In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1
And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword.
Revelation 1:16
2.1 Throat friction
This practice consists of breathing with a friction at the lower part of the back of the throat, while keeping the mouth slightly open. The friction is generated during both inhalation and exhalation. It creates a ‘wind’ type of sound. There is neither humming nor buzzing, nor any form of chanted sound. The sound is roughly the same while inhaling and exhaling. If you can, try to make it a low-pitched sound; it will be easier to sustain over long periods of time. But before giving more indications and tips on the throat friction, let me make a few points extremely clear.
Don't try to start a quest for the perfect throat friction. Just do
a ‘kind of’ friction sound and let it adjust itself with time.
If you try to do it too perfectly you will probably end up doing it
all wrong. (The same applies more or less to all the techniques of
this book.) By being too finicky your mind is likely to get in the
way. So just breathe with some vague friction in the throat and
everything will be fine! Just read the indications given below, and
then you can come back to this section in a few weeks to find out
more precisely where your friction is taking place and adjust the
details.
Throat friction, tips and traps
• If you wish to have an immediate demonstration, you can visit
the Clairvision School's Internet site (section: Clairvision Knowledge
Bank), where you will find sound files of throat friction. But
again, keep in mind that any vague friction sound will be enough
to carry you through the exercises of Awakening the Third Eye.
• It does not matter whether you are breathing through the nose
or the mouth, or both at the same time, but the mouth should
remain slightly open. In this position the lower jaw is loose and relaxed, which generates a certain condition of energy and can be
enough in itself to induce a slightly altered state of consciousness.
The friction comes from area L (for larynx)
• The throat friction is more comfortable and more efficient
when it comes from the back of the throat, not from the mouth
and palate [area M on the figure – M for middle of the mouth]
nor from the area close to the teeth [area F – F for front of the mouth].
If you were to produce your friction from the middle [M] or the front [F] of the mouth, the sound would be higher-pitched and somewhat shriller or even whistly. Experiment and compare each
one.
• The correct friction comes from the larynx and the lower pharynx, meaning the lower part of the back of the throat [area L on the figure]. Then the (correct) sound is lower pitched, deeper and more internalised than if it came from the front of the mouth.
• Another possible mistake would be to generate your friction from the upper pharynx (nasopharynx), meaning at the back but at the top of the throat, behind the inner nasal cavity [area N on the figure]. In that case, which is incorrect, the friction would resonate more in the nasal sinuses than in the throat.
• Often when performing the throat friction you can feel a tiny
but distinct vibration in the larynx by gently touching your
Adam's apple with your fingers. (The Adam's apple is the external
protuberance of the larynx, in the upper part of the middle of
the throat. It is more marked in men than in women.) In the
beginning this vibration under the finger is often felt more
clearly during inhalation than exhalation, even though the same
sound is produced during both.
• How deep should the breath be? Its depth and rhythm should be
as normal. Slightly deeper breathing may be implemented in the
beginning, in order to generate a clearer friction. But you do not
need to hyperventilate: this technique does not aim at creating the
type of breathing used in rebirthing. Our purpose is to activate
the energy of the larynx through friction. The emphasis is not on
breathing but on awakening the larynx of energy.
• The purpose of the throat friction is to reinforce your
connection with the ‘energy’, a term that may sound vague in the
beginning but will become more and more meaningful as you keep
working on your third eye. As you become more accustomed to
this friction practice, you will only have to tune into the flow of
energy around you and the right intensity of the breath will
follow automatically. Depth and rhythm will vary, for it is the
nature of energy to vary, and it is our purpose to learn to flow
with the energy.
• The energetic action of this friction breathing will be greatly
enhanced if your neck is straight and vertical, in line with the
rest of the spine. The more perfectly upright your neck is, the
more power is released in the larynx. This can be experienced as a
sudden intensification of the vibration that sometimes takes place
when slightly moving the neck, thereby coming closer to the
perfect uprightness.
• The mouth is only slightly open, but still it is important to
make sure that it remains open, and more precisely that the lower
jaw is relaxed so that the upper and lower teeth do not meet.
