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American Anthroposophy
- an introduction -
a celebration of the American Soul's unique
ability to contribute to the future of Anthroposophy,
and to the future of world
culture
by Joel A. Wendt
social
philosopher...and occasional fool
"...one can say that we in Europe develop Anthroposophy
in a spiritual way; the American develops it in a natural way..."
Rudolf Steiner, from a talk to the workmen
at the
Goetheanum, Dornach, March 3, 1923
cover art
bead-work by the author
Dedication
This book is dedicated to
you, immortal spirit, who were
at one time known as Rudolf Steiner, and without whose
presence on this
Earth for about 64 years, the essays in this book could not
have been
written. I am grateful to you for wearing that name and
bearing
the burden of being thought of as a great initiate.
Thank you old
friend and may you continue to sail on to ever greater wonders
and
delights, with as little suffering as necessary.
Hopefully, the
content of this book may over the years of the future, serve
to break
the chains by which great aspects of your spirit are currently
bound to
the Earth, due to your having chosen to join your karma to
ours.
In all our names, I beg your forgiveness for our
many
errors and numerous follies connected to our having
misunderstood much
of the essence of your teachings. With greatest
affection and
love, your pupil, Joel A. Wendt
the
Contents of this Book
introductory
materials
forward by the author - what is meant by American Anthroposophy?
preface for the neophyte - for the readers to whom Anthroposophy is quite new.
an apology (of sorts) - to the more experienced anthroposophical reader
introduction
the main
themes of this book
The Challenge
American
Anthroposophy begins to come to
maturity in the situation of a given place and a given time.
The
dominant
characteristic of this time, outwardly,
is the Incarnation of Ahriman.
As a
consequence the first essay concerns Ahriman's Incarnation:
Outrageous Genius -
Discovering the in-the-Present
Incarnation of Ahriman in America through the Signs of the
Times (Michaelmas* 2007) part
1: Honoring
the Teacher and the
Teaching; part 2) The Wise-Earth as
Counter-force to Ahriman's Incarnation; part
3) Brother
What
Ails Thee?; and, part 4) Waking the American
Anthroposophical Society and Movement for their true tasks in
the 21st
Century.
*[The dates of
writing here and below are
the time at which the original essay was produced out of the
spiritual-thinking activity described in the essay: In Joyous
Celebration...]
Orientation
The dominant
characteristic of this time, inwardly,
is the True Second Coming of Christ.
"From the kingdom
served by Michael himself Christ
descends to the sphere of the Earth, so as to be there when
the
intelligence is wholly with the human individuality. For man
will then
feel most strongly the impulse to devote himself to the power
which has
made itself fully and completely into the vehicle of
intellectuality.
But Christ will be there; through His great sacrifice He will
live in
the same sphere in which Ahriman also lives. Man will be able
to choose
between Christ and Ahriman. The world will be able to find the
Christ-way in the evolution of humanity." R.S. Anthroposophical
Leading
Thoughts.
The Meaning of Earth
Existence in the Age of the
Consciousness Soul (winter - spring
2006)
In Joyous Celebration of the
Soul Art and Music of
Discipleship (late summer 2006)
The Methodology Necessary
for a New Social Science - a
brief introduction (written for this
book
during the Season of Michaelmas, 2007)
The Natural Transformation
of the Anthroposophical
Society in America (Michaelmas 2007)
The Mystery of Macro and
Micro Evil: the relationship of
the Shadow (the threefold double-complex) to the American Soul
(Michaelmas 2007)
Encountering the Mystery of
America
What
distinguishes the now emerging natural Anthroposophy of the
American
Soul,
from the anthroposophical work of the Twentieth Century
Present Day American Culture
- four
archetypal
personalities (after the Holy
Nights, 2008)
Recollecting the True Roots
of the American Soul - America's
aboriginal
Peoples and the Hopi Prophecy (after
the
Holy Nights, 2008)
Anthroposophy and the
Russian Soul - a lesson from life:
instruction for all three world-aspects of Anthroposophical
activity,
in the West, the Center and the East - (written
over
Christmas Eve and Day 2006)
The New, and profoundly
human, Mysteries of the Earth
(written in the remaining Holy Nights just after
Christmas 2006)
Rudolf Steiner's Own Path -
The Philosophy of Freedom or
Spiritual Activity - a brief re-imagination (written
for
this book just after the Holy Nights 2007-8)
a letter to a young
anthroposophist (2003)
The Redemption of Eros: - Seeking Comfort and
Companionship in a time of increasing Social Chaos - or, Sex
and the
Individual Anthroposophist (Michaelmas
2007)
The America Soul - an
evolving synthesis at its moment of
birth: -
much has
been written above - here a small effort at a summary, with a
few
additional insights offered as the concluding theme. (written in the Season of Easter, Spring 2008)
End Stories
America: The Central Motif (by Patrick Dixon)*
*reprinted
with permission, and with a great deal of gratitude that this
exists...
Bicycles: a Children's Christmas Story
for Adults
some final
verse: the Gift of the Word
***************************************
Ultimately,
all questions of truth and goodness come down to the
application of
individual art and imagination - that is the creation of
beauty.
It isn't so much that the Universe has or is an answer
that we
seek and struggle to find, but rather that the Universe is an
unfinished symphony in which we are one of the creative
sources.
Each individual i-AM is a song - continually knowing
itself only
in the moment of its becoming...
***************************************
forward by the author
- what is
meant by American Anthroposophy -
To place the
modifier "American" in front
of the noun Anthroposophy, may seem to some a rather curious,
perhaps
even defective, construction. What about Anthroposophy,
apparently authored by Rudolf Steiner and mostly taught in
Europe,
could ever be called American? Even so, the problem
comes in
large part from Steiner himself, who said a great deal about
America,
including suggesting this very idea - that there is to come an
American
Anthroposophy. Having gathered* together much of
what he wrote and spoke about America, I'll just start with
some of
this material and basically leave it to Dr. Steiner himself to
help us
start to understand why there could be something quite real
about an American Anthroposophy. I'll also weave among the
comments
of Steiner various other materials as seems appropriate [these
will be
in brackets so as to not confuse anything].
*[with the help
of the America Steiner
library in New York, ask them for their list]
One last
introductory point...
There is an
excellent question as to what
is truly America and/or American, given that there is a North
and South
and Central America of which we routinely speak. I would
say in
general that most of what is indicated by Steiner, and
explored more
deeply by me in this book, refers principally to the United
States of
America. To look at the wider questions has not really
been
attempted here, although in the appendix in Patrick Dixon's
essay: America:
the Central Motif, an introductory
perspective on some of these wider questions is given.
Hopefully
- in the future - others, native to these wider regions of the
Western
Continents, will be inspired by what is here to add their
insights and
their voices, for no one should doubt that all the Peoples of
the
Western Continents have a great deal to offer to the world.
*
here now, from
Dr. Steiner...
"...America is the
place at which races or civilizations die." R.S. The
Mission of the Folk Souls, lecture
6.
[This phenomena
is discussed more fully
in an essay below.]
"The Indians then took
over with them to the West all that
was great in the Atlantean culture. What was the
greatest thing
of all to the Indians? It was that he was still able
dimly to
sense something of the ancient greatness and majesty of a
period which
existed in the old Atlantean epoch, in which the divisions of
the races
had hardly begun, in which men could look up to the Sun and
perceive
the Spirits of Form penetrating through a sea of mist.
Through an
ocean of mist the Atlantean gazed up at that which to him was
not
divided into six or seven, but which acted together.
This
co-operative activity of the seven Spirits of Form was called
by the
Atlanteans the Great Spirit...He clung firmly to the Great
Spirit of
the primeval past." R.S.
Lecture 6
above.
[While we might
think that the Native
Americans have a degenerate spirituality as a consequence of
this, it
would be a mistake to take this view. A Mohawk healer (a
woman
friend of mine) is also a seeress, and it is clear to her
vision that
when she holds a healing circle it is Christ in the form of an
Angel
who does the actual healing. Another Native acquaintance
of mine
described her first experience of a most sacred ceremonial
enacted by
her Chief and spoken in the Cherokee language. In this
ritual he
had used the word Christ several times, and she asked him
following
this ceremony why he had mixed that particular word in with
the
Cherokee in this way. His reply was that Indians had
always known
there was an Earth Spirit, but now they know His Name.
The Saturn
(Native American) Mysteries
still produce initiates (as it were), whose development takes
a course
similar in kind to the Symbol in Tarot of the Hanged Man. Their visionary capacity comes from
having given
over their will (which is why the Hanged Man is pictured
upside down)
to the Celestial Influence. It is a spiritual capacity
based upon
voluntary obedience to the Sky People (the ancestors and spirit
guides of
the Native Americans) before whose judgment the seers, Chiefs
and
healers tend to place all crucial questions of life. It
is not a
blind obedience, but something more on the order of
recognizing that
the Sky People have a superior vision of matters, and that as
a result
their wisdom is to be given great weight in reference to all
significant questions.
By the way,
many anthroposophists treat
Steiner in the same way, and with the same potential dangers
to our
personal and individual development of inner freedom, so it
perhaps
should suggest to us that we not cast stones.
The potential
marriage, within the free
choices of the individual American Soul of this veneration of
all that
was great in the primeval past of Atlantis with the New Sun
Mysteries
(in its initial form as Anthroposophy) is very important for
the future
(for details see the essay below: Recollecting
the
True
Roots of the America Soul - America's
aboriginal
Peoples and the Hopi Prophecy).]
America was
discovered in order to
provide a counter-balance to the Asian Great Spirit (luciferic
lightness). America leads man to heaviness and
materialism.
(R.S. paraphrased from Lecture 2, Inner
Impulses
Working in the Evolution of Mankind)
"...American
civilization, on
account of the special organization of its people, is
particularly
exposed to the temptation offered by what the eagle speaks (1)....Central
Europe...is
particularly exposed to what is uttered by the lion (2)...Oriental civilization is preeminently exposed to
what is
uttered by the cow (3)."
(1) "I give thee the power to create a universe in thine own head"
(2) "I give thee the power to embody the universe in the radiance of the encircling air."
(3) "I give thee the power
to
wrest from the universe measure, number and weight." R.S. Lecture 8, Man
as a
Being of Sense and Perception
[Not surprising
then the importance of
the Eagle as a symbol both to Native Americans and the United
States of
America.]
If European and
American civilization
retain their present character, a materialistic cosmogony will
cover
over the Christ Event. (R.S. paraphrased from lecture 9,
Man as
Hieroglyph of the Universe.)
[The antidote
to this is the Christ
centered cosmogony presented in my book: the
Way of
the Fool:
the
conscious development of our human character and the future*
of
Christianity - both to be born out of the natural union of
Faith and
Gnosis.]
The past brings
fermentation that leads "Europe to the brink of the
Abyss, which will array Asia and America against each other." R.S. Lecture 3, The
Mission
of Archangel Michael
Emigration to
America is greater than all
other movements of peoples. (paraphrase, R.S. Lecture 4, Mystery
Centers)
[The People of
Peoples (the Beacon of
Hope) continues to draw the world to itself, even during times
of great
distress (witness Latino movements in the present, and Asia
movements
following the Vietnam War).]
The
Anglo-American victory over Europe in
WWI will lead to a domination of European spiritual-cultural
life in an
external fashion. (paraphrase R.S. lecture 3, The
Mysteries
of Light, Space and Earth.)
The threefold
social order is needed in
order to overcome the influence of Anglo-American secret
societies
(paraphrase lecture 4 above).
"...I believe that in
the future my book [The Threefold
Social Order] should be read in the West and in Russia, but
that it has
no chance of becoming effective in Germany. The West,
for
instance, can learn much from this book, for in a non-utopian
manner it
simply states how the three spheres co-exist and should
interact.
For the West the moment in time does not matter, for much is still to
be done
for the right interaction of the three currents, the spiritual
life,
the economic life, the political-legal life."
R.S. Threefolding as a Social Alternative. [emphasis added]
In 1924, for a time, some in America showed that stars were hollowed out spaces (paraphrase, R.S. lecture 3, The Evolution of Earth and Man and the Influence of the Stars)
Following the
American way of thinking,
an attempt was made to extend the mechanical over human life
itself.
It will be an American Mystery to make use of the
magnetism of
the Earth, its double-ness. (paraphrase, R.S. lecture 12, The
Reappearance
of Christ in the Etheric.)
"Europeans prove,
Americans affirm"
R.S.
lecture to workmen 3 March 1923.
When the sun is
in Aquarius: "only then will the true
American Civilization come." (same
lecture).
"We in Europe develop
Anthroposophy out of the Spirit.
Over there they develop something that is a kind of
wooden doll
of Anthroposophy. Everything becomes materialistic." (same lecture)
"But for one who is
not a fanatic, there is something
similar in American culture to what is anthroposophical
spiritual
science in Europe. Only everything there is wooden, it
is not yet
alive. We can make it alive in Europe out of the spirit,
those
over there take it out of instinct..."
(same
lecture)
"The time will one day
come when this American woodenman,
which actually everyone is still - when he begins to speak.
Then
he
will have something to say very similar to European
Anthroposophy*. One can say that we
in Europe develop Anthroposophy in a spiritual way; the
American
develops it in a natural way." (same
lecture,
emphasis added)
*[here is where
I told you that Steiner
clearly suggested there would come to be an American Anthroposophy.]
"The American is a
young materialist...So too will the
American's blatant materialism sprout a spiritual element." (when the Sun rises in the sign of Aquarius).
(same
lecture)
[As to the Sun
rising in Aquarius, its
actual date is mostly anyone's guess. I asked an
astrosopher, and
he suggested any where from 2376 to 3575, with lots of if ands
and buts
and complicated details - I tried to get an exact answer, but
sorry,
none could be had. Wikipedia says 2600, and if you get
on Google
you can find just about anything. As we know, popular
American
culture thought that this was happening in the 1960's (This
is
the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius...
from the rock musical Hair). If we accept the role of spiritual
inspiration
in the arts, then perhaps we can see that while Steiner
referred to the
Sun rising in Aquarius, a dawning is
something that
signals the coming rising of the Sun. I would place this
book in
that category - the previously dark sky is gone, the stars
recede from
sight, and bands of light illuminate the horizon, even though
the Sun
has yet to fully appear. A transition of this kind, as
is also
clear from Steiner's indications regarding the various epochs
of the
post-Atlantean Age, is a gradual development that takes place over many decades if not a few
centuries. No fixed date has any real
meaning. The present then in America is a dawning, but the Sun has not yet risen.]
"But genuine Americanism will one day
unite with Europeanism, which will have taken a more spiritual
path." (same lecture) [emphasis
added].
[I have spent
some time contemplating
Steiner's use of the adjective wooden in describing the
American's instinct for Anthroposophy. Clearly he could
have used
an even more material metaphor, such as crystalline. That he did not, but chose instead to us
a term
from the world of plants, particularly of the higher plant
which is the
tree, can give us something to help our understanding.
The tree,
while rooted in the earth, in making its wooden pillar makes the earth itself into a living form
which
then raises the tree's leaves and blossoms much further in the
direction of the cosmos than those plants that remain nearer
the earth
on the forest floor.
Our physical
nature, as Americans, is of
the earth, and to the extent that we remain instinctive, so is
our soul
life captured by this earth bound existence. Thus
our
thinking is also earthly and material, unless we spiritualize
it,
unless we bring moral forces into it consciously. The
more our
native goodness penetrates our thought life consciously
(instead of
instinctively), the more we do what the tree does when it
spreads its
leaves and blossoms (on its way to bestowing its fruit for our
benefit)
into the air far above the earth. Here is what I wrote
in the
essay below on conscious thinking out of the American Soul (In
Joyous
Celebration of the Soul Art and Music of Discipleship): The
purified
will (an appropriately moral intention and attention) creates
heart warmth in the soul-soil of feeling, out of which the
light and
life filled flower of thought is born. ]
Subterranean
forces possess the American
body - a geographical force, not a spiritual force. They
chain
man to the earth. Something from the human head streams
toward
magnetic and electric currents, neutralizing them - this is
the human
will. What overcomes these dependencies, which are part
of karma,
so that our inner life (if not our outward form) can come to
freedom?
The answer: the Mystery of Golgatha. (paraphrase
of R.S.
long discussion lecture 1, Anthroposophical
Life
Gifts.
*
Not everything
Steiner taught about human
inner life applies to Americans, and here again is what
Steiner said
indicating the existence of something that has to be called American Anthroposophy:
"The
time will one day come when this American woodenman,
which actually everyone is still - when he begins to speak.
Then
he
will have something to say very similar to European
Anthroposophy. One can say that we
in Europe develop Anthroposophy in a spiritual way; the
American
develops it in a natural way."
[emphasis
added].
Steiner was a
very precise and exact
thinker, and as a consequence we can look carefully at his
words,
expecting such characteristics. Here he has predicted a
time when
the American would speak, and say something very similar to European Anthroposophy - not the same, but similar. He also points out that we develop
anthroposophy
in a natural way, while the European develops it in a
spiritual way.
What precisely and exactly does that mean?
We should not
expect to answer such a
question by looking to Steiner, however. The answer to
this
question is not his to give. The American has to speak
the truth
and beauty and goodness of this question out of his own soul,
and this
book is one American's answer to that riddle. American
Anthroposophy is similar to European Anthroposophy, but
different,
because our basic soul gesture and relationship to the world
is
fundamentally different. It will do no good to compare
the two,
but all manner of good to struggle to see how these two
approaches to
Anthroposophy fit together, for harmonize they do.
Please keep
this in mind as you read the text below: to look not for the
contrast
with what Steiner has offered, but rather to appreciate how
what is
offered seeks to complement his work.
This in general
can be added here.
The American is more of the Earth than any other people.
His youthful culture is also of the future, whereas the
mature
European culture is mostly of the past (see the images of the
Elder and
Younger Brother in the Hopi Prophecy essay below). Their
individual limitations may be overcome in the present by their
mutual
respect and cooperation. At present, unfortunately, the
spiritual
potential of the American Soul is not even decently respected
in the
circles of the Anthroposophical Society and Movement here in
America.
How then can the two work together without first raising into the
light of consciousness the true soul
and spiritual nature of the American?
This condition
of self-ignorance,
tragically fostered in anthroposophical circles, is strongly
encouraged
by Ahriman through our unredeemed shadow nature, for
no people is more dangerous to his future plans than is the
American.
Whatever my personal flaws that have influenced this
work, I
offer it in full knowledge that Christ wishes for the American
to find
his way to his own true nature, and from out of that discovery
to
become, as is our task: the most formidable, spiritually
endowed,
leader of the social healing gesture needed to counter the
terrible
coming consequences of Ahriman's earthly reign.
Jessiah
Ben-Aharon did not write his book
on America (America's Global Responsibility:
individuation,
initiation and the threefolding) on
a lark.
Nor did Rudolf Steiner point to this place, this people
and this
time, in any kind of superficial way.
In the end, we
come upon a second riddle
to add to the one of just what it means to come to
Anthroposophy in a natural way. At
its core, Anthroposophy is an act of
service to others. Who then is American Anthroposophy to serve?
Our instinct, which even Emerson would find correct had
he known
formally of Anthroposophy, has so far been to be devoted to
Rudolf
Steiner and to the cultural forces streaming from Europe.
We understand
through Rudolf Steiner that
in this moment in Time the cultural Center of the world is
weakened,
the two poles of East and West are too polarized, and as a
consequence
the whole is unable to find their right inter-relationships
precisely
because the attack on the Center in the 20th Century has been
so
successful. Out of our freedom as Americans then we can
continue
to follow our instinct in support of the spiritual insight
pouring over
humanity from the Center. At the same time, however, we
need to not do this while living in a state of confusion as
to our
own yet unrealized soul forces and potentials. If
Americans want
to truly foster Anthroposophy as a working partner in a
threefold
world, they have to come to far greater self knowledge than is
presently the case. This book seeks to serve that
effort.]
a preface for the neophyte
- for the
readers for whom Anthroposophy is quite new -
If you are new
to Anthroposophy, or if
this is one of the first books related to Rudolf Steiner you
have
picked up, then you need to realize that in certain degrees
the book
you hold in your hand was written mostly for serious students
of Rudolf
Steiner, and further that it represents a view of
Anthroposophy not
common among most anthroposophists. At the same time
this book
might be quite useful, for it hopes to restore the essential
foundational impulse to anthroposophical spiritual science
from the
confusion into which it fell in the 20th Century, after its
founding
spirit had died - had crossed over into the world of pure
spirit.
As a
consequence, each essay below will
have its own brief introduction for the neophyte, by which
words I hope
to make it more accessible to those to whom most of
anthroposophical
thought is new. For example, the term Anthroposophy is a
kind of
unnecessary affectation - given that what it refers to it
could
possibly be expressed using many different words.
Generally
speaking if we look at the root meanings we have anthropos (man) and sophy
(wisdom), thus: the wisdom of man.
Among Steiner
students this itself has
been poorly understood, and as many new to this discipline may
have
already discovered there is a certain kind of unnatural
worship, among
the members of the Anthroposophical Society and Movement, of
all the
Rudolf Steiner said and wrote. The fact is that Steiner
was not
(ultimately) grounding Anthroposophy in the results of his
research
into spiritual reality, but instead referring to a latent
capacity
potential in all human beings.
We
could, therefore, also speak of Anthroposophy as the new cognition, for it refers to what happens when any
individual, with
a more or less intact mind, seeks to transform, through
their
own
will,
their given cognitive ability. With our will we take
hold of our
cognitive faculty and cause it to undergo a profound metamorphosis, not
unlike the transition from caterpillar to
butterfly. Our ordinary or given capacity for thinking,
seemingly
bound to the brain and to physical causes, can out of our own
inner-will-activity become transformed into a capacity for
direct
spiritual knowledge - what at one time was called: gnosis.
This is why
Rudolf Steiner, near the end
of his life, wrote a summary of his work which was called: Anthroposophical
Leading
Thoughts. In this work the very
first Leading Thought begins (as it
should
have): "Anthroposophy
is a
path of
cognition from the Spiritual in the human being to the
Spiritual in the
universe." [emphasis added]
Anthroposophy then is a spiritual Way, rooted in the will of
the
individual, yet when well understood it (the path or Way) is
entirely
empirical and objective (scientific). The main text for
this science of
the new cognition is the book called: The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity (or
Freedom), and the neophyte will find
the significance of this
book discussed extensively below.
Now among the
various translations of the
First of the Anthroposophical
Leading
Thoughts you will find that German
word Erkenntnis often translated as knowledge, not as
cognition.
This has led to great confusion, for many today in the
movement
mistake this indication as one connected to the requirement in
Knowledge
of Higher Worlds for study. Thus the
unceasing study of Steiner's writings,
rather than the objective and scientific introspection of
one's own
mind, soul and spirit - that is: the reading of Steiner's
works is
erroneously assumed more necessary and significant than the
thinking
about thinking or the cognition about cognition.
This also means
that in that
Anthroposophy is also the wisdom of man, it is
not
a content given forever by Steiner
to
which everyone must owe allegiance (thus the mistaken impulse
to over
emphasize the study of this content), but rather a
method of active and awake
thinking-cognition
that shows each individual how to be wise. Would that the
leaders
of the Anthroposophical Society and Movement better understood
this in
practice, which lead us next to....
an apology (of sorts)
- to the more
experienced anthroposophical reader -
It is possible
that certain portions of
what is in this book might be seen as potentially critical of
individual efforts within the Anthroposophical Society and
Movement.
Such is not really the mood in which this book's essays
were
written. My principle studies and research have
concerned the
social world, and in support of this it became necessary to
learn, from
Steiner's writings on the science of objective philosophical
introspection (A Theory
of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception, and The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity or
Freedom), how to properly discipline
my soul and spirit in order
to achieve the best results for this research goal. At
the same
time, the Anthroposophical Society and Movement are systems of
complicated and multiple social forms, and so it was natural
for me to
look at them out of the impulses connected to my social
research.
In addition, it became obvious over the years of these
studies
that very few in the Society and Movement had penetrated
deeply into
true introspective life. The absence of success in that
endeavor
has enormous consequences for the ability of the Society and
Movement
to incarnate the New Mysteries via the New Thinking.
Here is Steiner
himself, from Awakening
to Community (lecture three), on the
consequences of failing (which has happened) to take up The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity (or
Freedom): "The way it should be
read is with attention to the fact
that it brings one to a wholly different way of thinking and
willing
and looking at things....The trouble is that The Philosophy of
Freedom
has not been read in the different way I have been describing.
That is the point, and a point that must be sharply
stressed if
the development of the Anthroposophical Society is not to fall
far
behind that of anthroposophy itself. If it does fall
behind,
anthroposophy's conveyance through the Society will result in
its being
completely misunderstood, and its only fruit will be endless
conflict!"
Let me make
this last a bit more explicit
with a little symbolism (only partially presented), based on
my 35
years of introspective self observation:
sense world < soul < A/d (i-AM) L/d > soul > spiritual world
human double
(or karma of wounds)
I have kept in
the threefold Shadow
elements (the double-complex):
< A/d L/d >
human double
(or karma of wounds)
as it is very
much an aspect of American
Anthroposophy to need to face the Shadow in a fully objective
fashion.
A/d above refers to the ahrimanic double and L/d to the
luciferic
double. Steiner describes the reason for this in Lucifer
and
Ahriman, at page 21: "...the very purpose
of our
Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch is that man should become
increasingly
conscious of what takes
effect through
him in
earthly existence. [emphasis added]
What this means
is that the opposing
forces enter into the social world of humanity only through the human soul, which then makes it such
that
the real struggles involved in the Mystery of Evil take place
within our
souls, and only indirectly in the outer world.
Our souls are also the doorway through which the Good
enters the
social world, and understanding this reality and our related
freedom on
the Earth, in practice, is a core necessity for the future
development
of Anthroposophy in the 21st Century (as to the exact manner
of the
entrance of the Good, see the essay in this book: The
Meaning
of Earth Existence in the Age of the Consciousness Soul).
Rudolf Steiner
has made it clear that
there is a considerable difference between his personal path (The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity, or Freedom), and the path outlined in Knowledge
of
Higher Worlds. In the latter
we make
our passage toward the spirit through the sense world [sense world < soul < A/d (i-AM)]
, and in the former we enter
directly into the spiritual world [(i-AM) L/d > soul >
spiritual world], through a highly
disciplined introspection. In the practice of a
scientific
objective philosophical introspection, we begin already in the
soul/spiritual world as an active spirit.
Both the New
Thinking and the New
Mysteries are extraordinary treasures much needed by humanity.
Because of this reality, it becomes necessary to ask how
well the
Society and Movement are doing in bringing to incarnation the
New
Mysteries and the New Thinking, given that only a very few are
actually
seriously and successfully following the path of cognition (The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity or Freedom) that Rudolf Steiner himself discovered and
followed: [(i-AM) L/d > soul >
spiritual world]. Does this
mean
something is being missed?
Here is Steiner
on some of the
differences between the two paths (indirectly through the
sense world
and directly through the soul/spiritual world), from near the
end of
the 5th Chapter of his book Occult
Science: an outline:
The path that
leads to sense-free thinking by way of the communications of
spiritual
science is thoroughly reliable and sure. There
is
however another that is even more sure, and above all more
exact [emphasis added, ed,]; at the same time,
it is for
many people more difficult. The path in question is set
forth in
my books The Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's
World-Conception
and The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. These books
tell what
man's thinking can achieve when directed not to impressions
that come
from the outer world of the physical sense but solely upon
itself.
When this is so, we have within us no longer the kind of
thinking
that concerns itself merely with memories of the things of the
sense;
we have instead pure thinking which is like a being that has
life
within itself. In the above mentioned books you will
find nothing
at all that is derived from the communications of spiritual
science. They testify to the fact that pure
thinking,
working within itself alone, can throw light on the great
questions of
life - questions concerning the universe and man. The books
thus occupy
a significant intermediate position between knowledge of the
sense-world and knowledge of the spiritual world. What
they offer
is what thinking can attain when it rises above
sense-observation, yet
still holds back from entering upon the spiritual,
supersensible
research. One who wholeheartedly pursues the train of
thought
indicated in these books is already in the spiritual world;
only it
makes itself known to him as a thought-world. Whoever
feels ready
to enter upon this intermediate path of development will be
taking a
safe and sure road, and it will leave with him a feeling in
regard to
the higher world that will bear rich fruit in all time to
come.
It is because
of the practical
understanding from experience, of this quality of surety and
exactness
in the thinking developed along the following of Steiner's own
path,
that I urge the reader (if they have not already) to renew
their
interest in The Philosophy of Spiritual
Activity or Freedom. Also, as a result of the practice of this
discipline on the nature and quality of thinking, when I turn
my
attention as a spiritually oriented social scientist to the
status,
nature and structure of the Anthroposophical Society and
Movement,
certain difficulties become apparent. Some of these
observations
enter into the work below.
All that said, this should be made clear. While some of what is here can be interpreted (and will be by some) to be negative and against this or that, the fact is that what is in this book is not against anything. It is for the truth about the history of the Society in the 20th Century. It is for the truth about our real tasks as regards inner development. It is for understanding the Love which surrounds us in earthly social existence. It is for preserving Rudolf Steiner's true legacy. It is for helping American anthroposophists find freedom of spirit in the soul. It is for illuminating the Mystery of America. And, mostly it is for moving the Anthroposophical Movement forward toward its real potential role as the serving-the-Thou source of the New Thinking and the New Mysteries so desperately needed by humanity.
Then, in being
for
and in serving, we are on our way to becoming one with the Good.
*
*
*
[those very few
readers of the previous
edition of this work, which bore the title "Dangerous
Anthroposophy", will by now have
noted that
there have been substantial changes. These changes are
due in no
small part to the many thoughtful comments I received during
the early
stages of the publication of this book, such that I
reconsidered a
great deal of that material and made significant changes.
Because
I am self-publishing this book (which is only printed when
ordered
on-demand), it was then possible to update the file and make
many
corrections. I here want to thank those who were so
generous with
their observations of various weaknesses and excesses in the
original
text (and I am grateful for the many kind things that were
said, as
well). A new edition of Dangerous
Anthroposophy, with a slightly
different
emphasis and edge, will be published in the next few months
after this
present book is released.]
introduction
I must begin by
confessing that I don't like the way that
Dornach and the Councils in America model Anthroposophy
(for the most part, the Central Regional
Council in America is an exception, but seems not properly
supported by
the rest). Don't like is
of course a sign
of antipathy, but not all antipathy is unredeemed, some comes
from
discernment. Recently, in conversation with a friend
(Tom Last)
concerning observations of Rudolf Steiner in the lectures
collected
under the title: Awakening
to Community, I came to understand
that
Steiner had seen that significant differences existed at that
time and
would continue among the members and friends, which led him to
providing us with a metaphor to aid our understanding. I
have
interpreted it to mean today that we should think of each
other as
sister souls, finding it necessary to travel different but
parallel
paths, hopefully toward the same end: the bringing alive for
the future
the New Mysteries and the New Thinking.
At the same
time, I am confronted by a
peculiar moral dilemma, one that was faced by Irina Gordienko,
when she
wrote her book: Sergei O.
Prokofieff: Myth and Reality.
First,
after carefully presenting her version of the same argument as
above,
concerning the significance of Steiner's science of knowledge
(objective philosophical introspection), she said next in her
Author's
Forward:
"When a false or
non-proven assertion appears in the
scientific press, this is taken as a signal for the opening of
a
scientific debate, which continues until the matter is
resolved, even
if further research has to be carried out. It is quite a
different situation in the Anthroposophical media. There
one can
write whatever one likes, provided no interests are put at
risk and the
familiar terminology is used. Any
attempt
to criticize such printed assertions is condemned out of a
false ethical principle: tolerance towards a person is
confused with
tolerance of his mistakes. The ideal of brotherly love
comes to mean little
more than the maintaining of 'diplomatic relations' with ones
neighbor,
while remaining indifferent to his spiritual destiny.
"This is, in our
opinion, by no means a sign of
irresponsibility - this is only secondary - but is rather the
expression of a materialism that is deeply rooted in the
unconscious [the Shadow, see above
and below, ed], inclining one to experience
inter-personal relations in the present as absolutely real,
while the
working of the counter-forces which stand behind every lie is
ignored
or is at best passed off as an abstract theory, about which
one can
hold clever discussions, but which, as soon as one returns to
the
reality of life, will be forgotten. ' "An
incorrect result of research in the spiritual world is a
living being.
It is there; it must be resisted, it must first be
eradicated"[R.S., ed.] ' (22.10.1915, GA 254)"
[emphasis added]
The consequence
for me then is this: If I
discern flaws (errors of thought) in the work of the Society
and
Movement, what is my obligation toward that work and toward
those
personalities who make such errors of thought? This has
been made
all the more acute by the fact that during the period in which
several
people had opportunities to review the earlier version of this
work, it
was common to hear expressed some form of: Don't you think you
need to
treat in a more kind way, those who. in your opinion, have
made errors
of thought.
The consequence
of such a "materialistic" (as
suggested by Gordienko) approach is twofold: First,
we collectively deny that Anthroposophy has anything to do
with science
- that is, there is no real meaning for us to exactness and
rigor in
the processes of cognition, and certainly not in holding each
other to
such standards. And second, that we actually do each
other a
kindness by treating so politely each others statements that
clash with
our own understanding, particularly when such statements are
publicized
throughout our communities as the expression of those presumed
authorities, who hold positions of trust in our
institutional social
forms (Dornach, the Councils in America and so forth).
When I first
read this in Gordienko, I
realized that she was emphasizing the Truth
as the sole ideal, which is understandable given that she was
a
practicing mathematician. I even wrote in that moment in
the
margin of my copy of her book this question: What about Beauty and
Goodness?
It is my view that the latter ideals, in practice, do justify temperance with regard to how we treat each other when we find ourselves convinced of an error of thought living in the other. In terms of The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity or Freedom, we enter here the realm of moral technique - that problem which follows after we have practiced moral imagination and moral intuition. This comes down to: What do we actually say (or write or do - what is the moral art or our technique), when we are convinced our brother or sister in Anthroposophy is in error? In some places in the above book, Steiner used the term tact as an indicator of the social technique of incarnating a moral intuition.
There is an
aphorism from the
Middle-East, as follows: There are three gates to speech: Is
it true?
(truth) Is it necessary? (beauty) And, is it kind?
(goodness) Where below I have felt it necessary to concern myself with the errors of thought in
others,
I have tried to tactfully follow this advice.
Now suppose, for example, that I correctly discern that what is encouraged among the membership, by those in leadership positions, is a misleading (erroneous) path. Suppose that the general direction of the Society, in how it understands and practices Anthroposophy, is weak, lame and mostly inadequate. Suppose the practices that are encouraged cause us to miss our real tasks. Suppose that the Society got so far off the track during the 20th Century that we are not even close to truly bringing alive the New Mysteries.
