The study of etheric laws is certainly not monotonous and boring, because it contains those peculiar paradoxes, which cannot be proven with purely externally measurable or purely sense-bound research work. For the scientist who analyses the sensory object, therefore, this metaphysical research method can at first raise a puzzling question. If one differentiates, however, between the two research methods, the spiritual and the scientific, and their very different starting points, these can peacefully co-exist and with certainty even come to supplement each other.
This sun-like radiation can now be situated at any position. Underneath, now take the earth and sketch it diagrammatically with a simple horizontal surface. Now you could imagine that this sun, which shines out of a certain point of the upper arc, sends its radiations downwards, thereby illuminating the earth’s surface. In fact, however, this reality does not exist in the way it is perceived with the eyes with respect to the sun-rays that seem to arrive on the earth. For someone with spiritual vision, a point shines in the world-firmament like the sun, while at the same time, without influence from outside and without any outer, visible connection, this point also rises up inside earthly existence or in immediate proximity to the earth. The etheric light of the sun rises up in each moment, reveals itself out of the most immediate source in the human inner, in the experiencing of the soul; this perception and recognition likewise brings about a resurrection of the etheric light directly.
The practitioner can therefore also mark any arbitrary point on the horizontal surface, which symbolises the earth, and can similarly let it shine as if towards the sun. Just as the sun above rises, the same sun-like power shines by itself like a resurrection in earthly existence.
A third exercise can further encourage an awareness for the action of the etheric forces. For this it is favourable if the practitioner once again, by means of a drawing on a piece of paper, devotes himself to the idea that various forces stream together downwards into one point. Just as the force of gravity effects an attraction towards the earth, the practitioner can imagine that from different directions forces flow together and gather downwards to a specific point-like centre. A figure like an upwardly opened fork-shape with two or even several branches can result.
While this movement, which should be felt from above to below as a centring and gathering one, is retraced mentally, the practitioner must devote himself to a kind of counter-movement. Downwards a gathering to a point takes place. But along with the fall of the forces, what or which forces take place in the cosmos? The cosmos expands, like arc-forms, ever opening and widening. So that the drawing of the falling gathering becomes complete, the practitioner can draw widening arcs upwards.
This third exercise demonstrates the lawfulness which is rooted in the etheric body. While a ‘falling’ downwards, a centripetal concentration to a point, or rooting takes place, a widening peripheral action ascends upwards. The ether works within this lawfulness of movements and counter-movements, of concentrating and opening.