Dark Energy: How to Understand What Is Really Happening to You

AVAlexander Volchek

What is dark energy? You asked about “dark energy”—you used that phrase correctly. To approach this question, we should first examine the structure and hierarchies of the Universe and the spiritual world, and our understanding of them. When we talk about dark energy, are we talking about something independent of a person or something connected with them? Imagine someone saying, “That is dark energy,” or, “Another person has cast a spell or exerted some influence,” or, “I feel something dark about him.” People say things like that. What does it mean? Is it part of the person, or are there energies that entered them and happen to be within them at this moment? It is like an illness within a person. Is it an illness, or a process the body itself initiated? Did a poison enter from outside and trigger a reaction, or did the body start a process on its own, without poison? For example, as far as I understand the general meaning of cancer—although it seems to me a very broad term, a kind of damage to the whole system—the system itself started it.

Something may have prompted it, of course, but fundamentally the system initiated it. Sometimes people do not understand why. It started for some reason. In other cases, it is very clear: a person died because someone gave them a particular external poison. There was an outside influence. At a particular dose, that poison proved dangerous to this person, though it might not have been dangerous outside the body. Rudolf Steiner describes this at length: something may be harmless outside, but become extremely dangerous once inside the body. So it is important to take a broader view. When we consider the Universe from the perspective of the spiritual world, do we first consider whether anyone exists besides human beings? Is there anything else alive? I am not talking about animals. I will probably leave plants out of this discussion too, so we do not get into which beings have which bodies—etheric, astral—and which structures they possess. I mean a more fundamental way of perceiving this.

Is there anything else? People talk about other beings, spiritual entities, phantoms of someone walking around, or someone from the past appearing. Is there anything else outside us? Of course, there are many descriptions and interpretations of different hierarchies in religions, treatises, and the knowledge directly perceived by people who can observe and see them—angels and archangels, in particular. A question arises here. Some very materialistic people laugh at the perception of the spiritual world, yet they go to an Orthodox or Catholic church and primarily worship the angelic and archangelic system. Then they worship various saints. They can at least explain their worship of saints within their own system: “We do not venerate them because we perceive them as part of a living spiritual world, but as people who deserve a certain respect and understanding.” That is often how people exalt saints.

They see them as powerful figures, just as tomorrow they might see an oligarch, the founder of a unicorn company, a famous writer, an artist, or a singer as powerful. Yet people did not become saints in the Orthodox or Catholic Church, or in other religious systems, for no reason. There are accounts of how they came to be there, and those paths are very different. Could some have ended up there by chance? Of course. That is natural. The next question is whether someone could have been included by chance in a hierarchy beyond human beings. Could someone have been depicted or represented by chance? Humans do the depicting, and chance plays a role in human activity. Could a person have included someone accidentally, or deliberately, with an idea or intention to put something into it? What would that something be, and why in that form? For example, despite everything, we know the importance of Archangel Michael for people today, for this century, and for recent centuries, including the last one.

It is striking that Archangel Michael is essentially the best-known image among the archangels in the Orthodox Church, for example. All of them are depicted and identified, of course; I mean his particular prominence. As we explore these hierarchies, we understand that there are angels and archangels. A person with broad perception, who allows for their existence, will immediately allow that something broader exists too—broader in both breadth and depth. We know archangels stand above angels in the hierarchy, although that hierarchy is defined in human terms. The hierarchy of the spiritual world is multidimensional. There are areas where no hierarchy exists at all, where there is no ranking of an angel's importance over an archangel's.

So we understand that other hierarchies exist in breadth, in depth, and in other directions. They exist. When we begin looking at these other hierarchies, something very important happens. We do not simply say, “Lucifer is a fallen angel; this hierarchy is clear. He fell because he did something bad, so he is dark, and this is dark energy.” When we look beyond that and see something that does not intersect with this hierarchy at all, how do we perceive it? As something unknown. And how do we perceive the unknown? As something dark. Look even at the films people make: the unknown is perceived in a very particular way, negatively. That is the point—it is perceived negatively. Incidentally, this is one of the remarkable things about why people are drawn toward certain unknown things: what they are actually drawn to, what pulls them in. Even space, the cosmos, means different things in the word itself and in how a person perceives it.