Let us pause
for a moment and consider
what I mean by the above term: lame. In a nutshell it
comes down to this: Those who do not know, cannot teach what
they do
not know. If the vast majority of those in leading
anthroposophical positions do not know what lives within the
experience
that comes from truly penetrating the meaning and significance
for our
inner life of a proper study of The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity or Freedom
- of Rudolf Steiner's own Path (see
essay far below),
and, if in this sense they don't know, again as an experience, true and
exact living thinking (the New Thinking), then
they cannot teach that which can be learned in no other way.
Further, if they do not know that, then they logically
also do
not appreciate what the absence of that knowledge will mean for their comprehension of the rest of
what
Steiner gave to us.
Let us repeat
this last point, in a
slightly different way. Steiner's books on the science
of
objective philosophical introspection lead to knowledge of the inner
life of the human being that cannot be
obtained in any other way. Certainly one can travel such
paths
without these books, but to acquire the near mathematical
precision and
exactness of introspective knowledge that Steiner himself
developed
through "...introspective
observation
following the methods of natural science",
means something those who have not succeeded at this
cannot imagine or understand. There are considerable
consequences
to the thinking of any individual not self-trained in this
fashion,
which consequences will often lead to errors of thought.
The reader here
is perfectly entitled to
wonder, that if the author of this knows all that much, where
is the
evidence. Certainly not just saying things like the
above can
count for much. To the extent possible, the essays that
follow
are the evidence, are the demonstration - the product as it
were - of
the New Thinking. Ultimately, of course, the reader will
have to
form their own judgments.
Steiner gave us
what he gave out of his
having himself first achieved the goal he sets before us in The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity or Freedom
and A Theory
of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception. These are not books about some matter
that has
nothing to do with Anthroposophy or Spiritual Science.
On the
contrary, these books are the foundational heart and soul of
everything
Steiner later did in his life. They are the Key to the
Kingdom of
the New Thinking. In the absence of knowing the
experiences to
which these books point, we simply cannot truly and fully
understand, or appreciate, all the
rest.
That failure
then lames
(in different degrees) all our work since
Steiner crossed over. We stumble
around in an inner darkness of soul, that only the science of
objective
introspective philosophy can illuminate. We do not know
ourselves
as knowing doers, the first and
essential goal of spiritual development which enables it to be
scientific.
[In the essays in this book, the details of these
problems will be laid out from a number of directions and
within a
number of different contexts.]
Where this
leads is to the necessity of
our recognizing that the Shadow forces have been having their
way with
us (from inside our own souls, via the threefold
double-complex), while
we've been trying to pretend that all the opposition only
comes from
the outside. And, we also need to realize that this
state of
being is exactly where karma was meant to lead us - to a
fallen
condition. Rudolf Steiner crossed over, the Vorstand
fell into
conflict, and the various National Societies took sides and
split away
from the General Anthroposophical Society. Even though
this split
was healed in a kind of political way on the horizontal plane
of social
existence following the second Great War, it was not healed in
a
spiritual - vertical - way.
Here is
Ben-Aharon, from the forward to
his book on the Second Coming, The
Spiritual
Event of the Twentieth Century: "...those forces of
hindrance
that brought about Rudolf Steiner's premature death in the
first third
came to an outward victory in the events of the twelve years
1933-45, both
in
the Anthroposophical Society and the world at large."
[emphasis added]
Since this seemingly negative view is not being said by those who
organize
events, and run around the world giving lectures or writing
big long
books (none of which activities are socially permitted to be
publicly
and critically examined), it would appear that what I discern
seems
completely off the mark. Everyone acts as if what we are
doing is
just fine, while over here in the corner, mostly ignored,
Wendt (and
others - such as Gordienko, and Ben-Aharon) are saying things
like: Wait
a minute guys, this is
all wrong. Isn't it really possible that we are failing
our
Teacher, we are failing humanity and we are failing Christ?
Couldn't be
true, right?
Clearly people
are trying to do the right thing. Or so it seems, if
we put
the best face on it. Most of our publications are self
congratulatory, and my experience is that when you suggest
they should
be otherwise (critically honest and scientific), people get
very
defensive. And, of course, Christ does forgive us;
and our
Teacher, well he joined his karma to ours, so that must mean
something,
must it not? Then there is that famous near magical (and
fantastic and probably false) semi-consciously shared mental
picture of
the
Meaning of
the Christmas Conference we all
speak of as
if in a dream, so we can't be all bad, can we? As for
humanity...well all kinds of folks are bringing their kids to
Waldorf
Schools - that must count for something, yes?
Lets try this. Imagine Rudolf Steiner in front of you and ask him if he thinks that its all peaches and cream in the Society and Movement, nothing is wrong, everything is perfect and there is no room for improvement. If you really believe he will answer yes to this question, then don't buy or read this book.
If you know in
your heart that he'll have
to say no, its not all right, its not fine and somebody needs
to wake
up, then ask yourself: How do we know what next right thing to
do is? Maybe this book can
provide some of the answers to
that question, or if not that, then at least some better
questions.
*
*
*
Let me begin
this part of the
introduction by returning for a moment to an appreciation of
what has
been and is being done. It is entirely possible and
reasonable to
look at almost everyone working in the Society and Movement
and find a
struggling and striving human being, often one full of a great
heart,
who gives and bears much (something one can find all over the
world in
many people, not just anthroposophists).
For example,
all we have to do is to
think of the many Waldorf teachers, who work for so little for
such
long hours. Everywhere in the Society and Movement we
see much
that justifies our confidence and trust.
Yet, we are
also required to cultivate
the ability to look at ourselves as a stranger (Knowledge
of
Higher Worlds). Do we in the
Society
and Movement practice such objectivity about our own
activities?
Part of the purpose of this book is to do just that.
I may
completely fail in such an effort, but not for want of trying.
Let me conclude
by adding two
considerations to what I am certain are major matters of
spiritual
import that are not yet clearly seen by our leadership and
therefore
not brought as strongly as is necessary to our attention.
These
are in addition to the errors that arise because so few have
penetrated
to the kind of self knowledge only possible through an
objective study
of the own soul based on the science of knowing as developed
by Steiner
(A Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World
Conception, and The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity or Freedom).
The second
matter (besides the above
introspective activity and books), left in the dust heap of
our
confusions following the split in the Society, and what
followed in the
20th Century, was the Reverse
Cultus. It was not that this
was
presented to us by Steiner as an off hand remark, by the way.
It
came about this way. Almost immediately following the
Burning of
the Goetheanum, Steiner began giving a series of lectures
(starting
January 23rd, 1923) in Dornach and Stuttgart, which has been
collected
under the title Awakening
to Community.
In Lecture VI,
he takes up a significant
subject, which he begins to approach by discussing the need
for
religious renewal that was to be met through the creation of
the
Christian Community. He then paraphrases Dr.
Rittelmeyer, who had
recently said that the development of community in the
Christian
Community is potentially one of the greatest threats to the
Anthroposophical Society possible.
Steiner then
describes how a rite (and
certainly this includes the Rite of Consecration of Man that
is to be
celebrated in the Christian Community) brings down into those
present
in the Rite (cultus) a spiritual presence: "a shared
comprehensive memory
of spiritual experiences". This, he
goes on
to say, is a powerful community building force.
Steiner then
adds: "The
Anthroposophical Society
also needs just such a force to foster community within it". He then elaborates the underlying
spiritual
principles that lead to the necessity for the Society to learn
to enact
a reverse
cultus, in which spiritual presence
does not descend via the
Rite into the community, but the community learns instead to
rise up
toward spiritual presence through a
rite of its own, in the nature of
its groups
and their cultivated feeling life and qualities of
conversation.
Now an honest
(as of a stranger)
appraisal of the Life of our Society reveals that in
comparison with
the community feelings one can sometimes experience in
Christian
Community social gatherings, the Society has not achieved the
same
level of fellow-feeling. In fact, most of the goals
Steiner set
for us in his collection of letters written to the Society
members in
1924, and published as The Life,
Nature and Cultivation of Anthroposophy, have
not been achieved.
As a place
where one can find deeply felt
warm fellow-feeling, the Christian Community often succeeds
where the
Society does not, and the danger to the Society predicted by
Dr.
Rittelmeyer almost a century ago has come to pass. What
is worse,
in my view, is that the priests of the Christian Community, at
least
among their leadership, ought to have known this and
apparently have
done nothing about it. In fact, it began to greatly
disturb me
about 10 years ago, when I found more and more people in the
Society
who had never even heard of the reverse
cultus or of this most crucial
problem for
the community life of the Society.
Now this error
of thought (not
recognizing the need for the reverse
cultus) is in a very few places now
being
overcome (the Central Regional Council in American is trying,
for
example), but at the same time its significance has to be
brought into
the foreground over and over again, until we understand our
loss, and
our potential.
In addition to
the loss of the
reverse cultus, there is a further
difficulty
for which Steiner had given warnings (sorry, I can't put my
finger on a
quote at the moment, but most readers should be able
eventually to
appreciate this). This danger is the intellectualization
of the
Michaelic Cosmic Intelligence.
When Steiner
wrote and lectured,
Michaelic Cosmic Intelligence lived into the room. Where
he was,
It was. But once this Intelligence entered the minds of
his
readers and listeners, a difficulty was encountered over which
Steiner
had little control. This Living (experienced) Wisdom dies when brought into
incarnation in words, and this death
can only be overcome by the inner activity of the reader and
listener.
We have to meet what he offered in the right way, and he
spoke of
this directly and indirectly over and over again (see the
introductions
to both Occult Science
and Theosophy).
If we look
honestly back upon the work of
the 20th Century in the Society and Movement and see how it is
developed into its present form, we will not find this living
Intelligence, but mostly its lifeless intellectualized corpse.
Anthroposophy (the Wisdom of Man, which discovers how to
encounter and work with the Michaelic Cosmic Intelligence) has
become
in far too many souls mere Steinerism, a philosophy (world
view)
attributed to the authority of the Great Initiate and Genius,
Rudolf
Steiner. Over and over again, in conversations with
others (deep
sincere people) and on Waldorf websites etc. one finds
something
similar to this form of expression (here taken from an actual
Waldorf
website): Anthroposophy
is
a spiritual philosophy that reflects and speaks to the basic
deep
spiritual questions of humanity, to our basic creative needs,
to the
need to relate to the world out of a scientific attitude of
mind, and
to the need to develop a relation to the world in complete
freedom and
based on completely individual judgments and decisions.
What could be
wrong with this?
Well, its not true in a living way, although it is more
or less intellectually (materialistically) accurate. The flesh
has been
stripped away, and all we have is the bones. Recall now
what
Steiner wrote in the First Leading Thought:
"1. Anthroposophy is a
path of cognition*, to guide the
Spiritual in the human being to the Spiritual in the universe.
It
arises in man as a need of the heart, of the life of feeling;
and it
can be justified only inasmuch as it can satisfy this inner
need. He
alone can acknowledge Anthroposophy, who finds in it what he
himself in
his own inner life feels impelled to seek. Hence only
they can be
anthroposophists who feel certain questions on the nature of
man and
the universe as an elemental need of life, just as one feels
hunger and
thirst."
*[As previously noted, this is generally translated as knowledge, but it appears that the better English word for the German word Erkentnis or Erkennen is cognition.]
The two quotes
above almost seem the same
don't they? But the fact is instead of quoting what
Steiner
himself wrote, the mind of the writer on the Waldorf website
intellectualized the meanings, and lacking a connection to his
own
feelings on this matter, then subtly and thoughtlessly took
away the
heart of it, probably completely unconsciously and in
connection with
how the corpse of this once Living Wisdom is taught
among us
today.
Like any error
of thought, the whole
misstep starts right at the beginning, where "Anthroposophy is a
path of
cognition..." becomes "Anthroposophy is a
spiritual
philosophy...". Something that
I do out of
my will and feelings and needs (a path I walk), has become, as a consequence of the
intellectualization, a mere point of view - something that I study in books and
learn as a content (a spiritual philosophy).
The core
difficulty is rooted (as the
reader now should understand) in the absence of an
appreciation in
practice of The Philosophy of Spiritual
Activity or Freedom. For example, a scientific introspective
life
comes to recognize that there is a considerable difference
among those
activities of spirit that lead in the soul to such states as:
belief, understanding and knowledge. In the
essay below: Anthroposophy
and
the Russian Soul, I go into a number
of
details as regards this problem.
The consequence
of this
intellectualization of the once Living Michaelic Cosmic Wisdom
has led
to the displacement of the Living element of this stream of
Wisdom,
away from the Society and Movement (what Ben-Aharon, in his
remarkable
Imagination of the Second Coming: The
Spiritual
Event of the 20th Century, calls
the conscious Michael Community to what Ben-Aharon calls there
the
unconscious Michael Community). When I write in
the essays
below on such themes as Civil Society, the Hopi Prophecy and
the
Bioneers, it is this displacement to which I am referring.
The
Anthroposophical Society and
Movement, having lost a connection to The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity or Freedom and the reverse
cultus, failed to find their own way
to the
Living Spirit and thus to true Michaelic Cosmic Intelligence.
Since the movement among humanity of forces of the
Living Spirit
is not defeated by our failures, this wind
or
breath of [holy] spirit (see the Gospel of John) moved
elsewhere.
Mainly It abandoned the
institutional
structures of the Society and Movement where the Living Wisdom
had been
intellectualized, and entered into humanity at the level of
the social
commons, which is why we can still sense Its Presence in our own anthroposophical communities, not
from the
top down, but rather from the social below upward (a general
trend in
all social forms in the present, by the way, not just the
Society).
We actually come into contact with It when we participate as individuals in what the larger society is doing in such activities as the environmental movement or in political struggles (see the work of Ben-Aharon and Perlas). For details, read Ben-Aharon's book: America's Global Responsibility: individualization, initiation and threefolding.
How do we once
more become a truly
conscious Michaelic Community on the Earth, carrying forward
the tasks
set before us by our teacher, Rudolf Steiner? How do we
overcome
the intellectualization of the Michaelic Cosmic Intelligence
(the
reduction of acts of will in the soul, to the mere study of
Steiner
books)? We do this through re-awakening interest in the
New
Thinking (The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity or Freedom) and the New Mysteries (the reverse
cultus). Hopefully this book
will also
help point the way.
To come at this
from a slightly different
direction, it can also be pointed out that most of Steiner's
books and
lectures (except when he could lecture in England) had to be
put in the
language of the Intellectual Soul. His basic
European
audiences were by education and cultural influences not yet in
the
Consciousness Soul, and as a consequence Steiner found it
necessary to
use certain forms of language and to often speak indirectly or
metaphorically as his listeners lacked the capacity (at that
time) to
observe the needed soul phenomena of the Consciousness Soul.
This book you
hold in your hand, dear
reader, is for example written entirely in the language of the
Consciousness Soul, which in fact in many instances had to be
invented
in order to express Consciousness Soul experiences (see The
Meaning
of....for example). This
is why there will be for some readers an apparent disconnect
between
what Steiner said and what is said here. This is not a
disconnect
at the level of the truth, however, but entirely a consequence
of the
fact that only now is it possible to write so openly
concerning that
which Steiner had to approach indirectly and often with a
great deal of
circumlocution.
*
Lets wind up
this discussion in the
introduction with a picture of the situation in America with
respect to
Anthroposophy.
America is a
battleground of the spirit.
It is where there is more individualism presently than
anywhere
else on the planet. This makes possible both Light (the
Life
Forces of Christ entering through the thinking of the heart) and
Darkness (the Shadow forces out of the threefold
double-complex).
Both will be present, in spite of the New Age dream of
an Age of
Light.
The actual
battleground is within the soul and only indirectly in the outer world.
And, at this time only Anthroposophy truly
understands this
(there are a few whispers out there, but they could use our
support).
In America,
from the Cultures of the
East, comes mostly decadent and luciferic spirit ways, wearing
the
seductive guise of the mysterious (thus all the more
lucifericly
attractive) satori or sudden enlightenment. From the
Culture of
the Center, via scientific materialism, comes the ahrimanic to
join
with the natural materialism of the youthful American culture.
But also from the Center comes an Ideal of the new
Life of
Christ in the New Thinking and in the community work of the
reverse
cultus (the New Mysteries).
At the same
time, the American Soul has
unique (nowhere else in the world) forces, and these must be
awakened
and applied within the soul - in the battleground between latent
and
natural Christ forces of the heart (the true American Spirit)
and the
mostly decadent spiritual life of the Cultural East, which has
been
coupled to the excesses of the Ahrimanic Deception
(materialism) given
birth in the Cultural Center at the heights of Western
Civilization in
the 19th Century.
The American
Soul stands as a mediating
soul-space between a luciferic ungrounded spirituality
of the
East, and the ahrimanically rigid belief in scientific
materialism born
in the Center. While the Society and Movement are
focused on the
Center, in a social-spiritual sense this Center failed (in the
same way
an overstressed beam fails) during the crisis events in the
20th
Century. Recall Ben-Aharon above: The
Spiritual
Event of the Twentieth Century: "...those forces of
hindrance
that brought about Rudolf Steiner's premature death in the
first third
came to an outward victory in the events of the twelve years
1933-45, both
in
the Anthroposophical Society and the world at large."
[emphasis added]
This book seeks
to illuminate that
battleground of the American soul-space, and the special role
Anthroposophy can play in its future resolution. In
particular,
we have to begin with the Challenge presented by the fact
of Ahriman's actual incarnation in America, in the present. For out of this incarnation the battle
has now
become fully joined, and as in much else the membership of the
Society
and Movement are here far too asleep.
I noted above
how the Spiritual World's
chosen displacement of the Michaelic Cosmic Intelligence meant
that It became a
spirit breath weaving mostly among the
awakening social commons (the millions* of souls Steiner is
said by
some to have hoped would be anthroposophists by the end of the
20th
Century - alas a dream that was apparently not to be).
Nevertheless, it is in this awakening social commons
that
instinctive consciousness soul processes have burst forth
within our
declining civilization among Civil Society, the environmental
movement
and so forth.
*[see the essay
below: The
Natural Transformation of
Anthroposophical Society in America,
for a
discussion of the so-called Michaelic millions]
Many
anthroposophists find a kinship with
these social gestures. In them, for example, has begun
the
opposition to Ahriman's incarnation so necessary at this time.
Yet, what about the Anthroposophical Movement and
Society?
Is it to do something different than that which is
happening in Civil Society?
Yes!
We hold the
keys to the kingdom of the
New Thinking (in the Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity) and the New
Mysteries
(in the form of the reverse
cultus), matters never before
possible on the
Earth. While these are appearing instinctively
everywhere today,
only anthroposophists have been given (at this time, if we
don't catch
the bus now it is gone!) the opportunity to foster in the
School and
Society a scientific spiritual life. At present, the
main thrusts
of the spiritual life in the planetary culture are unable
(again, in
the moment) to connect to the true nature of the Sun
Intelligence
living inside Natural Science. If you will recall from
Steiner's
biographical statements, he was only able to enter the Sun
Sphere of
the Spiritual World after he had brought deeply into his soul the real
impulses
underlying the scientific enterprise.
If we, as
anthroposophists, are unable to
make the core of our practices scientific, we will leave the
greatest
of Steiner's gifts orphaned. He said, as we all know,
that the
future would know him more for The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity or Freedom, than any other deed. Why?
Because, in
this book of Steiner's is the
process by which a human being becomes freely awake as a knowing doer of the spirit in a scientific way. If we drop this ball, the present may
lose
sight of it, which then means the future will have to wait for
another
time, perhaps even another age, to discover this sublime
treasure.
Rudolf Steiner's greatest legacy is in our hands.
What are
we going to do?
The Challenge
American
Anthroposophy begins to come to
maturity in the situation of a given place and a given time.
The
dominant
characteristic of this time, outwardly,
is the Incarnation of Ahriman
[A
brief introduction to the neophyte:
For some
it will come as a strange surprise (perhaps quite off putting)
to find
this book begin with the following discussion concerning the
present
day incarnation of a spiritual Being of whom they have perhaps
never
heard anything. Ahriman is apparently first known to
outward
history as a figure in Persian religious myths. Rudolf
Steiner
discussed this Being in great detail, and represented both
human nature
and the general structure of the social world as being
threefold in its
most universal all-human characteristics. As represented
artistically in Steiner's sculpture: the Representative of
Humanity, we
find above was Lucifer, who stood between the human being and
his
experience of the divine spiritual worlds. Below was
Ahriman, who
stood between the human being and his experience of the world
of the
senses. In the Middle, as the balancing gesture, stood
Christ as
the Representative of Humanity (what our true higher nature is
to
become, as St. Paul had noted: Not I, but Christ in
me).
This arrangement should be viewed as something not easy
to
understand and as something that
needs to
be approached carefully and without succumbing to any
temptations to
sensationalize or exaggerate the real nature of Mystery of
Evil, the
main structural Mystery surrounding humanity in the
present.
This much
should be recognized. The
social world consists of two parts, the first of which is an
outer
structural aspect - a Stage Setting, the maya of nature,
history
and social-political facts and processes. Here in this outside structure Ahriman is a main feature. More
essential is the inwardness, what is not
visible to the senses. All our outer
actions (and inner actions) have a consequence for our soul
and spirit.
This inwardness is not maya, but truth. But to
arrive at
truth requires a rite
of
passage. The governor of this
rite of
passage is Lucifer. As we
progress in inner development,
we come to learn that the real essential aspect is Christ.
He is
the predominant feature of the truth of the inner world
(Lucifer
commands an inner world of temptation and illusion, while
Christ is the Way, the Truth and the
Life - what receives our approach (the Way), in the middle
becomes the
means (the Truth) leading us through this rite of passage to
its
culmination (the Life).).
As the essay
below progresses, certain
facts about this structural Mystery will be illuminated, and
other
related facts will come forward as the reader gets deeper into
the rest
of this book. The neophyte, who wants to go further into
this
Mystery - particularly what is called: the opponents, may want eventually to read Steiner's works on
the
subject of Lucifer and Ahriman very carefully.]
Outrageous Genius -
Discovering the in-the-Present
Incarnation of Ahriman in America through the Signs of the
Times
first, some
necessary preliminary considerations
Honoring the
Teacher and the Teaching
"And, just as there
was an incarnation of Lucifer in the
flesh, and as there was an incarnation of Christ in the flesh,
so will
there be, before
even
a part
of the third post-Christian millennium will have passed, an actual
incarnation of
Ahriman in the West: Ahriman in the flesh."
[emphasis added] R.S. lecture, 1 November, 1919
"The thing that will
matter, though, will be for people in
the age of Ahriman to know that John William Smith* is only
what
appears before them outwardly, and that inwardly Ahriman is
there; they
must
know what is happening and not succumb to any deception in the
drowsiness of their illusions." [emphasis
added] R. S. 28
December 1919 [*a name Steiner made up]
The first and
essential thing to realize
is that in thinking about the Incarnation of the near-god
Ahriman, as a
human being on the cusp of the change from the 2nd Millennium
to the
3rd, we must not conceive of this as an incarnation of Evil.
What
Rudolf Steiner has called the "opponents"
play a necessary and
ordained role in the Creation. They are the density and
weight we
are to meet and learn to carry (in both the inward heavenly
realm as
well as the outward earthly realm), otherwise our own
incarnations
would be too easy, and we would never really learn anything.
Macro Evil
(the opponents) are different from the Beast from the Abyss, or collective and conscious micro (human) evil.
The tempters and confusers tempt and confuse, they sow
seeds of
fear and doubt and judgment and cynicism, but they do
not bring
true evil into the social world. We
do that when we give into their
urgings,
instead of the wise (though challenging and often difficult)
promptings
of our own hearts. The more consciously we choose the
dark, the
more the Beast
from the Abyss has free play in
human social
existence. The more we consciously seek and choose the
Good, the
more evolution moves forward in a balanced and harmonious
direction.
"...the very purpose
of our Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch is
that man should become increasingly conscious of what takes
effect
through
him in
earthly
existence." [emphasis added] R.S.
Lucifer and
Ahriman, lecture II, 2 November 1919.
Some
anthroposophists create pictures
within their inwardness, in which they view the opponents as
more or
less extremely powerful, and thereby capable of overwhelming
humanity
(especially in connection with the hardly spoken of Soradt -
the Sun
Demon - and the Asuras). Simple logic refutes such an
assumption,
for if these Beings had the power some anthroposophists
believe they
have, progressive evolution would already be over. The
fact is
they are constrained, principally through the office of the
Divine
Mother, whose golden realm is found on the other side of the
Eight
Inner Spheres of the Earth (the Spheres of the Fallen
Hierarchies).
As we more and more become able to do research into the
Feminine
Mysteries (something Steiner could only hint at in order not
to get
caught up in the web of the Mary Cult of European
Catholicism), we will
discover that there is not only a male trinity (Father, Son
and Holy
Spirit), but also a feminine trinity (Mother, Daughter and
Holy Soul).
Steiner could only point out to us a few facts about
this golden
realm, and also the significance of
the return of the
Imagination (the Holy Sophia) and as well the significance of
Anthroposophia. Some of the best present-day research on
the
Divine Mother can be found in Tomberg's Meditations
on
the
Tarot, in the 11th Arcanum: Force.
It
is through Hell to the realm of the
Holy Mother
(the Eight Inner Spheres of the Earth) that Christ descended
on the
Saturday following His crucifixion, whereby he obtained the
forces
necessary for resurrection. [See Proverbs viii, 22-30
for some
hints.]
More detail
will be developed on this
problem in my essay below: The Mystery of Macro and Micro Evil: the
relationship of
the Shadow (the three-fold double-complex) to the American
Soul, wherein knowledge of the
Shadow obtained after 35 years
of introspection will be described. This much can be
said
presently: Ahriman and Lucifer enter directly into human
affairs through
us - through our giving into the
Shadow, the three-fold
double-complex. We are the gate by which the effects of
the
opponents enter the world social order. In a like
fashion, it is
also only through
us that Christ (and the Divine
Mother - but
that is, as noted above, a whole other theme) can directly
enter into
the social order.* The Fifth Cultural Epoch (the Age of
the
Consciousness Soul) is the era in which greater and greater
aspects for
the responsibility for earthly social affairs falls to human
beings.
*[Obviously,
both Christ and the Divine
Mother appear sometimes to make a physical contact with
individuals in
various forms. This is one of the means through which
they
influence a particular time, but still this is always done
with great
respect for human freedom, and still keeps to the same rule:
the
influence enters the social world through us. The
recipient of such effects is not made into
a passive tool in any sense of that word.]
Ahriman in
reality is a gift to humanity,
a two-edged gift to be sure, but a real treasure. His
very
onesidedness teaches us, and this is teaching we need to face
squarely,
for it not only teaches us about ourselves, but also about an
essential
aspect of the real nature of the Creation. We all
contain within
our souls the ahrimanic potential, the possibility to be
calculatingly
cold and heartless, and if we are as brutally self honest as
our
conscience would encourage, we have all made and will make
judgments
that have such a quality - that are, from a human perspective,
callous
and indifferent.
Do we not walk
through the world turning
a blind eye away from all manner of suffering and pain, fully
aware
that we do this in order to preserve our self interest, our
comfort and
our far easier lives?
To fill out
this picture, think on
Nature. In tooth and claw, in flood and earthquake, in
all that
seems as powers of death and radical sudden change, we see in
the
processes of Nature what appears as an absence of either
compassion or
love. The Natural World (as against the Social World*)
is a world
of profound and complicated laws, which seem in their results
to have
not at all the same consciousness that one human being might
bear, out
of compassion and love, toward another. In this
indifferent power
of Nature and nature's lawfulness, lives Ahriman as he
manifests as an
aspect of the sense world.
*[From another
point of view this
distinction, separating the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms
from the
human kingdom, does not work. But we have different
purposes
here, if the reader will accept that reality (as Steiner
himself
pointed out) is frequently paradoxical. Our bodies are
of this
Nature, but our Spirit, in its freedom, stands outside those
rules.
See Owen Barfield's remarkable book Worlds
Apart to explore some of the logical
problems
here in a deeper way.]
Yes, Nature (as
meant here) contains
beauty - it is a divine work of art, but in its processes and
laws it
is basically finished, fixed and complete. It is
essentially
done. That human beings may in the future have the
possibility of
lifting Nature up out of this fixed and finished condition is
a whole
other story. That Anthroposophy can yet teach humanity
mysteries
of Nature unimagined by today's mankind is a necessary step in
laying
the groundwork for this lifting up. Humanity must learn
to truly
see, and it is a mission of Anthroposophy to enable this
seeing.
All the same, Nature is Created (past tense), in which
the last
act was the arising of thought. "Thought is the last member of a series of
processes by which Nature is formed"
[emphasis added] R.S. A Theory
of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception. This is why the path of Anthroposophy is
a path
of cognition. To see the real secrets of Nature requires
the
metamorphosis of thinking, a task not as well advanced as it
should be
in anthroposophical culture (more later). What we
haven't truly
understood in practice, we cannot teach.
Our
social-political world has almost
completely emancipated itself from Nature. As we more
and more
developed, we more and more separated away from Nature, so
that today
the Social World is a world essentially all of its own, in
which
callous indifference and compassion and love operate along side each
other.
The Social World has out of instinct come to sit astride
the
Natural World, using it for our egoistic benefit. We can
now
choose whether to continue that course, whether to continue to
embody dominion
over or to transform and
metamorphose that
into communion
with (see my book the
Way of
the Fool). We can go to sleep and
let raw
animality (callous indifference and appetite) rule us (instead
of us
ruling it), or we can wake up.
Ahriman in
entering into our world
confronts other powers than those which would be normal to his
realm -
his usual place in the Creation. As a human
being he now enters this world of
choice, not
of essentially fixed processes and laws.
Part of what
bothers us, and will bother
us about this Cosmic Being, now to be seen as a human
individual, is
not how much he has done that we see as wrong, but how much he
is just
like a certain part of us. For example, many people have
and will
in the future like and admire this individual. Even so,
as a
human being, to the extent that he does evil, he does it as a
human
being. Elements of his cosmic powers are restrained by
being
incarnated, just as are ours.
In addition,
recall that Rudolf Steiner
explained how our antipathy to another really acquires its
strength and
passion from the fact that we semi-consciously know just how
much we
ourselves are like that which we observe in others as
failings.
Ahriman incarnate is a mirror to a common human failing,
a
failing to which everyone living today in the world is prone.
If
we want to avoid this, we must strive to know the true nature
of our
heart, and at the higher levels of inner development, think
our way to
an experience of the Ethereal Christ. This requires us
to work
properly and consciously at soul metamorphosis, and not just
whine and
complain about how awful the world is, and about how much
everyone but
us is wrong, evil and dumb.
It is also
important to realize that
Ahriman incarnates in a specific place and time in order to
accomplish
something as a more or less ordinary human being (with
extraordinary
intelligence - one-sided spirit-thinking) he can only achieve
at this
specific place and time. Outside the social world of
incarnate
human beings, the cosmic power Ahriman can only do certain
limited
things, and these mostly indirectly through our Shadow (the
three-fold
double-complex). Inside
the
Social World, when with us as a human being, he can do
directly
things he was unable to do before.
All the same,
to act directly on the
world, as a member of the social order, he must still
surrender some of
his capacities - some of his genius, that is operate as a
extremely
gifted human being, not as a nearly divine power incarnate
(what in
ancient times might have been called an avatar).
In this,
Ahriman's teaching is harsh - it
is not for wimps, and his influence on our social existence is
necessarily profound, regardless of how dark we may be tempted
to seek
to portray it. A cosmic power is on the earth living as
a human
being, and this is a power that can only be called Outrageous
Genius.
Ahriman also belongs to America (the true West), in the same way Lucifer belonged to the East and Christ to the Center. American anthroposophists need to recognize that he is ours. Our materialistic society, mostly of our own making through our choices in terms of comfort and appetites, is ahrimanic because we opened the door to his influence and have benefited from it. For example, we have computers and all that goes with this electronic world, because of him. The genius of cold heartless calculation provides many gifts, and we have had to become awash in it - buried up to our necks in it - so that we will soon be forced to decide whether or not we really want it to rule us, or us to rule it.
Our task then
in coming to knowledge of
this power is to recognize a part of ourselves in its nature,
and to
also understand how fine and exact is the shape this power
seeks to
give to our social life. This shape, crafted by
outrageous
genius, can tell us a great deal. In so doing it reveals
to us,
we who would foster the good - that is we who would be
balanced instead
of so extremely one-sided - just what we need to do and how we
need to
act in the social world to bring into that world just the
healing that
is needed. Ahriman would overbalance the world in a
certain
direction, and it will be up to that portion of humanity,
willing to be
awake to him consciously, or instinctively, to strive to
restore this
balance.
In a peculiar
sense, he also points
directly at the true Second Coming, as began in its initial
ethereal
world dynamics in the years 1933 to 1945, by pointing so
strongly away
from it. He (Ahriman) comes to distract us, to move us
away from
our true heart, and this is his temptation - to cause us to
loose
ourselves in the world of the senses, and never look within at
the own
soul and discover what lies there, for as Christ told us in
Luke: "the
kingdom of heaven is
within you". Ahriman
would have
us be so absorbed in the Stage Setting, that we never notice
that the
real battlefield is within - that is: It
is
within this inner battlefield of soul that we as individuals
act
most powerfully as creative authors in the Play.
Yet, by this
very distraction and its
strength, he points the other way. He speaks into our
lives and
says to us: go here, for you will like it, for all your lower
impulses
will find there their satisfaction. He wants to pull us
down into
too much self-gratifying gravitas. Even the excess of
seriousness
in anthroposophical circles tends to have this ahrimanic
character.
We have to engender the counter-levity out of our
selves.
We have to overcome the cold-hearted and calculating
materializing lower senses tendency in our soul that otherwise
remains
sub-conscious, and replace that with the ethereal forces of
consciously
moralized thought. Only our wills can do this, and we
have
incarnated just in this time precisely to learn this lesson
and to
accomplish this task, which Rudolf Steiner has called: the
unfolding of
the Consciousness Soul.
Moreover, if we
learn to perceive the
real dynamics of social existence correctly, we will see that
already,
in spite of Ahriman's incarnate activities, we have been
instinctively
engaged in much that is already transforming the worst that he
would
accomplish were we not to learn to understand his teaching.
We are learning even
now from this teaching how to make
its
countering healing gesture. Everywhere there is a
waking
up, and now it is time for Anthroposophy to step forward and
find a way
to serve the world's hunger to wake up all the way.
However,
first we need to rouse ourselves by facing the mirrored shadow
of our
worst qualities as these manifest not just in American and
World
Culture, but more importantly, as an absolutely necessary
crucial first
step, in American (and world-wide) Anthroposophical Culture.
Were we simply
to look at the outer
culture, without first looking inwardly and squarely at
ourselves, we
will fail utterly. We must meet the Shadow in ourselves
or we
will be nothing but the hypocrites to which Christ referred
when he
said in Matthew 23: 25-28:
"Woe to you
canon-lawyers and Pharisees, you fakes, for
cleaning off the rim of your cup and saucer while on the
inside you're
bursting with greed and wild appetites. Blind Pharisee,
wash out
the inside of the cup and saucer first, if you want the
outside to end
up clean! Woe to you canon-lawyers and Pharisees, you
fakes, for
being like dusty monuments that look pretty on the outside but
on the
inside are full of the bones of corpses and all kinds of rot.
