as the research progressed. Conventional technical approaches simply take
the logic of computing for granted, and delve right into
the details of the working computer. Any reader would
quickly get lost in the forest of algorithms, logical circuits,
language syntax, and calculation times, even with very
basic level computing. On the other hand, while reading the history of development of the subject, it appeared
clear that almost no one looked at the history of computing thought symptomatically. Nowadays, most analyses of
the subject restrict themselves to simply outlining the development of concepts which took place in the past, such
as the invention of binary number system, calculators,
and computers, without paying adequate attention to how
those concepts came to be developed—and more impor-
tantly, whether those concepts fit reality or not. Therefore
it was inevitable that, even with such detailed historical
books like Turing’s Cathedral and Walter Isaacson’s The
Innovators, which give an almost blow-by-blow account
of the development of computing ideas, there existed no
real motif that answers the essential question: “Why did
it take this particular route?” It was the old story of having a name for every bend of the river but having no name
for the river. Moreover, historical books take the existing
development for granted, as if that was the only possible
way things could have evolved,
and more importantly, they do Conventional
not challenge the concepts used approaches take the
by the pioneers and inventors, nor logic of computing
take human development into ac- for granted, and
count. So this line of investigation
delve right into
reached a dead end: there was way
too much detail, and way too lit- the details of the
tle in terms of coherent overarch- working computer.
Any reader would
ing human concepts.
Following this dead end, an- quickly get lost in the
throposophical literature was ana- forest of algorithms,
lyzed. Several works address this logical circuits,
subject head on. Gondishapur to
language syntax, and
Silicon Valley by Paul Emberson
indicated not only the overall de- calculation times...
velopment of ideas, but also several references from Rudolf Steiner’s work mentioning the nature of computing
technology in terms of spiritual science. Steve Talbott’s
excellent work, such as Devices of the Soul: Battling for
Our Selves in the Age of Machines, indicated the social effect of computing technology very well, drawing on his
own computing background. In addition, several ways of
easter–spring issue 2016
• 41
research & reviews
offsetting the effects of computers were also described. In
these works, the essential concepts were tackled by themselves, especially as they relate to the human being. Yet a
clear bridge was not present to connect the already welldeveloped theories of computing to the kind of thinking
activity developed in, for example, the Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, even though Carl Unger’s work had pushed
that thinking forward tremendously. What was necessary
was to balance general concepts derived from anthroposophical spiritual science against the excessive detail given
in traditional books on computing, so that the path to the
human can be derived from the study of the logic itself.
It was with David Black’s work Computer and the Incarnation of Ahriman that this bridge first became visible.
It was an indispensible masterpiece, where the relation of
the logic of thought to the logic of computers (Boolean algebra) was discussed, freely using concepts from anthroposophy. This pushed open the door, and the next step
was to assemble a picture of the very core development
of the computing process. BuildIdentifying qualities ing that bridge was the key purpose of Technology and the Laws of
that the thinking
process has in itself, Thought.
My approach has been to obsuch as the feelingserve the thinking process closely.
element and the
This was done to identify differwilling-element, it
ent qualities that the process necbecame clear that
essarily has in itself, such as the
the development of feeling-element and the willingelement, as directly indicated by
mechanical aids to
thought was mainly life experience. It became clear
that the development of mechanirelated to the willcal aids to thought was mainly
power, or strength, of
related to the will-power, or
the thinking process. strength, of the thinking process.
Using the analogy between physical strength and mental
strength, a place is created for the concept of will to be
considered in thought as well, on par with well known
factors like the structure of the brain and chemistry. This
will factor has been largely ignored in conventional understanding, as it is not readily suited to cast in a logical
form. Examining will-power in thought also led the way
into the past, where it was shown that the nature of experience guided logic, and hence it is important to come
to terms with experience based on which the logic was
derived. It is one thing to talk about algorithms and logical connections, and quite another to examine how those
arise from basic life experience.
