Form and metamorphosis
The human form, as well as other living beings, is maintained by the presence of the etheric body. The human body itself every seven years totally changes its cells, even those of the bone marrow, up to the atomic composition, but nevertheless maintains its human form. The living form undergoes metamorphosis during its development, which recapitulates the previous phases of cosmic evolution, according to the Law of Recapitulation. It follows that living beings, possessing the capacity for metamorphosis, are more correctly described as Life Waves crossing space-time than beings distinct from the environment on which their existence depends.
In fact, the single etheric bodies are constituted by a portion of the Cosmic Ether that is made individual through the incarnation on the physical plane. The form, proper for every living species, is impressed in the etheric body as a reflection of the archetype of a particular living being. In our planetary chain is the macrocosmic man, Adam Kadmon or Adam of Light, the archetype of all Creation and from which the Kingdoms of Nature derive by premature descent on the physical plane.
Microcosm and macrocosm are linked precisely by the ether. It follows that if human beings, endowed with an etheric incarnate body, cut off their individual vital flow from the flow of the vital flow of the Cosmos, they find themselves in a condition of disharmony. This subtle disharmony, after a certain time of persistence, ends up imprinted on the physical body and is somatized. The human being of today, in the frenzy of everyday life, is continually in danger of forgetting that he is indeed a unique and unrepeatable individual, the microcosm, but he is equally part of a larger Whole, the macrocosm.
Cosmic life and human life
The ether of the Cosmos is the vital force that descends from the celestial heights into Nature, into minerals, plants and animals. In Chinese traditions it is also known as Chi, while in Indian tradition it is known as prana. It is divided into:
Cosmic Ether: the universal life energy that pervades the entire Cosmos, the cosmic ether, which permeates the Earth through minerals. From the Greeks it was called Zoe, the universal life diffused in the Cosmos;
Ether of the Earth: the etheric atmosphere that surrounds the planet earth and constitutes its planetary etheric body, acts as a mediator between the Cosmic Ether and the etheric body of man, plants, animals and minerals. In the Mystery of Golgotha, Christ shed His etherized blood in the earth’s atmosphere to purify it and begin His ascent to a new heavenly state. The blood of Christ pervades all Nature.
Etheric Body: the individual vital energy that forms a subtle envelope in the living beings that inhabit the Earth. It is formed by the impulse given by the Cosmic Ether on the Ether of the Earth. The result is the particular etheric body of man, animals and plants. From the Greeks it was called Bios, the embodied life in living beings.
The pranotherapist, in general, mainly uses his etheric body, but at the same time he appeals to the ether of the Earth and the Cosmos to balance his cold or warm disharmonies. The Ether of the Cosmos in fact always tends to the equilibrium and it is what must ideally guide the work of the pranotherapist.
The ether is life and life means form in becoming in time. The ether has in fact the property to confer the form to all that enters in its field of action, that therefore is defined also morphogenetic, according to the term used by Rupert Sheldrake, that is “form generating field”. The etheric form acts as a matrix, pre-existing to the material substance outside of time and space. In fact, matter only fills its etheric mould giving rise to existence in space and time. Therefore, the cosmic ether confers the orbits to the planets of our solar system, as well as the spherical structure of the same, keeping them in that given form which is naturally its own. In the same way the etheric body of the Earth structures the planet in its form, keeping in dynamic equilibrium the four elements that compose it and thus sustaining all life on Earth.
Cosmos and I
When man lived in contact with Nature, he lived in a paradisiacal state, in the flow of the vital ether, yet he had no consciousness of himself nor could he have had it. He was filled with the life of the Cosmos, his I was not yet fully incarnated. Today man is fully incarnated: he possesses a potentially immense consciousness of himself, but this, if not educated, cuts him off from the consciousness of the Cosmos. When, instead of uniting the individual with the universal, we try to perpetrate and magnify only the individual, we identify ourselves with our lower self. It is the lower, animal I, the true cause of separation. However, we can fight so that the lower self does not prevail, so that the consciousness will rise up towards our true self.
Indeed, the I is both the source of separation and, at the same time, the only possibility of having a conscious nexus to the Cosmos. Indeed, the I is as individual as it is universal. Its development depends upon the inner labor at the basis of spiritual evolution. Just as the ether is form, it becomes time when inserted into physical existence: in fact, the succession of forms in the evolution of life on Earth depends on the succession of the etheric forms. These are the last expression of archetypes, such as the Zodiac, the Seven Planets and the Four Elements. The etheric substance itself is made up of hieroglyphic figures, which we call “symbols”: an example are the glyphs used to describe the archetypes themselves, i.e. the symbols of the zodiac signs, the planets and the elements.
It is these symbols that, used as access keys, are used in some forms of energy therapy, such as Reiki. However, pranotherapy, in general, does not need them except in relation to the understanding of the analogical and imaginative relationships that exist between the different planes of existence, from the physical-etheric world to the astral world to the spiritual one.