You
likewise from the outside appear to the world to be decent,
but inside
you're full of hypocrisy and ways around the law".
It is the
thesis of this essay then that
Ahriman incarnated in the West in the latter part of the 20th
Century,
and that his activity as an incarnated human being can be
found in
various phenomena of social existence. He leaves/left a
trail, as
it were, in events that mark his passage, and this paper means
to
discover that trail, and mark that passage, so that we know
who he
is/was and what he did, and can then begin to counter-balance
this
influence. Not erase it, or eliminate it, but
consciously
counter-balance it. Moreover, we must start to look also
at its
examples that are nearest at hand in our Society and Movement
(a great
deal in the collection of essays that follows does this).
We look
outwardly to understand it, and then inwardly to correct it;
for we
have nothing to teach anyone about this if we have not first
understood
it, and mastered it within ourselves and within our own
circles.
Anthroposophists are faced in this trial - of coming awake to Ahriman's Incarnation - by the problem of the mote and the beam on a very large scale (See Matthew: Chapters 5-7).
Those wanting
to consider more details,
as regards the indications of Rudolf Steiner, are encouraged
to read
and ponder the essay in the appendix to the book: The
Future
is Now: Anthroposophy at the New Millennium,
which appendix was called: When did Rudolf Steiner Expect the
Incarnation of
Ahriman? by Hans-Peter van Manen.
This
is, of course, in addition to the obvious books Steiner wrote
specifically on Lucifer and Ahriman.
In order to
fully appreciate this
incarnation of a near-god, we have to have a proper inner
picture of
modern existence - to learn to perceive that Earth Events also
have
Cosmic Meaning. What can seem to some, to be merely
historical
confusion and social evil, has to be perceived by the
anthroposophical
living picture thinking as Divine Drama, in which certain
unusual
Actors enter Stage Left, cross the Stage, and leaving behind
their
Effects exit Stage Right. I use the term Actors, because
Ahriman
does not incarnate alone - many others are drawn to this place
and time
precisely because of the unique characteristics Ahriman has
stamped
upon it.
We also need to
ask good questions about
where to look. Do we look in the Cultural Sphere that
is:
Religion, Art or Science, or in the Economic Sphere
(Production,
Distribution and Consumption), or in the Life of Rights
(State, Media,
People)? Where would Ahriman work?
I am going to suggest the Life of Rights, because if we read Steiner's The Inner Aspect of the Social Question, we will come upon the understanding that while the Cultural Sphere and the Economic Sphere have spiritual world counterparts, the Life of Rights is completely Earthly. It is our Earthly existence to which Ahriman wishes to bind us (while Lucifer would take us to a world of unearthly and illusory spirit). Nonetheless, nothing here should be taken to confine the reader to coming to a different understanding.
Why the Life of
Rights?
Humanity now
possesses considerable
freedom with respect to the happenings in the human social
life of the
Earth, as well as with regard to our relationship to the
natural world.
We can build bombs that we believe make a small sun of death
inside a
city. We can alter biological life in ways we can't
predict out
of an almost cultivated arrogant ignorance (callous
indifference).
We can consciously spread horrible diseases, perhaps
killing all
human life, all animal life, all plant life.
We can also
control the economy by the
hidden secret levers behind the issuance and management of
currencies,
and then using the power that this concentrated wealth can
buy, the
holders of these hidden levers subvert politicians and media
outlets so
as to hold great temporal power in a few hands, which hands
cannot be
challenged or often even named. A secret cabal tries to
rule
mankind, and seems to direct through money (stones into bread) most of the scientific research of our great
industries. All this inside a world view dominated by
ideas and
concepts that make little or no room for the reality of
Spirit.
All to what end?
At this
climatic point in world history,
one Nation State is behaving as if it is the main center of
political,
economic and technological power - the United States of
America.
The entire social and natural spheres of earth existence
are
spread out before this power like live prey waiting to be
devoured
(Americans literally consume far far more than a fair share of
the
world's wealth). Since the United States Government is a
nexus of
these powers, those who seek to rule from out of the economic
and
financial circles still must work through the Life of
Rights.
If then someone
were to be inside this
nexus of power conduits, they would be able to sit astride all
those
flowing streams of power running from the economic, and the
cultural
(as in that which is controlled by corporations - television
and movies
etc. and also the dangerous oversight of the State in
education) in and
through the Life of Rights - the middle Sphere of the emerging
Threefold Social Organism.
Recognize also
that of the threefold
nature of the Life of Rights (State, Media, People - see my
essay Waking
the Sleeping Giant:
the Mission of Anthroposophy in America http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/wkslg.html),
these
streams of power are currently dominated by the State alone.
We could place
then Ahriman's human
incarnation right inside the current Bush II Administration
and not be
far off the mark in our efforts to see if some kind of
heartless
calculating force is/was radiating from there outwards into
the
political life of the United States, tilting it and the world
in
certain directions. We should also expect that Ahriman
will not
incarnate alone, but will bring with him (or along side him)
those who
have some karma to work out with respect to such Genius.
His cold
calculating genius does not need to be perceived as just
localized in
him, but needs to be seen as distributed -
as spread out
among many many individualities around or near him (and also
throughout
the world).
We also need to
recognize that there will
be those intimately within these circles (although more will
be
outside), who oppose him and these tendencies. Christ is
the Lord
of Karma, and through His Art as the arranger of the
relationships of
all human biographies, He has allowed in the circles around
Ahriman not
merely his closest allies, but also those who have the
remarkable
strength needed to thwart much that he would otherwise like to
achieve.
Michaelic warriors will be right next to those who have
chosen to
be the Dragon's earthly spawn.
Moreover,
Ahriman has no need to hold
directly any reins of temporal power, for the use of such
power is not
his genius. His genius is to see how number
relationships can be
gripped and thus give an excessive strength of fixed-like
order to the
normal living and fluid nature of social existence. He
knows
better than anyone, human or divine, what power lives in
number, and
earthly temporal power has no attraction to him at all.
second, a
presentation of the relevant context in the form of a
contemplation on
the social organism
The Wise
Earth* as Counter-force to Ahriman's Incarnation
*c.f. Paul
Hawken's http://wiseearth.org/
We need now to
revisit the above themes,
but from an even higher and more picture-like level. It
is
important for the reader to realize that our conventional
conceptual
frame of reference as regards political-social themes, in
particular
the Life of Rights, does not adequately take account of the
related
spiritual reality. To speak or think of the
political-social
using the same terminology as conventional media is to
"materialize"
our mental pictures, concepts and ideas. In this next
section I
will endeavor to help the reader overcome these habits of
mind.
First, we
should step back a little, and
see if we can see earthly events in the more mythic or
imaginative
form. Events in the social organism are also a story, or
perhaps
better said a Cosmic Tale as it were. Just like nature speaks
in its
appearances, so does the logos nature of Christ speak into
social
events, which He artistically arranges through His role as
Lord of
Karma (see my essays below: The Meaning of Earth Existence in the
Age of the
Consciousness Soul; and, The Methodology
Necessary for
a New Social Science).
Picture the surface of the Earth sphere, that narrow spherical physical band in which unfolds all the visible phenomena of human lives and cultures. Literally, dear reader, consciously form this picture of a huge spherical band, perhaps only twenty miles in height, that at its upper limits is airless space (beyond which we cannot breath), and at its lower limit solid near impenetrable rock. Six billion plus people spread over the surface of the Earth, all held dear by the Divine Mystery. Waves of change move through this sphere of social existence, which in the 20th Century became truly global economically, at the same time it became more self-aware globally (via the Internet). In fact, if we think away the mental pictures we have of this world that are derived from the senses, and begin to substitute more imaginative, more fluid and dynamic pictures of the social world as the interplay of downward and upward flowing will forces of Cosmic Beings, in which the human being moves through fields* of thinking, feeling and willing born in the hierarchies, we will come closer to the truth. The apparently material earth sphere, in which the social world seems to have emancipated itself from Nature, is in fact a nexus of dynamic and inter penetrating cosmic spiritual activity. Rudolf Steiner gave us a very necessary picture of this activity, when he said that "man was the religion of the Gods".
There is a reason so much activity is directed from the Cosmic
Spiritual Heights and from the Earthly Spiritual Depths, at
this in
between center - at this narrow
material-like spherical band
where human beings unfold their biographies. The
Hierarchies
conceive of us as their religion, because inside us, in the
i-AM, that
is the human spirit, exists something that can't be found
anywhere
else. Rudolf Steiner wrote of this in his youth, in A
Theory
of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception:
"Man is not behaving
in accordance with the purposes of
the Guiding Power of the world when he investigates one or
another of
His commandments, but when he behaves in accordance with his
own
insight. For
in him
the Guiding Power of the world manifests Himself. He does not
live as
Will somewhere outside of man; He has renounced his own will
in order
that all might depend upon the will of man."
[emphasis added]
*[See the
lessons of the First Class of
the School of Spiritual Science.]
We are the father and mother of
all human action.
Within the
consciousness of these many
billions of human beings, whose true mystery we are hardly
ready to
acknowledge, exists struggles, which we call in general the
Evolution
of Consciousness. In the current phase of this
evolution, which
we call the time of the Consciousness Soul, the I seeks to
awake in the
encounter with other I's. Within the soul, moral challenges
appear out
of these encounters, as each biography confronts its necessary
karma
and destiny. First, as if radiating outward in waves
from the
Western Democracies (where individualism is most fully
developing),
while at the same time appearing homeopathically in smaller
communities
world-wide, the Consciousness Soul begins its unfolding.
From out
of the totality of the invisible inner world of humanity the I
faces
both outer and inner challenges (for the most part lost from
the
insight of our thinking in an inner darkness of coagulated
concepts,
such as rigid and arid religious beliefs, or a spiritless
materialistic
natural science, or even to the Anthroposophical Society and
Movement
via the intellectualization during the 20th Century of the
Michaelic
Cosmic Intelligence).
Meanwhile,
unknown to most, the Christ
works in
between. He is able to work in
between because having
arranged our karma - our integrated and finely
interrelated
biographies - to the extent that our social relationships are
informed
with moral qualities (even the most tentative impulses of the
heart),
these moral acts in the Epoch of the Consciousness Soul also
amount to
an encounter with the Eternal. In that we seek the Good,
and draw
even a weak tea intuition of it into our social relationships,
Christ
can be present precisely because of that qualitative vertical
inner
gesture we make in our souls in order to seek knowledge of the
Good in
the dramas of the moral challenges in modern life. (For every one step in
spiritual development, we must take three steps in character -
moral -
development)
In the outer
stage setting, which we
believe we know through our materialized conceptions of
present world
history, itself a kind of polar opposite to the inner world of
spiritual awakening and moral challenge, gestures of change
seek to
warp the slowly unfolding threefold social organism to their
own uses
and needs. A Dark Prince of the World seeks to dominate
the
Stage, while the Lord (Artist) of Karma weaves the biographies
into a
musical-like harmony of inner conscious spirit evolution.
The I,
under the influence of Christ, tends to become We. While
we,
under the influence of Ahriman, are pushed to remain only I.
[The
Rastafarians - a mostly now Jamaica based religious impulse -
speaks
interesting enough of the idea of I 'n I - we - as something different from the idea of I and you. The idea of I and you
comes from the devil,
according to their instinctive wisdom, while the truth is that
we are
both I's - that is we are the same, "I 'n I".]
Ahriman divides
communities into smaller
and smaller groups, ultimately to become isolated I's.
Christ
unifies I's into communities through His in between support of the healing resolution of our karmic
moral
challenges.
Let us look for
a moment closer at the
threefolding of the social organism of the world social order.
Many in
anthroposophical circles will
tend to believe threefolding is something we have to create
and is not
the present condition of the social world. This is
partially
true, but at the same time we need to recognize that the
dynamics of
social life have been active in the history of civilizations
for
thousands of years, and the slow evolution of the social
organism has
been set on a progressive course for a long time. For
example, in
the third cultural age the Cultural Sphere (the ancient
Mysteries)
ruled the social order. In the fourth cultural age, a
Rights
Sphere impulse was added at the foundations of Greek and Roman
civilization in the idea of the State on the one hand and of
the
Citizen on the other. As the fifth cultural age emerged
from the
fourth, the rights life itself threefolded (State, Media,
People - or
citizen), just as the cultural life had already threefolded
into
Science, Art, and Religion. At the same time that the
on-looker
consciousness appears (as did the deepest aspects of the
Ahrimanic
Deception, namely materialism in all its aspects), so began
the birth
time of the economic life, which now struggles to
differentiate into an
inner threefolding of producers, distributors and consumers.
Clearly we live
in a time when the
concept of the threefold social organism had barely begun to
be present
and was at the same time never more needed. Threefolding
manifests itself instinctively, but if we are to properly
birth it in a
healthy social way, we have to know the Idea of it
consciously. as well
as choose to embrace it consciously. Here again is
a
teaching task which anthroposophists may fail entirely to
bring into
our shared social life.
With Ahriman's
incarnation, powerful
dividing forces entered into the nature of the Stage Setting -
the
stream of historical events and its structurally embryonic
threefold
relationships. America (as a political power ruled by an
essentially unelected elite) under this influence isolated
itself on
the world Stage, taking the attitude that it could stand alone
(Ahriman's attitude). Within America, groups were set
against
groups, communities against communities. Hate and
mistrust was
fostered, for to some at least this was seen as an advantage.
This we know from the News, but other impulses were
simultaneously at work.
At the same time that this isolating gesture pushed against the instincts of the human spirit for community, the instinctively developing consciousness soul produced its counter-gesture. People did not really want separation, and felt in their hearts the social poverty of this tendency. As this situation ripened, it brought with it a certain developments in technology, which also contained both potentials - one for isolation and one for community building. This was woven into the the whole world's social fabric - a means of connecting across previously disconnecting boundaries. Someone in China could now meet and work with someone in Sweden, instantly in the moment.
Out of the
earth, human intelligence,
guided in part by Ahriman's genius, raised up from the world
of
metallic substances a network, perhaps a spider web of
inter-connectivity. A great power oozed out of its previous
sub-natural
condition and took on form in metal and plastic, spreading its
arms all
over the world.
Yet, Ahriman
was not the only inspiring
genius, and other impulses from human beings took hold of this
transformation of substance and sub-nature and gave it higher
potential
uses. It was after all capable of being only a tool, and
the real
meaning of this tool was in the hands and hearts of those who
created
how to set it to work.
One kind of
work was the turning of human
beings into number. Everything that could be counted was
being
counted and every fact that could be converted to data was
being
converted. Human beings became capable of being known as
mere
cyphers. As a result, when Ahriman incarnated, he could
take hold
of this number meaning of human beings and use that tool to
create a
top down driven political power machine, filled with the callousness of cold calculation
exactly
in the center of the social organism: the Life of Rights.
A kind of
social heart attack was created
in the instinctive relationship of Americans for the
Consciousness Soul
(English
speakers
are instinctively in the Consciousness Soul in their Life of
Rights - R.S. The
Challenge
of the Times). Just when the
most egregious terrorist attack of modern times shattered the
world's
divisions and united them in a shared sense of loss and
tragedy
(remember the Towers were centers of international financial activity), the political power elite
of
America turned away from this warm-hearted world-wide joining,
and used
this situation in the most callous and calculated fashion.
Centered in the most powerful Nation State in the
history of
humanity, this heartless thinking flowed outward as a
political foreign
policy out over the world, encouraging division and in the lie
of all
lies, everywhere (domestically and internationally)
suppressing freedom
in the name of freedom.
But, again as
we have already seen,
Ahriman had not incarnated with only his minions as
companions.
Michaelic warriors, some very aware but most only
instinctive,
entered into incarnation as well. At their insistence
and from
their genius, the tool of metal, plastic and sub-natural
forces was put
to other uses. Reacting, the Consciousness Soul took on
a
world-wide social form in thousands upon thousands of new
kinds of
communities of association, something it had been slowly
preparing to
do for a long time. Civil Society was born, and
the tool -
the Internet - was placed in the service of heart-warmed
thoughts.
In so doing we need to emphasize that this Sphere of
heart-centered activity (the Wise Earth) tended to arise on
the
Internet as individual expressions of community service.
The I's
sought out other I's and many kinds of We's were born.
The same tool
Ahriman used to create a
social machine for the manipulation of political power in
America, was
used by others to create a living organism of communities
world-wide in
scope, while at the same time concentrated in America and
active on all
political fronts. Above, in the top of a now decadent
elite
political hierarchy, Ahriman worked, while below, spread out
across the
social commons, the Consciousness Soul - the Wise Earth -
spoke back.
In the Wise
Earth impulse all manner of
spiritual voices are heard. The excesses of the
Ahrimanically
driven assault via the Life of Rights on social order and
individual
freedom has become so plain and obvious, that communities of
opposition
are everywhere being formed. As a prime incarnate opponent, Ahriman does his duty, driving individuals
toward the
necessary moral dilemmas and challenges. You could say
that one
of the aspects of the Ahrimanic Incarnation is a kind of
heating up of
social chaos - an inflaming of disorder. This engenders
in
morally awake human hearts the will to do battle. The
dragon
forces circle social life everywhere, and the knights of
Michael,
themselves no doubt students of the spiritual world Michael
School
before incarnation, take up their earthly social tasks. (see
the book Blessed
Unrest, at:
http://www.blessedunrest.com/)
Ahriman's
teaching is harsh, and the I
must stand up within itself and in relationship with others,
or succumb
to soul failures it would otherwise be unwilling to tolerate
in what we
call: good
conscience. Inwardly, in the
deepest
aspects of the soul, invisible to outer sense experience, the
presence
of Christ in the Ethereal (the realm of human thought) is met
with a
hunger to know the Good on the part of the I. This moral
need for
knowledge of the Good (in order to know what is right to do in
the face
of challenges forced upon humanity by Ahriman's
intensification of the
heat and pace of social crisis) - this moral need
instinctively hungers
for the Eternal, the experience of the Consciousness Soul.
There, inside the soul, this hunger for knowledge of the Good,
coming
in the time of the Second Coming, leads to a Second Eucharist
- a
communion of the I with the Being of the Good (for details see
the next
essay: The
Meaning of Earth Existence in the Age of the Consciousness
Soul).
What an amazing
teacher and teaching is
this Outrageous Genius, we know as Ahriman, forcing us to
awake to the
Good by driving into the Center Stage of social existence, in
the
principle nation state in the world, obviously powerful
impulses of
callous and calculated indifference to human suffering and
need.
third, an entry more into the material, in the sense
of ordinary
political and social language
Brother What
Ails Thee ?
In the
following discussion it is very
important to keep in mind that we are now mostly using a quite
materialized way of speaking and writing about something whose
true
essence remains entirely spiritual in
its most
significant meaning.
Such a
personality as Ahriman incarnate,
in my view, can be found just here then in the American Life
of Rights
(working from there upon the whole world), for after all these
preliminaries we must begin to name him. The question for us,
however,
is: Will we recognize this "human" being as a brother?
Karl Christian
Rove (birth name), was
born December 25th 1950. Karl's biological father
abandoned him
early on, his adoptive father left home when Karl was 18, and
it later
became known that this second father was a homosexual.
His mother
committed suicide when he was 30. Karl described himself
in high
school this way: "I
was
the complete nerd. I had the briefcase. I had the pocket
protector.
I wore Hush Puppies when they were not cool. I was the thin,
scrawny
little guy. I was definitely uncool"
[facts
and quote from Wikipedia].
[There will be
a few quotes below about
Rove-Ahriman (hundreds could easily be provided). The
reader
should realize that Rove has had such a strong influence
(which
Outrageous Genius certainly would) that while Google only
shows 630,000
entries for him and about 8 million for George W. Bush (and
1.5 million
for Dick Cheney), all that is said about Rove recognizes that
his
influence from behind the scenes is the real dominant feature
of the
Bush II Administration. He is the riddle and puzzle that
many
have commented on seeking to penetrate his real nature and
activity in
order to understand the policies of the Bush II White House.
His
hand prints are everywhere, and no historical political figure
has ever
inspired such interest, both positive and negative.
We could also
keep in mind this idea from
Rudolf Steiner. In the lectures published under the
title The Fall
of the Spirits of Darkness, he
presents the
following for our understanding. Just like what happened
after
the mid-point of the various ages of Atlantis, we in this the
Post-Atlantean Epoch are past the mid-point as well.
Spiritual
capacities and impulses that are up-building and progressive
in the
first half of an Epoch become in the second half forces of
degeneration. Decay sets in and the course the Evolution
of
Consciousness takes must be unfolded in the context of this
decay.
In addition, with the Battle in Heaven between Michael
and the
Dragon, which Michael had won by 1879, the Spirits of Darkness were pushed down into the realm of the
Earth.
These spirits
have to be recognized as
being everywhere, in particular working with the dead and with
the
various occult brotherhoods. So when we recognize in
social
phenomena the prevalence of human evil, we have to see that
the
tendency for this immorality to dominate social existence
cannot be
avoided. In fact, our ability to properly work with the
times,
requires we not be asleep and have fantastic visions of
unrestrained
potentials for utopias. Our thinking has to root itself
in
reality, and social reality cannot in our Age be forced into
an
illusion of some kind of universal domain of freedom and
happiness.
These facts then all the more call to us, who receive
Spiritual
Science, to develop our own soul life so that we will be able
to find
the down to earth healing social ideas that can actually be
brought
into incarnation.]
Now we must
tell a more detailed story of
certain changes in social life that have come at the same time
as this
incarnation entered deeper and deeper into a core aspect of
the Life of
Rights in America. Let us begin by considering certain
changes in
law and other governmental emphasis that have accompanied the
7 plus
years so far of the Bush II administration (at the time of
writing
these paragraphs). While doing this we need to keep in mind
how crucial
is this moment in the Evolution of Consciousness. A
great deal is
being decided by individual human beings just now, and we
cannot blind
ourselves by assuming that the struggles for the future of
America, and
as a consequence the whole World, are simply passing and
insignificant
moments in history. These events are profound in the deepest
sense of
that concept.
Not only that,
we, living today, are in
the middle of them. It is no accident we too have
incarnated in
the Time that Ahriman is to be discovered as our most
significant
outer-world teacher. What Ahriman could not do, while
excarnate
through the Shadow - the three-fold double-complex, he could
now do as
a human being having incarnated just in this time into the
heart-center
of human social life: the Life of Rights, and giving birth
there not to
heart-warmed thoughts, but rather the most cold and calculated
conceptions possible.
Over the course
of activity of this
Administration, several structural changes have occurred,
which changes
by the way are not just confined to the time of the
Administration, but
were authored further in the past, and then matured and
polished off in
the time since the 2000 election, the election, remember, at
the cusp
of the New Millennium. Let us list a few of those.
The Executive
Branch, mostly through the
exercise of raw power has been able to achieve a certain
freedom from
restraint by the other two Branches (the Legislative Branch
and the
Judicial Branch). This breaking down of the threefold
balance of
the U.S. Constitution gives to the will force, of those
addicted to
power, extraordinary latitude in its conduct (this is how we
must see
Cheney and Bush, as addicts to the most addictive temptation
of all -
earthly power). This executive power has become so freed
of any
restraint that it neither must feel (the significance of the
Legislative Branch - the People's House) nor be wise (the
import of the
Supreme Court). The American Government, during Rove's
strongest
period of influence, had no wise head, nor any open heart.
Nor
would it do to see this as a reflection of just the Republican
Party.
The Ahrimanic confusion and the influence of the Spirits
of
Darkness is everywhere, and we have now mostly raw will forces
owning
the Executive Branch of the dominant Nation State on the
Earth, which
from there radiates out into the whole world social organism
heartless
cold and calculating thought and will.
The Bush II
administration's definition
of the meaning of the War on Terror has taken hold of the
political
consciousness of both major American political parties.
No major
candidate currently running for President wants to appear weak
in the
War on Terror (a complete illusion by the way, once critically
examined
as is being done out of the social commons by the Wise Earth
appearance
of Civil Society).
Thus also has
torture become officially
permitted in the conduct of self-interest by the U.S.
government (using
the identical language of the Third Reich in its
justifications for
torture). Included in this are the powers to remove any
claim of
citizenship of a natural or naturalized Citizen. Anyone
anywhere
in the world (including Americans in America) can be kidnapped
and
taken anywhere anytime to places of prison and torture
(extraordinary
rendition). To call these Imperial Powers, akin to that
of Rome
at its most decadent, is to severely understate the case, for
the
United States has far greater powers than ever Rome could
dream of.
There is a
quote, falsely attributed to
Alexis de Tocqueville: America is great because she is good,
and if America ever
ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.
While
it turns out the great French thinker never wrote this, the
fact that it is constantly quoted in public life suggests that
it
nevertheless has deep meaning for Americans.
Civil
liberties, once taken for granted
in the United States have been neatly and nearly castrated.
Since
there is nothing to require the government to admit to even
possessing
the body of a single human being (habeas corpus exists as a
rule, but
is consciously ignored and obstructed by the Bush II
administration at
every turn), we have no idea how many have disappeared into
the hidden
bowels of this out of control will. This is all the more
problematic if we recognize that to a certain extent America
is very
much a cradle for future spiritual development, so that the
unopposed
emasculation of major components of the Life of Rights in
America is a
significant victory for Ahriman.
The power
radiating out from the
imbalance in the State (the out of control Executive Branch),
has been
joined by an ahrimanic corporate control of the Media (the
heart of the
heart of the social organism). Thus it has come about
that the
threefold social organism's inner core (the Life of Rights),
itself is
out of balance such that (or so it appears) that the polar
opposite to
the State - the People - is completely dominated through so
much fear
and hopelessness, that many of the People have come to believe
themselves to be completely powerless.
"He [Rove] could carve up
constituencies with the best of them, and divide the country
as easily
as columns on a spreadsheet -- and with no more thought" diarist "Hunter" DailyKos Aug.2007.
Yet, here is
where the counter-pole
begins to appear, for recall that Rudolf Steiner spoke in a
lecture
collected in The
Challenge of the Times: English speakers are instinctively in
the Consciousness
Soul in their Life of Rights.
Ahriman's
incarnation arouses the Consciousness Soul to action.
Rove, by
pushing forward the callous and indifferent to consequences
unconscious
will forces of Cheney and Bush II (and others), stimulates in
those who
strive to follow their political conscience the opposite
reaction.
This
administration has made of the lie
an art never dreamed of even in the time of National Socialism
(see
Steiner's The Karma of Untruthfulness).
They have lied so successfully that large portions of
the People
of America have bought elements of it for years, and still buy
into it
(polls still show that large numbers believe Iraq was
connected to
9/11). Granted the culture of the lie is everywhere,
from daily
advertising to individual human biographies, nevertheless the
callous,
calculated and repeated nature of these lies offered by a
United States
government is staggering. The only matter more
staggering is how
much they have managed to simultaneously hide from view.
The art of
secrecy is equally adept in
this government. No one knows what it is doing, and so
clever has
been the manner of this hiding, that it is carefully layered
such that
even if you think you have caught them out, they have a backup
plan -
lies within lies, as it were. As time has gone on, and
various
members of the administration became more publicly vulnerable,
they
have easily blocked every effort to have them removed from
office
(Rumsfeld and then Gonzales, for example), until it was time
to cut
them loose and then install an even better buffer in between
public
interest and the truth. For example, nearly every
military
general officer who would not spin and lie about Iraq has been
systematically removed until all that is mostly left in
positions of
power are career military general officers who are themselves
essentially politicians and sycophants.
The pure
outrageous nature of the nerve
of this administration is extraordinary. They lie,
and then
they act, and then even when caught out, continue to lie and
lie.
Holding powers stolen from the other Branches (and to
which these
Branches acquiesce) there is no motive to come clean in any
fashion,
for almost no human heart forces are really present in this
home in
which Ahriman created for himself and his priests to
incarnate.
"That's not the way
the world really works anymore,'' he
continued. ''We're an empire now, and when
we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying
that
reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again,
creating other
new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things
will sort
out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be
left to
just study what we do" Senior white
house
official, assumed by everyone to have been Karl Rove, summer
2002. [An
earthly social-political act comparable to materialism -
a kind
of political-social Ahrimanic Deception.]
"The great majority of
mankind are satisfied with
appearances, as if they were realities"
Machiavelli
At the locus of
this center of power of
Earthly streaming forces, he has come to rest, with his aides,
in order
to imprint with his nature, the most earthly aspect of the
potential
and unfolding threefold social organism: the Life of Rights.
One of
Ahriman's qualities is hardening.
He desires that things become fixed, immobile.
This means that
one Party in the United
States strives to achieve continuous dominance. Not only
was a
world dominating power to radiate from the United States as a
center,
but it was to have within itself a loss of what had been an
otherwise
self-correcting fluidity - that more than one Party would hold
power,
which would mean that no longer could any Ahrimanic excess of
the Right
be balanced out through the pendulum swing by any Luciferic
excess of
the Left . So it was desired that this swing of the balance be
stopped
for a while, especially at a particular Moment in Time; AND,
if this
unbalancing gesture was to take into itself an also rigid and
arid
religious impulse, then the knowledge of the social effects of
Christ's
True Second Coming could be hidden, if not completely blocked
for
centuries, in that the otherwise good effects on the social
world of
humanity, this Second Golgotha offered, were obscured and
interfered
with.
Consider:
Already, the Anthroposophical
Movement and Society had been eviscerated from within, and led
in its
centers into great confusion (any honest rendering of our
history in
the 20th Century shows this - for details see the essays
below), so
that basically unopposed and unknown Ahriman could now
undertake the
task to boldly assert temporal powers as an obstacle to
spiritual
inspiration [for example, the New Freedom Act which enables
the
government to test all for mental illness and require medicine
to be
given to those who fail this examination]. In addition,
granting
political power to an arid and rigid religious cult, calling
itself
Christian, could do much to convince the world that Christ and
Christianity had nothing to offer. So drawing this
already
decadent religious impulse deeper into politics does a great
deal which
is far more than just to secure votes at a crucial moment, for
whatever
the outer world press sees of the effects of this genius that
radiates
out of the White House, you can bet this outer world press is
completely clueless to what is truly at stake.
The ahrimanic
Christianity of the
Religious Right hates all that it judges (all beam and no
mote), and
speaks into world culture in such a way that more and more the
world is
pushed to hate such Christianity back. What better way
to turn
minds away from the true Second Coming, than to raise up a
such a false
and foolish alternative, that seemingly* rational people
cannot but
think of the idea of Christ and the Second Coming as some kind
of
insanity. How do we bring into such a world, a true
appreciation
of Christ's Second Coming, and the related Second Eucharist,
when
ahrimanic Christianity has gained such temporal power in the
Bush II
administration to the dismay of so many intelligent people.
Ahriman is clever beyond our imaginations.
*[See Sam
Harris's The End of
Faith; Christopher Hitchens' God
is not
Great:
how
religion poisons everything; and,
Richard
Dawkins' The God Delusion, where what
are called the New Atheists have taken (hopefully briefly)
center stage
in the public dialog on religion and Christianity.]
Craig Unger*,
In an interview with Amy
Goodman, mid-November 2007: Well, LeHay** is one of the founders of
the Council for
National Policy. Now, this is a not-very-well-known group, but
it's an
umbrella group that oversees dozens of Christian Right groups,
like
Focus on the Family, which is James Dobson's group. The Moral
Majority
was part of it, and so on. And
within
it was a much smaller group called the Arlington Group, of
about
fifty religious leaders. Now, they were in regular contact
with Karl
Rove.
And what
you have in the Christian Right is as many as 80 million adult
evangelicals. You have about 200,000 pastors, and they operate
almost
as precinct captains did in the labor unions for the
Democratic Party.
So this is a vast populist movement that operates as part of
the
Christian Republican Party, and they have regular contact with
the
White House. [emphasis added]
[*author of: The
Fall
of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True
Believers Seized
the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils
America's Future. **one of the
authors
of the Left Behind
series of novels on
Armageddon.]
Christianity is
not alone in being so
publicly compromised by the materialization of religion.
"The grim truth is
that when George W. Bush declared "a
global war on terror", he was really announcing a jihad of his
own - a
struggle to convert the whole world to American-style
capitalist
democracy....Here lies the peril for the future. For how can
"the Axis
of Evil" and "the Great Satan" negotiate a businesslike
compromise on
the basis of live-and-let-live?"
from the
article: Bush the Jihadist: How the world was plunged into an
apocalyptic war, by Correlli Barnett, Daily Mail, Sept. 2007.
"...these ahrimanic
powers are present wherever disharmony
comes about between groups of people..." R.S.
lecture, 2 November 1919
Another matter
to recognize is that after
9/11, the ahrimanic forces radiating out of the temporal power
center
that is Washington, were able to bring about a Crucifixion of
the
Imagination of America as a Beacon of Hope for the poor and
disenfranchised the world over. Previously America
(which is at
root itself a Mystery) stood in the imaginations of the
world's
downtrodden as the place of dreams, where one could go and
find freedom
(spiritual-religious, as well as political and economic).
So
Rove-Ahriman not only created and encouraged a debased
Christian
Meaning in the World, but also cast down the single most
important
aspect of the American Mystery in the present - its meaning as
a Beacon
of Hope.
Let us now take
a necessary but small
side trip here, and fit in two of Ahriman-Rove's chief allies:
George
W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Both are addicted to power, but
in two
entirely different ways. At the same time, let us keep
in mind
the title to this section: Brother
what
ails thee?. These are flawed
(as
we are all flawed) human beings, placed by the Lord (Artist)
of Karma,
in their biographies into very special places in relationship
to all of
us. Like Ahriman-Rove, they participate in the creation
of the
heating and speeding up of social chaos - conditions necessary
for the
development of the Consciousness Soul through the I's
necessary
encounters with real existential moral crises.
Bush appears to
be what is called a dry
drunk. That is, while he is not actively drinking or
drugging (we
assume) he still displays all the behaviors of a serious
alcoholic or
addict: bouts of extreme anger (kept mostly secret from the
public, but
well known to West Wings staffers), coupled with a
psychological need
to never admit he is wrong - the problem always lies with
someone else.
In taking up the outward (fake) posture of recovery, he
adopted
the attitude of someone who has been saved by Christ. No
doubt
encouraged by Rove (all the way back in Texas), Bush courted
the
Religious Right, and here found fuel for his own (hopefully
sub-conscious) megalomania - a religious conviction which
included him
as being an active and dominant world player in the End Times
fantasy.
So rigid is his faith, as he constantly demonstrates by
his
unchanging behaviors, that only this mega-illusion has meaning
- the
truth has been banished from his consciousness.
"Mr. Greenspan
described his own emotional journey in
dealing with Mr. Bush, from an initial elation about the
return of his
old friends from the Ford White House - including Mr. Cheney
and Donald
H. Rumsfeld, secretary of defense - to
astonishment
and then disappointment at how much they had changed."