What we observe is the spiritual world. The whole cosmos is the spiritual world; ninety-nine percent of what is visible is the spiritual world. It is hard to imagine. How can you imagine that you are seeing stars, yet what you see is not stars but a spiritual being, with no materialized object there? How can you accept that? It is very difficult. In the spiritual world, if you focus on a dark space—I am focusing on one now—and enter it, you begin seeing radiant light. Not in every dark space, of course, but in many of them. This becomes very apparent when you draw. Just yesterday I was sitting and painting something. You see an object, begin painting it, then enter it, and a whole multidimensionality of colors appears. You think, “How can I depict this?” For someone like me, who is not exceptionally skilled with a brush and is working out the chemical processes of how paints interact with water, air, and everything else, it is difficult to convey. I see one thing, and then, suddenly, something entirely different.

It is as though an entirely different area opens up. Imagine that, from the perspective of the system's hierarchies, we can see something as both extremely dark and extremely light at once. Both at once. Take a person's illness. Illness is always seen as something very bad. Let us use “dark” for “bad” here. Illness is perceived as bad, as dark. But from the perspective of the spiritual world, illness is salvation: it saves the person. It is the system working correctly for their benefit, the right cause-and-effect relationship for their recovery. Illness is the person's recovery and healing from the perspective of their spiritual system. And incidentally—

It is also known that during spiritual work, certain illnesses can flare up as part of processing one's whole system. I think this may even be recognized in medicine. If we looked into ordinary medicine, I think we would find areas where a particular illness is described as serving the system's recovery. I think that is an example, Galya. For instance, the body responds with a fever to initiate recovery in response to a virus, or to eliminate certain toxins. That does happen, doesn't it? “In that sense, yes.” Yes, that is the sense I mean. There is an example. Of course, there are other illnesses, such as one that begins by destroying tissues, the skeletal system, or the brain. That is not a response that saves; it destroys. But if we look more broadly, that too is the system's recovery. The question is: which system? And how do people actually relate to it? Can illness be called a bad event?

It can be called a bad event. Can it be called a good event? It can be called a good event. Should we relate to dark energies that way? What has today's social world done with language? This is largely what Lucifer's energy has done, with some influence, I think, from Ahrimanic energies: it has created a system of explanations in which certain damage to human development and certain dark energies are said to be beneficial, a blessing. There is an explanation. A person often says, “I need to live through this stage because…” or, “I need to take this action in order to…” We see it even on a global scale, when some people say, “We need to wipe out this people, because that will heal and save the world.” They have brought the reasoning to that point. It is a very explicit, specific line of reasoning within a certain interpretation. Anything can be interpreted in different ways. We know perfectly well that any phrase can be interpreted differently. I see people interpreting me and saying, “That is exactly what you think.” I start explaining what I think, and they say, “You're lying.” I ask, “How am I lying? What other motive would I have? I am adding to the explanation of how I think.”

You want to understand certain systems in a distorted way and distort your own perception, rather than understand perception in its breadth. That is where this discussion has taken us. Now let us return from illness to the areas beyond the hierarchies of angels and archangels, in relation to dark systems. Why do I suggest exploring this? First, these energies are already appearing; they have been appearing over the past hundred years. They have various names. I think Steiner is the only author in whose work I have seen them described, although they are probably described elsewhere too, in some profound treatises. Are these energies dark or light, or are they an entirely different kind of structure? Could we say they are not dark in the sense of Lucifer? And can we call something dark if it is supposed to become light? That is another very important aspect of perception. From the perspective of the future world, Lucifer is believed to come over to the side of light.