Four Ethers and Four Elements
In the ambit of Pranotherapy it is good to speak more deeply about the types of ether of which both the Cosmic Ether and the Terrestrial Ether and the human etheric body are formed. The ether is in fact divided into four ethers, corresponding to the sublimation of the four elements. For this three ethers and elements there is an inverse relationship, according to which the ether is higher and is extracted from the denser element. In sequence we have: Earth, Water, Air, Fire which become ether of Warmth, Light, Sound and Life. In this way the element of the Earth, the most concrete and dense, originates the Ether of Life the highest:
Warmth Ether: it is the sublimated Fire, originated in the Ancient Saturn. The shaping force is punctiform, and the concentric movement. It is perceived in life both as external warmth, being at the origin of physical heat, and as soul warmth, it is the warmth of affection and love. Human blood contains the residual warmth of the primordial state of Ancient Saturn. It decays in gravity;
Light Ether: it is the sublimated Air, originated in the Ancient Sun. The shaping force is the straight line, the radiant movement and the closed shape of the triangle. It is at the basis of the living perception of physical light, as well as in the faculty of perception of inner images. It decays into electricity;
Sound Ether: it is Sublimated Water, originated in the Ancient Moon. The shaping force is the curved line, its movement is undulatory and its shape is the crescent and the circle. It is the basis of the living perception of sound, as well as the chemical reactions that are the external effect of cosmic harmonies woven into the cosmic ether. It decays in magnetism;
Life Ether: it is Sublimated Earth, originated in the present Earth. The shaping force is the orthogonal lines, the movement is at right angles and its forms are the cross and square. It is at the basis of all the phenomena of life that is manifested on the physical plane, both as a perception of vitality. It decays in nuclear energy.
Thus, if we place the state of the Ancient Saturn and that of the present Earth in an evolutionary relationship, we have a series of stages in which the ethers are added to each other and, at the same time, the previous ones are recapitulated. So there is the following relationship between the evolutionary stages:
Ancient Saturn: warmth ether. The warmth ether composes all that exists as a non-spatial state, that is, as pure time. In a certain sense it can also be defined as darkness;
Ancient Sun: recapitulated warmth ether, light ether. The warmth ether from inside becomes external, so that a polarity is created with the light ether, now internal. Between the darkness of the warmth and the light, space is created;
Ancient Moon: recapitulated warmth ether, recapitulated light ether, sound ether also called chemical or numerical ether. The warmth ether and light ether become two successive external layers, while the sound ether of sound. The movement, that is, the relation between the beings, is created;
Present Earth: recapitulated warmth ether, recapitulated light ether, recapitulated sound ether also called chemical or numerical ether, life ether of life. Warmth ether, light ether and sound ether become the three successive external layers, while the life ether is inside. The identity, that is, the specific form of the beings, is created.
To better understand the nature of etheric shaping forces we can take the example of a tree: The Earth corresponds to the physical tree and the solid substance that composes it; Water corresponds to the liquid substance of the tree, sap and water; Air corresponds to the air that the tree breathes and carbon dioxide; Fire corresponds to the relative temperature of the tree and the latent heat in the chemical bonds of the substances it contains; the warmth ether of keeps the tree alive for a certain period of time; the light ether determines the shape that the tree cuts out in space; the sound ether causes the process of branching and distribution of leaves; the life ether sustains the life and individuality of the tree according to its species. It is through the metamorphosis between the elements and the ether that a spiritual being comes into being in the physical world.
The cosmic background radiation in the universe is the result of the original process of comic evolution, based on the warmth ether, originated in the Ancient Saturn. This warmth is also contained within the nucleus of the stars, as well as planets that still have an incandescent nucleus, such as the Earth, which has its own source of geothermal heat. During the day, it is the Sun that unceasingly propagates the warmth ether and light into cosmic space, thus flooding the Earth with warmth and light. It is these two ethers from which the energy available on Earth for life to exist is derived. During the night, instead, it is the Moon that emanates ether, in particular the ether of sound, which comes to us as a variation of the gravitational and magnetic field of the Earth when the Moon passes. Finally, the etheric body of the Earth is composed of the ether of life, that field also called Biosphere, in which the very existence of life is possible.
Tree of Life and Tree of Knowledge
We can then see the ethers according to the ancient nomenclature of Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah:
The Tree of Life: it is composed of the two superior ethers, the sound ether and the life ether.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: it is composed of the two lower ethers, warmth ether and light ether;
When human being ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge he lost the possibility of eating the fruit of the Tree of Life. Lucifer made it so that human being, first Eve and then Adam, could dispose of the warmth ether to perform actions of free will and to dispose of the ether of light to feel free feelings. The will and the thinking have thus fallen into the personality, that is, they have been corrupted by the astral body in which the luciferic element lives. The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is the Free Arbitrium. In this way Lucifer freed man from the guidance of the Hierarchies, making him free, even if still immature in the management of free will.
However, when human being ate the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, he could no longer eat the Tree of Life and consequently experienced death, the inverted Tree of Life or Tree of Death. The Hierarchies deprived human being of the possibility of having the ether of sound, linked to language, and the ether of life, linked to the meaning of the things of the world. Not being able to dispose of the fruit of the Tree of Life makes it impossible for human being to create life from nothing, as well as to create a personal language that does not relate it to others. This is because, just as the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is free will, so the fruit of the Tree of Life is love.
Together, the fruit of these two Trees, which we might call the fruit of the “Knowledge of Life,” is morality, which will enable human being to become the so-called 10th Hierarchy, the Spirits of Liberty, that is, a creative hierarchy superior even to the Seraphim, the Spirits of Love.
The Tree of Death, finally, contains the four ethers in decayed form: gravity (warmth), electricity (light), magnetism (chemical), atomic force (life). Human being through Ahriman, the Lord of Matter, can dispose of the fruit of the Tree of Death which, however, in order to be used according to the divine plan, should be governed by means of morality, that is, the conquest of free will (the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge) and love (the fruit of the Tree of Life).