New York Times book review describing Alan Greenspan's
(former
chairman of the Federal Reserve) book: The
Age of
Turbulence: Adventures in a New World
"...much to my disappointment, economic policy making in the
Bush
administration remained firmly in the hands of the White House
staff.”
He was clearly referring to
the political team led by Karl Rove at the White House. Mr.
Rove was a
neighbor of Mr. Greenspan in a leafy enclave near the Potomac
River,
but the two men almost never had a conversation."
[emphasis
added]
"Rove's method is to
plot out elaborate strategies well in
advance of the campaign, and stick to them vigilantly. John
Deardourff,
Rove's media consultant for races in Texas and Alabama, says,
'This rap
Bush has of never changing his mind and never admitting a
mistake-that's Karl! That's where it comes from.' It is a
tribute to
Rove's strategic skill that he is so often right." Joshua Green Atlantic Monthly 2007.
Already long
before his incarnation,
Ahriman-Rove had cultivated the illusory religious impulse
that has at
least captured the sub-conscious of Bush, probably through the
help of
Lucifer's legions, for in its rigid End Times world picture
and rigid
and fixed morality, it has hardened all that was once Life in
these
aspects of Christianity, and turned that Life into a fixed and
vain
system of beliefs in the soul.
The fixed
nature comes from Ahriman, and
the vanity (pride of belief in ones moral righteousness) comes
from
Lucifer. Both these, however, arise indirectly in the
soul
through the three-fold double-complex (see the essay on the
Shadow
below).
Then comes
Cheney. Already a hard
line cold-warrior, well connected and supported by the elites
of
industry and banking throughout his political career (Cheney
won his
spurs here, while Bush was born into these circles), Cheney
(again no
doubt encouraged by Rove) became Vice President, and having an
intellect of far more depth than Bush's, discovered that the
child of
privilege had little interest in actually understanding and
wielding
the reins of governmental power (Bush loves to playact as
president).
These then fell by default to Cheney, and gave to his
addiction
more temporal power than any human being has had in history,
and of
such a nature that as a behind the throne power he could do
much that
was unseen and thus experience as all the more delightful its
private
pleasures (the addictive payoff). Think on it! No
one could
really oppose his actions always taken in secret. He
could tell
any lie he wanted and change them at will for everyone else
was asleep.
Every urge and impulse to dominate his political enemies
and
reward his rich friends could be immediately indulged.
Nothing
stood in the way of this will to excess, while at his side,
and in his
aid was the most clever of minds ever, able with just a word
or two to
encourage Cheney's every desire, and at the same time to
likewise with
silver tongue encourage the child of privilege to believe he
was god's
chosen to stand in the world just in this time. [Recall
Tolkien's
character Wormtongue in the Lord
of the Rings!]
So then we have
around Rove, two
personalities, the one lost in a luciferic dream of egoistical
historical place, and the other, given the opportunity to
wield
enormous earthly temporal powers, becomes instead the creature
of those
very powers - possessed by them. Recall from above
Greenspan's
dismay to discover the changes in his
old friends.
Rove's truest and more profound contributions, however,
are of a
whole other kind, even though he played a significant role in
the
transformation of a child of privilege, from out of the
culture of
Texas oil and wealth, into a public persona that doesn't
actually bear
any relationship to the underlying human personality*.
See: "Bush's
Brain: How Karl Rove made George W. Bush Presidential" by Wayne H. Slater and James C. Moore.
*[To appreciate
this even more, just
consider how frequently it is now observed that Bush seems so
often
inappropriately happy as his term of office nears its end (or
culmination?). A President, who honestly bore the
necessary
wounds of leading American into such a state as it is today,
should be
gray headed, careworn and full of melancholy.]
At the same
time, we have to remember the
title to this section: Brother what ails thee?
It is essential (as will be discussed in later essays)
to
recognize in such personalities that we are observing wounds of soul. Certainly there can be venality, and even
conscious choosing of evil, but if we were to be able to live
through
the details of the biography of such men as these, and see how
their
inner life developed over this long period of a lifetime, we
would
discover how the soul has been wounded by life experience.
We all bear
such wounds. It would
go too far here to go into details, but the question Brother what ails
thee? is directed exactly at
discovering the mystery of the
wounds that lie behind choices and actions, so as to be able
to perhaps
help heal our brothers and sisters in life. With this thought in the background, let us
continue our
examination of what has flowed out of the center of the
American
government, and into our shared public life.
In order for a
single Party to dominate,
certain possibilities inherent in our Time in relationship to
technology have become applied to the political process.
Computers are turned into ballot boxes. The
striving for
power, which had taken possession of the Republican Party,
found a
crucial inspiration in all that Ahriman had prepared before
his
incarnation, and in all that he was about to accomplish during
his
incarnation. Win at any cost is the goal, and the
corruption of
the ballot box by electronic means provides an easy tool in a
war in
which number is to play such an essential role.
Data is
accumulated, not just State by
State, or city by city or neighborhood by neighborhood (voting
precinct
by voting precinct), and when possible individual by
individual.
Profiles are created showing, through the accumulation and use
of well
tracked commercial purchases, just what attitudes each
individual who
is potentially a voter is likely to possess. The
out-of-strict
oversight computer powers, of the United States intelligence
community
(and willing corporate allies), is through secret process
turned on its
own citizens, and further data accumulated, such that there
now is in
place and in the hands of a single party, exactly which voters
to
encourage, and which to discourage in order to place in power
and keep
in power a single political party as the dominant political
force in
America, itself (at a crucial time) the dominant Nation State
in the
World.
Nor is this
done with any sense of the
individual itself, as an I. It is only their general
characteristics as a set of numbers on a spreadsheet that
matter.
One young woman, who had worked with Rove, the human
incarnation
of Ahriman, described in a televised interview how remarkable
it was to
watch him pick up a newly generated spread sheet from a
computer,
glance at it and then immediately begin to issue instructions,
down the
well oiled machinery intended to coerce an election effect,
from the
inside of the White House out into a neighborhood and then
surrounding
an individual home.
In addition was
perfected what became
called: the Republican talking points.
Spreading
out from the political center of the West Wing of the White
House, a
well controlled and perfected set of lies and spin was
distributed
throughout Party officials (elected and otherwise) and among
the
cooperative media, such as Fox News and the widely listened to
conservative radio talk shows. If one listened across
this
spectrum, as well as to the President himself and his chief
spokesman
the White House Press Secretary, the same reality was
presented.
Remember that Rove's idea of the power of deception is
remarkable. Set the agenda, set the tone of what is to
be claimed
to be true. Create our own reality (an earthly political
ahrimanic deception), and never ever give an inch.
Radiating from
the imbalanced and
unhealthy will force of the Executive Branch had been created
a huge
manipulative mechanism for coercing the vote, precinct by
precinct,
drawing certain voters in, keeping certain voters out, and all
the
while ignoring places, neighborhoods and communities that
could be seen
by this cold calculating genius as having no meaning or worth
at all.
Coupled with this was an enormous publicity machine,
never seen
before, creating in that Nation State that believed itself
most
virtuous to have unlimited free speech, a propaganda mechanism
quite
beyond that known even in the time of National Socialism or
Communist
Russia.
This lie
machine is all the more devious
(and clever) for it was accomplished in what thought of itself
as a
non-totalitarian state. In the center of the Life of
Rights, this
calculated number driven process came into existence, in which
data
streams about voters were turned into numbers on a
spreadsheet. and
false ideas about social reality merely items on a sheet of
talking
points. What genius created such a work!
"President Bush's
powerful adviser is one part
spreadsheet-carrying, vote-counting political wonk, and one
part
no-holds-barred, brass-knuckled political operative" Dan Froomkin.
"I'm looking at 68
polls a week. You may be looking at
four or five public polls a week that talk about attitudes
nationally,
but that do not impact the outcome -"
Karl
Rove in a radio interview late October 2006. "You may end up with a
different math, but you're entitled to your math. I'm entitled
to the math." same
interview. [emphasis added]
In all this,
the Legislative Branch was
compliant. Even so far as to pass legislation requiring
all
States to issue common-in-nature drivers licenses, that
individual
States could then require be presented in order to vote.
This
process of making voting more and more difficult was another
part of
the grand scheme, which then makes it possible to eliminate
those most
inclined to vote for the Party that is not to dominate -
namely the
Party whose fundamental traditions connected it to the poor
and
disenfranchised. Remember, Ahriman incarnated with a
community of
like-minded, already disposed through all his preparations to
their own
weakness and self-interested heartless cold calculating
judgments.
All he had to do was enter into the center of these
streams of
downward radiating powers, take hold of the number relations,
and
polish off the machinery that was to permit a solidified rule
from the
top down, during one of the most significant moments of
emergence of
the Consciousness Soul (the Dawn of the Third Millennium),
with its
natural impulse to bring in social reform out of the social
commons -
out of the social below.
Now in this
work, he was not unopposed.
As a human being, his will was bound by many earthly
laws.
He could not force those around him serve his will.
He
could only, with extreme cleverness, encourage their
weaknesses and
inclinations, thus the personality changes that can be
observed in
those he influenced while in (and on his way to) this center
of
temporal power (from which he himself recently resigned, which
is, of
course, just an appearance - another kind of clever lie, his
influence
is undiminished).
At that same
time as all this ahrimanic
success, we need to come to understand that his very genius in
its
one-sided nature was also a blindness. This blindness
came to the
fore in the 2006 general election in America. Rove fully
expected
to win, his spreadsheets told him so. However, human
beings are
in fact not numbers, and not really predictable at that level.
Rove's numbers told him only of general characteristics,
which
were all based on specific assumptions. When many of
these people
walked into the polling booth, something happened (and will
continue to
happen) which can't be reduced to number. People, when
they vote,
are faced with what to them is essentially a moral choice (English speakers are
instinctively in the Consciousness Soul in their Life of
Rights).
This righteous
impulse, invisible
to
number driven perception, expressed
itself
strongly in the 2006 election, reacting in large part to all
that was
being experienced as the callous indifference radiating from
the White
House, and as political impotence, corruption and incompetence
in the
Legislative Branch. The Democrats won the House with far
more
seats than expected by any pollster (whose immature science
suffers the
same perceptual limits as Ahriman), and further won the Senate
as well,
something not expected by either Party. Since this
victory gave
the chairmanship of the various House and Senate committees to
the
Democrats, a very large shift in power occurred in the Life of
Rights
in the United States of America (in the People's House
especially, with
it role as regards "feeling"). While such a shift
of power
is not able to manifest in a rapid fashion (in spite of the
hopes of
the Left), this expectable time-delay has enabled the White
House to
continue to act out its disdain for the People, treating them
as
number-cyphers instead of as real human beings.
"Rovism is not simply
a function of Rove the political
conniver sitting in the counsels of power and making
decisions, though
he does. No recent presidency has put policy in the service of
politics
as has Bush's. Because tactics can change institutions, Rovism
is much
more. It is a philosophy and practice of governing that
pervades the
administration and even extends to the Republican-controlled
Congress.
As Robert Berdahl, chancellor of UC Berkeley, has said of
Bush's
foreign policy, a subset of Rovism, it constitutes a
fundamental change
in 'the fabric of constitutional government as we have known
it in this
country.'"Neal Gabler The Los
Angeles Times
Sunday 24 October 2004.
"The whole art of war
consists in a well-reasoned and
extremely circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and
audacious attack." Rove campaign
memo from the early years in Texas.
"Rove is the greatest
political mind of his generation and
probably of any generation. He not only is a breathtakingly
smart
strategist but also a clever tactician. He knows history,
understands
the moods of the public, and is a visionary on matters of
public
policy. But he is not a magician."
Fred
Barnes, conservative commentator, editor The Weekly Standard.
"Dubbed the
“architect” and “Bush's brain”, Rove plotted
the rise of George W Bush and departed the White House after
the
disastrous 2006 mid-term elections. Successful punditry is a
combination of real political experience, intellectual
nimbleness, a
provocative turn of phrase and a coherent point of view. Rove,
a Fox
News commentator and contributor to Newsweek and the Wall
Street
Journal, has all these qualities.
"Democrats may protest
that they would rather see him in
jail than on their television screens but they can't help
noting what
he says. Whether outlining what the Democrats should do or
outlining
John McCain's rocky path to victory (and McCain has followed
his advice
almost to the letter), Rove's take is important and often
surprising.
Expect the name Rove to come up frequently on the campaign
trail - and
in coverage of it." Comments
in the
British newspaper The Telegraph, who ranked Rove (since
leaving the
White House) as
the
number one (of the top 50) pundits in U.S. Politics, Friday, May 2nd, 2008.
Ahriman-Rove's
genius is seen by many,
and his incarnate influence is far from over. He has
left the
realm of the State now, and is taking up his mature
biographical
position in the real heart of the Life of Rights: Media.
From
here he can continue his influence, for his very success is
attractive.
Because of the influence of the ahrimanic shadow on
people, many
will succumb, for that same callous and calculated
indifference toward
which they are inwardly tempted, will now reside in those
aspects of
Media open to making such views widely known and justified.
It is not an accident that Rove now works for two major Rupert Murdoch Media companies, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal. Many will read him, and his clever genius will guide and teach, all who will listen, into a life without any moral center at all - only the cold calculus of intellect, and its anti-human world views and impulses of will.
Ahriman-Rove
has now risen to the
celebrity heights of the social world as a Media personality,
respected
and trusted by many, for he reflects back to them all the
justifications they need for their own ahrimanic tendencies.
A quite neat fit, if you think about it. The
Shadow
of Ahriman within, and the Stage setting influenced by Ahriman
without.
Even so, the individual I in the Age of the Consciousness Soul
would
chart its own course. His very presence arouses
something in the
I that needs just that presence as a goad to its own awaking.
*
finally, a
look at the challenges to the role of the Society and Movement
as a
consequence of recognizing Ahriman's present day incarnation
Waking the American Anthroposophical Society and Movement
for their
true tasks in the 21st Century
The above then
is what happened on the
macro scale of modern human history. What then on a
micro scale
has happen in the internal makeup of the
Anthroposophical Society
and Movement? Were we somehow free of this influence?
Did
Ahriman incarnate and just ignore us in the process? I
think not,
and in the next essays it will be unfolded just what needs to
happen
within our circles in order for us to be able to speak first
honestly
among ourselves, before we can earn the moral authority to
truly bring
Anthroposophy further into world incarnation. The
greatest
potential for leading the instinctive Consciousness Soul into
full
awakening lies in Anthroposophy, and by implication in the
Society and
Movement. But these problems are not simple and many of
the
essays below are required of anyone wanting to really learn
what is
needed to be learned in order to meet the Challenge of
Ahriman's
Incarnation on the Cusp of the New Millennium.
We have one
last task,however, which is
most essential. Having discovered Ahriman's incarnation,
how are
we to treat the living man, now and into the future?
Ahriman-Rove
has a family - a wife and a son: should they think of him as
evil?
Of course not, he is a genius, he is a cosmic power
incarnate,
who will at the final judgment weep at the feet of the Mother
and beg
forgiveness for all that he had, out of his given nature, the
responsibility to author.
Those seduced
by Ahriman-Rove are to be
pitied. Our problem then is not to assume evil and seek
to rub it
out, but to see clearly the
social
processes so that we, who would do
the
good, can discover how our work can be applied in the right
places.
Many already are working in such ways, albeit
instinctively, and
others will want to hate Rove, Cheney, Bush and their friends.
Should we follow such an example, or create another?
How do
we redeem what Ahriman-Rove has done and properly honor it?
We are also
frustrated by the scope of
the debacle - Ahriman-Rove has spread chaos in the world in a
huge way,
and this is not yet finished, for much worse may yet be done
by those
who have succumbed to his influence. This Ahrimanic
Impulse,
living throughout the social world of humanity, has pushed
that world
toward its breaking and fracture points in a quite precise
fashion
through the influence of Ahriman-Rove within the excesses of
the Bush
II administration. The whole social order of Western
Humanity is
breaking down. Wherever we look, whether at global
warming, the
crisis in the food supply, the corporate theft of the water
supply, the
spreading of technological means of biological destruction,
the
machinations of those in the banking and finance industries
and the
interference with the genetic code itself, - all stands on the
brink of
even further decay, while the political life by its everywhere
pursuit
of dominance, engages all structure in war, at
a
time when in order to survive humanity needs instead of war to
develop the greatest skills at cooperation.
One of the
worst effects, as previously
noted, is the crucifixion of American Dream. All over
the world,
that which had once been a Beacon of Hope to many people
living amidst
poverty and despair, has now been tarnished, perhaps beyond
repair.
Is this not then the next goal for America, to discover
how to
restore what has been defiled? Who will lead here?
Who will
understand this need for the imagination of the downtrodden
the world
over to have once more a Beacon of Hope? Can there be a
resurrection of what was crucified? What kind of moral
forces
could bring this about?
We are also
right to be concerned whether
the political machine that has been
created will live on into the future
inside the core of the America Government. Already, many
wonder
whether the Democrats will roll back some of what has been
done, should
they win the White House in 2008. A lot of people
believe many of
the worst of the changes introduced by Rove and friends will
be
permanent.
All kinds of
debris live as the
after-effects of Ahriman-Rove's incarnation. The situation and
consequences will not go away, but reverberate on into the
future, and
we have to not just come awake, but must learn how to stay
awake.
Into the world
the power, the tone, the
sound of number, and the searing light of geometry incarnated,
with its
naturally given mission to draw downward the heart of the
developing
social organism into rigid form and lifeless brilliance - what
Rove
called "the
math". Here too was "mission accomplished", because while the Anthroposophical Movement
and
Society lost themselves in a massive forgetting of the true
significance of Steiner's scientific introspection (The
Philosophy
of Freedom, and A
Theory
of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception), and in ignoring the beauty and potential for
community
life given by Steiner in Awakening
to Community as the Reverse
Cultus, we also took the living
Michaelic
Cosmic Intelligence given to us by Steiner through
Anthroposophy and
converted it to dead intellectualized content, without any
life at all:
the Steinerism displayed constantly in the excesses of
Steiner-said.
There are no
redeeming powers in
Steinerism, such that without The
Philosophy
of Freedom (Spiritual Activity)
and the Reverse Cultus,
with which to
meet the deeper spiritual after-effects of Ahriman's
incarnation, the
Movement and Society are impotent. At the same time,
American
Anthroposophy (which this book seeks to illuminate) offers
just those
needed antidotes and inspiration for all of Anthroposophy
world-wide.
The American Soul must awake now, and the best leaders
for this
will be those American Anthroposophists who have the will and
the
courage to find the truth of who they are, as a separate but
equal soul
force in the threefold world.
For example,
Ahriman accomplished a great
deal during the weaknesses of the 20th Century into which the
Society
and Movement fell, such that all kinds of wisdom was lost and
buried in
Ahriman's "preserving
jars", locked up either in books
stashed in
libraries, and in books allowed to go out of print.
Hundreds of significant works, by early students
of
Steiner, have been allowed to go out of print, while the
anthroposophical publishing houses reprinted again and again
Steiner's
lectures, erroneously leaving aside all the work done by
others during
the 20th Century.
Let me take up
just one other theme left
in the dust heap of the 20th Century, along side The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity and the Reverse
Cultus: namely Projective Geometry.
Nothing else has quite the ability to give to the Life
of the
Mind the forces necessary with which to meet Ahriman's
one-sided:
"...power, the tone, the sound of number, and the searing
light of
geometry incarnated...".
Let us begin
with an obscure out of print
essay by George Adams Kaufman: Space
and
the Light of Creation: a new essay in cosmic theory. Just in the Chapter headings of this
essay we can
feel/see the redemptive force of the new thinking as it
penetrates the
very realm of Ahriman and lifts it free through the art of
thought of
the tendency to an excess of gravitas: Chapter I: Radiation of Space; Chapter II: Music of Number;
and, Chapter
III: Burden
of
Earth and Sacrifice of Warmth.
One of the
tasks of American
Anthroposophy will be to rediscover and ingest the art of
others
besides Steiner, which has been given to us by European
anthroposophical endeavors during the 20th Century. This
is
something far beyond what Steiner had provided, but which he
certainly
inspired. In the essay far below: a letter to a young
anthroposophist, you will find
details.
Olive Whicher's
book: Projective
Geometry: Creative Polarities in Space and Time,
should
never be out of print, and ought to be on the same shelf with
every anthroposophist's copy of The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity and Awakening
to
Community. By the way, little
or no
abstract thought is called for in this way of study - as all
that is
essential is taught through drawing.
The
significance of Projective Geometry
can be found here, quoted by Olive Whicher in her introduction
to
Adam's remarkable Physical
and Ethereal Spaces: "Confirmed by Rudolf
Steiner
in the knowledge that the quality of thought prevailing in the
new
geometry is in reality indispensable both to the
scientist in his
quest of world-reality and
to
the individual on a path of spiritual development..."
[emphasis added].
The living
(heart) thinking, to which
many anthroposophists today aspire (but believe comes far
easier than
it actually does), needs to remain scientific and picture-like
in all
its qualities. Nothing aids this need better than the
study
through drawing of Projective Geometry, which teaches the I
how to move
and weave living pictorial thought, through and from one
metamorphosis
to the next, all the while never losing the exact and precise
quality
of scientific thinking.
To truly meet
and contain Ahriman-Rove,
we also need a living spiritual social science, whose
scientific
qualities can only be found through pictorial thought trained
in the
disciplines of Projective Geometry and Goetheanism (A
Theory
of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception). We meet his powers, with those of our
own.
Then out of this soul training, the I can hear the World
Song in
which is contained the logos speaking
of the Christ
into the social world of humanity (as the Lord - the Artist -
of
Karma). Just as Goethe learned to listen to the speech
of Nature,
we must now learn to listen to the speech of the social world,
and then
out of our own forces of art and story telling, render this logos speaking into pictures we share with each other.
Let me end by
bringing forward one last
matter, which in its details can be found below in the
discussion of
the true soul roots of the Mystery of America. This will
be there
developed much more fully - here I only want to hint at its
dimensions.
The roots of
the American Soul, by the
way, are not found in Europe, but in America's Aboriginal
Peoples.
The soul is determined by two main influences of which
the most
earthly is the local geography, while the most heavenly is the
incarnating spirit. Spirit and place interact, and the
soul is
born.
Among the
various Nations of Indians,
there is one who has a very special relationship to the whole:
the
Hopi. All the Elders of the other Nations recognize
this.
It is from a Hopi that we received the idea in the
1990's: we
are the people we have
been waiting for.
The Hopi
Prophecy anticipates the arrival
from the East (from the rising Sun), of the True White Brother. This influence is to come
at a time
when the Nations of Indians will be in dire need, for world
conditions
will have brought about their near destruction. Only one
or two
individuals may still be alive that are true to their deepest
teachings. In the most crucial words of the Prophecy we
find this
statement: "This
third event will depend upon the Red Symbol, which will take
command,
setting the four forces of nature (Meha) in motion for the
benefit of
the Sun."
You can find
details below, but let me
just render my best interpretation of this phrase in the
language with
which anthroposophists are familiar (it will be well worth
repeating in
greater depth later).
At the time of
great crisis, the World
will be three times rocked into War. It is the last, the
third
event, which is the most crucial. The outcome of
this third
event (Ahriman's Incarnation) will depend upon the Red Symbol, or the People of the Rose-Cross. These
People of
the Rose-Cross, the True White
Brother (true in the
sense of also being awake to the living Being of the Earth
Mother and
the Father in the Sky, as once were all Aboriginal Peoples),
will then take command, setting the
four forces of nature in motion.
These
are the forces of the Four Directions (honored in the Pipe
Ceremony of
the Lakota Sioux), or the Cosmic Ethereal Forces (and their
elemental
servant beings in Nature), which even Steiner recognized when
he laid
the Foundation Stone for the original Goetheanum in the Earth,
and then
later the Foundation Stone Meditation in the hearts of those
who
attended the Christmas Conference.
All this for the benefit of
the Sun. To understand this
all we need to remember is
that the Hopi Prophecy originated in a People who remembered
Atlantis
(see below). At the time of Atlantis, where was Christ?
He
was in the Cosmic Sun Sphere! What then does all
this come
to mean, especially given that the Prophecy also recognizes
that this
needed work of the True White
Brother can fail to
manifest?
The outcome of the Third Event - the third time the World is rocked into War (Ahriman's Incarnation) depends upon the People of the Rose-Cross bringing forward a scientifically based knowledge of the Ethereal Cosmic Forces, not just in the living aspects of the sense world, but in the life of thought itself. Moreover, all this in service to the Christ, by announcing His True Second Coming in the Ethereal, with all its majesty (a Second Crucifixion, a Second Resurrection, and a Second Eucharist).
Are
anthroposophists up to such a task?
Apparently that remains to be seen.
Orientation
The dominant characteristic of this time, inwardly is
the True Second Coming of
Christ
"...one can
say that we in Europe develop Anthroposophy in a spiritual
way; the
American develops it in a natural way..." R.S. lecture to the Workman at the Goetheanum,
March 3,
1923 GA-349
[For the
neophyte: Ahriman's incarnation
as Karl Rove in the social-political world, really only
effected the
Stage Setting, which serves as a background to our individual
biographies. Granted this Stage Setting is far more
realistic
than the cardboard and paint of a theater, nevertheless the
relationship, between our individual lives and the historical
backdrop
in which those lives unfold, is captured quite neatly by the
Bard's
metaphor of Stage Setting and Actors in a Role. Ahriman
is a
significant ruler of the characteristics of the Stage Setting,
but as
regards the soul and spiritual element of the human being (our
inner
world and life), Ahriman, through his influence via our Shadow
(the
double-complex), is but a small though significant part, while
we
ourselves can be the Star.
Ahriman is also
not the Author of the
Play, Christ is - Christ as Lord (Artist) of Karma, and we as
free
choice makers. Just as the East sometimes talks of
there
being something that might be called (in the human being) a
Buddha
Nature, so we in the West can speak of a similar
characteristic of
being human - the Christ Impulse. Out of the
Buddha Nature
of the human being comes Compassion,
and out of the
Christ Impulse of the human being comes Love.
So
the two combine: Christ Himself as Lord (Artist) of Karma, who
works with our freedom, so that we can out of that freedom
ourselves
author human love in the form of the Christ Impulse.
In this realm
(the inwardness) Christ can
have far more influence if we know how to choose to make that
possible.
The inwardness belongs to our will (we know this
instinctively),
but for the individual I to become the proper steward of all
the
potential capacities hidden in this inwardness does require
that we
wake up there and begin to be active. In this next essay
I lay
out just how Christ has made himself available to us directly
when we
strive to be moral - that is when we seek to know and do the
Good (or
as Rudolf Steiner would say: become knowing
doers).
As such the
essential lesson from the
story of Ahriman's incarnation can be seen in that his
activities push
many people in the direction of such soul pain that they are
confronted
by a choice as to whether to remain asleep or actually wake up
to the
conditions of inflamed social chaos and insane speed of life.
Modern existence, for all its seeming unnecessary
difficulties is
actually a blessing. Just as physical illness is a
transformative
blessing, so are today's illnesses in the social existence of
humanity.
Of crucial
importance is to keep in mind
what was mentioned above, in that religious fundamentalism
(Christianity forced into arid and dead doctrines and dogmas,
by the
influence of the ahrimanic double) acted in the world in
recent years
in such a way that made a mockery of the True Second Coming.
Nothing Ahriman has accomplished is a potent as
this
misdirection, which has made people shy of the promise Christ
made to
come again. This essentially fake Christianity is simply
a modern
version of what a similar impulse among the Hebrew people
accomplished
at the time of the Incarnation - that is: People in that time
were lead
away from the truth by those who sought to maintain their own
power and
stature as religious leaders, rather than understand that Love
begins
with Service to the Thou (washing the feet), and then leads
ultimately
through trials to Love as a total Sacrifice of self for other.
We live in a
time in which a similar
gesture permeates the Christian world. Religious
leaders
tend to prefer themselves over others, and being in more in
love with
their own thoughts of what is the truth, they keep their
flocks (and
those who hunger for spiritual enlightenment) from knowledge
of the
True Second Coming. In the essay below (and those that
immediately follow) I offer to the reader precise instructions
as to
how to experience the True Second Coming, first as a Sacrament
in the
Soul - a Second Eucharist in the Ethereal - in the world of
thought,
that arises when we authentically seek to know the Good, or
what I also
call: discovering the experience of
Love Engendered
Free Moral Grace as that arises out of the spiritual activity
of the
own I.]
This next
essay was abstracted from my book, the
Way of
the Fool,
in
order to submit it to the Newsletter of the Anthroposophical
Society in
America in the winter-spring of 2006, where, as is typical of
my
offerings there, it was ignored. For this book it has
been
carefully rewritten, with entirely new material added in
certain
places. By the way, the Way of
the Fool
is, at
its core, the beginning of a courtship between that reality
referred to
by the terms esoteric and exoteric Christianity - between
Gnosis and
Faith (Kings and Shepherds), and this essay is the final
thought-picture in the main body of that book.
The Meaning of Earth Existence
in the Age of the
Consciousness Soul
*[John 16:
12-15 "I
have much more to say to
you, but you can't bear it just yet. But when the other
comes,
the breath of truth, he will guide you in the ways of all
truth,
because he will not speak on his own, but will speak what he
hears and
announce to you what's coming. He will glorify me,
because he
will take of what is mine and announce it to you.
Everything the
Father has is mine: that's why I said he will take of what is
mine and
announce it to you."]
*
from the
book: the Way of the Fool:
There yet
remains a small effort to make
a synthesis this work - to make a whole out of seemingly
disparate
parts. I will try to be brief.
A principle
aspect of the great Mystery
of our Time is the Mystery of Evil, both outwardly in the
structural
backdrop to the shared social world of humanity, and inwardly
in the
depths of our own souls. I have tried above to point out
how it
is that the essential matter is not the outer social world,
but the
inner soul world, and the trials and education of the i-AM,
in
the biography. The context, which we need to call the maya
of history and current events, and which is receptively
held everywhere from below by the
Dark
Mystery of the Divine Mother, all passes away, and only what
is
Eternal, that is what becomes an aspect of the developing i-AM,
continues;
and, this inner realm (the whole Inwardness of the Creation,
which includes human souls and spirits) only exists because of the Heavenly Mystery of the penetrating
thoughts of the Father, while the
whole (the
outer social maya and the eternal inner mind) is created, loved,
overseen and
mediated (wherever two are more
are
gathered...), in all its Grace
filled and
Artistic interrelationships, by the Earthly [new Sun] Mystery
of the sacrifices of the Son.
We (humanity)
now begin to move out of
our spiritual childhood, and in making our way through the
Rite of
Passage that is Life as it leads us toward our spiritual
maturity we
need to take hold of the complex of the doubles and the karma
of
wounds, as these thrive within our souls, and which encourage
human
evil through temptation and inner prosecution. Even so,
this task
of meeting the Mystery of Evil within the soul is not as heavy
as we
think, for through the Shepherd's Tale
[Charles
Sheldon], the
King's Tale [Rudolf Steiner], the Healers' Tale [the community-created Twelve-Steps] and the Sermon on the
Mount, we have all the practical
instructions that we need.
In seeking to
understand in ourselves
these three: moral
grace,
freedom and love [each of these is
elaborated in great detail in the book], we set before
ourselves what
is required to be learned in this Age and it is with these
three
naturally unfolding capacities that we are Graced and
strengthened so
as to be able to meet with courage the Mystery of Evil.
If we do
dare this path, and seek for the deepest instruction in
Christ's Sermon
on the Mount, then will come to us a change in the nature of
our
biography, such that it more and more takes on the pattern,
described
in the John Gospel, as the Seven Stages of the Passion of
Christ (the
washing of the feet; the
scourging; the crowning with thorns; the carrying of the
cross; the
crucifixion; the entombment and the resurrection) (for a careful exposition of these Seven
Stages, see
Valentin Tomberg's [anthroposophical] book: Inner
Development).
Whereas Christ
lived this in an
apparently mostly physical way, those, who truly follow In
His
Steps [the name of Sheldon's
book,
as well as a critical phrase** in Ben-Aharon's The
Spiritual
Event of the Twentieth Century - a profound
Imagination of
the True Second Coming], will in the
main
feel these trials in their souls, as aspects of the joy and
suffering
in the human biography.
**["Now when they
identified
themselves with the situation of earthly humanity, the souls
who
remained true to [Archangel] Michael prefigured,
in their
planetary Earthly-Sun life, the great Sacrifice of Christ.
They
walked again in His
steps [emphasis added] as they did in
former
earthly lives, only now the order of following was reversed.
They
went before Him, showing Him the way, acting out of free and
self-conscious human decision, and He followed in
their
steps [emphasis added] only after they fully united themselves
with the divided
karma of Earth and humanity. Only then could He offer
His
sacrifice as the answer to the new, future question of human
existence:
the question concerning the mission and fate of evil." Jessiah Ben-Aharon, The
Spiritual
Event of the Twentieth Century.]
These trials
may seem difficult, but the
truth is they are merely human. It was Christ becoming
human that
went to the Cross, for how could He place an example before us
we could
not do out of our own humanity (just as Sheldon wrote in In
His
Steps). [something written by a
Shepherd (a
pastor) in America, at the same time Steiner (a King) was
writing his The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (Freedom)]
It is the human in Christ that asks in the Garden of
Gethsemane
that the cup be taken from him, but if not, He accepts the
Father's
will. While later it is the even deeper human in Christ that
says on
the Cross: "My
God, my God, why did you abandon me?".
Who
among us, in the trials and sufferings of life, has not
uttered these same thoughts? [That Steiner teaches an esoteric
meaning
for the end of life statements of Christ, in no way
contradicts their
exoteric meanings, which are also true.]
It is here that
Christ's teachings
strongly diverge from the Wisdom of the Buddha, for the Buddha
would
have had us overcome suffering by learning not to know it (one
version
of the third Noble Truth of the Buddha reads as follows: " ...concerning the
Cessation
of Suffering; verily,it is passionless, cessation without
remainder of
this very craving; the laying aside of, the giving up, the
being free
from, the harboring no longer of, this craving.",
whereas
Christ asks us to embrace our human pain so that we can pass
through the Narrow Gate of suffering to then know our deepest
self, the
true i-AM, and then through this burning trial of
knowledge of the
true-self, ultimately come to Him. If we would follow In
His
Steps then we too must take on
ourselves the
errors (sins)*** of the world, and the tasks of forgiveness
and love,
for every love
engendered free act of moral grace
takes up a
small part of Christ's suffering, so that we too participate
in the
deepest creative acts of the Seventh Day of Creation - the transformation of
evil
into love. [This is for
anthroposophists the teaching attributed to Mani, but the
reason such a
personality even knows this is because the transformation of
evil
into love is modeled for us in the
deepest
felt actions of the Divine Mother and the Son. When we
know
intimately these actions of the Divine Mystery, we know the
true
spiritual meaning of the Mystery of Evil, and that this
Mystery is
Itself the real source of the earthly doctrine connected to it
that is
sometimes called Manichaeism.]