42 •
being human
With the door to the past being opened with these
ideas, a systematic development is followed, starting from
early Renaissance and Enlightenment ideas of mechanics
and computing (by the likes of Leibniz, Bacon, and Descartes) to the results of the modern day (Boole, Frege, and
von Neumann). Boolean algebra is treated in some detail,
showing how the algebra works and how it matches up to
normal experience. This point was necessary since it lies
at the heart of all computing technology. On the way, the
crisis that occurred at the middle of the 19th century is
described, and the form of logic and mathematics created
at this pinnacle of the Industrial Era is analyzed. A lot of
ideas that came to the fore in this time period were basically a re-invention of the logic of Ancient Greece, but
cast into a modern mechanical mold. Seeing this enabled
direct parallels between Aristotelian logic and Boolean algebra, and the precise changes introduced in order to suit
the logic to mechanization. In other words, the fork in the
road was found, where one path led to increasing mechanization, the other to an increase of human capacities.
Now it was evident that the origin of computing
does not lie in a natural development moving forward
from earlier results in logic, but is actually a restriction
of the domain of logic to that which can be mechanized.
It was also found that mathematics and logic took this
route mainly because many concepts held as true for two
thousand years (such as Euclidean Geometry) were coming into question at that time, bringing uncertainty into
the very foundations of mathematics and logic. Putting it
plainly, the mathematicians freaked out. Yet, instead of
starting afresh with a new path for tackling logic, the very
opposite route was taken, marking the birth of computing technology. These were the findings of Kurt Gödel,
Alan Turing and other such pioneers. Instead of facing the
paradoxes generated by using traditional logic and moving ahead, as was done for example by Hegel, the paradoxes were shunned by seeking refuge in a restricted form
of logic—but the same problems inevitably recurred once
more in a different form! This confirmed the insights
from spiritual science that there is more to life than just
thinking, and that thinking, feeling, and willing all have
to be included to tackle the questions properly.
As a direct consequence of the choices made, human
thinking also faced several obstacles by being tied to mechanical ideas alone. I highlight the repercussions of continuing to adhere to the mechanized form of logic. The
refusal to understand these principles as well as a lack of
exercise of will-power of thought are seen to lie at the root
of all problems facing thinking and concentration today.
The alternative that has been missed, which can restore
the creative and constructive capacity to human thought,
is described: it is possible to reconnect thinking capacity
to human potential directly, instead of taking the bypass
through the machine, and this makes it possible to offset the
effects of technology on the mind. The correct identification
of the will-element in thought also shows the ways it can
be developed independently by anyone interested in doing so, and I show the paths pursued by a couple of people
in this direction during the past century.
Finally, some effects of a misdirected application of
the mechanized logic are touched upon (its effect on human relationships, for example), indicating the boundaries within which mechanized logic is useful. This enables the reader to appreciate the development of modern
technology from the inside, so that education and selfdevelopment can restore creativity to its rightful place
alongside the arts and crafts. It is only when the head and
the limbs work in sync, that the heart can find a place in
life as well.
It is hoped that this work will be beneficial to anyone
who is willing to tackle the question of computing at its
very root. Just as the bridge to the supersensible was built
by spiritual science through the study of philosophy, a
bridge to right use of technology has been attempted by
the study of the “laws of thought.”
Gopi Krishna Vijaya has a background in Physics. He has obtained
his Master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology and his
PhD (on the topic of improving efficiencies in solar cells) from the
University of Houston. He is a member of the Anthroposophical
Society. The paper described here is available as a PDF file on request
to [email protected].
Like Shattered Glass
A review of Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near:
When Humans Transcend Biology; (2005). Viking
Penguin: New York.
by Benjamin Butler
For Verena Buob
It is important that light is shed on this book and
its clever author, Ray Kurzweil. Anthroposophists in
particular should be aware of Kurzweil’s predictions and
technological research especially because of the nature of
the thoughts presented. I became interested in Kurzweil
through discussions with friends about the dark aspects
of transhumanism, the movement to augment people
with technology. Author Daniel Pinchbeck has also been
a great source of inspiration.1
Ray Kurzweil (b. 1948) is an American inventor, author, and futurist. He is currently the Director of Engineering at Google, working with them closely on robotics,
AI (artificial intelligence), and natural language recognition. Google is one sponsor of his Singularity University.
At the time of this book, he was on the Army Science
Advisory Group. He has invented scanners and text-tospeech technology utilized by the blind. His other books
include The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999) and How to
Create a Mind (2012).
I offer that the central key to understanding what underpins this book and the methods used to arrive at the
1 See his work 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl (2006), pp. 152-160, 103-106.
conclusions presented in it, is summed up in Kurzweil’s
proclamation that intelligence supersedes cosmology.2 The
Singularity is Near takes intelligence to an extreme at the
expense of everything else including the cosmos itself. Ultimately, the human being and cosmos are reduced to machines for intelligent computation.