When you have become familiar with the vibration between the
eyebrows (introduced in the next chapter), come back to this
point: try to practise the throat friction with your mouth tightly
closed, and then with the mouth slightly open, alternating the two
positions to feel the difference in your energy. You will notice
that as soon as the lower jaw is relaxed and slightly dropped, a
completely different condition of your energy is generated in
which the connection with the vibration is enhanced and a general
opening is favoured.
Note also that this slightly open position of the mouth is not
taken to force you to breathe through the mouth instead of the
nose. Breathe through the nose, the mouth or both at the same
time, as feels most natural to you.
• Beginners sometimes feel that this technique makes their throat
dry or slightly irritated. If so, produce the friction lower down in
the throat. Beginners often make the friction higher up in the
throat, closer to the palate, which is irritating to the throat. In
any case, by practising for a few minutes several times a day this
inconvenience will soon be overcome. (High quality honey can also
be used as a soother and awakener.) With practice this friction can
be maintained effortlessly for hours.
After a few days of practice the throat friction adjusts itself
naturally and all irritating sensations disappear.
• It should be emphasized that the focus of this technique is on
the larynx, not on the breath. In no way can it be regarded as a
practice of hyperventilation, since the intensity of the breath is
just your normal one. It is not even a breathing exercise as such,
since it is only the mechanical action of the air on the larynx that
is used, without especially trying to connect with the process of
respiration. The friction is used to create a stimulation of the
vibration in the larynx, but at a later stage of the practice it
becomes possible to awaken the same vibration in the larynx
without making use of the breath.
• Why is the protuberance of the larynx called Adam's apple, and
why is it more marked in men than in women? It is said that
when Adam tried to swallow the piece of apple of the tree of
knowledge, it remained stuck in his throat!
2.2 Purposes and effects of the throat friction
The throat friction is a sound of energy. It quietens the mind and
when mastered, instantaneously induces a ‘tuned-in’ state of
consciousness.
One of its main actions is to amplify any psychic phenomena. The
way we will use the throat friction in the following chapter will
be to connect it with the area between the eyebrows to strengthen
your awareness of the third eye. In later practices the throat
friction will be connected with different structures of the body
of energy to help reinforce them.
What does ‘connecting’ mean? It is a feeling that is easier to
experience than to describe. Suppose you are trying to connect the
throat friction with the area between the eyebrows, for instance.
In the beginning there is a simultaneous awareness of them. Then a
resonance automatically takes place between the two. The area
between the eyebrows seems to vibrate together with the throat
friction. Then a ‘mixing’ takes place. The throat friction combines
with the feeling between the eyebrows. There is a communication
of energy between the larynx and the third eye. That is what is
meant by ‘connecting’.
There follows a simple but essential experience: the perception of
the third eye quickly becomes more distinct and tangible. This
result is clear and instantaneous. The effect of the throat friction
is to ‘give shape’, make things more substantial. Therefore,
whenever you connect the throat friction with a chakra or any
other organ of energy the organ becomes more perceptible. The
larynx makes things manifest, it reveals them.
A similar effect will be observed when working on auras. You first
have to build up the inner space and engage the process of seeing.
Then some exercises will show how your perception of nonphysical
halos and auras is instantaneously boosted when combining
throat friction and vision (see Chapters 5 and 7). The lights and
colours will appear significantly ‘denser’ and more tangible.
The throat friction can also be used to establish a linkage between
different structures of energy. Not only can you connect the
friction to the third eye or any other organ of energy, but you
can also enhance the connection between different organs of
energy, and link them through the friction. For instance in the
chapters on channel release you will work at establishing a linkage
between the energy of the hands and that of the third eye. And in
the chapters on protection you will learn to connect the third eye
with belly energies.
As you advance along this path you will discover several other
miraculous functions associated with the larynx. For instance, the
larynx of energy is a wonderful purifier: it can digest all kinds of
toxic energies. It also plays a major role in the metabolism of the
nectar of immortality. I recommend that you do not treat the
throat friction as routine, but regard it as a sacred quest for the
mysteries of the larynx.