***[The word
sin does not appear in the
original Greek, from which the Gospels were translated into
the other
languages. The Greek word hamartia, misused to indicate sin, actually means "missing the mark" (it is a term from archery). See in
this
regard the Unvarnished
Gospels by Andy Gaus.]
Is this
foolish? Of course, but we
need not fear this Way of the Fool, for
our Faith
in Christ's Promises will always be fulfilled, as we ourselves
can
learn to become the fulfillment of the law and the prophets.
Yes,
this Way is full of trials, but whoever has lived life, and
reflected
upon their experience, knows that in the meeting of our
biography's
trials with courage we discover what it truly means to be
human: to
struggle, to fall, to get
up and to learn - and, through this process, gently and
humbly, begin
to take up along side and with Him, Christ's kind and light,
Yoke of
Love.
Having said all
this, it becomes
necessary to make one last picture for the reader, for
clearly, in that
we read the news and hear of the horrors of man's continuing
inhumanity
to man, we ourselves face a terrible trial. How are we
to
understand a world seemingly so filled with Evil?
Picture, for a
moment, the surface of the
Earth. Below dense matter and fiery substance, while
above,
airless space. Humanity lives out its Earth Existence
only in
this narrow spherical band of Life, whose diameter is just
under 8,000
miles (and whose height is just three to four miles, because
above
15,000 feet above sea level, the atmosphere starts to not
contain
enough oxygen to support our breathing). The total
surface area
of the Earth is 196 million square miles, and the habitable
land area
43 million square miles Six billion plus human
beings must
find all that they physically need, which when we consider
actual
available arable land (land that could be cultivated for food,
and
other necessary resources), means that each individual only
has a
square 161 feet on a side from which to grow what they need.
This
then is the
physical spacial
aspect
of the social organism of the whole world.
Yet, we know
that this spherical space is
itself often unwisely distributed, for human social
arrangements,
whether rooted in dominance and selfishness (dominion over) or generosity and sharing (communion with), these social arrangements seem to determine
this
social order. This stream of moral gestures (choices),
of good
and/or of evil, moves out of and through human beings,
organizing the
physical one.
As to this moral aspect
of the social organism of the whole world, it has reached in this Time a kind of climax of
development,
and it will be important to appreciate the true nature of the
logos order in which
Christ has set modern human existence, through
His creative powers as the Artist (Lord) of Karma (the precise
and love
based placement of individual biographies in relationship to
each
other). Here is something Natural Science cannot
do, for
the meaning
of
existence is beyond the weaknesses
of their
yet fanciful and spirit-empty images. This will also
help us to
understand why so many (falsely, but with some degree of
reason)
believe we live in the End Times.
In the
Twentieth Century the world was
woven together into a single social organism, not just via the
globalization of economic matters, or the personal
interconnections
offered by the Internet, but most centrally by the Media. At the
beginning of the 20th Century, few knew
what went on elsewhere the world, in any detail or with any
immediacy.
At the end of the 20th Century, at the same time that
the
returned Kings' were unfolding the New Revelations of Christ
[the
story of the 20th Century involves a return of the
meaning-essence of
the Three Kings of the Gospels - that is a return of the
knowledge of
Gnosis, hungering to be woven again into a single whole with
true Faith
- an event which clearly had to accompany the True Second
Coming], the
world itself was woven into a whole in the sense that no macro
social
event was not to be almost immediately known everywhere the
same day
(if not the same hour) that it happened.
We live in a
time when has arisen a
Culture of Media - a kind of knowledge commons, in which vast
resources
are used to create for us pictures of the meaning of the world
and of
events. The more developed the country, the greater our
daily
experience can be saturated with the messages coming from this
Culture
of Media.
Moreover, great
effort and expense is
gone into by those who would force us to believe what they
want us to
believe. Between advertising, political propaganda,
outright
lies, weak or lame reporting, and other similar failures to
reach the
truth, this saturation of the soul by the Culture of Media
would seem
to fail to offer us any service at all. What is not
appreciated is that
the Christ is far wiser than even the deepest believers
imagine.
Every evil is eventually turned to good, and next we
will explore
the prime example for our time.
Recall what has
been pointed out many
times now, that the
individual biography is the
central reality of life on the Earth.
What happens inside us as we experience life is
much more important and enduring than the outer events which
surround
us. That Stage Setting (all the world's a stage....) is
but epiphenomena to the reality of the life of the soul.
To help
us appreciate this then, let us explore these matters from the
point of
view of the individual biography.
In this time,
there are over six billion
plus of these biographies woven into the tapestry of the
social
organism of the whole world. Six billion lives held
delicately
and exactly within the Love and Divine Justice of the Mystery.
Within these biographies, all the individual i-AMs
experience that precise and personal instruction that hopes to
lead
them to the realization of their own divinity and immortality
of
spirit. [The epoch (rite of passage) of the Consciousness Soul
is 2100
years long, going from the time of the beginning of the
on-looker
separation (and the creation of Natural Philosophy - Science)
in the
1400's, until the years around 3500 AD.]
To understand
this we need to think it
from the inside out, and not from the outside in. The
Culture of
Media only provides context, never essence. True, life
is hard,
even harsh, even terrible. The naive consciousness wants
to turn
away from this suffering, and cannot understand how God (the
Divine
Mystery) could allow such things as torture, child abuse and
the
genocidal acts which are dumbed down by the terms: ethnic
cleansing.
The reality is
that what the Divine
Mystery does is to allow for freedom. This most precious
gift is
essential to the immortal spirit during its Rites of Passage
we are
calling: Earth Existence. Moreover, the Mystery also
makes
certain there is a true Justice through the post-death
passages of
kamaloka and lower and higher devachan, in a manner no human
social
structure can provide. Christ has told us this in the
Sermon on
the Mount: "to what sentence you sentence others,
you will be
sentenced". All this should be kept in mind as we proceed.
As a single
ego, I wake in the morning.
From the night I bring the remainder of yesterday,
perhaps worked
over. Surrounding me, as I live the day, are the lives
of those
with whom I have a karma of wounds - with whom I have a debt
of meaning
to creatively work over. This we carry together, each
bearing a
part, each bearing their own wounds. These are
wounds from
the past, from the present and from the future.
To observe the
world of today, as we walk
the walk of our lives, is to observe trials of fire and
suffering -
rites of wounding and being wounded. But not just this, for
also there
is healing. Where we let love thrive, wounds become
healed.
Thus flow all
our days, often too fast to
even notice the beauty and wonder of the sea of personal
relationships
and shared trials. Yes, there is misfortune, and evil
deeds.
But do we really imagine Christ and the Divine Mother
lets this
evil happen without recourse or justice? We may not know
this
directly through Gnosis, but we also can
have Faith.
Gnosis without Faith
is empty of Life; and, Faith without Gnosis is empty of the
Truth. Only when we join
them together, do we get: the Way (the
Mystery of living the Good), the Truth (the Mystery of knowing the
Good) and the Life (the Mystery of union with the
Good).
This then is
the wonder of the outer and
inner biography, for often the wounds are not visible.
Yes,
sometimes the wounds are visible to our eye or ear for we see
people
too fat, too thin, too lamed in body, too poor, too physically
or
mentally deficient. Often, however, so many of us suffer in silence that we really do not know the nature and
personal
meaning of their wounds - only our own are visible to the eye
of our
heart, unless we first learn to exercise and unfold certain
powers of
soul and spirit.
Amidst all this
visible and silent
suffering, we find ourselves woven into the Culture of Media.
Images and sounds flow around us, pictures of a world on
the
verge of chaos and madness. Yes, we have the intimacy of
our
personal biography, but through the Culture of Media we are
drawn into
the painted backdrop of the whole world - a backdrop we all
share.
War in Iraq. Global warming. Governments out
of
control. Pandemics waiting in the wings. Local
economic
recession, and even world-wide depression.
What lives in
this painted backdrop - in
this Stage Setting - in the wise relationship of the Culture
of Media
to the unfolding of our personal biographies?
The answer is
this: the
mirror of our own inner darkness
and light...
Inside us the
double-complex - our
feelings of judgment, our temptations, our addictions and our
sense of
failure. Inside us the darkness that belongs personally to us,
and
outside us, carried to us by the Culture of Media, the mirror
of that
darkness. But also inside us the Good that we would
author.
Think on it.
Do we not experience
the images and sounds brought to us by the Culture of Media as
something that is filled with what we like and we dislike?
We
live our biographies and the Culture of Media confounds our
souls with
pictures of dark and light to which we all respond
individually.
The great masses of humanity do not make the News.
The
great masses of humanity experience the News.
What is News?
News is exactly what
the reporters and television personalities call it: stories. The Culture of Media provides us stories
(tales)
of the world, which are often presented as if these stories
are true,
something most of us have come to know they are not.
News stories
reflect all kinds of bias, and in some cases the bias is
deliberate.
Moreover, news stories reflect conditions of commerce
living in
the agency reporting them.
For example, it
is well understood that
in the last third of the 20th Century in American television
the news
divisions of the major networks disappeared, and the
entertainment
divisions took over the responsibility for the news. The
opportunity to inform and educate the receivers of news
stories became
secondary to the need to keep them interested so as to be able
to sell
commercial time and make a profit. In addition, the
stories are
mostly about dire and tragic events, and little is
investigated or
reported that is about the positive and the creative.
We are right
then to wonder sometimes
about the News, about its harsh nature and artless excessive
attention
to the dark deeds of many. Humanity in general bears
within it
the beam that is not seen, while the mote
is exaggerated. But the world itself is not this beam,
is not
this darkness. The greater part of darkness is inside us
- in our
own souls, and from there projected onto the world. The
Culture
of Media exaggerates this darkness further, at the same time
it gives
us much that also arouses our own unredeemed antipathies and
sympathies.
Once more for
emphasis...
The world in
its reality is not this
Media generated excess of darkness (so out of balance with the
light
that is also everywhere present), which we all project from within
the soul - the beam. Yet, in
the Culture of Media this whole processes of dark projection
is
exaggerated so that the mirroring
nature of the social
world itself begins to bother us. This logos
order of the social world is complex
and rich, and worth a
deep study.
Pictures of a
distorted and untrue
meaning of the world abound, and while we share these
pictures, we make
personal and individual our reactions. Just as the
intimate
events of our biographies have a personal meaning, so does the
shared
stage setting have a personal meaning. In a more general
sense,
for example, many Christians today are confronted, via the
Culture of
Media, with pictures of individuals whose actions as
self-proclaimed
Christians either inspire us to imitation or cause us to turn
away in
shame. The same is true in Islam. The terrorist who
frightens us
in the West, also causes many ordinary Muslims to turn away in
horror.
Everywhere fundamentalism rises, to continue the
example, the
great mass of humanity, that are not so tied to such arid
rigidity,
shrink away in antipathy. Do we not assert quietly,
inwardly to
ourselves: this
is not me, I am not that - I will not be that!
In our
biographies then, we are
confronted in the intimacy of our personal relationships with
what are
sympathetic and antipathetic reactions to that which we would
choose to
admire and imitate, and that which we would shun and refuse to
be like.
Via the Culture of Media, we are met with that which
approaches
us in the same way, yet on a larger scale. Just as
we as
individuals have a Shadow (a double-complex), so nations,
religions and
peoples have a Shadow, and the Culture of Media puts in our
faces these
pictures and meanings with which we can identify or from which
we can
turn away, often in shame.
Christ has
arranged, in this particular
moment in time (the cusp of the 20th to 21st Centuries, which
is also
the Dawn of the Third Millennium) to place in the dying away
hierarchical social forms of humanity, those biographies which
do two
main forming gestures within that history. This is all
connected
to a process in which social chaos arises in order to cause
these old
hierarchical [third cultural age] social structures to let go
their no
longer valid hold, and in many instances be eventually
replaced with
new social form arising out of the social commons [fifth
cultural age].
In the first
instance, these biographies
living in the decadent social hierarchies (such as government,
corporate and church organizations) portray strong images, via
the
Culture of Media, to which we react equally strongly out of
our likes
and dislikes. For example, one of America's wise women,
Doris (Granny
D) Haddoch, has said that we should
be grateful for such
as George W. Bush, because he causes us to awake from our
sleep as
citizens. As a consequence, in our individual
biographies we
react to the extremes of these dominant religious, business,
cultural
and political personalities, and this brings about in us as
individuals
certain inner judgments and calls to action.
The second
effect of those biographies
unfolding in the now decadent institutional social hierarchies
is to
drive the social order further into a needed condition of
chaos,
something all 6 billion plus biographies require in order to
birth the
moral dilemmas necessary for the Age of the Consciousness
Soul.
This social chaos sweeps traditional moral
authority aside,
and forces us as individuals into situations where we must
rely on the
own I in order to properly face the moral crisis. In
that human
beings are incarnating in massive karmic communities in order
to have
these sometimes shattering moral experiences, this causes the
present
world social organism to have the strong tendency to
completely
dissolve into a condition of near total social conflagration
[thus my
website: Shapes in the Fire].
The moral
aspect
of the logos ordered social organism of the world requires crisis in order for the individual
biographies
to live, not just intellectually, but fully and dynamically
and
existentially into dilemmas of moral choice. Only true
moral
choice can awaken in us what is offered in this Age to the
development
of the Consciousness Soul.
Nothing in the
world is not touched by
the Art of Christ, who as Lord of Karma - Lord of the
Satisfaction of
Moral Debt and healer of karmic wounds, arranges in majestic
harmony all the biographies so that even from the smallest
detail to
the grandest historical event, meaning is put to the service of our development - the
leaving
behind of our spiritual childhood followed by our birth into
spiritual
adulthood.
The world historical crises of this time are a complex and rich Stage Setting, against which 6 billion plus souls live out the dramas of their individual biographies.
Thus, in this
birth from spiritual
childhood to spiritual adulthood, the Time - the Age of the
Consciousness Soul - is a Rite of Mystery, a Baptismal Mass
for all of
humanity, just as was told to us by John the Baptist. [in
Matthew 3:11]
"Now
I
bathe you in the water to change hearts, but the one coming
after me is
stronger than me: I'm not big enough to carry his shoes. He
will
bathe you in holy breath and fire."
(emphasis added)
Consider now
more closely what happens inside
us as we experience the intimacy of
our
biographies, and the shared pictures that come via the Culture
of Media.
Choice
confronts us. Do I be
like that, or like this? From what place inside do I
choose?
In a time so filled with chaos that rules no longer
apply, I
discover that I can rely only on myself. Out of myself I
must
author the Good in response to the world of meaning that
surrounds and
confronts me. So powerful, in its personal immediacy,
are these
experiences, images and meanings, that we cannot turn away
from them.
It is as if the World itself is on Fire, wanting to burn
and burn
and burn until we run from it in terror, or stand up to it and
give the fullest of our participation
to its moderation and its healing.
Yet by Grace, I
contain the means to know
the Good that my biography and membership in the shared fate
of
humanity draws out of me. What I source becomes a part
of the
world, and I know that this is so. I know my
freedom to
enact the moral grace that my heart comprehends in its deepest
places.
Deep inside my soul my very own heart hungers to sing: Love will I give.
Love
will I create. Love will I author.
So now we think
away the physical - the maya
of the sense world, and let our picture thinking gaze only
upon this
inner, invisible to the physical eye, moral act. An act
more and
more emerging everywhere, for while in America, and the
Cultural West,
the Consciousness Soul is first widely appearing, it
will and
must appear everywhere that human beings let the world touch
their
wounds, while they seek to share with others the trials by
fire of
their biographies.
Invited by the
Love and Art of Divine
Circumstance to look within and to reach into the depths of
our own
being in order to source and author that Good which we know to
be
right, we touch something spiritual and are Touched by
something
Spiritual. In this time of the True Second Coming, in
the
inwardness of our souls and invisible to all outer seeing, a
Second
Eucharist is being enacted - the Good offers Itself - Its own Being - to us (Moral Grace).
For the
Good we know is not just known in the soul as what we tend to
think of
as a mere thought, but if we attend most carefully, it is true
Spirit,
just as the John Gospel writer told us that Christ spoke:
[John 3:6-8] "What's born of the flesh is
flesh, and what's born of the breath is breath. Don't be
amazed
because I told you you have to be born again. The wind
blows
where it will and you hear the sound of it, but you don't know
where it
comes from or where it goes; its the same with everyone born
of the
breath."
[The existence
of a Second Eucharist, to
accompany the Second Coming, in no way means to diminish or
change the
Original Eucharist. On the contrary, we will find that
via the
Second Eucharist our understanding of the meaning of
the Original Eucharist (the transubstantiation of matter) will
deepen.
See in this regard, the small pamphlet: Radiant
matter:
Decay and Consecration, by Georg
Blattmann. From the transubstantiation of matter we are
being led
onward to learning how to participate also in a
transubstantiation of
thought.]
Thus we are
being truly and continuously
born again today (each act of moral grace is another Second
Ethereal
Eucharist and birth), from out of our spiritual childhood and
into our
spiritual adulthood, baptized outwardly by the fires of the
times in
our biographies, and by holy breath within - a Second
Eucharist where
Christ gives of His own Substance that biblical knowing of the
Good -
His own Being. For us to truly know the Good, requires
we join
our own soul to the Good. Our yearning to author the
Good out of
ourselves is how we participate in the Baptism of being truly born again, and
how we participate in the sacrament of
the Second Eucharist. Christ also participates by giving
to us,
out of Himself, this very Good - this Moral Grace. When
having
received within ourselves this sacrament of the Second
Eucharist, an
act that only arises because we seek it and form its actual
application, we remain free - we create moral law - we author
the
fulfillment of the law and the prophets. Given to us
within by
Christ as a capacity, we then author its incarnate nature and
pass it
on to the world of our biographies, - from out of us thence
into the
outer world (or into the inner world), do we then ourselves
author this
Good: love
engendered
free moral grace.
But how does
Christ do this? Is
this Good offered to us in this Second Sacrament as if it was
a thing,
passed by hand from one to another?
No.
Christ as holy breath breathes
upon the slumbering burning embers of our own good nature,
just as we
breath upon a tiny fire in order to increase its power.
He
sacrifices His Being into this breath, which gives Life to the
tiny
ember-like fire of our moral heart. The holy breath
becomes
within the soul of each human being who asks, seeks and knocks
a gift
of Living Warmth that enlivens our own free fire of moral
will.
The Narrow Gate
opens both ways, making
possible thereby the intimate dialog and conversation of moral
deeds
and thoughts that is woven between the i-AM,
the
Thou and the Christ (wherever two or more are gathered...),
which
intimate conversation leads ultimately to the consecration - the character development - of the soul.
In this way our
thinking can now behold the Meaning
of Earth
Existence in the Age of the Consciousness Soul:
A
macro-cosmic Rite, a Second Ethereal Eucharist, in which we
give
birth out of ourselves in the most intimate way possible,
knowledge of
the Good, not as mere thought, but as Life filled moral will,
breathed
into greater power by the sacrifice of the true ethereal
substance of
Christ's Being in the form of holy breath.
The outer world
is but a seeming, and
what is brought by the Culture of Media mere pictures of the
Stage
Setting for the World Temple that is home to our biographies.
When we think away this outer seeming - this logos
formed and
maya based sense world, and
concentrate only on the Idea
of the moral grace (Life filled holy breath) we receive and
then enact
out of the wind warmed fire of individual moral will - as
individual
law givers, as the fulfillment of the law and the prophets - we create this Meaning of Earth Existence.
Every act of moral grace, given greater Life
within in the deepest intimacy of our life of soul, is an
ethereal
communion with Christ, even though we may only experience it
as what to
us is a mere thought of what is the Good at some moment of
need in the
biography.
Christ gives us
this Gift, by Grace,
freely out of Love, and with no need that we see Him as its
Author.
We hunger inwardly to know what the right thing to do
is, and
when this hungering is authentic, we receive Christ's Holy
Breath.
This does not come so much as a thought-picture of the
Good in
response to our questing spirit, but rather as the contentless breathing substance of Christ's Being. We
are
touched (inspired) by Love, and at this touch we shape
that Breath into the thought that we then know. The nature of
its
application and form in which we incarnate this thought is
entirely our
own. We shape the thought completely out of our own
freedom - our
own moral fire of will, for only we can apply it accurately in
the
individual circumstances of our lives.
As the Age of
the Consciousness Soul
unfolds accompanied by this Second Eucharist, the Social World
of human
relationships begins to light and warm from within. For
each free
act of moral grace rests upon this Gift of Christ's Being to
us - an
ethereal substance received in the communion within the Temple
of the
own Soul, freely given in Love whenever we genuinely: ask, seek and knock
during
our search for the Good. Our
participation in this Rite, this trial by Fire leavened by
Holy Breath,
leads us to the co-creation of new light and new warmth - the
delicate
budding and growing point of co-participated moral deeds out
of which
the New Jerusalem is slowly being born.
This
co-creation is entirely inward, a
slowly dawning Sun within the macro Invisible World of Spirit.
Moreover, we do it collectively (as humanity).
While each
of us contributes our part, it is our collective conscious
celebration
of the Second Ethereal Eucharist (creating the Good) that
begins the
transubstantiation of the collective (presently materialized
and
fallen) thought-world of humanity into the New Jerusalem.
Thought is
real, and it is as equally
real as is matter. The Original Eucharist transforms the
already
divinely given now-dying substance of earthly matter into
Life-filled
Spirit through our ritual invitation of
the active
Grace of the Divine Mystery; and, our participation in the
Second Ethereal Eucharist transforms dead thought
into living ethereal Substance, through the mystery of our
individual
spirit's active and embryonic grace, that becomes united into
the
collective co-creation of humanity.
In the
Invisible World of Spirit, we
co-participate, out of the own moral fire of will, in the Dawn
of the
New Sun that is to become the New Jerusalem.
Let us now slow
down here for a moment,
and take a deep breath, for these last thoughts above may seem almost too big - too idealistic -
to be
easily contemplated. To ease our understanding and
gently ground
it, let us consider this situation once again in it most
ordinary
aspects.
The world of
our biographies places each
individual into the fires of experience.
These are remarkable gifts that lead us toward moral
questions -
often deep and troubling. We yearn to know what to do,
and in
this circumstance we may ask, seek and knock. What
has been called earlier in this book Moral Grace is available
to us,
yet the mystery of this practice of inner activity is where we
ourselves
create moral law - where we become the fulfillment of the law and the prophets.
In the King's
Tale, we saw that Rudolf
Steiner's book The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity
showed how
to come to this knowledge through the practices of Gnosis - to
knowledge -
in the form of moral imagination, moral intuition and
moral technique. In the Healers' Tale, we saw how the 12
Steps
helped us to master the soul through the elevation of the
spirit, and
in this way come to know God's Will as we understand it.
Finally,
in the Shepherd's Tale we came to understand that by
asking What
Would
Jesus Do out of Faith, we could
also
come to the needed individual moral beliefs.
Three different
paths (among perhaps many
more) all leading to those individual invisible depths that
each of us
must uniquely experience, which we have now seen must be
properly
called: the
Second
Eucharist of Holy Breath. So
we
come now to perceive the Time - this Age of the Consciousness
Soul -
where, if we seek it, we have made ourselves available to be
baptized
with Fire
and
Holy Breath, just as John the
Baptist us told
Christ would do, 2000 years ago.
Even so, we
still have to truly want to know the Good -
to authentically ask, seek and knock.
***************************************
[For the
neophyte: So far we have
seen how with Ahriman's incarnation, humanity was driven
deeper into
moral crisis - the opposing beings, by trying to create a
world in
which evil triumphs, also create a tension in the social
reality that
causes people to resist. Refusing to submit to this
pressure,
human beings reach into their own depths and draw out of those
depths
previously hidden capacities. Life makes a demand, and
some fold,
and some stand up. This is nothing new in human
existence, except
that in this instance we have come to see how, even though the
Prince
of Earthly Dark can incarnate in a human being, and from that
place in
the center of our social existence create all kinds of
troubles, many
people refuse to bow down to this Prince. Instead, they
turn to
their own inner resources and to each other, bringing out of
the secret
aspects of their own will moral qualities perhaps they didn't
even know
they had. If we start to look around us, we will see
that more
people do this - reach to the deep inside - than those who
fall deeper
into the dark. Who does this? Who stands up?
Blessed
are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. The salt
of the
earth refuse to stand by and let evil prevail. In them
the seed
of the Father resides, and this mystery we will take up next.
Below is an in
depth look at one of the
possible processes by which our own thinking can be changed in
profound
ways, through the application of moral grace to our own inner
activity.
Instead of just acting in the outer world, we wake up
and become
an actor in our inner world. It is this transformed
thinking that
enabled me to come to the knowledge that stands behind my ability to write the above
two
essays. Many who read this will recognize that much of
what is
described they already do, to some extent or another.
Recall that the American Soul as an natural
instinct for
Anthroposophy and for the Consciousness Soul, such that every
time a
reader of this says to themselves: I try to do this, you are recognizing this healthy
instinct.]
In Joyous Celebration of the
Soul Art and Music of
Discipleship
- a moderately serious introductory sketch unveiling
a mostly
American way of understanding the New Thinking -
first some necessary context
Recently in the
News for Members of the
Anthroposophical Society in America (late 2005), was published
a
wonderful lecture given by Dennis Klocek, elaborating the
alchemical
foundations living in Rudolf Steiner's spiritual scientific
work.
The essay below means to be something from just one
voice out of
another of the streams that seeks to find its home within the
Anthroposophical Society and Movement - the stream of discipleship, of those who are karmically related to the
original
Twelve and the direct participation in certain aspects of the
Mystery
of Golgotha. [See the essay above (The Meaning...) for why I write in this way.]
In the essay
that follows, it might help
the reader to understand that it is mostly written for, and
out of, the
American Soul. About this Soul, Rudolf Steiner spoke in
different
places and in the following ways, which I will paraphrase:
The
American comes to Anthroposophy naturally. English
speakers are
instinctively in the Consciousness Soul in their Life of
Rights.
There is a hidden and unique form of Anthroposophy that
is to
develop in America in the future, and one should look to
Emerson and
his circle of friends to appreciate it.
The reader, of
whatever Soul background
and gesture, who would seek inner stimulation from
actively
engaging this essay, should understand that for the American
Soul much
of what is described below is already instinctively present.
This
instinctive relationship to the art and music of discipleship
appears
first in the American Soul in the dominant tendency to be
directed
outwardly toward the world, fully engaged in social reality,
and
sometimes (often more frequently than appears on the Evening
News)
seeking to heal the social world's wounds. Part of the
hidden
mystery of this Soul is that it is possible to take what is so
present
instinctively, and awaken it by gradual degrees into full
consciousness. This task may turn out to be far easier
for the
American Soul, than has so far been imagined within
Anthroposophical
circles.
To fully
inaugurate this gradual
awakening, however, does require turning from the outer world
and its
worries and wonders for a bit, and to look within - to
practice
introspection. When looking within becomes a normal part
of soul
life, American anthroposophists should not be surprised to
find that
they already live instinctively in their wills in ways with
considerable kinship with the path of discipleship - the path of
moral action in
the world through renunciation and love.
With the addition of this introspective looking within,
we add to
the thinking we already do about the field of outer-world
social moral
action, a complementary and much needed thinking about the
soul-field
of inner moral action. Outer world thinking and action
are
enhanced by everything we learn from the practice of looking,
thinking
and acting within.
By the way, it
is not the point of this
essay to encourage any divisive distinction, such as might be
assumed
because of the emphasis on matters American. Nor is it
being
suggested here, for example, that Americans are any better at
Anthroposophy in any way. On the contrary, we are just different. Each
Soul gesture in the Threefold World has
unique gifts to offer, and this essay means to serve the
potential
freeing of those yet untapped American gifts from a kind of
child-like
imitation of things European. This tendency, to model
our soul
practices on a kind of European anthroposophical idealism of
the soul,
was a natural impulse connected to our admiration of the work
of our
European brothers and sisters. It is time to grow past
this
however, to discover our far more earthly and pragmatic way to
the
Spirit. And, to do this not only for the benefit
of the
American Soul Itself, but also for the benefit of the
Anthroposophical
Movement world-wide.
There are then
two themes, which while
related are also quite separate. The relationship
of the
Alchemical stream and the Discipleship stream is one theme,
and the
relationship of the American Soul to the wider world is
another.
The point of intersection, between the Discipleship
stream and
the instinctive capacities of the American Soul, shows only
that the
Rosicrucian and Manichean streams of the Old World, and their
connection to Initiation, does not quite have the same meaning
for the
American Soul as does the natural Christ Impulse inspired in
Americans,
and revealed by their relationship to the outer world of
social need
(in part a consequence of the fact, that due to its rampant
individualism, the Consciousness Soul is developing faster
here - See
Ben-Aharon's "America's
Global Responsibility: individualism, initiation and
threefolding").
The Alchemical
stream is a stream of
studied spiritual knowledge and of initiation. It is
more of the
Kings and of Gnosis than of the Shepherds and of Faith.
The
Discipleship stream is more related to that moral work in life
that
comes from following the Teachings of Christ, and thus is more
of the
Shepherds than of the Kings. The disciples, who were
meant to be
fishers and shepherds of human beings, were not (in general)
of the old
mystery streams as were the Kings. The Shepherds belong
to what
was being newly created - to the future Mysteries that are to
arise
from the social commons. These future Mysteries are not
to flow
out of the old, now impotent and dysfunctional hierarchically
organized
Mystery Centers, but from finely and homeopathically
distributed
Branches and Discussion Groups - that is the New Mysteries are
to be
born out of and in ordinary social life where groups of
individuals
draw together (wherever
two
or more are gathered...).
At the same time, while the America Soul is more naturally of the Shepherd stream, - of the discipleship stream, because of its orientation to outer world moral action, it can by turning inward and seeking a pragmatic introspective life, begin to draw from the wisdom-well of renewed European spiritual life. Rudolf Steiner, in his works on objective philosophical introspection ("A Theory of Knowledge Implicit In Goethe's World Conception"; "Truth and Knowledge"; and "The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity") gives us a quite useful generalized map to this introspectively investigated inner territory - a territory that for the American Soul has many different and unique characteristics. With Emerson, we get a similar map, not as exact and scientifically rigorous, but one which nonetheless is more in harmony with the actual landscape of the American Soul.
We can then
read Steiner to initiate us
into our introspective soul voyages, in the most objective and
scientific fashion; and, read Emerson for that travelogue,
which is
more attuned to the unique scenic beauty to be actually found
there,
given that the American Soul, like the other soul-gestures of
the
Threefold world, is differently oriented in its fundamental
nature.
I have tried
here to distinguish two
problems that ought not to be confused. This
article is not
saying that the American Soul and the Discipleship stream are
identical, only that there is a definite kinship. What
is also
being said is that for those in this discipleship stream (of
which
there are no doubt many - Americans and otherwise - within the
Society
and Movement, and for whom this article also aims to provide
greater
self-understanding), they will tend to be less attracted to
exercises
aimed at spiritual development, and more called to moral
action in
life, which incidental to its true deeds, produces the after
effect
called: character
development.
"For every one step in spiritual development, there must be three steps in character development". Rudolf Steiner: "Knowledge of Higher Worlds and How to Attain It".
[Keep in mind,
when thinking about
character development, this question: To what aspect of
character
development do we relate a good sense of humor, laughter,
foolishness
and dance? Please also note that at one time the word silly
meant to be possessed by the sacred.]
This is not to
suggest that specific
spiritual developmental exercises are unimportant, but rather
just to
point out that if the moral (character) development lags
behind, it
more and more becomes a danger that spiritual experience will
come
toward us in a one-sided way. Further, we need to understand
that
true heart thinking is almost entirely a consequence of the
extent to
which the
will
to do the Good
(that is to be moral) is the foundation for all feeling and
thinking
activities.
To make some of
this a little more
concrete, we might notice that it would not be uncommon for
those drawn
to the Discipleship stream to find that their biography
involves a need
to encounter the 12 Steps of AA, or to have to undertake some
similar
deep moral-Trial work. Challenges to character
development
are common in biographies with a strong kinship with the
discipleship
stream. Which thought then leads us to the essential
point.
Moral or character development does not result from
spiritual
exercises, but only from inner and outer actions in the
biography, and
their related moral dilemmas. The practice of exercises
builds
capacities in the Soul, while moral
actions, both inward and
outward, apply these capacities in life (which then purifies the Soul). Christ puts it this way: Blind Pharisee, wash
out the
inside of the cup and saucer first, if you want the outside to
end up
clean [for the whole theme, see
Matthew 23:
25-28]
Let us review a
bit: From a certain
point of view, the Alchemical stream is very European, and
thus has a
tendency to put forward the incarnation of an Ideal as a goal,
leading
to the emphasis on spiritual exercises, knowledge and
initiation.
Americans, on the other hand, tend to face the social as
a
problem to be solved through moral action. This is very
pragmatic, for it is not the purity of an ideal that matters
as much as
being able to do something to help others. In this
sense, the
stream of Discipleship is more natural to Americans because,
in harmony
with our engagement with and in the world, as social helpers,
discipleship is rooted in moral action - in doing the Good ("...and
crown
thy Good, with Brotherhood...").
[Isn't this Brotherhood also partly related to our ability to help each other experience the katharsis of laughter, especially under dire circumstances. Conversation does have a higher function than light, but then what about a well encouraged giggle? The Shadow cannot abide humor, and runs away when we make fun of it.]
In a sense, the
idealism of the European
anthroposophist has blinded the American anthroposophist,
first by
suggesting there is only one way to be anthroposophical (a
European
soul idealism), and second by failing to appreciate that the
American
Soul is considerably different. The result is that
instead of
coming to true self knowledge, we (in America) have been
pursuing what
is at best a temporary illusion (a goal we really can't
achieve),
instead of our developing, more consciously, the earthly
(including
humorous and joyous), socially oriented and pragmatic instinct
that is
our given nature.
I hope the
above has not been too
confusing. Mostly I just wanted to point out certain
contextual
themes, and leave to the reader's own thinking precisely what
to make
of these ideas. In what comes next, where we get more
deeply into
the pragmatic and the concrete, I hope then that these
contextual
matters will, as we proceed, begin to make a more practical,
and a less
abstract, sense.
*
[a brief
biographical note: My
interest in introspection began around 35 years ago, in 1971,
as a
result of a kind of spontaneous awakening in my 31st year.
I
didn't call it introspection at that time, but I had become
quite awake
inwardly, and was only able to orient myself to these
experiences using
the Gospels. Seven years later, in 1978, I met the work
of Rudolf
Steiner, and gravitated to his writings on philosophy,
particularly A Theory
of Knowledge..., and The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity.
I
also became very interested in Goethean Science, projective
geometry
and all the Steiner material on the social problem, which was
my own
main outer-world interest. It was over 25 years later,
in 1997,
that I wrote my first effort at describing what I had learned
about the
moral nature of the Soul under these two influences: the
Gospels and
Steiner's writings on objective philosophical introspection.