Ray Kurzweil foresees a future in which each organ
of the human being is gradually replaced by intelligent
nanobots or otherwise synthetic
materials. The heart and brain I became interested
are seen as flawed in design, badly
in Kurzweil through
in need of an upgrade, because
discussions with
they are run by outdated biological programming.3 Kurzweil friends about the
describes his discomfort with his dark aspects of
physical body, thus he seeks to transhumanism,
radically “reprogram” it by taking the movement to
250 pills a day so as to completely augment people with
change his metabolic processes.4
technology.
He does this so he can live for further biotechnological innovations which he foresees will
allow humans within a few decades to become immortal
by uploading their consciousness into computers. He sees
the “nonbiological” intelligence increasingly taking over
inside augmented human beings as biotechnology comes
2 p. 364.
3 pp. 306, 198-199.
4 p. 211.
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research & reviews
to actually replace their biological brain.
Kurzweil believes that in the 21st century “strong
AI” will emerge: an inherently uncontrollable super-intelligence. Because he holds intelligence as the highest value,
his vision culminates with swarms of nanobots blasting
out into the cosmos, saturating “dumb matter” with intelligence, while using the stars and planets, including the
sun, as computational substrates.5 His description of the
ultimate cold computer and the possible computational
potential of black holes really show the dark extreme of
thought here presented.6
In coming decades Kurzweil foresees virtual reality
taking over basically every domain of human activity.
The various senses will be augmented for virtual reality
(including touch) and people will project different virtual
bodies for different audiences. Kurzweil appeals to the
pleasure-seeking impulse in people when he describes the
possibilities virtual reality (VR) offers regarding sex. He
claims that along with humans meeting in VR, artificially intelligent programs will fulfill
Kurzweil believes
sexual desires. This discussion of
sex in VR is revealed in one of
that in the 21st
the many end-of-chapter sections
century “strong
where Kurzweil has characters
AI” will emerge:
discuss aspects of the singularity
an inherently
among other characters and himuncontrollable
self. It all has a very odd quality
super-intelligence... when his invented “Molly 2004”
In coming decades
character talks to “Molly 2104”
and “Ray” about nanobot bodies
he foresees virtual
and digital sex.7 The critical point
reality taking over
is that the boundary between
basically every
real and virtual reality will disdomain of human
integrate just like the boundary
activity.
between the biological and new,
“nonbiological” parts of the human being, as Kurzweil
sees it.
Kurzweil’s thinking leads him to see nothing else in
the world except information patterns; believing the cosmos to be empty he seeks to imbue it with the intelligence he feels it to be so badly lacking. Technology is his
bridge between the “I” and the world. The details could
fill themselves in: nanobots in the blood, nonfluid nutrient delivery systems in the body, “reprogramming” cells,
human cloning (“weak immortality” as he refers to it),
5 pp. 349, 434-435.
6 p. 362.
7 pp. 319, 203.
44 •
being human
cloned animal meat, manipulation of bacteria’s limbs and
the destruction of their metabolisms, increasing stiffness
in computer systems so as to reduce thermal effects, and
an appreciation of straight lines over curves for their efficiency.8 All stem from a worldview striving to exhaust
technology in an empty cosmos.
The individual with this worldview seeks preservation at any cost. Kurzweil and other transhumanists
wish to evade death and become immortal. Although
this is his aim, The Singularity is Near reads like it constantly seeks to displace living life, one could say in anthroposophical terms “the etheric,” with death.9 It is a
book about death: death of what makes human beings
true feeling beings and warm-blooded active beings.
Kurzweil calls religion “deathist rationalization” and urges his followers to hold strong, looking forward to the singularity, an event which supposedly will allow the transhumanists to conquer death.10 This goal of uploading
human beings into computers could be seen as nothing
less than putting people
into the ahrimanic “preserving jars” described by
Rudolf Steiner.11
Rudolf Steiner shared
that Nietzsche’s Ecce
Homo and The AntiChrist were actually written by Ahriman,12 the
supersensible being who
wants to divert humanity
from any spiritual understanding, diverting them
especially through dense
materialism. He is the ossified intelligence, the opponent of the light, and we live in an era when the “ahrimanic” forces are especially active. I believe this book by
Kurzweil to be inspired by Ahriman. The predominance
of illusion, deception, frozen intellect, and technological
dominance, at the expense of beauty, art, and warmth is
indicative of the inspiration behind this work. It is not
8 pp. 254, 306, 221, 224, 236, 238, 181.