2.3 The mysteries of the larynx
One finds in the Sanskrit literature some surprising stories about
the voice. The rishis, or seer-sages of ancient India, were said to
have many extraordinary abilities called siddhis. One of them was
the vac-siddhi (vac = voice), by which whatever the rishi said
would come true. Sometimes just by uttering a word, a rishi could
materialise a whole army and change the course of history. It
followed that the spoken word was regarded as sacred and
unalterable, which was not without its problems at times. For
instance in the Mahābhārata, the longest poem in the recorded
history of humankind, the five Pāṇḍava brothers attend a
tournament where one of them gains the most beautiful princess
as a wife. Returning home, the brothers announce to their
mother, the virtuous Kunti, “We have brought back a treasure.”
Then rather unfortunately the mother exclaims, “Good, let it be
shared between the five of you,” after which the princess has to
become the wife of the five men, taking turns with each, and
supposedly without being partial to any of them.
The creative power of the voice is clearly expressed in Sanskrit,
where vac, voice, is often regarded as a synonym for śakti, which
is the creative energy, the power of manifestation. In various
trends of ancient Greek philosophy one finds a similar concept in
the logos. The primary meaning of logos is ‘word’, but it also
means creative principle. Later, in the gospel of John (originally
written in Greek), it is also the term logos which is used to
characterise the creative principle by which the creation was
manifested: “In the beginning was the logos (Word), and the logos
was with God, and the logos was God.” (John 2:1) Note that the
first book of the Old Testament also presents a picture in which,
at various stages of the genesis of the world, God uses the power
of the Word to create: “And God said, Let there be light: and there
was light.” (Genesis 1:3) “And God said, Let there be a firmament
in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the
waters.” (Genesis 1:6) “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the
living creature...” (Genesis 1:24), and so on.
In my epic novel, Atlantean Secrets, you will find startling
descriptions of the mysterious power of the voice cultivated by
Atlantean initiates, through which they could influence nature,
perform healings, and accomplish a whole range of miraculous
feats. Rudolf Steiner in his teachings has also left many indications
related to the power of the voice. An aspect he has particularly
developed is the polarity between voice and generative organs, for
which he describes many consequences as far as the evolution of
humankind is concerned.
Apart from Steiner's indications, certain simple facts show that
there is a connection between the voice (and therefore the larynx)
and sexual energy. For instance, it is when the sexual organs
develop, at puberty, that the male voice changes pitch, due to the
action of the male hormone testosterone. In women, alterations of
the voice can also be observed following menopause.
In astrology, the voice organ is related to the sign of Taurus and
the sexual organs to Scorpio. The polarity between the sexual
organs and the larynx is indicated by the opposition between the
two signs.
Taurus is ruled by Venus, Scorpio by Mars. Venus and Mars form a
couple, with dialectically opposed functions.
Taurus-Scorpio axis on the zodiac
Another connection between voice and organs of generation can be
found in ancient Hebrew, where one of the words for voice is
yediah, coming from the root yadah, meaning to know. And it is
certainly no coincidence that the biblical way of referring to
sexual intercourse is yadah, to know. For instance: “And Adam
knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bore Cain...” (Genesis 4:1)
In acupuncture the point qi chong (Stomach 30), located on the side
of the pubic bone, has among its symptoms: sore throat after
sexual intercourse. One can find several other connections in
traditional Chinese medicine between sexual energy and throat. For
instance, among the organs it is the kidney that is said to be the
storehouse of sexual energy. And in the throat one finds the tonsils, which also have the shape of a kidney. When there is a
release of ‘fire’ by the kidney, it may result in an inflammation
of the pharynx (pharyngitis) or of the tonsils (tonsillitis).
But let us return to Steiner and look at his views on the future of
the voice organ. Steiner considered that in the trend of human
evolution, the importance of certain body parts is slowly waning
while some other organs will play a more and more essential role
in the future. The sexual organs belong to the first category,
while the larynx definitely belongs to the second.