That essay was called "pragmatic
moral
psychology" and can be found on my
website . At that time, however, I did not yet know
enough about
the Shadow, and only now, almost 10 years later, can I write
the
immediately below with some confidence in my appreciation of
the
intricacies of these problems in the light of an intimate
experience of
the threefold double-complex.]
substance, or better yet,
selling water by the river*
*[The river of
the soul lies inward in
everyone. To teach, as it were, about the soul, is to
sell water
by the river, to give to someone something that is already
right in
front of their own true face. In spite of all that
exists, for
example in our home libraries of Steiner texts etc., there are
really
only two essential books for the study of the soul: the Book
of Life,
and the Book of our Own Soul. Learn to read those, and
you'll
know the core of what you need to know. A text, even
this text,
can at best be a word-map describing a territory you'll only
really
know by direct experience, however many other books you ever
read.
The
reality
of matters spiritual is, however, not found in reading, but
only in
action. We can acquire a lot
of
concepts by reading, but we need experience (the consequences
of action) more.]
We should keep
in mind as we begin, that
what is described below is essentially very human and very
ordinary.
It is one possible descriptive word-map, as it were, of
the soul
engaged in the dynamics of inner awakening via the path of
discipleship. As a map, it will be somewhat abstract and
defined.
The actual territory is something else altogether -
human, messy,
inconstant, prone to emotional ups and downs - that is all the
wonders
of ordinary consciousness. All a word-map tries to do is to
point out
various significant features. Look out for these
mountains,
notice those valleys. Here is a pure spring, there is a
hard and
dangerous rock wall. It is my hope that the reader will
find
below some guidelines which will help them to chart their own
path
through the pristine forests and dark swamplands of the soul.
Keep in mind it takes courage to explore there, but at
the same
time there is no other adventure quite like it.
Recall then
what Dennis Klocek gave in
his lecture to the 2005 AGM, and then published shortly
thereafter in
the News for Members (or if you didn't hear or read it,
try
to find a copy as soon as you can): On the blackboard a
mandala:
a circle, expressing a series of alchemical relationships:
earth
(freedom); water (phenomenology); air (silent practice) and
fire
(dialog). The circle form suggests a return to earth
(freedom) at
some new or higher kind of level. But before considering
that,
first some deep background.
If, from a
certain point of view, we
think of the above four elements in Dennis Klocek's lecture as
notes in
a rising scale, we could also find that in between each note
is an interval. While the note is in itself more of
a step
in spiritual development supported by spiritual exercises, the
use
in
life (the interval) of the acquired spiritual skill/capacity is
more of a
moral act - an aspect of the process of character development.
The soul is fallen - it is an out of tune instrument,
yet we
hunger to return, to rise up and to experience reintegration,
and to
give voice to the joy of coming Home, which the Story of the Return
of the
Prodigal Son tells us leads to
celebration
and feasting.
Because the
spiritual development
exercises are so well known, and so completely covered
elsewhere in
Steiner's basic books, as well as Dennis Klocek's books, I
will not be
discussing them here. This essay assumes a general
knowledge of
that work, and some practice in their use. Here we are looking
at the
development of the Soul solely with regard to its struggles
with the so
very messy, personal and human moral questions of the
biography.
In case there
is some confusion here, in
Steiner's Knowledge of Higher Worlds, the
moral is approached mostly through a series of admonitions,
encouraging
the student to orient him or her self in life in certain ideal
ways.
Only in The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity,
with the
discussions of moral
imagination,
moral intuition and moral technique,
did
Steiner confront the moral problem directly and
exactly.
The details
that follow I have derived
from my own (naturally messy and human, stupid and silly, and
when I
really get serious - pretentious) introspective investigations
of the
moral dimensions of the soul, but it should be kept in mind
that while
it is prudent to describe these phases and Trials as if
separated in
time in the soul, they are much more likely to be layered over
each
other - and often simultaneous in a variety of ways. It
also
needs to be clear that what is to follow wishes only to add
another
dimension - another view from a different direction - to what
Dennis
Klocek gave, and not to contradict it in any way whatsoever.
It is
particularly crucial to note here
that we are mostly discussing those moral acts that take place
in the
Soul, not those in the outer
biography. There is a
relationship to be sure, but it will help to understand that
we are
moral in both worlds: the outer world of our biographies, and
the inner
world of Soul practice and art.
I emphasize the
word Trial
to add another quality to our understanding. Moral
development
takes place in the biography through Trials. These
challenges to
the life of soul and spirit are meant to be difficult.
We become
deeply engaged in our karma of wounds
with others in
these Trials. Moreover, these are called Trials
precisely because
there is great pain, suffering and effort (as well as not
enough fun)
connected to them, and because the Shadow plays such an important and often decisive role.
Furthermore, various aspects of the Seven Stages of the
Passion
of Christ (as described in the John
Gospel)
are enacted in the Soul via these biographical Trials: the Washing of the
Feet, the
Scourging, the Crowning with Thorns, the Carrying of the
Cross, the
Crucifixion, the Entombment, and the Resurrection. There is nothing abstract about these
difficult
processes of soul transformation, and this should be
kept in mind
as we go forward, namely that: every time I use the word Trial
I am
speaking of quite human, difficult and sometimes years
long
life-crises.
There is, in
this regard, something of a
kind of spiritual law involved. Just as the world of the
senses
has its laws of gravity and color, so the soul world has its
laws.
The ones to keep in mind here are the karma of wounds in
the
outer biography, as well as the outer and inner moral Trials
to be
faced there, which bear an exact and direct interrelationship.
To
face a challenge in life, to face a Trial, means to engage in
just that
personal teaching which belongs specifically to our
individually most
needed for the development of our character.
Consider a
marriage for example, or the
children to be raised there. These relationships are not
trivial
distractions to any spiritual development, but rather are
precisely
those riddles and mysteries of life belonging particularly to
our own
ego's character developmental needs. One can read all
kinds of
spiritual books, practice all manner of spiritual exercises,
and still
not advance because the biographical tasks are ignored.
To begin
to awaken within, and to appreciate that we are surrounded in
our
biography with just those moral tasks and Trials we
individually need,
is to recognize just how precisely and miraculously has
Christ, as the
Artist of our karma of wounds, woven us into the world of
personal
relationships. So when Christ advises that unless we
become again
as little children, we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, He
is, among
other matters, telling us precisely who our deepest spiritual
teachers
in life often are.
This world of
personal relationships, and
their corresponding moral Trials, whether of family or work,
or even
wider world challenges, is also very elastic in a sense.
We are
quite free in it, and it has a quality that can respond rather
exactly
to only those tasks which we choose to take up.
Part of
true Faith is to accept what comes to us as challenges, yet at
the same
time to recognize that our freedom also allows us to choose at
every
juncture, which way to turn, what burden to carry and when to
laugh at
ourselves.
For example,
the interval from earth
(freedom) to water (phenomenology) involves the skill:
thinking about.
This
skill we receive as a natural aspect of living in this age,
in that we are inwardly free to decide what to think; and, in
accord
with the Age of the Consciousness Soul, we are also becoming
more and
more able to form individual free moral ideas as well.
The
Consciousness Soul really just means
that if we inwardly wish to know the Good, in any particular
moment of
moral demand, crisis or need, we can in fact know what the
Good is.
Yet, in order to have this knowledge, we first have to ask, seek and knock. We have to inwardly form the question,
and
struggle there to let ourselves answer from the higher nature
of our
ego. The Good is what we make it to be, and as this
essay
proceeds, we will get deeper and deeper into this Mystery.
This
is why my book (found for free on line at
http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/twotf.html or which can be
purchased at
www.lulu.com) "the Way of
the Fool" calls this capacity to
know the
Good: Moral
Grace.
[As an aside,
for those more familiar
with Steiner's terminology, you should keep in mind that by
necessity
he was required to cognitively form his research and
understanding into
the language of the Intellectual Soul, as that was the
condition of his
audiences. In this book we are writing out of the
language of the
Consciousness Soul itself (something toward which American's
are
instinctively gifted). So, for example, when in the
opening
lecture of the book The
Challenge of the Times Steiner
speaks of the
need for people to work out of an experience of the threshold,
he is
using Intellectual Soul terminology. In the essay above,
where I
have elaborated carefully on the Second Ethereal Eucharist
experience,
this has been a quite concrete and exact picture of human
intercourse
across the threshold in the language of the Consciousness
Soul. I
also mean to suggest here that it is quite possible to take
many of
Steiner's works and translate them from
Intellectual Soul language into Consciousness Soul language.
The attentive reader of this text, who takes to
heart the
suggested practices, will in fact eventually find themselves
able to do
this translation process themselves. Once able to do this,
the
reader will be able to confirm not only their own experience,
but all
that is written here in Steiner themselves, for nothing here
is
contrary to what Steiner offered.]
Now in this
thinking about
there is the object of our interest, in relationship to which
we are
the subject. As subject, we think about
this object. This thinking is also essentially (and
initially)
discursive to our inner experience. We appear to
inwardly
talk to ourselves. Our spirit seems to inwardly
speak that
which our soul then hears.
It is with the
skill thinking about
that we first enter on the problem of the Water Trial of
phenomenology.
Thinking about naturally
contains something of the shadow forces of the
soul, in that our feeling life is, in the beginning, dominated
by
antipathies and sympathies. These natural likes and
dislikes of
our individualized soul color all that we think about.
Through
them what we think about
acquires an individualized (non-objective) meaning for the
spirit - the
i-AM, in the soul.
[The use of
this form of the term "i-AM",
is
meant to lessen the emphasis on the being
nature of the ego - its noun-like aspect, and to place more
emphasis on
the action nature - on the verb-like aspect of the ego.
The being
nature of the ego tends to be more related to the teachings of
the
Buddha, while the action nature
of the ego tends
to be more related to the teachings of Christ.]
In the light of
Steiner's The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity,
the
experience (the percept) is, in the beginning, distorted in
its meaning
(the thought, the concept) by the shadow elements lingering in
the yet
unredeemed antipathies and sympathies. By the way, the
reader
should be clear that only their own personal introspective
observations
can adequately discern what is going on within ones own soul.
We
have little business believing we can make such determinations
about,
or for, another.
Noticing these
excessive and unredeemed
aspects of antipathy and sympathy will give us our first vague
perceptions of the work of the threefold double-complex, the
Shadow in
the Soul. Thought
is
a flower rooted in the soul-soil of feeling, and filled from
within
by the blossoming life of the will-in-thinking.
Where an excess of unconsciousness infects this soil and this
life, the
Shadow is given free play.
In order to
progress properly through the life passages that comprise the
Water
Trial, we have to learn to renounce the unredeemed antipathy
and
sympathy. This is the central
moral act
that makes possible the transformation via the Water Trial
from
thinking about to thinking with. We enter the Water
Trial knowing how to think about, and we
can leave the
Water Trial knowing how to think with.
The
essential moral nature of this Trial is outlined in the
Gospels in the Sermon on the Mount, in the teaching concerning
the mote
and the beam. In the biography, when we learn to
struggle with
the covering over (or painting in thought via the unconscious
Shadow
driven creation of mental pictures) of the persons that we
meet with
our individual unredeemed antipathies and sympathies, we are
learning
about the beam in our own eye. We see not the person,
but our own
soul as that lives in our projected sympathies and
antipathies.
To learn to see past the beam, to meet the true
phenomena of the
other, to learn to think with them
rather than about
them, this is the moral craft to be
discovered during
the Water Trial.
The biography gives us just those experiences that challenge this learning. The spouse, the child, the co-worker, the boss, the neighbor, the relative, or the stranger-other, all will evoke the beam, the unredeemed mental pictures. We must learn how not to paint our experience with this already unconsciously given thought-content, and instead learn to let the experience itself speak into the soul, and to become consciously active as a creator of the free thought in relationship to the experience.
Again, one way
to banish the Shadow
influence here (when we discover our thinking to be possessed
by the
beam) is to laugh at ourselves - to see the essential
silliness of our
dark inner depictions of others, as well as those depictions
which are
too sympathetic (that is where we raise another up to the
level of a
kind of minor deity, such as how too many view Rudolf Steiner
- and
others - out of a soul mood of ungrounded and unrealistic
admiration).
Sobriety, for
all its virtues, must be
balanced with play, otherwise the soul becomes an arid desert.
So, for
example, when we look at another
person and recognize that they are, in themselves, not just
that which
we observe in the moment, but rather that they are their whole
history
- their whole biography (in fact a sequence of biographies),
and when
we learn to consciously set aside the reactive feelings of
antipathy
and sympathy, only then can we start to think with
who they truly are, and not just about
them. Our folk wisdom calls this learning to walk in
another's
shoes.
This thinking with
can of course be applied to anything living, anything that has
a life
element to its nature, not just human beings, plants or
animals.
This includes the history (the story) of a social form,
such as a
family, or even an Anthroposophical Branch. When we recreate in
the
imagination, free of antipathy and sympathy, the story-picture
of
something, we are then learning to think with the object of our
thought.
Goethe taught
himself to think with
the plant, and to this organic way of thinking Rudolf Steiner
later
gave the name: Goetheanism, which is a
thinking that leaves behind the discursive
aspect of thinking about, and replaces
that with a
thinking with - a qualitative
characterizing picture thinking
(Tomberg's formulation). We do this by learning to make
inner
images (mental pictures) consciously. We still retain
the ability
to think discursively about these
inner images -
thinking about does not
disappear, but remains a skill which can be
applied when we choose and where we feel it is appropriate
(which is
why I wrote earlier of the layered nature of these soul phenomena).
Two additional
aspects of soul phenomena
need to be understood here - the attention and the intention and
their
relationship. The moral act of renunciation is more
related to
those actions of the will-in-thinking that
determines on which particular object we focus our attention.
When we are lost to the beam in our own eye, part of our
attention is unconsciously focused on our own soul's reactive
feelings
of antipathy and sympathy. To the act of renunciation of
these
interfering aspects of our attention, we need to join the
intention to
love the object of this phenomenological (story-picture)
thinking.
After subduing the impulse to live imprisoned and in the
thrall
of the beam in our own eye (reactive feelings of antipathy and
sympathy), we use our first stage (necessarily awkward and
tentative)
understanding of how to love the other in such a way so as to
redeem
them in thought. We
consciously
create a new picture to replace the old unconscious and
reactive one.
As part of the
Water Trial, we don't just
set aside the reactive feelings, but we learn how to create in
the soul
cultivated feelings. We create freely chosen cultivated
moods of
soul - that is intended feelings of reverence, wonder and so
forth,
which then have a salutary effect on the thought content that
is to be
produced according to where we let our attention come to rest.
This is an example of where the exercises bear fruit.
If we
have practiced these exercises, this will be a great help when
we then
need to apply the newly learned ability to form cultivated
moods of
soul, as a prelude and foundation for thinking with
someone in a new way.
With a cultivated feeling we transform the soul-soil from which the thought is born and then flowers (which is also why the ideal is expressed as: thinking with the heart).
In a certain
sense, what is renounced,
love replaces. What is given up, becomes transformed.
What
is dark, is turned to gold. What is evil - our dark
habits rooted
in the unconscious fear and mistrust of the other - the Thou,
are
beginning to be transformed into love. And, best of all,
what is
too sober, particularly in our Self, can - as is necessary -
be made
silly.
The
renunciation of unredeemed antipathy
and sympathy does not, however, mean their elimination.
The will
acquires the capacity to master this somewhat base song of the
soul.
We cease attending to it unconsciously, and turn that
attention
(and the related intention) elsewhere. We master the
unconscious
soul gesture that leads antipathies and sympathies into the
forefront
of the soul, and like a good choir director, silence it so
that we can
concentrate on other instruments of soul potential, other
voices.
Transformed and conscious feelings of antipathy and
sympathy
become a valid means of discernment. But we need to be
awake to
the arising and becoming of these feelings, if we wish not to
give the
shadow element free play.
The
will-in-thinking (an awake and more and more morally pure
intention and
attention) fills the thought with life (which is why I add
to the
ideal of thinking with the heart, the ideal also to will the good).
In this way we
also refine the gold that
is latent in antipathy and sympathy - their capacities for
discernment
and truth are enhanced, because we apply them with more
consciousness -
a more awake attention and intention. In the teaching on
the beam
and the mote, Christ, in Matthew 7:5, ends it this way: You fake, first get
the log
out of your own eye and
then you
can see
about getting the splinter out of your brother's eye.
Again, one of
the best ways to eliminate
the log is to learn to laugh at it. The log arises from
the
Shadow side of soul life, and in the light and warmth of our
learning
to laugh at ourselves, the Shadow's hold dissolves.
In Steiner's The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity, we are
taught the importance of the moral basis for our actions,
whether
outwardly in the sense world, or inwardly in the soul.
Only that
action, which is preceded by a self-determined moral reason
(intention), is truly free. Even so, no one should be
surprised
to discover that they are already trying to do these
activities in some
fashion or another. Emerson said this: In self trust all
virtues are
comprehended. The purpose of
this essay
- this word-map - is to help us raise out of the realm of
instinct,
step by step into full consciousness, our already existing
natural
goodness.
[Another brief
biographical note: As I
shared previously, I underwent a kind of spontaneous awakening
at age
31, and one of the by-products of this inner infusion of
light, was
that I became hyper-aware of judging people. I could see
myself
putting them into various boxes and categories, and being now
awake to
this beam in my own eye, I could also see that this was not
right - it
violated conscience, so that I struggled to learn how to not
do it.
That said, learning how not to do it, does not mean that
we
always apply this newly learned moral craft. On the
contrary, I
often fell back into old ways many times over the years,
although there
did slowly dawn a kind of sensitivity, that let me see that I
had been
again in thrall of the beam. Stepping outside the prison
of the
beam does not become automatic - a habit, but must always be
applied,
in the moment, consciously, with intention and attention (the
will-in-thinking).]
After we have
learned to renounce
(consciously and for specific and individually freely chosen
moral
reasons) our soul gestures of yet unredeemed antipathy and
sympathy, in
order to learn how to think with that
object of thinking
which we are learning to love, do we then move out of the
Water Trial,
via more necessity, to the life passages of the Air Trial.
This
movement from water (phenomenology) to air (silent practice),
which
before (at the entrance to the Water Trial) began with
thinking about,
now
begins with the newly learned craft of thinking with.
We
start with that which we have now discovered as a spiritual
development in the course of the Water Trial, and then apply
that new
level of moral craft (capacity of the will) of renunciation
and love to
the Air Trial. The will-in thinking, which has
learned to master the unredeemed aspects of feelings of
antipathy and
sympathy, and to replace these with thoughts born out of
cultivated
moods of soul, is
now
strengthened. It is this strength that then lends itself to the life lessons of
the Air
Trial.
Dennis Klocek
described the Air Trial as
a learning to think backwards - of unraveling, or unrolling,
the
thought content produced by thinking with.
The
Discipleship stream sees it from a slightly different
direction,
one which, however, is not in opposition, but which instead is
once
more intended to be complementary.
Via the Water
Trial we have learned how
to think with, and that has
produced a thought content in the soul.
It
is this
content that must now be renounced in the Air Trial. When Steiner wrote of this he called it:
sacrifice
of thoughts. We learn how,
again in meeting people, to not
have a thought content at all. We become inwardly
silent.
Strong forces of will are needed in order to subdue the
already
achieved thought content, which we have wrapped around another
person
(or any other object of thinking), even if this content now
lives free
of unredeemed antipathies and sympathies. We can also
renounce,
during the life passages of major aspects of the Air Trial,
those
thoughts produced only by thinking about.
Further, in the
feeling life there live attachments to
the thought content. We have, after all,
produced it. It is our creation, and we like it (most of
the time
- where the Shadow has unconsciously produced the thought
content, we
can learn to relate to this soul phenomena out of a healthy
antipathetic
discernment - we can come to not
liking it
that we have such a thought). Sometimes, however, we
can't even
separate our own sense of self from this thought content.
Nonetheless, to traverse the Air Trial we need to
renounce our
collection of mental pictures (thoughts). Remember, the
self
development that accompanies the sequence of alchemical Trials
is not
just related to spiritual exercises, but also to moral or
character
development; the chief features of which are acts of sacrifice
- acts
of renunciation, and acts of love (the beginnings of: Not I, but Christ in
me).
Steiner also
calls this attachment to our
thought content, in certain circumstances: being in bondage to
the
concept "One
must
be able to confront an idea and experience it; otherwise one
will
fall into its bondage" (The
Philosophy
of Freedom, last sentence of the
original Preface). It can be a savage inner struggle -
this Air
Trial - to learn to forcefully set aside our favorite pictures
of the
world, a seemingly negative artistic act, sometimes taking
months to
accomplish. At the same time, their essential nature
does not
disappear, for the very same qualitative aspects of our true
nature -
our true i-AM - can once again
call them forth. Thought does not
disappear, it only becomes latent and goes into a kind of pralaya (the state of being uncreated, unformed).
The
will-in-thinking is strengthened by this act of renunciation,
and when
we choose to think again concerning this same object of our
thought,
the penetrating new powers of the will-in-thinking (attention
and
intention) can call forth from this pralaya an ever deeper understanding of the underlying
meaning
and truth of that about which we have chosen to think.
[another
biographical note: I first
explored this process during my many long years of the Water
Trial,
which really began when I discovered that I had become
captured by a
psychological paradigm, or world picture. I had come to
view
everyone, after a time, through the lens of this
psychologically based
world picture. I discovered that the best way to become
inwardly
free of this capture, was to undo any relationship to this
paradigm, an
activity that took several months. A year or so later, I
let
myself be captured by a similar world picture, this one
connected to
Tibetan Buddhism. Again, many months were needed to
become
inwardly free - to break the chains of the teaching - to be
able to
only experience these thoughts when and if I consciously
called them
forth. Subsequently, upon encountering Anthroposophy, I
gave
myself wholly to it - became intoxicated with it in a way, and
spent
three years drinking in all that I could manage, eventually
once more
finding myself inwardly lacking the spiritual freedom before
the
concept that I knew by then was essential.
Only after many
months of work at
sacrifice of thoughts, was I able to stand in relationship to
the
massive and marvelous thought content of Spiritual Science,
inwardly
free. Through this activity of sacrifice of thoughts, I
eventually stood in relationship to concepts, acquired from
Steiner, in
such manner that they only appeared in my consciousness when
called
forth. From this free perspective (which I was then able
to
survey as a whole), I then could see that Anthroposophy was
not a
thought content at all, but rather just the method of awake,
and fully
conscious (intended and attended) free thinking I had been
instinctively seeking for many years.]
As the shadow
elements (unredeemed
antipathies and sympathies - Water Trial, and emotional
attachments to
our self-created thought content - Air Trial) are being let
go, we now
begin to have another experience connected to the Gospels.
This
is again related to the Sermon on the Mount, specifically the
beatitude: "blessed
are
the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven".
The rolling
back, the sacrifice of, the
renouncing of the previously created thought content, makes
the soul
inwardly poor in spirit. As we
empty out the soul, we begin to learn a new
spiritual activity, which might be called thinking within. The Air Trial passages of life are
taking
us from thinking with toward thinking within. This opens us to
the delicate first stages of the conscious experience of the kingdom of heaven as It begins to appear with greater clarity out of the
general
background noise of the soul, and on the wings of our natural
instinct
for the embryonic New Thinking. The Air Trial is
developing
that which is meant to take us upward and onward to the Fire
Trial, or
dialog. When we are poor in spirit, empty of the
previously given
thought content (and master of silent practice), then we can,
to a
degree, experience directly the
inside of the object of our thought.
In
personal relationships, this is the capacity for the
beginnings of true
empathy.
In a sense, the
base elements of
unredeemed antipathy and sympathy are a foundation in the
soul. They
are of the earth. In the Water Trial, we rise to a more
subtle
and plastic condition in the soul. To think with,
to
know the phenomenology of the object of thought, is to bring
the
thinking into movement with its
object. The
earth aspect is more solid and crystallized, while the water
aspect
more fluid and more mobile. The discursively produced
thought is
dead (the instinctive living element necessary for any thought
remains
in the unconscious), while the consciously created
picture-thought is
more living. With the air element, the soul becomes more
expansive. Thought that is renounced in the Air Trial
dissipates,
disperses and dissolves into the general spiritual background
of the
soul - the previously noted pralaya (uncreated, unformed)
condition.
The will-in-thinking does not any longer call it forth,
nor does
it let the thought call itself forth. When we are in
bondage to
an idea, it calls itself forth, and the Air Trial teaches us
to break
the chains by which we have let our unconscious feeling
attachment tie
us to the concept/idea. We break these chains of feeling
by
dissolving them, and Dennis Klocek's metaphor of rolling back
the
thought is quite apt. We untie it from its attachment to
the
soul, and without doubt the practice of the spiritual exercise
of the
Ruskshau is a great help here.
Only then, when
we are truly empty, can
thought, in the sense that it is the true inside of our object
of
thinking, come toward us. The true idea of the object
moves
toward us, as we learn to open ourselves to it, such that it then thinks in us. As Christ says in Luke 17: 20-21 "Asked by the
Pharisees when
the the kingdom of God was coming he answered: "The kingdom of
God
doesn't come with the watching like a hawk, and they don't
say, Here it
is, or There it is, because, you know what? the kingdom of God
is
inside you."
Steiner writes
at age 25, in "The Theory
of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception", published in 1886, that: What takes place in
human
consciousness is the interpretation of Nature to itself.
Thought
is the last member in the series of processes whereby Nature
is formed.
While Emerson
writes at age 33 in the
essay "Nature"",
published in 1836, 50
years before Steiner wrote the above: Nature is the
incarnation of
a thought, and turns to a thought again, as ice becomes water
and gas.
The world is mind precipitated, and the volatile essence is
forever
escaping again into the state of free thought.
Thus, having
mastered (to a degree)
silent practice (learned how to be poor in spirit), we are at
the
beginning of the Fire Trial, and similar in kind to our
previous
renunciations, the soul now begins to discover how thinking
can be in
deepest kinship with its object, by abandoning the Self - by
no longer
seeing ourselves as the center of the universe. Instead
we begin
to love the object of thinking more than we love ourselves.
This
deepening intention to love, in that our own i-AM
learns to stand out of the way, allows the i-AM
of the other more room in the soul - we begin to see them not
just from
their inside - true empathy or thinking within, but as them, united with
them.
Again, anything living that can be thought empathically,
can also
be even more deeply known when we learn to unite with it in
thought.
But this requires more than our own action. The
art of true
empathy, or thinking within, now, as we let
go our
own centrality of being, becomes the chalice in which It can think in us -
and the life passage of Fire Trial
begins to unfold.
This is the
fruit of the Air Trial now
carried further - the spiritual developmental capacity to have
dialog
with the realm of the invisibles, for true empathy free of
self
importance and rooted in inner silence, now lets the inner
being of the
other - the Thou - speak. Having understood how we
become in
bondage to the concept, and emotionally attached to it, we no
longer
repeat those actions, with the result that thought tends not
to come to
rest in the soul, to coagulate there. Instead, thought
now passes
through the soul - flows like a living stream.
[In 1999, seven
years ago, I wrote this:
My
method
basically now consists (when life circumstances allow it) of
sitting at
my desk and writing descriptive passages of social and
political
realities. Inwardly the experience is analogous to
looking at a
clear stream. The surface of the stream results from my
inner
activity in sacrifice of thoughts, fact gathering, picture
forming and
artistic expression (more or less done simultaneously).
At the
same time as my thinking sees this clear surface, I can
perceive that
there arises, on the other side of that surface, activity
which does
not belong to my own will, but which appears there
spontaneously of its
own accord. The clear surface is then a product of two
activities
acting in concert. With my writing I record what appears
there.]
With this art (thinking within), which
was earlier
merely a skill
(thinking about)
and
then a craft (thinking
with), we now are in the midst
of the Fire Trial. But before discussing this Trial more
deeply
from the point of view of Discipleship, we need to look ahead
a bit and
understand what lies on the other side of the Fire Trial.
We need
to have a picture of what happens in between - in the moral
interval
between fire (dialog) and the new earth (new freedom), as the circle gesture
spirals
around in a kind of completion, before moving on to a new
level of
experience.
[a bit more
biography: the material next
to be presented, regarding what can happen after the life
passage of
the Fire Trial, is a little bit speculative on my part.
While I
have had quite definite experiences of the kind: Imagination,
Inspiration and Intuition (mostly by Grace from Above), I am neither naturally clairvoyant nor an
initiate. I
am not even sure most of us need anymore to strongly seek such
a goal,
at least certainly not in a single lifetime. When I get
deeper
into the Fire Trial material itself (below), especially given
the
layered nature of the soul capacities and experiences of all
the
Trials, and as well the true mystery nature of ordinary
consciousness,
why I encourage a consideration of the more modest goal of a
kind of sacramental
thinking (as against initiation)
especially for Americans, will
be made more plain.]
This
culmination of the Fire Trial is
described in Steiner's John Gospel lectures, in lecture
twelve, as: The Nature of the Virgin
Sophia and of the Holy Spirit (when
reading
this lecture, keep in mind that it was addressed to the
Intellectual
Soul, not the Consciousness Soul). The previous
spiritual
developmental tasks, interwoven with the moral and character
developmental intervals, or Trials, produces a katharsis, or
purification
of the astral body, such that the
Rite of
Initiation may now be enacted, and the seed organs of
clairvoyance may
now be impressed on the etheric body. I emphasize the
term may,
because
while a great deal of the development leading to this stage is
rooted in our own actions - our own will-in-thinking, as the
Fire Trial
progresses we become more and more interdependent with the
will
activity of the invisibles.
We do not, as I
understand it, so much
initiate ourselves, but instead are initiated in a cooperative
dance
necessarily involving Another.
On the other
side of the Fire Trial, if
initiation is to be the result, we have acquired new faculties
of
perception. The spiritual world is now there to be
experienced
directly, and the soul has fully developed that spiritual
freedom,
which The Philosophy of Freedom (or Spiritual
Activity) contemplates, for we have
renounced unredeemed antipathy
and sympathy, we have renounced our emotional attachments to a
given
thought content and we have renounced even the significance of
our own i-AM
in relationship to others; all the while learning to love ever
more
deeply the objects of our perception (beholding) and thinking.
[From this
point onward, I will be often
using the term beholding instead of
perception (in certain cases) and for this
nuance I am grateful to Clifford Monks, who provided this in a
recent
conversation between the two of us.]
Now before us stand new objects of inward beholding. The world of Imaginations is faced with this new freedom, but it stands inwardly over there, as it were, such that once more we have something which we think about, only this time it is not a sense object but a spiritual object. Moreover, the perceptual element of an Imagination has required our co-participation; and, the thought content produced by our cognitive capacity, during the experience of the supersensible, arises simultaneously with the experience. Contrary to a sense object, which has as an aspect of its nature what Steiner called the necessary given, a spiritual Imagination as an object of clairvoyant beholding does not exist independently of our own will-on-fire in thinking. We have authored and sourced (for this language, grateful thanks to Harvey Bornfield) it in cooperation with spiritual beings.
Our new thinking about has
participated in the
creation of the Imagination. We experience the
Imagination in
infinite internal space (ethereal and peripheral space) as an
object,
whose existence comes about because our own activity is
coupled with
the by Grace activity of higher beings. The intention
and
attention are involved in a Parsifal question* to which the
Imagination
is an answer (producing a kind of wordless knowledge).
Subsequent
in time to this wordless knowing experience (which includes a
conceptual element), cognition then produces the word forms,
either
written or spoken, in which the living Imagination dies into a
crystallized word-picture, such as what is given to us in many
of
Steiner's lectures and writings. When we actively (not
passively)
read these word-pictures, recreating them in our own
picture-thinking,
the soul harmonizes with the Imaginative aspect of the world
of spirit,
creating out of this harmony a rudimentary chalice in which
later
spiritual experiences can arise.
[*A Parsifal
question is a question that
if we didn't ask it when we could have, we may have to wait a
long time
to later receive an answer.]
So we begin
then to repeat at a higher
level the previous Trials, but this time facing experiences we
have
never before had. We travel once more around the mandala
of the
circling spiral of soul metamorphosis, learning in new ways to
think about
(Imaginations), then on to new thinking with
(Inspirations) and finally to new thinking within (Intuitions). [There would seem to be here
a great
mystery, about which I have not (yet) any experience, but at
the same
time a great curiosity: do angels etc. tell jokes or laugh and
dance?]
This full new thinking, however, is itself at a higher stage. It is thinking transformed into willed creative and participatory beholding. The normal thought content, which we know as an aspect of our original state of consciousness (earth and freedom, in discursive thinking about), only arises in the soul after the clairvoyant thinking perceiving/beholding. This thought content falls out, as it were, during the period of time the spiritual experience is fading away. The spiritual experience does not continue in earthly memory, but at the same time, the thought content produced (that is, how the experience was initially cognized as it fades away) does remain in earthly memory.
Let us now
return to a deeper
appreciation of the life passages we are calling: the Fire
Trial.
All the work we
do, through the various
Trials and passages of our biography, more and more purifies
the soul,
making it ready for clairvoyant spiritual perception. At
the same
time, there is constant spiritual music in the soul - the song
of the
wind and of the breath - even as far back as when we are only
being
newly born out of the first Trial of earth and freedom.
Ordinary
consciousness is already full of
spirit. Our problem is how do we pick the gold out of
the dark
shadowy and leaden dross of the soul, normal to its given
fallen state
of earth and freedom. Two factors are clues. These
are
discovered during the early stages of introspection in the
idea of
needs and the idea of choices. The wind - the breath -
the living
river of thought - blows through the soul constantly, but always in accord with
need
and most often in accord with other-need,
that is the needs not of the Self, but of the Thou. To
live into
this Grace given always present intuition-like breath, we need
to
choose. When
we
do choose service to other-need, then true, good and
beautiful intuitions flow on the wind of Grace into the soul,
even in
its ordinary and fallen state of consciousness.
How else are we to understand the natural and harmonious state of grace always potential in such relationships as: mother and child, comrades at arms and lovers.
Other-need also helps
keep our ambitions in check. One of the
temptations that the Shadow offers to us is to let us believe
we can,
for example, out of reading a Steiner text speak with
authority about
matters concerning which we have had no other experience than
the text.
Absent the real experience - the percept - true thought
(the
concept) cannot arise. Only in conjunction with actual
clairvoyant experience can we, in full conscience, speak of
such
matters with the same confidence as did our Teacher, Rudolf
Steiner.
Yet, in the face of other-need, and our choice to devote
ourselves to this need, spiritual contact (experience) does
appear in
the soul. The
spiritual
percept (experience) arises within the soul as a response to
the Parsifal question which our intention and attention have
created
out of our relationship to other-need; and, the modest nature of our choice to
serve this need makes our soul a suitable chalice to receive
that
thought content which then serves this need.
For example, we
have no need (besides a
vain curiosity) to know who was the 20th Century Bodhisattva
incarnation of the future Maitreya Buddha. Yet, on the
other
hand, there is a deep need to know how to love those intimate
others in
our biography, so that we can learn to heal our shared karma
of wounds.