9 Kurzweil foresees respiration, digestion, and reproductive systems eventually becoming unnecessary.
10 p. 372.
11In Lecture 1 of the cycle entitled Lucifer and Ahriman, given in Dornach
November 1, 1919.
12Karmic Relationships Volume 3, Lecture 11.
an accident that Kurzweil brings up Nietzsche, citing his
concern that man balances on a “rope over an abyss” with
regards to technology use and the future, and then slyly
encourages readers that humanity is in no such position,
that the path to the singularity goes up and not down into
the abyss.13
Of interest to anthroposophists is Kurzweil’s honest statement that he doesn’t understand why his (mind)
“pattern” is continually attached to and perceives the
feelings and experiences of the one person called “Ray
Kurzweil.”14 Questions arise for his outlook: how is it that
consciousness arises in the body? Why isn’t his specific
information pattern inside a different body? It all appears
13pp. 373-374. See also the article: “Rudolf Steiner’s Meeting of Destiny with
Friedrich Nietzsche and the Adversary of Our Age” by C.T. Roszell in being
human Spring Issue 2015
14 p. 381.
random, accidental. Without any knowledge of the relation of body, soul, and spirit, or of reincarnation, this
baffles him. I appreciate that he included this comment;
it reveals a riddle which eludes his sharp thinking.
The ideas and aims of individuals like Ray Kurzweil
should be given careful attention and permeated with insights from anthroposophical spiritual science; they serve
as a clear warning of the times. We must see the onesidedness of such viewpoints. We are tasked with facing
what comes with the firm conviction that we know the
spirit in the human being and in the cosmos. We must love
what we create and what we see ourselves becoming.
Benjamin Butler ([email protected]) holds a Masters in Sociology from the University of North Texas. “Thank you for reading
this essay. Please reach out if you have comments or are conducting
similar research. Thank you to Steven Usher, Andrew Linnell, and all
my friends who supported this essay and provided helpful insights.”
Facing a Future with Machines
by Andrew Linnell
If your son had an accident and lost a limb and was
then outfitted with a prosthetic limb, would you still
love your son? Of course you would. What if he lost two
limbs? Three? How much of one’s body would need to
be replaced by a machine before one would toss in the
towel and say I can no longer love this person? Early in
the 20th century, the merging of Mankind with Machines
began. Many of our loved ones already have pace makers,
dialysis, or hearing aids. Many more “mergings” are in
the works.
I have not done any survey but I suspect most people
today can accept the machine as a prosthetic limb replacing a damaged natural limb or bionic aids augmenting
a damaged sense organ, but when it comes to internal
organs, I believe we enter a squeamish territory. Replacing
the will-related body parts does not raise the warning flag
about impacting our humanity as does replacing internal
organs. What happens to our humanity when the operation of a liver is being largely conducted by an embedded
machine? How much of the functioning of our heart can
be done by a sophisticated “intelligent” pace maker? Does
the one with an embedded machine change in any way?
Replacing the thinking-related body parts seems to cause
the most concern about de-humanizing our future.
Ray Kurzweil and much of the Artificial Intelligence
(AI) community agree that the ultimate human organ is
the brain. This camp would say we can replace all the other organs and body parts and we still have a human being.
They would argue that the essence
of the human being is its mind Early in the 20th
and this is found in the “software”
century, the merging
of the brain. Thus, according
of Mankind with
to this camp, if one can migrate
the software that represents the Machines began.
mind from a biological brain to an Many of our loved
equivalent non-biological brain, ones already have
then that mind will have achieved pace makers,
immortality.15
dialysis, or hearing
Perhaps we do not truly unaids. Many more
derstand mortality and its role
“mergings” are in the
with the human being. Moreover,
people who receive organ trans- works.
plants find that they have new memories that apparently
come with the new organ.16 Could our memories be outside of our brain? If so, where are our memories? What are
our memories? When I think of a person or place from
my past, typically more than a mere picture arises. Other
sensory impressions from that past event arise too. And
an emotional memory commonly fills our soul. When
one sees a photograph taken in youth, more than visual
152045 Initiative, Dmitry Itskov [ 2045.com ]
16Pearsall, Paul, The Heart’s Code, Broadway Books, 1999
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research & reviews
memory attributes can fill one’s soul. Where is this memory content being kept and being experienced? If we lost
our memory content, how would that affect our sense of
a solid foundation to life and to a sense of “who I am”?