Steiner has often mentioned that around the middle of Lemuria
(the epoch that preceded Atlantis), a critical event took place in the
occult history of humankind. Until then the libido of human
beings was still directed entirely towards procreation, so that each
human being was able to generate offspring of its own. In other
words we were all hermaphrodites. One single being could give
birth to another being without having to be fecundated by anyone.
Note that the concept of primordial human beings as
hermaphrodites is found not only in Steiner but also in several
myths of various traditions.
Then Steiner describes how, in the middle of cataclysmic
alterations of planet Earth, human beings lost half their
procreative energy. They stopped being hermaphrodites: the sexes
were separated. Each human being retained only half of the
procreative energy and from then on had to find someone of the
other sex in order to have a child. What happened to the other
half of the procreative energy, the one that was no longer
available for procreation? According to Steiner, it was redirected
towards a different function: catching the Ego, or Higher Self.
Until then human beings had been living like blobs, completely
disconnected from their Ego. And it was by the redirection of half
of their sexual force that they established the beginning of a
connection with the Ego. They became spiritual beings.
Such a vision suggests quite an interesting way of looking at the
relation between sexual energy and spirituality, and at sexuality in
general. For example it presents the sexual instinct as a quest for
the ‘lost half’. And at the same time it suggests that the lost half
is not ultimately to be found outside, in a union with another
being, but in a full communion with one's own Spirit. It also
suggests that the sexual energy and the energy that allows us to
connect with the Spirit are of fundamentally the same nature, and that the latter is nothing other than a refined and redirected
form of the former. This conception fits quite well with the
Taoist systems of inner alchemy, in which one works at refining
and transmuting the sexual energy in order to generate the
embryo of immortality, the subtle body in which the fullness of
the Higher Self can be experienced permanently.
But let us return to the voice. Steiner describes how, after human
beings had half of their sexual energy redirected (around the
middle of the Lemurian epoch), some new organs appeared in the
human body. The larynx was one of them. This establishes a direct
connection between the transformed and spiritualised sexual
energy and the larynx: as long as the hermaphrodite's sexual
energy was 100% directed towards procreation, the larynx could
not appear. Once part of the sexual energy was refined in order to
start ‘catching’ the Spirit, the larynx started to develop.
Now, if we try to understand the present function of our larynx,
we see that through the voice we express our thoughts and our
emotions, which is a way of giving them a more defined form. As
soon as you start practising the exercises given in the first
chapters of this book, you will realize that the throat friction
makes the third eye more tangible, as if shaping it. You will tune
into your third eye, and as soon as you start implementing the
throat friction, the third eye will immediately be perceived more
clearly and more intensely.
Steiner predicts that in the future of humankind, the larynx's
capacity to give form will become extreme, and the creative power
of the word will manifest even in the physical plane: just by
saying a word, the corresponding object will be materialised. Even
though staggering if one measures its implications, this concept is
after all no different from the vac-siddhi or creative power of the
word which, according to the Sanskrit texts, the ancient Indian
rishis had mastered. This suggests that human beings are gradually
gaining the capacity to create, similar to that of the Elohim in the
Old Testament. In other words it presents human beings as creative
gods in the making – a theme that runs through the whole of the
western esoteric tradition, starting in Genesis when, Adam having
eaten of the tree of knowledge, the Elohim exclaim: “Behold, the
man is become as one of us.” (Genesis 3:22) All these considerations
on the larynx lead one to think that there may be some symbolic
meaning behind the fable that Adam's apple was the piece of the
Chapter 2 – The Mysteries of the Larynx
27
fruit of the tree of knowledge that remained stuck in his throat.
Interestingly, Steiner foresaw a crucial step in the long-term
evolution of the larynx: the sexual force having been completely
transmuted, the procreative function will no longer be
implemented from the sexual organs but from the larynx. Human
beings will then have gained the capacity to speak their children
out.
