http://www.eleggua.com/Objects/Koulias-The_Double.html
Rudolf Steiner tells us that wherever there occurs unconsciousness this creates opportunities for spiritual beings to enter into man. Therefore the fact that man is unconscious into his physical nature creates an opportunity for spiritual beings to enter into the void left by the soul and spirit. It is into this space that a being enters a short time before we are born who takes possession of those unconscious physical processes.
This being Rudolf Steiner tells us falls into the category of an Ahrimanic being. A being that is connected with the great being of opposition Ahriman whose realm is matter, the earth and the fallen ethers.
This double being under the service of Ahriman continues to live within us during our life predominantly in our Etheric body in the same way that our spirit lives predominantly within our soul.
Why do they enter man?
These beings are Ahrimanic in character and so they are retarded beings that serve the beings that fell behind during the old Sun evolution of the earth. Ahrimanic beings that could not pass through their human stage at this time had to undergo their development at another time not suitable to their existence – on a Physical earth. Having no physical bodies with which to undergo their development they had to take up residence in the physical body of human beings if they were not to suffer greatly.
Their particular sphere of action is the Etheric body.
In the Etheric body lies our potential for memory and therefore our Intellect. In it also there lies the power of love and the beginnings of what will one day be true conscience. It is not then difficult to see why these beings are attracted to this sphere as they have an extremely high Mephistophelian intelligence, but it is an Ahrimanicintelligence that has no warmth of heart and no conscience.
They do have one delusion though and this is that they will one day be able to remain in human bodies after death.
This is in fact the object of various black brotherhoods that initiate their members into an Ahrimanicimmortality by taking the materialism only appropriate to the thinking process all the way down to the Ethericbody. This makes the Etheric body dense so that it does not disintegrate into the world ether after death. This dense Etheric body is the perfect vehicle for these beings. However they have not been able to achieve this in any great number so far because of one momentous event. The mystery of Golgotha that is the death of Christ.
At a certain point in our development we become capable of reaching the threshold of the sense world and the spiritual worlds. At this time man comes across this being which Rudolf describes in many books as the lesser guardian of the threshold.
‘…There arises the phenomenon known as the Guardian of the Threshold — the appearance of the lower double of man. The spiritual being of man, composed of his impulses of will, his desires and his thoughts, appears to the Initiate in visible form. It is a form that is sometimes repugnant and terrible, for it is the offspring of his good and bad desires and of his karma — it is their personification in the astral world…’[2]
This being bars the way to the spiritual world because while ever we carry the baggage of our faults and fallacies all our lower desires needs wants, all our impulses of will, all that is perishable and not eternal we are too heavy and cannot enter.
It is a real blessing to see this being because on seeing what we have created of this being and its hideous form we are encouraged to work on ourselves to perfect ourselves so that we might do away with the influence of this being.
How do we perceive him?
In everyday life we see him in our intellect wherever it becomes cold and hard and lacking in feeling. We see him in our temperaments – wherever something becomes habitual, whenever we lose the control over our emotions and whenever we lust over things of a material nature.
How do we redeem him?
Firstly, as in Rumpelstiltskin we have to learn his name. That is we have to recognise him through our Ego consciousness, since every time we recognise him he loses power.
Secondly, we have to raise our thinking up from the realms of matter. This is done by
- Ordering our thoughts (will in thinking) through concentration exercises
- Releasing our thinking from the brain through meditations on spiritual truths that are warmed through with feeling (feeling in thinking).
Thirdly we have to work on our feeling life to balance the highs and the lows through
- Equanimity (thought in feeling)
- Positivity (will in feeling)
Fourthly, we have to work on our life of will to do the good
- Will exercises (Thought in will)
- Open mindedness (feeling in will)
This transforms the human Soul and physical bodies allowing the impulse of Christ to enter in. When the Double comes into contact with the being of Christ he is immediately redeemed. The Christ being is characterised in this sense as the Greater Guardian of the Threshold to the spiritual world. It is he who stands before us as the great Archetype, the ideal to which we must turn in order to model ourselves.
An old sage once said to his pupil:
‘What being is stronger in you, the Dragon or the Lamb?”
The young pupil was puzzled and answered, “I do not know master.”
To which the master replied,
“The stronger is the one that you feed the most.”
Will we feed the dragon or will we create a space in which the lamb can exist. This is up to us.
Qilin Egostasie 