It was well established in the first century CE that
the human being was a tripartite of body, soul, and spirit.
In the 9th century, Western humanity had largely lost
this knowledge and reduced the human to body and soul.
As the 20th century dawned in the West, the concept of
soul had been largely lost and the concept of body had
been reduced to its chemical components. With humanity’s creative focus fixed on the mineral kingdom, great
and powerful machinery arose that could move mountains. Humans became able to move their bodies quickly
from one place to another, over land, over sea, or through
the air and even through space to the moon. We became
adept at extending our senses to explore ocean depths or
the outer bands of the solar system or the inner dynamics
of a molecule or an embryo.
In the 19th century, a man and his horse were considered to become as one and “carAI theorists deem
riages were an extension of a person, like their clothes.”17 Today,
the brain to be
when one gets behind the wheel
engineered by
of a car, one is within a machine.
natural selection...
As we drive this car, something in
With mutations over
us merges with it as we get a feel
millions of years,
for its functioning, its ability to
today’s brain has
respond to brake pressure, steerevolved... AI believes ing wheel adjustments, and the
that the next step in like. And as we drive on the highthe brain’s evolution ways, we can experience the mood
of drivers about us, the aggressivewill come from
ness of the driver on the road next
mankind and be
to us, for example. Something of
given to robots...
us permeates the vehicle. Is it soul?
When I make a phone call to a dear friend, my voice
is digitized right in the phone itself. This digital signal
makes its way through the internet, yes that same internet, eventually coming to my dear friend where the
digital signal representing my voice is reconstituted to a
facsimile of my voice—close enough that my friend recognizes it as my voice. Although we are not physically in
the same room, we can have a conversation that has many
of the same attributes as an in-the-same-room conversation. We can be emotional. We can be motivated. We
17Transportation Past, Present, and Future [ www.thehenryford.org/
education/erb/TransportationPastPresentAndFuture.pdf ]
46 •
being human
can feel our soul engaged. We find that our soul is not so
bound by spatial obstacles. And our soul can deal with
electrical transmission of voice facsimile as it can with artificial limbs and sensory organs. It can permeate bodily
extensions such as an automobile.
The AI community, lacking a concept of soul, believes
that we will eventually reverse-engineer the brain. Reverse
engineering is done when one takes apart some man-made
object to see how it was constructed. One discovers the
object’s inner workings and then can grasp the original
engineering. Once that has been accomplished, one can
devise improvements. The brain is deemed by AI theorists
to be engineered by—well, by natural selection, with each
improvement coming from a mutation. With mutations
over millions of years, today’s brain has evolved. Is the
brain’s evolution complete? AI believes that the next step
in the brain’s evolution will come from mankind and be
given to robots into which we each will pour our mind.
Reverse engineering works with man-made objects
because our mind can grasp the concepts that are “built
in” to a man-made object. Such concepts are within the
realm of the ponderable. But this begs the question, does
the human brain (and body for that matter) arise from the
ponderable or the imponderable? If imponderable, will we
grasp enough to make a human-like brain?
As we have already done with sensory organs, many
in the AI community expect brain augmentation to come
before a fully reverse-engineered brain is ready for humanity. This would be some sort of implant that would
enable us to perform “context switching” from our human mind to an augmented computational capability.
For example, one might need to perform some arithmetic
operation such as adding the prices of the items in one’s
shopping cart. This AI future would enable the person
to visually scan the prices, pass this information to the
embedded computer and receive back the result. This is
similar to how we conceive today of the context switching
that happens within the brain from the functioning of the
right hemisphere to the left. The expectation is that, just
we became adept at driving cars, we will become adept at
such context switching.
As these AI scientists and brain engineers research
this, I believe that they will “discover consciousness”
just as the quantum physicists did. The “hard problem”
of consciousness18 will show the fallacy of this brain research. While we wish we would not need to waste so
18[ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness ]
much money pursuing this goal, we do need more “proof”
that consciousness exists outside of the body. Near-death
research19 may help to achieve this understanding. I expect this research will prove that consciousness does not
require a functioning brain.