With this in
mind (and also keep in mind
the layered nature of soul development, as against the
one-sided idea
that it is a mere linear progression) let us look at the Fire
Trial,
which Dennis Klocek has described also as: dialog; and which he related to meeting with the dead,
who come
to us through our encounters with others. From the
standpoint of
the Discipleship stream, this is once more perceived a bit
differently,
yet again in a complementary fashion.
Having passed
through the previous
Trials, our will-in-thinking now possesses certain capacities,
certain
inner arts, the essence of which are moral in nature. The self
development spiritual exercises are secondary to, but
supportive of,
the character (moral) developments. We have learned in
the Water
Trial to renounce unredeemed antipathies and sympathies and to
replace
those with a redeemed thought-content produced in a chalice of
freely
chosen cultivated feelings - that is we have learned to think
with
the object of thought. In the Air Trial we have renounced as
well even
this self-produced thought-content, in order to live in the
silence,
that is poor
in
spirit - thus beginning the
experience we
have been calling: thinking within.
In Fire Trial,
which begins with its
capacity of thinking within won in the Air
Trial, we
now enter into dialog on the wings of a renunciation of self
importance. That which is not-Self is to become more
important
than that which is Self. Love of the other
fills the
attention and intention, and the work toward Not I, but Christ
in me
matures. In this case, the
dialog
element for the Discipleship stream is more accurately
characterized as
Steiner's "it
thinks in me", albeit this form of
expression
is lacking a certain artistry (Intellectual Soul, not
Consciousness
Soul). A more beautiful phrase would be: the delicate and
subtle
presence of Fullness and fullness of Presence (Holy
Breath).
[another
biographical note: I learned,
over many years of hard experience, that the essential matter
was the
Parsifal question - the deeply felt question, coupled with the
absence
of personal ambition in this question. The knowledge I
seek must
be consciously intended to serve others, not to serve my vain
curiosity. In fact, my success in my researches into the
social
(see other essays in this book), seems to have been entirely
related to
my renunciation of the possibility of initiation in order to
more
deeply be led to an understanding of the social, an act which
occupied
my prayer life for a number of years in the mid-'80's.
As a
consequence, I began to experience this wind, this delicate
and subtle
presence of Fullness and fullness of Presence in response to
my
Parsifal questions concerning an understanding of the social,
which I
had sought in order to serve other-need. My biography
led me to
working, from my mid-thirties onward, as a member of the
working poor.
I cleaned toilets, washed dishes in restaurants, worked
in mental
hospitals, and the last three years of my work life (59-62), I
worked
in a factory. This led me to not only a personal, but a
shared
experience of the suffering in the world due to the Age of
Materialism,
which has led the i-AM not to appreciate
itself or the causes of its suffering,
and which gave me such pain of soul that the only way I could
think to
alleviate this was to seek, via the New Thinking, the ability
to tell a
new story of the
world and of human meaning.
This was my
Parsifal question in its broadest form, and the wind would
come at
anytime It choose as I lived out these experiences, so that
I had
to learn to be sensitive to this wind,
and
to serve It, even by pulling off the road when driving and
taking
notes, or getting up from bed at night and writing when
called.
The success of this inner work also made me on more than
one
occasion, an obnoxious moral nut case, filled with excessive
moments of
grand hubris - my own Shadow intoxicated and inflamed.
Fortunately, the Trials would knock me down whenever I
got too
drunk with the seriousness of any luciferic fantasies of
having a
mission.]
The moral art of thought not only
comes to
the truth of the object of thinking, but also knows its
goodness and
its beauty. In intimate relationships, where we learn to
love the
will of the other - the Thou, and to see the beauty, not of
their
physical appearance, but of their deeds - in this selfless
perception
we then start to live in their true Fullness and Presence.
Thinking within, as it traverses the Fire Trial, begins to
experience
the spiritual world as a thought world, via a pure thinking,
which is a
cooperative art - Grace will be present. This purity is
three-fold. It is pure in the sense that it is only
thought -
that is it is sense free. The attention is so focused
only on
thought, that the outer sense world recedes far into the
background of
consciousness. That is one aspect. The second kind
of
purity is moral in nature. The soul is pure in its
intention and
attention. The intention and attention are chaste, as it
were.
Modest, or moderate. Without ambition of any kind.
Not even seeking initiation or enlightenment.
Insight
increases in the soul, but each time as a surprise - as a
wonder.
The third kind
of purity is as regards
the thought - the concept itself. It is only
pure concept or idea and in this it is thought as Being, as
Presence
and Fullness. Our earthy
grasping of
the thought, which in the beginning tends to render it into
mere mental
pictures or generalized concepts, has been gone beyond.
We have
sensed thought unconsciously in this beginning, and caused it
to fall
into our earthly and darkened consciousness from out of its
original
living environment. When we learn how to return thought
to its
true realm and nature, then our sense-free thinking, and the
purity of
our intention and attention now lets the pure nature of the
Being of
the Thought think
in
us (dialog).
At the same
time, this conversation has
what seems at first blush an odd quality to it, in the sense
of our
freedom. As discussed in the essay above, on The
Meaning
of Earth Existence in the Age of the Consciousness Soul, just as Christ gives his Being to our need for
knowledge of the Good as an act of Grace in such a way that
the thought
of the Good is entirely ours to shape, so also that which thinks in us does not answer our knock with any authority
whatsoever.
This Holy Spirit (the wind in the soul spends (exhausts) Its will into us in a
way. Its participation with our i-AM
in the nature of the thought's form is such that, while the
Holy Spirit elevates our perception of truth, we remain the
final
author and source. The Holy Spirit's participation is
also a gift
and becomes the wind to the wings of our soul. Borne on this wind we see
from
whatever height, depth or breadth that must be there for other-need. We serve the Thou and the Holy Spirit
serves us
both.
The soul is now
grateful for whatever
wills to dialog with it, and has
no need for anything other than the
occasional, but profoundly nourishing, experiences of Grace,
all of
which it had already begun to know, even coming in the
beginning in the
wonderful mystery of ordinary consciousness, and in accord
with other-need and choice.
Yet, in this
same beginning, the karma of
wounds, and the unredeemed aspects of the astral or desire
body move us
forward in life, and we are guided by the Shadow into and
toward our
necessary biographical experiences. In the processes of
the Fire
Trial, we learn to let go these drives, to move with and
within the
stream of Providence in Life. The soul now tends to want
only to
be content and at rest, no longer driven. We love the
necessity
that Providence brings us, and devote ourselves to that task,
recognizing that the Great Whole of Life is in Other and far
more
competent Hands (Christ's Love).
There can be,
by the way, either (or
both) an outer necessity and an inner necessity. Self observation, with an
evocation of
conscience applied to the question of whether we are being
truthful to
ourselves,
will
reveal whether an inner necessity is to have the same weight
as an
outer one. This essay, in
fact, was
very much produced out of an inner necessity in connection
with the
delicate and subtle presence of Fullness and fullness of
Presence,
brought into the stream of Time, because of a Parsifal
question that
occurred to me regarding the pending conference on Ben
Franklin (August
18-19, 2006), where I lived in Fair Oaks, California.
Yet, even
in this work, I encountered Fire Trial elements, for latent
and
unredeemed ambitions limited and distorted my first versions
of this
essay. Only after I had recognized these ambitions and
laughed at
myself for them, did matters begin to acquire a satisfactory
to
conscience moral clarity.
We need to keep
in mind that we remain of
the earth, even when the wind - the kingdom of heaven - is
blowing
through the soul. In our earthly dialogs, one with the
other, we
need to learn to just listen and not to always impose our own
opinions
upon the others freedom of thought (for parents of children
and others
in a teaching necessity, this will be different, sometimes).
We
can let the soul rest in wonder at what the Thou will say and
do.
So also with the invisible other-presence in the soul. In this way the outer
biography and
the inner biography more and more consciously harmonize their
naturally
interwoven music.
Life itself -
the biography - will demand of ordinary layered consciousness,
and in
harmony with the necessities of our karma of wounds, those
experiences
to be faced in which other-need and choice appear.
If
we think with the heart and will the good, Grace will come in
the form
of those other-needed intuitions - the deepening consciousness
of what
other-presence wants to say into our inwardness, in
concordance with
our slowly growing and developing capacities, as is necessary
for
service to the Thou.
This is the
essence of the Fire Trial - a
burning away purification of self for other. Just as in
the Air
Trial we set aside attachment to a given thought content, so
in the
Fire Trial we give away our attachments to our own meaning -
we
dissolve the self descriptive concepts with which we
previously adorned
our i-AM, as if wearing a costume. Instead, we just
are.
In all our actions and choices, we are (if we think on
it)
always: "In
the
Beginning...".
We no longer
are this or that, but just
are (i-AM). Each favorite self-name: father, mother,
anthroposophist, alchemist, lawyer, ditch digger - all these
names of
self are let go, using the craft and art acquired in the Air
Trial.
We do this in order to get ready for the first part of Not I, but Christ in
me - the Not I part. We burn away
the I concepts, which by their very nature are limiting and
mark us as
not-free and are a beam in our own eye-inside, directed at
ourselves.
We don't have
to think of ourselves as a
father or mother, for example, since the necessity of the
biography
places those tasks before us already. The inner
biography too,
with its ambitions, hopes, dreams and wishes, pulls us forward
as well.
There is as yet no traditional clairvoyant spiritual perception - the astral body is still being purified during the Fire Trial. What was the lower ego, or that which begins its path accompanied by the Shadow or threefold double-complex, has more and more merged and identified itself with the higher ego - the self-participated aspect of conscience.
When we live
purely in Parsifal questions
(that is, poor
in spirit), in the artistic mastery
of our
antipathies and sympathies, having set aside self-importance
and
attending to the object of thinking with the intention to
love, then
thinking is meet with other-presence,
as needed.
This is the quite definite inner experience of the
delicate and
subtle presence of Fullness and fullness of Presence, which is
described in the John Gospel as follows: What's born of the
flesh is
flesh, and what's born of the breath is breath. Don't be
amazed
because I told you you have to be born again. The wind
blows
where it will and you hear the sound of it, but you don't know
where it
comes from or where it goes; it's the same with everyone born
of the
breath John 3: 6-8
This Fire Trial is all the more painful, because we have become exposed via the previous layers (stages) of spiritual and character development, to a much deeper introspective understanding of our own desire body - our own astral body. We can now not only think within the other - the Thou, but also we can now think much deeper within our own soul - we are naked before our own introspective clarity of perception. That which remains unredeemed, and still yet outside the full and completed Fire Trial of purification, lies inwardly exposed to us. The descending conscience (like the descent of the dove in the Gospels) meets the rising lower ego, both seeking union and marriage; and this light from above, a kind of deep moral Grace, illuminates and warms all that is yet shadow in the soul. Emerson has put the bare bones of it like this in his lecture, The American Scholar: "For the instinct is sure, that prompts him to tell his brother what he thinks. He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds..."
*
Just as we
learned to think about, with and within
the other - the Thou, so we learn to think about, with and
within ones own soul. Each skill, craft and art of thinking emerges from its corresponding
Trial.
The Earth Trial is a given, it is where most of us
start.
The Water Trial requires our first struggles with
renunciation
and the beginning, and delicate, expressions of love.
The Air
Trial takes us even further, to the abandonment of our
favorite
thoughts. Then we also renounce our excessive sense of
Self, in
the process of facing the Fire Trial. There we are also
most
exposed to our own other-Self, - the Shadow - which is now
fully
illuminated - no secrets whatsoever.
Let us
consider, briefly, some hints on
the encounter with the Shadow, from the point of view of the
Discipleship stream.
When Valentin Tomberg was writing as an anthroposophist, he described in his book "Inner Development", three aspects to the Shadow: a luciferic double, an ahrimanic double and a human double. Later, in his profoundly Christian "Meditations on the Tarot: a Journey into Christian Hermeticism" he wrote of the tempter, the prosecutor and of egregores - that is of self-created psychic parasites in the soul (Steiner called these latter creatures, in Man as Symphony of the Creative Word: cancers or tumors of the soul).
When we think
discursively - talk
inwardly to ourselves, the unconscious works into the soul.
That
is, both the higher and the lower unconscious are present.
No
true thought, for example, can arise in the soul except for
its having
come to us via the living stream of thought (see Kuhlewind
here).
But, because in ordinary and fallen soul consciousness,
we are
bound (intentionally by the Gods so as to give us true freedom
on the
earth) into an inner darkness of spirit, we only can know
thought as it
falls out and down into the soul from its original living
element.
In discursive thought the living element has died.
Conscience,
another higher element of the
unconscious, also speaks into the soul via discursive thought,
as that
whispering still small voice.
At the same
time, the Shadow is active
here as well. When we struggle with our own
temptation or
tempt others (the luciferic double), or when we hurt
ourselves, or
others (prosecute ourselves) with mean thoughts (the ahrimanic
double),
these too come from the unconscious into discursive thinking.
When we fall, over and over again into temptation such
as
addiction or alcoholism, part of the soul becomes excessively
free of
the ego, for the ego is weak in many ways. This part can
be
called an egregore or a tumor of soul.
However, since
all manner of bad habits
(an ill temper, an abusive tongue) are also connected to tiny
tumors of
soul, I have began to feel that this language lacks what art
and a
sense of beauty needs to give to our conceptions, so above I
wrote only
of wounds, of our karma of wounds.
In the
case of egregores or serious tumors or cancers of the soul, we
can call
these self-generated
wounds.
What the life
passages of the Trials give
to us is ever greater consciousness. We draw out of the
unconscious, through a more and more awake intention and
attention,
not only its lower elements, the Shadow and darkly cold
side of
temptations, prosecutions and wounds, but also the Light and
heart
warmed side, the stream of living thought and participated
conscience.
So, in facing
the Water Trial of the mote
and the beam we begin the work of discipleship, the work of
seeking
reintegration and reunion with the Divine Mystery Itself.
So also
with the Air Trial and the Fire Trial. Bit by bit we
perceive and
then let go what is dark in the unconscious, thereby
separating and
drawing into the light the gold of our growing
will-in-thinking.
The fruit of
each Trial remains with us,
and at each passage becomes deeper. The soul becomes a
rich
texture of layers of inner song and music in the form of ever
unfolding
capacities of will, in the corresponding creative cultivation
of
sublime elements in the feeling life, all interwoven with the
arising
and passing away of the breath-stream of living thought.
The purified
will (an appropriately moral intention and attention) creates
heart
warmth in the soul-soil of feeling, out of which the light and
life
filled flower of thought is born.
And,
because we are first born into this process out of the Earth
Trial of
freedom, our whole passage in these Life Trials goes forward
in
freedom. It all evolves out of our choices. Recall
Emerson:
In self
trust all virtues are
comprehended.[emphasis added]
Nothing
renounced has disappeared, but
rather the soul becomes an instrument, which the i-AM
in freedom learns to play. The notes and intervals
become primal
dynamic expressions of soul forces and capacities, many
generated out
of spiritual exercises. Just as we must practice
the use of
a material musical instrument, so we must practice the
capacities of
the soul. At the same time, many forces and capacities
(if not
more) have a quality that comes only from the moral tone of
the soul.
We purify the instrument of the soul as much as we learn
how to
use it. Both are needed, both are necessary. The
spiritual
exercises, that is the how as in
technique, has more
kinship with the teachings of the true Alchemists - the stream
of the
Kings, while the moral purity of the soul has more kinship
with the
teachings of Christ - the stream of the Shepherds.
Steiner's The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity is the
modern transformation of the Christ-in-me
moral essence of
the John Gospel, while Knowledge
of Higher Worlds is the modern
transformation
of the Rosicrucian Ideals of spiritual developmental
exercises.
While the latter has more kinship with the soul
nature of
Central Europe - the seeking to incarnate the Ideal, the
former
has more kinship with the soul nature of the American - the
need to act
morally in the world. Both are present everywhere in the
world,
it is just the mix and their proportions that vary from one
soul
gesture to another, in the wonder and mystery of the Threefold
World.
Let us now seek
to make a whole.
We become more
and more inwardly free as we renounce and
transform sympathies and antipathies,
then as well the very thought content itself, until finally we
sacrifice our own importance. Each act of renunciation
is
accompanied by a corresponding and deeper capacity to love.
Each
act of love, beginning with the most simple appreciation of
the other -
the Thou, creates inner purity: inner light and warmth.
We are in
the process of learning to make of the soul a temple, and to fill it with created and cultivated
feelings of
reverence and wonder at not only the world of nature, but also
the
world of social community - the stream of karmic wounds and
free
destiny meetings with our companions in life.
Ultimately,
this inner and outer moral
work leads us to becoming fully inwardly naked to ourselves in
the Fire
Trial (where there is no longer the possibility of escaping
the
Shadow), and as well fully and consciously naked to the other-Presence (the kingdom of heaven is within you). But
even in
the face of the
other-Presence we are nevertheless
completely
free. The nature of the breath (the other-Presence) is to bring
not only a new depth of comprehension, but ever more freedom,
for we
never stop being the principle willful agent of the
thought-content
that arises in the soul. Overtime we become even freer
and more
creative - a true artist in thought.
The creation of
a human thought content
is the sole province of the 10th Hierarchy. Only in us,
and
through our love, does the Cosmos know Itself in the beauty of
human
thought. We were told this as long ago as Genesis
2:19-20, with
the symbolic picture that unto Adam is given the power of
naming every
living creature. We name the world, give it its human meaning, with every thought we source and author.
Here we can now
come to understand more
deeply the truth, beauty and goodness hidden in Christ's
comments in
response to the question of what is the most important
commandment: He
said to them, "You
are
to love your lord God with all your heart and all your spirit
and
all your mind. That is the important and first
commandment. [love other-Presence] The second one is
similar:
You are to love those close to you as you love yourself. [love the Thou, the companions in life] All the law
and the
prophets hang from these two commands"
.
Matthew 22: 37-40.
What we really
learn is to participate
sacramentally in the arrival of the thought-content in the
soul, which
becomes then ever new each time we truly think. We are,
in this,
inwardly born again and again and again. This living thinking is a
perpetual rebirth of thought, which comes
into being and dies away - a constant dying and becoming.
We
learn to unite with this living stream of thought, the living
stream of
breath within. We give ourselves over to it, in a
participatory
Rite - an artistic soul dance of sacred-heart thinking, and
then
discover the true secret of the Fire Trial, which has been
hidden out
in the open in the Gospels, just in this: Now I bathe you in
the water
to change hearts, but the one coming after me is stronger than
me: I'm
not big enough to carry his shoes. He will bathe you in
holy
breath and fire. John the
Baptist:
Matthew 3:11
leading us, through His Grace (holy breath within)
and His Love (as Artistic arranger of the Karma
of the Fire of Trials in our biographies), to:
Not I, but Christ in me.
********
[As I was going through a final revision of the whole text of this book, the following statement appeared in an essay, by Michael Howard, in the News for Members:
"This brings
us to see another primary reason why Rudolf Steiner gave such
emphasis
to the role of the arts. In Rudolf Steiner's view, the
fundamental discipline for each art has to do with learning to
perceive
the moral qualities inherent in each artistic medium.
The same
discipline can be surmised from Rudolf Steiner's view of
spiritual
development as serving the transformation of the human astral
body into
Spirit Self. Here too is an avenue for cultivating
another
dimension of the art of the spirit, what we might call the Art
of the
Spirit Self. This Art of the Spirit Self precedes all
others
because the art of building community, the Social Art, and the
art of
balancing and harmonizing all dimensions of the living earth,
the
Ecological Art, depend on the art of self-metamorphosis.
"The
Anthroposophical Society will find new life and purpose
insofar as it
fosters not only the Science of the Spirit, but also the Art
of the
Spirit and its different dimensions: the Art of the Spirit
Self, the
Social Art, and the Ecological Art.
"For the Art
of the Spirit is the Art of the New Mysteries."
It is my hope
that this essay, In Joyous
Celebration of the Soul Art and Music of Discipleship, has made a contribution to this vision.]
*************************************
[For the
neophyte: Having examined
briefly the essential moral nature of inner work, following on
our
appreciation of how it is that the Stage Setting, while
managed by
darker forces, is not the essential meaning of Earth Existence
(itself
a moral communion with Christ), we now begin to get more into
the
concrete thinking skills necessary for the right perception of
human
social life in general. As we saw in the first three
essays,
conventional thinking does not bring to us the spiritual
reality
underlying our shared social existence. In addition,
since
anthroposophists are members of a Society and Movement, that
is they
are involved socially with each other and as a community with
the wider
social world, it becomes prudent think with more depth about
this
Society and Movement itself. Yet, in order to do that
with
conscientiousness, we must first consider how it is that the new thinking can
objectively create a new social science, so
that our considerations concerning the social in general, and
the
social in the Society and Movement in particular, are grounded
in a
true knowledge-seeking discipline and not just vain opinions.]
The Methodology Necessary for a New Social Science
- a brief introduction -
(written for this
book in the
Season of Michaelmas, 2007)
One of the
potential capacities, of those
who seriously follow in the footsteps of Rudolf Steiner,
involves the
ability to give birth to the New (Living) Thinking.
However,
merely reading Steiner, or joining the Society, does not bring
about
this birth. Moreover this birth, when accomplished, does not
just arise
in the abstract, but realizes its deepest self-awareness when
this
Living Thinking is applied to a specific field of knowledge.
In
fact, the New Thinking very much needs earthly application in
order to
have a proper moral grounding. In this earthly
connection a kind
of training occurs, which has the consequence that when a will thus trained
enters on spiritual experience, it brings
with it capacities not otherwise obtainable.
Now within the
anthroposophical movement,
the dominant field of knowledge in which an embryonic version of the New Thinking has appeared is what
is
called Goethean
Science. We also find its mature birth in the works produced by such individuals
as Owen
Barfield, Georg Kuhlewind, Bruno Abrami (a member of the
overlooked
Italian School) and Jesaiah Ben-Aharon.
Thus, in the
Goethean Scientific work of
such as Schwenk (Sensitive
Chaos:
the
creation of flowing forms in water and air);
Schad (Man and Mammal: toward a biology of
form;
Grohmann (The Plant
vols. 1 and 2) and
the related institutions, such as the
Nature
Institute
[http://www.natureinstitute.org/index.htm] featuring Craig
Holdrege,
the goetheanistic application of the embryonic version of the
New
Thinking is slowly taking its proper place in the world.
The
methodology of such a science is developed in its basic form
and
structure in Ernst Lehrs' book: Man
or
Matter:
Introduction to a Spiritual Understanding of Nature on the
Basis of
Goethe's Method of Training Observation and Thought.
Rudolf Steiner
unveiled these first
(embryonic) steps of the path of a knowing doer of the spiritual in Nature, in his book: A
Theory
of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception. We also owe to Steiner the revival of an
interest
in Goethe himself, and in particular Goethe's scientific works
such as The
Metamorphosis of Plants and A
Theory
of Color. Anyone wanting to
develop
their thinking, such that it can be prepared to work within a
New
Social Science, will want to become well acquainted with all
these
books, but in particular with A
Theory....
In moving from
the embryonic aspect of
the New Thinking, to its maturity via The
Philosophy... there appears a
boundary
condition, which this New Thinking can encounter during its
development. This is where the phenomena being studied
lacks a
definite physical sense world existence. Thus, Goethe's
idea of exact
sensorial phantasy (the use of the
imagination to recreate inwardly in the
soul a sensory experience as it occurs over time) can reach a
limit
when the phenomena sought to be studied is only available in
the soul
as a purely abstract mental picture or concept and has no
corresponding
appearance in the world of the senses.
This is a
problem that Owen Barfield
certainly had to meet in his studies of language, which he
clearly
thought about imaginatively and in movement over time (see for
example
his remarkable: Speaker's
Meaning, as well as his World's
Apart). Once we no longer have
a sense
world necessary
given (see Steiner's A
Theory
of...), thinking acquires an
additional
responsibility, for the object of its considerations now only
arrives
in the soul out of our own activity in the creation of mental
pictures
and the apprehension of concepts.
In a proposed
answer with an apparent
awareness of this problem, the anthroposophical mathematician
Lawrence
Edwards, in his book Fields of
Form, suggested that in addition to
a kind of
Goethean thinking, there is a thinking which needed to be
called:
polar-Goethean thinking. As this essay proceeds, I'll be
trying
to develop such ideas in a deeper fashion, so that the reader
can find
their way to understanding the kind of thinking needed in
order to be
able to behold the living and spiritual elements of human
social
existence, in all its dynamic expression (see my The
Meaning
of Earth Existence in the Age of the Consciousness Soul, for a demonstration).
One last point
of reference concerns the
study of projective or synthetic geometry. This
geometrical
discipline will be very helpful to anyone wishing to find
their way
into the New Thinking. Working with this geometry
exercises
our inherent picture thinking qualities in such a way that we
can
behold and transform mobile imaginative pictures without
losing any
quality of exactness. The development of this geometry
among
anthroposophists (by such as George Adams Kaufman, Lawrence
Edwards and
Olive Whicher - to name just a few) is very much a consequence
of the
polar-Goethean thinking to which Edwards pointed, and this as
well
needs to be appreciated. The best book, in my view,
(which is, of
course, out of print) is Olive Whicher's: Projective
Geometry:
Creative Polarities in Space and Time.
The reader
interested in projective
geometry should also know that its study in the above book is
not done
through abstract proofs, but entirely through drawing.
We
discover the rules of projective geometry with a piece of
paper, a
ruler, pencil and our own imagination.
As a cautionary
tale, so as to not forget
that is possible to follow paths that can lead to errors of
thought, we
will also here take a look at what has been called (among
anthroposophists) symptomatology, which
is a well intended effort to apprehend with the
thinking the deeper aspects of the social and historical, but
has
(alas) led instead to much confusion.
And finally, we
need to recognize that it
is Steiner's The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity or
Freedom, that resolves
the dilemma posed by the transition from
working directly with sense experience, to working solely with
mental
pictures and concepts (abstractions) that have no definite
exact
reference in the world of the senses. This resolution is
made
available when we understand the practice of pure thinking.
Let me remind
the reader here of the
threefold nature of pure thinking as
described
above in In Joyous...
First the
thinking is essentially sense
free, which mean that the consciousness is focused on the
thinking to
the exclusion of sense experience (as much as possible).
Second
the thinking is selfless, that is pure in the moral sense.
Third,
the thinking is only of concepts and mental pictures
themselves.
*
*
*
As we begin to get into details, I want to share with the reader that what is to be written here was not by me understood in the beginning. I wandered in many strange places and down a number of false paths, before I slowly came awake to the real inner processes and activities. If there was a guiding light, it was that as I proceeded thoughts would arise in my consciousness that clearly revealed a deeper than before understanding of my riddles (the social). In effect, I would have small successes, and this would lead me on.
I say this here so that the reader will not think that they have to have arrived at some kind of inner state first, before taking up their riddles. It is clearly true that it is the riddles themselves that guide us on our personal path to the discovery of the secrets of the New (Living) Thinking. We hunger to know, and are thus drawn forward into the adventure that awaits.
I will also
below have to make
additional references to my previous essay: In
Joyous
Celebration of the Soul Art and Music of Discipleship, in which I have laid out certain moral arts
that I
found it necessary to develop in order to acquire the
capacities to
enter more deeply into a contemplative picture-thinking of the
social.
These capacities first arose as a consequence of
learning how to
think more consciously about my fellow human beings, but the
polished
development of these capacities was in the work of seeking
answers to
my riddles. In that essay I placed human relationships
in the
foreground, but at the same time everything said there can be
applied
to problems of knowledge in general, as will be made more
clear as we
proceed.
*
Lets begin with
the riddles.
We have an
experience that we want to
know something. We may also have the experience that
knowing what
we want to know might be a bit harder than we think.
This latter
experience usually comes in the biography in the form of
failures.
We think we know, only to discover from experience that
we do not
know.
After a time we
might come to understand
that the seeking of knowledge comes to our consciousness first
in the
form of a question, or a riddle. In its higher sense we
can
sometimes think of this as a Parsifal Question - a question
that if we
don't seek to answer it when the answer is nearby and
available,
results in our having to undergo trials that may have been
unnecessary
and avoidable. What we are likely to discover over time
is that
these riddles really present themselves as a series of nested questions. We move deeper into our riddles
by
moving from question to question, following a trail in the
world of
thought.
At the same
time, the above books can
help us understand from various directions this inner process,
its
dimensions and how we can find our way into the world of pure
thinking
in a scientific fashion. At least a few scientists
understand
this is possible, because (in particular) of the nature of
pure
mathematical thinking. At the same time their
understanding of
the art of thinking itself is weak. It was Rudolf
Steiner in his A Theory
... that laid out the basic rules
underlying
this discipline of the soul by the spirit, which was later
revisited
with another and deeper emphasis on the moral element in The
Philosophy....
For example,
the mathematician Roger
Penrose, in his book The
Emperor's New Mind, makes this
remarkable
admission: "...I
cannot help feeling that, with mathematics the case for
believing in
some kind of ethereal, eternal existence, at least for the
more
profound mathematical concepts, is a good deal stronger..." (pp. 97). There is other evidence that
Einstein
and Godel (as well as Penrose) are considered by some to be
modern
Platonists, because of their views on the independent existence of ideas (see Incompleteness:
the
Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel, by
Rebecca Goldstein).
Once we understand that the thinking process is drawn forward by riddles and nested questions, then we can take a more careful look at some aspects of thinking itself.
Generally
thinking has an object, in
relationship to which we are the thinking subject. In
Joyous... above, I wrote of a moral
process
connected to renunciation and love (Tomberg speaks of learning to think on
your
knees), wherein thinking about
gave birth to thinking with, which in
turn gave birth
to thinking within, and then that
to thinking as.
In this slowly unfolding process (about > with >
within
> as), the relationship between
the object
of thinking, and our subjectivity slowly becomes more intimate
- the
separation narrows. Eventually "it thinks in me",
and
the subject object nature of the conversation can disappear.
Now in A
Theory... Steiner takes us carefully
toward organic thinking and then through that toward spiritual thinking. Lets look at the problem of organic thinking first, which is more accessible in a
way.
Sometimes this thinking is called phenomenology, and
above I have
called it thinking with. This is a
kind of
thinking very suited to coming to knowledge of the living or
organic
aspects of existence, which is why this process of Goetheanism gives birth to works in the field of Goethean
Science.
For Goethe, the
matter concerned the
world of perceptions (the sense world), which Barfield
sometimes called
the world of appearances (see Barfield's Saving
the
Appearances: a study in idolatry).
Goethe discovered that the world of appearances, which
Natural
Philosophy (science) was at that time beginning to dismiss (it
was
thought the truth had to be found somehow and somewhere other
than the
realm of the senses), could be read. He called it: reading the Book of
Nature.
For example, using microscopes and telescopes led Natural Philosophers to realize that there was enormous detail not apprehended by the therefore limited human sense organs, which then suggested to them that the unaided senses would not lead to the discovery of the truth. Goethe thought otherwise, which was a kind of act of faith.
Goethe's
researches led him to conclude
that the sense world spoke, and if we
studied it in
the right way (various rules of thinking discipline needed to
be
applied - see Man or
Matter above), then Nature Herself
would
teach all that we needed to know. My work has shown to
me that
not only does the natural world speak,
through
its phenomenal appearances, but so also does the social world.
There is not only a Book of Nature, but also a Book of the Social World.
For those who would like a bit of explanation for this, you might consider the following: Picture that the Creation has come to rest in a living equilibrium. Although it is true from a spiritual-historical view that the senses experience a world of maya - an illusion. A more modern view (Goetheanism),which has arisen since the Incarnation, realizes that this maya is not disorganized. What appears to us as the illusion reveals its own nature, because the Word Itself is embodied in it. The Word has clothed Itself in the Creation, and when thinking wakes up in its true nature, the speaking of the Word in the appearances becomes capable of being beheld within human consciousness by the I ("it thinks in me"); or as Steiner has pointed out in The Philosophy...: knowledge (the speaking of the Word through the Creation) is the union of percept (experience) and concept (thought).
As said above,
Steiner put it this way in
A
Theory...: "Thought is the last
of a
series of processes by which Nature was formed".
Or
Emerson, in his essay Nature: "Nature
is
a thought incarnate, and turns to thought again as water
becomes
vapor and then gas. The World is mind precipitated, and
the
volatile essence is forever escaping into the state of free
thought".
If there is a
caveat, it is this.
We must be active inwardly. Our thinking needs to
become
disciplined - ordered in a way, yet remain artistically open.
Our
will-in-thinking needs to awaken. Only the I can bring
about this
metamorphosis in the soul, which leads the thinking from its
given
state, through an organic qualitative picture-thinking, to an
awake and
pure (living) thinking.
Let us return
once more to the subject / object aspect
of thinking.
What Goethe
discovered was that if he
recreated the gestures of Nature, particularly of the Plant,
in his
imagination in as exact a fashion as possible, that which was
within the appearances made itself known to his inward
picturing. This is why we are introduced to such
disciplines in
the contemplation of changes in leaves over the becoming cycle
of a
particular plant. We collect or draw the various kinds
of leaves
made by a plant over the course of its life, and then recreate
inwardly
with our imagination, this series of form gestures the plant
has made
over time. We think with the
plant's expression in
the sense world.
In doing this thinking with we open ourselves up to that which stands within the different forms that arose over time, but
which was
all the while continuously living behind each individual form.
Such work is, however, merely an appetizer for the real
work,
which is why I encouraged the reader to become well acquainted
with
such books as Sensitive
Chaos. From such reading we
can come to
understand how much detail can be gone into while exploring
this
relationship between ourselves as thinking subject and
the
objective world of changing form.
A major aspect
of the needed discipline
involves realizing that we must hold back our own gesture of
thinking
in that it tends to want at once to bring a ready made concept
(a
thought) to our experience. We instead give our
consciousness
over to the experience - live in the perception and let It speak - and then will arise the true related
thought.
We do not want to impose an already thought thought or
mental
picture or concept on the phenomena, but wait, holding back
the
cognitional gesture, until the phenomena Itself leads us to
the
thought-concept.
Only practice,
which is carefully
self-aware, will understand this. Learning this is
something that
can't really be known as a mere thought from reading a text.
We
must develop the tools of introspection, so that we can make
inner
observations of our own activity. We not only
study the
phenomena of the sense world, but the phenomena of the own
soul as well.
There is a bit
of a trick here, in that
when we are thinking, we can't self observe. What makes
self-observation possible is that our inner activity leaves
behind it a
kind of fading away impression in the soul, such that after a
certain
inner activity, we can for a time observe this slowly
disappearing
mirror image of our own activity. Again, this is an
experience
which must be gained directly, and cannot really be understood
as a
mere thought from reading.
Now when we
move from thinking about
sense world objects (or other kinds of the necessary given), to the pure thinking in mental pictures or
concepts of
objects which have no necessary given,
a certain
problem arises. How do we trust the mental picture or
concept
which we have abstracted from our experience? The necessary given aspect of the sense world is obvious, but when
we think about,
with or within a non-sense
world object (such as the concepts:
biography, community or family), there is no true sense
percept (no
true sense experience). The abstract concept has already
been
taught to us by our culture. In fact, our ordinary
consciousness
has many such abstract concepts, for which there is no sense
world
percept.
