What does the phrase “Christ in the etheric” mean?

“Behold, he cometh with clouds.” (Rev.1:7)

Several enigmatic references to Christ returning again to the earth in the clouds are the centerpiece of much theological debate. Some think that the “clouds of heaven” point to the Rapture by which the faithful will be transported away from this world of darkness, leaving other lesser humans to a fate worse than death. Others see in the image a militant Christ exercising a religious or political edict to dominate world religions with specific brands of Christianity.

Perhaps if we looked at the patterns of forces involved in the building and dissolving of clouds, we might see some indications that, if they were applied to our own soul life, might unravel parts of this mystery. These articles will explore principles in the formation of clouds that can also serve as symbolic maps for our self-development. Through this study we might end up understanding how these patterns in the clouds may help move our soul towards the Christ-like recognition that we can only find ourselves by waking up in others.

The fundamental principles of cloud development can best be described using the four elements theory from alchemy. In its simplest form, the four elements theory shows how earth, water, air, and fire interact in the natural world. In the first image, we see that earth and water move down, and air and fire move up. All life follows these patterns.

In the second image of a flowering fennel top, we can assign the earth and water elements to the parts of the plant that grow down towards the root and out into the leaf-producing organs. These two elements are the earthly parts of this flowering process. A shift in the plant occurs when it moves directly into flower. An alchemist would say that the emergence of the flower out of the leaf is an indicator that the refining forces of the air element have transformed the leaf into a finer state. When this happens, the flowering process of the air takes over as the plant gets finer and finer in its structures, finally reaching the seed formation, where all form is taken from the plant and the space around it becomes more articulated than the actual form of the plant itself. What is rising through all of this transformation is the warmth of the potent essential oils of the fennel that permeate all parts of the plant and are focused in the seed formation itself. The final ascent into the seed is accompanied by warm oils, resins, and fragrances immersed in the element of fire. The plant is a living form that is a direct image of the rotation of the four elements. Earth/root is dense and dark, water/leaf is flowing with saps, air/flower is delicate and light-filled. In the culmination in the fire/seed stage, the physically manifest plant is disappearing to earthly eyes in a blaze of self-immolation.

Let’s look at an image of the fennel superimposed on an image of a thunderhead. In the lower parts of the cloud, the earth and water dominate. That is where precipitation occurs. Warm currents of moist air feed the cloud from below. Also rising from below are microscopic crystals of salt from ocean waves and ash from forest fires. The earth and water are carried aloft by warmth. To leave the embrace of the earth itself, the water has to undergo a radical phase shift. It must turn into its constituent gases of oxygen and hydrogen in a process known as evaporation. This is the equivalent of the flowering process in the plant. In the cloud, the warm moist air rises as vapor or gaseous water into the upper levels of the atmosphere. There, the warmth that has lifted the water from the earth is hampered in its lifting capacities because of the governing process of the atmosphere known as the adiabatic lapse rate. Stated simply, if a parcel of air is lifted, its pressure is decreased. Since pressure decreases with height in the atmosphere, the temperature of the parcel of rising air falls due to the expansion. In its simplest form, this elegant mystery is the Christ principle that keeps the atmosphere from destroying itself in the space of one day.

Consider what would happen if there were no governor on the expansion of warm moist air in an average thunderhead. With the first rise into the air of warm water vapor, the water, as a gas, would keep on rising until it left the troposphere, never to return. Over the course of a few days or weeks, the water would end up in the ionosphere as gaseous ions, and life on earth would be impossible. What makes it possible for life to continue is that as the water vapor expands, it cools, and as it cools, it condenses. This process is the union of the opposite polarities. Earth and water are opposite to air and warmth, but they are linked to each other in the life processes of the earth by the mysterious bond that opposites have for each other in the four elements theory. The inner relationship of the opposing polarities makes it possible that extremes always are led to interact with the opposite extremes. This function is a Christ-like feature of atmospheric processes. In the life of the soul, studying such inner relationships is a good preparation for the initiation into higher sight. What is needed for such opposing polarities is a governor that can make sure that one extreme relates point-for-point to the opposite.

“And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.” Matthew 2:4-6.