While many in our anthroposophical community
may have the hair on their backs stand up in fear when
they hear about the vision of the future seen by Ray Kurzweil and others, I want to remind us of this well-known
verse by Rudolf Steiner entitled “Facing the Future”:
We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of
what comes towards Mankind, out of the future. We
must look forward with absolute equanimity to whatever comes, and we must think only that whatever comes
is given us by a world direction full of wisdom. It is part
of what we must learn during this age, namely to act
out of pure trust in the ever present help of the spiritual
world; truly nothing else will do if our courage is not
to fail us. Therefore let us discipline our will, and let us
seek the awakening from within ourselves, every morning and every evening.
We are in a time of great change. The world has seen
great changes before such as the Ice Age, the end of Atlantis, the ending of the ancient mysteries, the entering
into Earth evolution of the Christ, and the Renaissance.
Our age begins the merging of Mankind and Machine.
Once people thought that a human riding in a train at
a speed of 20 miles per hour would suffer dreadfully in
their nerves while the people nearby the passing train
would suffer concussions.20 Steiner says that this assessment was actually correct for those times but that since
then our nerves have adjusted.
What science was saying was, in effect, that human beings would not be able to tolerate the demands made on
their physical body via the astral body if the astral body,
the animal part of the human being, did not constantly
receive a correction, a therapy, through that which rays
back up to the surface of the earth from the absorbed
cometary substances, exercising a balancing effect on
human capacities.
Are we today receiving cosmic forces into our astral body
to cause new adjustments? Might this explain generational differences towards this subject?
19Bush, Nancy Evans, foreword by Greyson, Richard, Dancing Past the Dark:
Distressing Near-Death Experiences, 2012; and Fenwick, Peter, and Fenwick,
Elizabeth, The Art of Dying, Bloomsbury Academic, 2008. See also Greyson
video [ youtu.be/Rtk644N2DDs ] and the Near Death Experience Network
with Robert Mays [ nhneneardeath.ning.com/profile/RobertMays ]
20 Steiner, Rudolf, Book of Revelation, Lecture 16, GA 346
Perhaps the greatest “adjustment” humanity will need
to make in the coming millennia is what to do about the
growing infertility in women. Steiner claims that we will
need to work with the fallen angels of darkness:
Not later than the seventh millennium in earth evolution women will grow infertile, and reproduction will
no longer be possible. If matters went entirely according
to the normal Angelic spirits in the blood, human reproduction would not even continue for as long as this;
it would only continue until the sixth millennium, or
the sixth post-Atlantean period of civilization; according to the wisdom of light, the impulse for reproduction
would not continue beyond this time in the seven periods of civilization in this post-Atlantean age. However,
it will go on beyond this, into the seventh millennium
and possibly a little beyond. The reason will be that
those cast-down Angels will be in charge and will give
the impulses for reproduction.21
Is this the cause for our merging of man and machine as
a training period for mankind to be able to build bodies
that allow for continued incarnation? If we use a roughly
700-year incarnation cycle, then
we have only about six more in- The world has seen
carnations to complete the fulfill- great changes before
ment of our karma and prepare ... the Ice Age, the
these new vehicles.
end of Atlantis,
What happens after that?
the ending of the
That would be after the “War of
All Against All” when we enter Ancient Mysteries,
the Sixth Epoch, when the Astral the entering into
world “descends” into human life. Earth evolution
Today, in the Fifth Epoch (which of the Christ, and
includes the Post-Atlantean cul- the Renaissance.
tural epochs), we are in the time
Our age begins the
of the descent of the etheric. The
merging of Mankind
battle of our time is not about
what will come but about how it and Machine.
will come. Who will make the call how new technologies are introduced into society and human life? It comes
down to a battle for the Etheric Realm.22 It is a personal
struggle to find the Etheric Christ.
Andrew Linnell ([email protected]), a 40-year veteran
of the field of computers and related technologies, has served as
president of the Anthroposophical Society in Greater Boston.
21 Steiner, Rudolf, Fall of the Spirits of Darkness, Lecture 14, GA 177
22 Thomas, Nick, The Battle for the Etheric, Temple Lodge Press, 2006
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