Ahriman, of course, will never do so. That contrast is itself an interesting subject to study. If Lucifer will come over to the side of light, can we consider him dark now? Should we? Should we call energies dark when they are dark today but become light tomorrow, just as a person's spiritual being undergoes transformation? This is why I asked whether the energy belongs to the person or comes from outside. People always seek an explanation: “Did I do this myself, or not?” If the darkness is removed and was not their own, they say, “I've been freed.” If it was theirs, they say, “I've worked through it.” There is a drive for achievement in both, an unwillingness to examine what is actually happening. Does what we call “dark” matter at all? If someone hits another person, is that a dark act, an act that goes against the laws of the Universe, or an act arising from the person's spiritual underdevelopment? Imagine going back through the development of the human spiritual being to a time when it had a different structure of spiritual bodies and acted within that level of development and that structure.

The actions considered light then—would they be considered light or dark now? And the actions considered dark then—would they still be dark now, or would they be considered light? From this broader perspective, we arrive at the understanding that we must always look more widely at the distinction between dark and light energies, so as not to deceive ourselves. This is not A or B, one or two, yes or no. It is a multidimensional structure containing different states, rather than a state of “dark” or “light.” You know those graphs with lines extending outward? If you draw the Y-axis—

Vertical, with X horizontal. There is positive Y and negative Y, positive X and negative X: four areas, four squares. In the square where X and Y are both positive, you can draw four more squares, and four more within one of those. That is a two-dimensional system. Now imagine making it multidimensional: stretch it out and it becomes a cube, with further intersections inside. A third axis appears, Z, usually drawn at an angle on a flat diagram so we can see it. If we considered X and Y as two variables of positive and negative, and said X was only dark and Y only light, what would Z be? Now imagine adding another dimension beyond those three. That is already difficult for the mind.

What would it be, and how would you draw it? Add another dimension—everyone needs to recall their mathematics here—and then another. What would it look like? What formulas would describe the calculations and a particular point or state within it? There is one complication: a person can be in different states simultaneously. A human being is a spiritual system containing a great deal—not just many bodies, structures, energies, and convergences, but also subject to countless influences. Someone watching this video is also within its energy, the energies I am talking about. They come into contact with many energies. Can we isolate them? Can I separate you and your spirituality from this video? Then something collides as though with glass: it cannot get through, or it can be sent back. Isolation can be a difficult experience, with a complex effect. I could produce an effect like that; yes, I had the right to do so with you.

When there are multidimensional systems, bodies, and influences, how can we determine what is dark and what is light? Even if we stay with a linear system, there are an enormous number of points. A person will begin comparing which point is greater or smaller, better or worse. That is the wrong conclusion about life, an incorrect, untrue perception. To truly evaluate an energy and draw a conclusion about it, you need to study it very seriously. Some actions are karmically right even when a person comes under the influence of dark energies from other structures. Karmically, that was their task and their passage. We must remember that in such karmic tasks, certain dark forces—even if we retain that term, which does have meaning at a certain level—try to pull the person away, even if the experience was agreed with the spiritual world. They try to take the person and win. There are worlds and energies trying to win, and they also struggle with one another.

When we study Archangel Michael's struggle with the serpent, or a person's struggle with darkness, what are they struggling with? Darkness within themselves? What exactly is that darkness inside? And do those dark forces struggle among themselves?

I have always said that Lucifer and Ahriman struggle with each other too. Structures within them also struggle with one another. And there are other forces that may or may not struggle among themselves. People leave this out—many people do. They describe a certain amount, and at a certain point that amount is enough for a person to study. Just as it is essentially enough to remember to perceive other people. Yesterday someone quite close to me said, “I have never studied anyone, and I don't intend to. That is not what I do. I live my life; I don't do that and don't want to.” Then came a very interesting sentence that revealed everything: “I have an established opinion about everyone. My opinion is already formed.” When we live in a world of fixed opinions, certain layers of study and knowledge become pointless. It makes sense to set yourself one goal: to understand that other people are developing, and you cannot have a fixed opinion of them. They are unknown. A fixed opinion of other people limits your own development.

At the very least, you have formed a fixed opinion of yourself, closed yourself down to a single point, and stopped your whole development. You are already a corpse. You have died. You are not developing; you do not exist. You are already dead.