What is Spiritual Manifests itself in the Form of Matter

"Manichaeism recognised a reality in which sense and super-sense are  blended; for it the words and concepts "matter and "spirit" have as  yet no contrasting meaning."

"In defining it, it must be pointed out that the general outlook of this philosophy is more important than what can be described as its  actual content. The first and most remarkable thing about it is that the division of human experience into a spiritual and a material side  had no meaning for it. The words or ideas "spirit" and "matter" convey no distinction to it. It sees the spiritual in what appears to the senses as material, and when it speaks of the spiritual it does not rise above that which manifests itself to the senses.

"It is true to say of Manichaeism- much more so than the abstract and intellectual world of today can realise- that it actually saw  spiritual phenomena, spiritual facts, in the stars and their courses, and that in the mystery of the Sun it saw a spiritual reality manifesting itself to us on earth. It conveys no meaning for Manichaeism to speak of matter and spirit separately, for to the Manichaean what is spiritual manifests itself in the form of matter, and that which appears as material is itself spiritual. 

"Therefore Manichaeism speaks quite naturally of astronomical things and world-phenomona in the same way that it would speak of moral phenomena or happenings within the evolution of the human race. Thus, the existence side by side of "light" and "darkness" which - imitating something from ancient Persia- it embodies in its philosophy is both a physical and a spiritual fact. In the same way Manichaeism speaks of the Sun in its movements in the heavens as related to the moral realities and impulses in the development of mankind. It sees the relation of this "spiritual physical" Sun to the signs of the Zodiac, as the relation of the Original Being, the source of the world's light, to the twelve Beings through whom He delegates his activities."

-The Redemption of Thinking, Rudolf Steiner

Pure Light

Look at the light as it touches unevenly all that it falls upon. See here a shadow, see here a great spark, on the leaves, on the tops of that which it fires.

There are gradients of light, the way in which the scene is lit, and one may focus best upon the shadows, or upon the most brilliant.
Seek, with your eyes, the shiniest, brightest places within the
scene. Go to them, and ask, what inhabits these brightest places.
They will shift, but they will be present, wherever kissed by the radiance. They are much illumined. Keep looking. See where it is the light falls, and know that this makes a difference, not only to your vision, but to those places where it is most intense. It may be in reflection, it may be in direct sunshine, look around to the brightest places, keep looking.

"Oh, Great and Wonderful One, He who brings this Light: the Light, not in symbol, but in actuality - where should we be, without this intensity? I am humbled, I am grateful, I rejoice this vision granted. And I know, that help is at hand, wherever Thy Radiance falls. Pure Light. Why do I take thee for granted? Why have I cared not to see you? I look to all else, that by your Power, is made known to me, but not at the actual Light itself. The brightest part of the Light."

Look, really look, into the those places lit so brightly: look, at
the light itself. By contrast we may experience those places where the light is at its brightest - it is the very contrast that enables us to do so, and it would be hard to imagine a world without contrast, if all images were indeed the same, without the palette of gradient light.

-B.Hive 🌞

In some dim way, to realize the etheric as etheric, then one begins to move forward into a kind of new and more intimate relationship with the world of plants. One begins, for instance, to feel, like a sort of tenderness in one's own heart, the infinite delicacy and tenderness that hovers about the growing point commonest weed. And at the same time or it may well be later - it come about that one will begin to feel a new, and again an intimate, relation with the light itself. One begins to perceive, or rather to feel, that the light itself- this light from the sun that comes to us through the senses - is etheric and that the etheric is a kind of light.

And this is a very deeply moving experience. Much deeper than mere observation. It goes to the roots of one's being, like the breath of life itself. One will begin to feel that the light is not only outside in space, but also within oneself. Indeed there are sure to be occasions when, for brief periods, one is aware, not only of seeing or feeling the light, but also of breathing it. Breathing it in and out, but especially in.


Only a much more intimate kind of breathing so that one will feel –at times that one is in the light, not only as our bodies are in water when they swim, not only as they are in the air we breathe, but rather as we speak, in that significant English idiom, of people being in love. If one had to find a single word in which to sum up the more subjective aspect experience I am speaking of, there is only one word that could be used and that is - joy. The sort of joy that we see made manifest in the sunlight dancing on the water. Deep draughts of pure joy, which obliterate, while they last all anxiety, all sorrow, all considerations of karma, and even all memory of such things. A joy so uplifting and, if I may use the word, so thoroughgoing, that however short a time it lasts, it will leave some enduring effects behind it. It may indeed somewhat affect the whole personality - with reverberations even into the sphere of physical health.

-Owen Barfield