Another of Steiner's visions which is quite consistent with several
other sources of the western esoteric tradition, is that with the
final transmutation of the sexual energy into the creative power
of the voice will come the end of death: physical immortality. The
end of the sexual organs means the end of the separation of human
beings into two sexes. In the gospel of Philip, one of the most
exciting of the Gnostic gospels, it is unequivocally stated that if
‘the woman’ had not been separated from ‘the man’, she would not
have to die with ‘the man’, and it is the separation of the sexes
that caused the beginning of death. The same text further
indicates that as long as Eve was in Adam, there was no death. It is
when she was separated from Adam that death began. If ‘the man’
becomes whole again, it will be the end of death.
This can be put in parallel with the gospel of Thomas, in which
Jesus tells his disciples that it is by making the two one that they
will become the sons of man, and move mountains by saying,
“Mountain, move!”
Then the ‘lost Word’, on which the Masonic tradition is based, will
have been recovered, and the Temple rebuilt forever.
The alchemists often defined their art as a way of speeding up the
natural processes of evolution of nature. For instance they
considered that all the metals were on their way to becoming gold,
and that by transmuting base metals into gold one does nothing
other than achieve within a short time what nature would
otherwise take a long time to accomplish. I will have several
occasions in this book and others of the Clairvision Corpus to come
back to the inner significance of the gold of the alchemists.
According to them, their gold was ‘no common gold’. At this stage
we could use this concept of ‘speeding up’ to define inner alchemy:
inner alchemy aims at achieving now, transformations that
humankind will only complete much later in its natural course of
evolution.
The throat friction is designed to achieve an alchemical
transformation of the larynx and start tapping from its creative
power. In particular, in the Clairvision style of inner alchemy the
larynx is used extensively to give shape and to ‘densify’ various
structures of the body of energy, as you will start experiencing
with the practices of Chapter 3.
2.4 Humming sound and the magic of bees
Sit in a meditation position, with your back extremely straight.
Become aware of the cervical part of the spine, in the neck, and
aim for a perfectly vertical position aligned with the rest of the
back.
Keep your eyes closed.
Become aware in the larynx.
Start chanting a continuous humming, buzzing sound, making
your throat vibrate. Make the sound while both exhaling and
inhaling. Make short inhalations and long exhalations.
Remain aware of the physical vibration generated in your larynx
by the buzzing.
Continue the practice for a few minutes. Then remain silent and
motionless for a few more minutes, just feeling the vibration in
the throat.
Tips
• This technique can be quite intoxicating. If practised long
enough, it induces a slightly exhilarating altered state of
consciousness. The effect is strongly reinforced by being aware in
the third eye at the same time, according to the principles
developed in the next chapter.
• One way of practising this exercise is to make your humming
sound resemble the buzzing of a bee. Then the practice becomes the
bhrāmarin technique of Hatha-yoga. If this proves difficult, don't
worry. Any humming sound will do, provided you create a
tangible vibration which you can feel when placing your fingers
on the protuberance of the larynx.
Bees, who are great experts in humming/buzzing sounds, are
highly alchemical little creatures. Their connection with the sexual
energy of plants is easy to observe. For instance, they help many
plants to reproduce, by carrying pollen (the plant equivalent of
semen) from one to another. They take the nectar from the
reproductive parts of plants and turn it into honey.
Honey is a remarkable substance in many ways. It keeps for years
without any preservation process – a very long time, especially if
you compare it to the lifespan of a worker-bee, which is about one
or two months. So the bees take a sexually-related product and
turn it into a non-perishable substance. This of course reminds us
of the alchemical processes by which the sexual force is
transmuted and which result in the formation of the body of
immortality. On a simpler level, royal jelly, another product of
the hive, is highly sought after and regarded as a substance of
longevity.
Honey, interestingly enough, has always been considered an
excellent remedy for the throat, and bees a symbol of eloquence.
In Hebrew one of the words for voice is dibur, coming from the
root daber that gives the verb ledaber, to speak. And bee is dvora,
coming from the same root. (The name Deborah comes from the
Hebrew dvora, bee.)