The solution to
this is to understand
something which is part of the discipline of Goethean Science,
namely
to learn to be purely descriptive. So we can then ask:
What is a
biography, a family or a community? (to continue the
examples).
These are such
simple abstract concepts
that we have no problem at all with them. We were
raised
(most of us) in a family. Aspects of our biographies are
lived in
communities made up of many families. We can say all
manner of
things about biographies, families and communities in general,
and in
particular, out of our own experience. We also know that
such a
term (word) as family can be used metaphorically, as in: the family of man. Or, a community of related types of plants. Or even the biography of a social form such as a Branch of the
Anthroposophical Society.
To help us
further understand this, let
us next look briefly at two kinds of errors which arise in
thinking in
relationship to social questions, one of which is mostly part
of the
anthroposophical movement (symptomatology), and the other
mostly part
of conventional social science.
The error in
conventional social science
arises in the tendency to emulate the past of physics, a
problem true
also in conventional economic theory. This is the
tendency to
reduce complex phenomena to number, and then to seek to find
laws of
the phenomena in the number relationships (statistics).This
was not
always the case (and is still being resisted in some
quarters),
witness, for example, C. Wright Mills: The
Sociological
Imagination, but there lies a
whole other story. In Goetheanism, that is in learning
to Listen
to the World Song, or to behold the speaking of the Book of
the Social
World, we live into the appearances, and do not try to analyze
for some
kind of hidden behind-the-appearances rule or law.
Instead of seeking number relationships among large populations for our understanding of the social, we carefully practice description (for more, see below).
The error in
symptomatology (as done by
anthroposophists) is as follows: First, one studies Rudolf
Steiner, and
acquires from Steiner certain concepts. Then one looks
at the
social-political world as if it presented symptoms, to which
we attach
the already thought concepts we acquired from reading Steiner.
In
the last phrase just above we come to the problem. There
is in
this activity no phenomenology and the social-political world
is not
allowed to speak, for we already
have the concept (borrowed from Steiner)
which we attach to the contemporary historical phenomena.
In addition,
our experiences of the
social world may be driven by unconscious feelings of
antipathy and
sympathy. Any thought arising out of an unconscious
(shadow
driven) feeling has lost its objectivity. Such that when
an
anthroposophist, who is trying to work with symptomatology, is
reacting
unconsciously out of antipathy to the phenomena being
observed, this
further distorts away from any objectivity the falsely
practiced
joining of the pre-thought Steiner thought that is now being
attached
erroneously to the social phenomena.
Thinking in
this case is then not
listening, but instead is a bringing to the phenomena of
social
existence a pre-thought thought, which has the effect inwardly
in the
soul of placing a ghost (Barfield called these idols)
in
between our thinking and the phenomena. Similar kinds of
things exist in contemporary social science as well, when
certain
points of view are elevated to near-eternal verities (dominant
world
views), and are then used to interpret all social phenomena in
accord
with that particular view. Here, for example, we see
today the
use of Darwinian evolutionary theory, especially in the form
of
evolutionary psychology, as a main interpretive meaning given to understanding humanity's social life in
the
modern world.
In both cases,
whether it is the
application of pre-thought concepts borrowed from Steiner, or
from
modern theories of human nature, the result is the same.
The phenomena are not experienced - not heard.
Only
the pre-thought ghost (the idol) is known
in the soul.
So then, what
is the incipient, striving
for the new (living) thinking, social scientist to do?
Describe!
No theory, no
conclusions, no idols, no
ghosts. Simply pure description, which
is not
an easy craft at all by the way.
About 12 years
ago, I went through old
files, and made a throw-away pile on the floor of my
bedroom/office of
years of descriptive writings set down on loose leaf notebook
paper.
The stack of individual sheets of paper was higher than
my knee.
Of course at
that time I was only
guessing as to method. I had discovered that when I
carefully
described, new perceptions of the social would arise, which
new
thoughts led me on (nested questions and riddles). I
also had the
advantage of a deeper introspective life, such that when
thinking about
the outer and inner aspects of social existence, my sense of
the inner
was more accurate and less confused by contemporary and false
conceptions of the nature of mind, assumed by modern social
scientists
to stand behind human behaviors.
I also held
back on publishing, such that
I had, by the time I threw out that stack of paper, offered
for
publication (to the Threefold Review) only one paper: Threshold
Problems
in Thinking the Threefold Social Order
[http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/thpts.html]; and self published
another Song of
the Grandfathers:
real wealth (wisdom) and the redemption of social and
political
existence (civilization) [http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/sggfr.html].
The
first
was written in 1991 or so, the second in 1995) and both
remained basically unpublished until 1997 when I begin to
construct my
own website. After being available for a time on that
website,
the Threshold essay did receive some recognition on
anthroposophically
oriented aspects of the Internet. I have been, during my
biography, mostly a father (five children, two marriages) and
a member
of the working poor (but never an academic), so my offerings
never
really had a chance of receiving much recognition in
traditional ways,
and the research was always being done in fits and starts.
At the same time this was a blessing, because I didn't have to fight against the tide of contemporary thought. I share this, by the way, so as to encourage others to do such work in whatever circumstances of life they find themselves, knowing that it is the questions and riddles and work that has the most meaning, not success or achievement or notoriety.
Some may recall
that Steiner held back on
publishing his research about the threefold form of the human
being for
17 years! Much can be gained by letting our work in the
world of
organic and pure thinking mature over time.
Let us go
forward now, continuing our
examples with the biography, the family and the community.
Using the imaginative faculty, and our related carefulness with regard to the fact that we are working with what can become an idol (an illusory abstraction), we make descriptive pictures of each over time. Here I'll be brief, but many texts by social anthropologists contain important data, just not yet developed in full consciousness in a Goethean fashion.
At the same
time we need to keep clearly
in mind that these themes being described here take the form
of pure
abstract concepts, and not anything that exists as a necessary
given in
the sense world.
Let us begin
with the biography. We
each have one, and this itself can be something to carefully
contemplate, for it contains both individual and universal
phenomena.
While a great deal of understanding given to us by
Rudolf Steiner
can illuminate certain details, it is actually unnecessary to
borrow
his concepts, when instead we can carefully observe and
describe, using
quite ordinary language, the nature of a biography.
We are born, we
die. We are raised
and educated. We come into a specific time and place, as
well as
language and culture. We make choices and have meetings
of
destiny (spouses, work situations and so forth). We
suffer
illnesses and meet all kinds of challenges.
If we look
within at our own soul life,
we will come upon a world view that belongs to us, but was/is
strongly
influenced by all the above factors. We also have
emotional
habits and strong desires. The more detail we go into in
our own
biography, the greater will be our ability to recognize not
only the
universal elements of all biographies, but even more important
the
individual nature of this organism - our
personal Tale (the biography as a thing in itself).
We also have
significant tendencies that
arise in the personal nature of our thinking, but which are
due to
outside influences. If we are willing, we can through
conversation with others, become more deeply aware of how they
too have
such characteristics as do we. Emerson wrote this as
pointed out
above, for his Harvard lecture, The
American
Scholar: For the instinct is
sure,
that prompts him to tell his brother what he thinks. He
then
learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he
has
descended into the secrets of all minds...
This picture
can then be made...
From my self as
a center, I peek out at a
world of sense experience. I interpret this world
according to
those experiences that arose during my biography, and while
the details
of those interpretations of the meaning of my experience are
rich, they
often represent influences I have not worked over on my own.
My
world view is shaped by family and community (in its widest
sense).
These influences also determine the conceptions by which
my self
conceives of my inner life. My I swims in a sea of
meaning I may
have had little influence determining on my own, and I also
seem to be
the tail wagged by the dog of emotions over which I have
little control.
These are the
general or universal
characteristics of the biography. What is also crucial
to realize
is that the individual characteristics result in each
biography being
essentially unique. This observation is a little harder
to
obtain, because one of the influences to which we may have
submitted
has shaped our thinking to perceive others only by their
general
characteristics and not their individual and unique natures.
I
have to actually strive to learn to "walk in another's shoes",
that is
to see their biography from its inside, rather than from the
outside
(to think with and within them, instead of just about
them).
Next, let us
take up the family...and
simultaneously, the community. Here again we have
general or
universal characteristics, and when we get into the fine
details, quite
individual and unique characteristics. Remember we are
also going
to work with this as something in movement over time.
Take an old
world village, perhaps about
500 years ago (at the beginning of the Age of the
Consciousness Soul),
for example. Many large families. Often a dozen
births for
each mother, not all of them live. Many relations, as
well.
An old world village might contain any number of large
extended
families (a few grandparents, many parents and several dozens
of
children and related cousins). Rules as to marriage
across these
complicated lines of blood existed for very practical and
obvious
reasons.
Such a village (community) would often have one language, one general culture, one religion and social political structure. Different villages in different locales in Europe would have differences of language, culture, religion and social political structure, but all would have large extended families as the dominate basis of the community.
Everyone would
know most everyone else.
Children born into such families would have destinies
almost
fixed in nature (the son becomes like the father, the daughter
like the
mother). No one violates social norms without severe
consequences. Individualism is generally unheard of.
People
almost do not have a thought outside the standard and shared
point of
view. Most are uneducated, and few can read and/or
write.
Now let us jump
forward a bit - say New
York City in the mid to late 19th Century.
Here we have
neighborhoods. Large
extended families continue, but not as large or as extended as
an old
world village. As immigrants, parts of families were
left behind
in the Old World. It is harder now to keep tradition
alive.
Religions, cultures and languages butt up against each
other,
often in conflict (mirroring in a small way the frequent wars
in Europe
rooted in the same differences). Children are less
inclined to
follow in the footsteps of the parent. Marriages across
lines of
religion, language and culture are frequent.
Individualism
increases, and the ability of the community (now fractured
from within,
and attacked from without) to cause conformance to its
dominate values
lessens.
During the
transition from the older
isolated villages to the neighborhoods in the great cities,
two
important changes have appeared - natural science and
industrialization. Religion, as a family and community
cohesive
forming force, is weakened by natural science; and, the family
and
community by the industrial revolution (the father is driven
from the
home and into the factory, along with many of the children, as
people
leave the villages to find work in the growing cities).
Flash forward
now into the present - Los
Angeles 2007.
An inner core
and an outer rim.
Mere vestiges of neighborhoods, mostly racial ghettos in
the
inner core, with smaller families. Better education,
similar
poverty. In the outer rim, a different racial mix, tiny
(nuclear)
families. In neither place does a coherent community
exist as
once did in the Old World village.
A staggering
increase in homelessness.
None of these individuals has a place to call home.
Even
the family has fractured into individual splinters. The I is
alone even
there (c.f. Riesman's The Lonely
Crowd). Children wouldn't
think of
following in their parents footsteps. Individualism
triumphs and
the old world cohesive nature of community and family is near
dissolved.
What happens in
our consciousness when we
move these pure abstractions through time? What happens
when we
recreate in the imagination the gesture of social form over the last 500
years in Western Civilization?
In addition,
what happens if we add to
this social form movement an understanding of the evolution of
consciousness, or at least the pictures we have made of the
biography?
This is something hardly known to the ordinary social
scientist,
and while indicated by Rudolf Steiner it was proved in three
books by
Steiner students: Lehrs' Man or
Matter (a history of science),
Barfield's Saving the
Appearances: a study in Idolatry (a
history
of language and meaning) and Richter's Art
and
Human Consciousness (a history of
art).
In each instance a phenomenological examination was
made, which
shows that the phenomena themselves (history of science,
language and
art) reveal that consciousness itself was not static, but in
movement.
We discover
that not only was outer
social form in movement, but so was human consciousness in the
biographies. Social reality has not just a mobile
developing
outside, it has a transforming inside as well.
One of the
things that becomes apparent
is that we begin to see that something from the inside of the
human
being is driving these changes. Yes, there are huge
transformations of outer circumstance, but individuation is
itself a
force moving from within outward into social existence,
transforming it.
Now this idea
is not entirely new (its
obvious to some degree to many ordinary social scientists),
but a
Goetheanistically oriented organic and pure thinking
begins to
behold something which ends up speaking of the death and the
becoming
of civilizations. A great metamorphosis at the level of social order is in process.
However, to pictorially
think this transformation requires
that we
combine, in a single whole, a variety of individual threads,
including
not only the kinds of general trends we can observe in changes
in
biographies, families and communities, but wider social
phenomena as
well. One such is the arrival of what seems to be a
tendency to a
post-literate culture, that is the loss of interest in books
among the
young. Another is the frequency with which artists of
various
kinds create novels and films of a post-apocalyptic near
future, such
as the 1992 novel by P.D. James that later became the basis
for the
2006 film Children of Men.
Once we have
become sensitive to these
kind of phenomena, we discover they are everywhere.
In
addition, not only is there phenomena reflective of the
breaking down
or a descent into social chaos, we can also find phenomena
indicative
of the emerging new civilization. Tragically, while
our
dreams are haunted by visions of darker times, they remain (in
many
circumstances) yet absent any sense that redemptive powers are
also at
work.
One of the
early ways I wrote of this logos speaking of the world
song, was that as the loss of social
form
increased (family and community becoming less coherent) such
was
necessary for moral freedom to arise. The outer social
form had
previously coerced the I into conforming to social values, and
as the I
pressed itself outward from within, it reached a point where
it had
overwhelmed the morally coercive effect of the family and the
community
(the family-community nexus itself disabled by natural science
and the
industrial revolution), enabling the I to act as an individual
determiner of what was moral (this has been called by some -
who
understandably could only think in a finished and fixed way
instead of
an organic way - moral relativity, the family values crisis
and the
culture wars).
A number of
social phenomena reveal this
- I'll just point to one. In the 1950's in America, it
was not
unusual for a parent to say to a child: you should do what is
right,
with right meaning the shared value of the community.
As the
transition through the 1960's to the 1970's took place, do the right thing became do your own thing.
Now above I
used the phrase: logos speaking of the world
song. I had years ago (1984)
written a
first version of: Listening
to
the World Song. In these last
years,
as my thinking penetrated more deeply into this Song, I began
to behold
inwardly that Christ was the Author of this situation (in
which He told
us in Matthew 10:34-40: "Don't think I came to cause peace
across the land.
I didn't come to cause peace, I came to wield a sword..." In some of the essays below (or above)
you
will see such language in the newer pieces, while the older
ones do not
have it. The culmination of my research via pure living
thinking
was, of course, published in the essay The
Meaning
of Earth Existence in the Age of the Consciousness Soul.
At the same
time that a degree of social
chaos was necessary for the inducement of the opportunity for
moral
freedom, this moral freedom itself has become productive in
social
existence in the form of the various Civil Society and
culturally
creative movements all over the world. In these latter
phenomena
will be found the up-building and renewing processes of the
new
civilization that is emerging from this long term metamorphosis. We need, however, to keep in mind that
this is a
process spread across centuries, and that what appears on the
surface
as social and political phenomena is simply symptomatic of far
deeper
currents (see Steiner's lecture cycles: The
Challenge
of the Times, and From
Symptom
to Reality in Modern History).
Let me offer
one final picture, to
reemphasize certain matters suggested above.
When we think
the social world, it is
crucial to think it from the individual biography outward, and
not from
the Stage Setting inward. That is, our picture of the
Logos
Speaking of the World Song needs to move from where Christ's
Love
focuses on each individual, instead of seeing the world as
consisting
only of the horrors of current history and politics.
We need to have
clear in our minds the
difference between the context in which the biographies are
embedded,
and the essence of that biography, which is the development of
the
individual i-AM. The context
serves this development, and is
itself, in its higher nature, another expression of Christ's
Love.
Each
individual, of the six billion plus
now incarnated, has their own karma, fate and destiny.
Christ,
being outside of Time and Space, has eternity in which to
focus on us
one at a time. In support of this is the whole symphony
of the
spiritual world's incredible variety of communities.
Down and
into the finest details of our day to day existence, creative
powers
pour their love. The i-AM swims in
a sea of love
that crafts for each individual a unique and individual
biography,
physical body, astral body and ethereal body. The poor
farmer in
deepest despair in South Korea is just as important as the
struggling
striving head of the pedagogical section of the School of
Spiritual
Science.
Each of us
bears individualized concepts
through which we interpret the meaning of the world, which
concepts are
precisely and exactly those concepts which we need in order to
experience our biographies. Each of us has just those
individualized bad and good habits and unique configuration of
temperaments, that play their necessary role in our karma and
fate.
Not only this, but the living nature of the Logos Spoken
World
Song is malleable. It constantly adjusts, stretches and
contracts, moves and dances in accord with our free destiny
decisions
that are made moment to moment.
Our conceptions
of linear time and fixed
space are maya. The real social world is far more
dynamic.
It is a living womb to the song of the becoming of each
unique
individual i-AM.
*
Above I have
tried to indicate, through
both ideas and a minimal level of demonstration, the
existence of
certain questions, about the thinking processes and
observational
process of a new science of the social, such that stands
behind my
research work on the social. I fully expect the above to
be
inadequate, and that others, who in following their own
riddles and
nested questions, are likely to discover much that I have
overlooked.
Hopefully the above will provide an adequate beginning.
Most of the
details that have been hinted
at above will be found scattered throughout my writings in
many places.
When opportunities permit I expect to publish in book
form my
essays on various themes that can be found on my website Shapes
in
the Fire. The main reason for
this
brief introduction was to make explicit certain aspects of method, while in the other essays it was much more
important to
bring forward the product produced by the
method.
After all, the
resulting thought content
is the reason for the activity of thinking in any event.
*********************************************
[For the
neophyte: The Society and
Movement contain a number of different, often conflicting,
ideas and
actions flowing from members and friends as regards how it
should move
into the future. Here, as a first look, is an effort to
highlight
one of these dimensions and perhaps show how its present-day
ill
effects can be redeemed. This essay is an application of
the
thinking (both organic
and
pure), as described above, to the
general social situation of the Anthroposophical Society in
America.]
The Natural Transformation of the Anthroposophical Society
in America (Michaelmas, 2007)
Some, who take
an interest in the future
of the Society in America, generally have an idea about what
it should
become. Some ideas could be called "continuing to
develop matters
along more traditional lines", and other ideas could be
described as
"taking the development of matters on more progressive lines".
The use of neither of those terms here is meant to
suggest
anything fixed, but rather represents an endeavor to point out
something that can be observed in the patterns of the
thought-background, as it were, of the concepts being
advocated by
others. Such a pattern would not necessarily appear on a
specific
page of text, or in a lecture itself, but would hover in the
contextual
structure of concepts of the whole of any writing or lecturing
concerned with the themes of development or change.
The recent
article in the News for
Members of the Anthroposophical Society in America, based on
material
created by former Vorstand member Heinz Zimmerman, was
actually a
fairly good representation of the kinds of ideas coming from
both a
traditionalist and progressive direction. Zimmerman gave
us an
intelligent summation of both sets of concerns. That
Zimmerman
couldn't really arrive at any conclusions or answers to
questions, he
himself posed, is also significant. To borrow a term
from
astrology, the direction of the Society might be called, in
the way
that he expressed it: void of course
- that is absent
clear direction.
To come at this from another direction, I'd like to share something from an experience I received by Grace during a group contemplation (from about 20 years ago), where a member who had just died was being remembered. The perception given to me was as follows (I have worked with it since that time, and this understanding is the most current):
There were
basically two dominant soul
gestures in the Society. The larger gesture (in terms of
numbers
of members) focuses mostly on a kind of golden past, on the
great
heights to which the Society had risen during Steiner's
lifetime, and
with respect especially to the Christmas Conference.
Everything in the
present in the Society is seen by this thinking as though
through a
kind of highly sympathetic haze colored by this spirit recollection of a golden past.
The second
basic gesture of soul, but
smaller in number of members, was from those who imagined a
future.
Their inner perception was not focused on the past, but
on the
possible future - the potential they experienced as latent
within the
Society. This spirit vision was then
the
point of view out of which they experienced the present, and
by this
vision the present was antipathetically judged.
The former I would call the traditionalists, and the latter the progressives. The traditionalists tend to want and urge preservation, while the progressives tend to want and urge transformation. Sympathy says this is good, let us hold to this. Antipathy says this is not good, we must change. Of course, no single individual or small group (such as a Branch) is wholly in one gesture or the other, so here we are just trying to delineate the patterns of thought that can be observed and their general nature and direction.
This essay hopes to place itself inside neither pattern, that is, to see the present not out of spirit recollection or spirit vision, but with spirit mindfulness.
* * *
As
beginner spiritual social
scientist, I strive to perceive what is actually happening in
the world
and within the Anthroposophical Society. An essential
matter, or
at least a reasonable place to start, is a certain somewhat
controversial theme which concerns the so-called Michaelic Millions. A long essay researching this theme was written
by Joel
Kobran and published in the
Threefold Review for the Fall, 2000.
On the surface,
that article represents a
kind of traditionalist criticism of a kind of progressive
point of
view. Kobran took exception to the discussions
ongoing
among some anthroposophists as regards the concept that
Steiner had
suggested there were to be in the world six or seven million
anthroposophists at the end of the 20th Century, who had been
within
the supersensible Michael School before incarnating.
In his
descriptions of the history of
this concept, who is using it, what statements of Steiner's or
others
can serve as a reference point - in general as something
requiring a
great deal of careful research, Kobran's article is superb.
All
that needs to be kept in mind is that he did conclude that the
use of
this idea, of there being many members of the Michael School
presently
incarnate who were not yet members of the Anthroposophical
Society and
who were instead members of what is called Civil Society - a
view taken
by both Perlas, Ben-Aharon and their co-workers in the Global
Network
for Threefolding, - the use of this idea was (according to
Kobran)
defective in several different ways.
I'll not go
into details here, but I just
wanted to note the existence of this thorough research by
Kobran and
the existence of the views of others, such as Ben-Aharon's
reflections
in his The Spiritual Event of the 20th Century concerning the existence (or not) of an large
unconscious or instinctive Michael community among humanity (whose
language
we don't yet know how to speak), as
well as a much smaller more conscious Michael community.
To remain
within observable social
phenomena of the Society a bit longer, I'd like to comment a
little bit
on a recent discussion among a few of the members of the
Social Science
Section in America, at a meeting I attended in Berkeley,
California in
late summer 2007. An initiative was there proposed that
certain
actions be taken via the creation of a website, on which would
be
various articles and other materials, provided by
anthroposophists (and
vetted by some kind of committee) that might serve as a
support out of
Spiritual Science for the work of many non-anthroposophists,
who are
engaged in creative social work in the world. It is not
the
details of this proposal that matter to us here, but simply
the fact
that such a discussion took place and was seriously
considered.
In a similar
vein, a group was formed, by
Society members in the Berkeley area more than a year before,
that
sought to engage in outreach. If one does an Internet search for the
terms
"anthroposophical" and "outreach", many hits turn up. We
could
say that in the Movement and Society, all over the world,
there is a
common will to connect to others outside of anthroposophical
communities, and to participate in the great issues of the
day.
There was even a book published in 1999, by Temple
Lodge,
offering many essays on such questions: The
Future
is Now: Anthroposophy at the New Millennium.
As a social
scientist, it has been a part
of my work to seek to observe in the phenomena of the social
world
facts representative of the appearance of the Consciousness
Soul, which
according to Steiner is the Soul transformation that is to be
the
signature development of the evolution of consciousness from
around
1400 to 3500 AD. Various observations I have made of the
activity
of this Soul can be found throughout this book. I would
like the
reader to take it as a given, that once one learns to really
appreciate
in the own soul the real nature
of the Consciousness Soul, it becomes clear how much of an
instinctive
Consciousness Soul activity is present in the world.
It is
everywhere, and if it remains unseen to any reader of this
book, I urge
them to make more careful observations of their own free moral
life,
and where in the world they see others expressing this free
moral life.
There is no free moral life, without a corresponding
moral
intuition of the Good (see my essay The Meaning of...), which moral intuition of the Good fits exactly
Steiner's description of the Consciousness Soul in his book Theosophy:
"By causing the
self-existent true and good to come to
life in his inner being, the human being raises himself above
the mere
sentient-soul. A light is kindled in her which is
imperishable. In so far as the soul lives in this light,
she is a
participant in the eternal. With the eternal she unites
her own
existence. What the soul carries within herself of the
true and
the good is immortal in her. Let us call that which
shines forth
in the soul as eternal, the consciousness-soul."
For those who
wonder about the true, and
who may accept that large portions of humanity could be
finding their
way toward free moral intuitions of the good, I suggest that
you
consider that the perception of the true necessarily has to be
preceded
by an ability to perceive the good. If people, for
example, are
to have at least two incarnations in the epoch of the
Consciousness
Soul, then it is my view that the first (our present) will
bring
forward the good, which then becomes a basis for the soul's
reaching
for the true. In the discussion that follows, I'll try
to develop
this further, and especially the possibility that in this
present time
one can do both, as long as it is the good that is understood
first.
The social phenomenological observation is, however,
that people
are in the present finding the good more easily than they are
finding
the true.
For the moment,
let me suggest this.
Part of knowing the true is rooted in the inner ability
to
distinguish the true from the false. The inner organ in
the soul,
for making such a distinction in a conscious way, is founded
on the
ability to intentionally ask ourselves inwardly whether what
we think
we know as the true, we do in fact know to be true. We
must place
before the eye of our conscience, by asking that express
question, the
matter of our relationship to knowledge of the true. To
ask such
a question is to take a moral point of view regarding our own
inner
actions, that is to first be living out of the good. It
is the
goodness in our hearts that enables us to honestly consider
whether or
not we do in fact know something to be true. The more
conscious
we are of how to know the good, the better will our soul and
spiritual
life be able to form a right relationship to the knowledge of
the true.
*
To round out
our discussions, I'd like to
add another nuance - this concerning the lectures of Steiner
called: Awakening
to Community, in which the concept
can be
found called the
reverse
cultus (see lecture 6).
In Awakening
to
Community (also in lecture 6)
Steiner
remarked about a conflict then living in the Society between
oppositely
disposed groups (those who had duties to continue the past,
and those
who felt no relationship to such an impulse). Steiner
then stated
that it might be better if the Society divided itself into two
organizations, and that these organizations would then see
themselves
as sister-souls, taking different paths toward reaching what
was
essentially the same ideal goal. A recent conversation
with a
friend gave rise in me the following archetypal imagery in
connection
with the above distinction between what I am calling the
traditionalists and spirit recollection, and the progressives
and
spirit vision, yet which also seems related to what Steiner
described
in Awakening to Community as the
sister-souls.
My friend
thought that the two sisters
could be visualized as being in the same relationship as
Martha and
Mary as revealed in the Gospels (search the Internet for
"Gospels Mary
and Martha"). Martha, the older sister, saw the world
out of
tradition and in action took care of the household, while
Mary, the
younger, pursued freedom and a devotion to the spirit.
One writer
calls Mary the active gesture, and Martha the contemplative
gesture.
Now lets not make too much of this, or too little.
I do
believe, however, that we can find here something very
important.
In different
places Rudolf Steiner spoke
of the Mystery of Golgatha as being an enactment of a central
Cosmic
Mystery taking place on the Earth in a kind of earthly
tableau.
All the events connected to this moment are not just
unusual
historical events, but are rather a kind of Divine Speaking in
which
great mysteries are represented through the many actors and
dramas in
this Play.
For example,
Christ's death and
resurrection, to my thinking, could be seen as the Great
Archetype of
dying and becoming that moves among all that is living in
earthly
existence, such that when Goethe discovers the principle of
metamorphosis of plants he is finding a reflection of this
Great
Archetype as it expresses itself across time in all manner of
phenomenal existence, both cosmic and earthly .
In a like
fashion, I suggest the
relationship of Martha and Mary is an archetype, one which we
find
folded and blended into the very nature and living structure
of the
development of the Anthroposophical Society. Nor is what
I am
suggesting an entirely new thought. The sometimes
conflicting
impulses between preservation and initiative are common
everywhere and
others have written of them in regards to our Society.
What I am
trying to suggest is that these
sister-soul impulses, which manifested in a conflicting way in
the
article by Kobran that had criticized the work of Perlas and
Ben-Aharon, are both healthy and needed. The meeting place then
of
those who on the one hand take seriously the duties that
evolve from an
emphasis on spirit recollection (and are drawn inward into
contemplation), and of those who take seriously the duties
evolved out
of spirit vision (and are drawn outward into action), can be
reconciled. The two can learn to understand each other, and to see in the other a necessary
part of
the whole, which understanding may then lead to the Natural Transformation of the
Anthroposophical Society in America
(and by
implication world-wide).
With this
background, let us come at this
from a slightly new direction, following out more carefully
the
concept: natural.
Recall that
Steiner said, which I
paraphrase: the
American develops Anthroposophy in a natural way.
I cannot say
that I have experienced all
that is anthroposophical in America, but I do not doubt that
my
experience (of now almost 28 years) is broad enough to give me
a
representative phenomenal picture. Everywhere in America
there
are traditional institutional social forms, such as Branches,
study
groups, Waldorf Schools, Camphill Communities, Eurythmy
Schools,
teacher training facilities and on and on and on.
In such Centers
of activity (which would
also include many conferences), the practices are traditional
in the
best sense of that word. What is done is mostly what has
been
recognized as the best practices born out of our experience of
the
past. In these Centers of anthroposophical activity
members draw
inward to meet each other as a community, and then afterward
go back to
their very busy lives.
At the same
time, in many of these busy
lives, the moral freedom and individuality consciously
fostered as a
member of the Society and Movement leads people into action as
participants in the wider non-anthroposophical life. In
the
Center, we are concentrated together, at the Periphery we have
no edge,
but are dispersed and interwoven with all that is happening in
the
wider world.
In the Center we recognize each other as sharing an unusual common interest, focused on Rudolf Steiner's personality and teachings, and at the Periphery we are one with the rest of those in humanity that seek to heal their shared karma of wounds and move thus progressively forward into the future. In American, in particular, with its special soul characteristics, we find that while few know of Steiner, many yet live instinctively out of the individual moral freedom (English speakers are instinctively in the Consciousness Soul in their Life of Rights - R.S.). Whether it is just a natural foods co-op, or a political group such as the Greens, or reading of and giving money to causes such as Doctors without Borders, many anthroposophists fully participate, as brothers and sisters, with those seeking the progressive advancement of the human condition, out of less conscious - that is instinctive - free moral activity.
When we draw
inward into our Centers, we
are glad to have the comfort provided by the Martha Impulse,
to have a
sense of coming home. And then, when we breath outward
into the
larger society, we join with the naturally arising Mary
Impulse which
can be found everywhere, in both conscious and instinctive
forms.
Yes, I know, for many in our circles this is not true. The last thing many of those, who are more filled with the Mary Impulse, want to do is hang out with the Martha folk. Meanwhile, many of the Martha Impulse find that what the Mary folk do is incomprehensible and a violation of all the rules of tradition (particularly anything Steiner said).
Now one of the
rules of polarity, that
can be studied in may places where life processes provide
organization,
is that in the inside of one pole is its opposite, as a small
but
concentrated essence. This means that the Martha
folk have
a Mary Impulse in their core and that the Mary folk have a
Martha
Impulse in their core.
As a
consequence, the traditionalists in
their contemplative gesture must naturally always seek to
actively
deepen it. Our inner developmental tasks we always
recognize as
incomplete, although the outer form of our activity tends to
remains
constant (traditional). For the progressives, their
transformational gesture must naturally always seek order, or
an
unrestrained urge to constant change will lead to chaos.
Activists are always building social new form, so that
the
community of the Mary Impulse has a well formed structure or
social
foundation from which to act.
In the Society
confusion arises when the
Mary Impulse wants to change the traditional form in the
Center, or
when the Martha Impulse criticizes the inner work of the
activists on
the Periphery as not properly grounded in Steiner. The
Mary
Impulse in its own field of activity has to move beyond
Steiner and
traditional Anthroposophy (so as to be compatible with the
wider
world), while the Martha Impulse has to maintain in the Center
its
concentrated devotion to Steiner.
Sister-souls,
sharing the same ideal
goal, is what Steiner indicated in Awakening
to
Community. What is this goal?
I suggest it is the furthering of the life of the spirit in humanity, which act of furthering is rooted in a new Way, a Mystery Way made compatible with natural science.
The Martha
Impulse preserves the Steiner
core, while the Mary Impulse has to forge allegiances with
that which
does not, and need not, recognize Steiner. In this
sense, I
believe Ben-Aharon is right in his conception of two
communities, a
conscious Michael community and an unconscious (instinctive)
Michael
community. At the Periphery of anthroposophical
activity, where
the Mary Impulse has to integrate itself with the wider world,
brotherhood and sisterhood means that one cannot stand apart
on the
basis of doctrine, but must find real inner compatibility.
For
the Mary Impulse this is done in recognizing the free moral
nature
(Consciousness Soul) instincts in others, and that this inner
free
moral nature can be shared across any fancifully imagined
division of
doctrine or path.
From the
Center, in the natural realm of
the Martha Impulse, Kobran was correct to suggest that, to the
extent
the Perlas Ben-Aharon group seemed to see the Consciousness
Soul only
in Civil Society and not in the world of banking, politics or
corporate
life, this view had to be false. Thus, the Mary Impulse
can be
aided, out of the work of the Martha Impulse, to struggle to
see more
deeply into the World, and perhaps observe that an
individual's
membership in any group cannot be used to define the state of
their
inner moral freedom (which observation includes the
Anthroposophical
Society and Movement - membership in either or both is not
necessarily
a sign of the achievement of ethical individualism).
The
contemplative gesture can inform in a
good way the active gesture. Of course, in order to
really do
this, the contemplative gesture will find its help ignored if
it is
rooted in a non-objective criticism; and likewise, the active
gesture
will lose something very precious if it removes itself too far
from the
Mother Source carried more strongly by the contemplative core.
The Kobran
article, in its criticism of
the Perlas Ben-Aharon idea of where are the so-called
Michaelic
Millions, also was concerned with the question of whether it
was
accurate to see Civil Society as a cultural gesture of
threefolding in
the world social organism. This dispute then would
suggest
that a rethinking on the part of both the Martha core and the
Mary rim
needs to be done as regards the state of threefolding of any
new
cultural life in the wider world. As this is a
significant
question, I'll try to contribute to its resolution next.
It is,
in addition, my view that learning to perceive these aspects
of modern
social existence will be very helpful for everyone in
Anthroposophy,
whether they more strongly identify with the Martha or the
Mary
Impulses.
The basic intuitions of the Mary Impulse as regards threefolding are represented quite strongly in Ben-Aharon's remarkable (and quite important for Mary Impulse anthroposophists) book: America's Global Responsibility: individuation, initiation and threefolding. A part of this view could be stated briefly as follows:
In the course
of the 19th and 20th
Centuries, the general condition of human societies encouraged
greater
human freedom and individuality. As a consequence, out
of this
freedom non-governmental organizations arose and became after
a time
more effective in delivering aid to those human needs that
governments
were becoming less and less able to provide. The
State
(that is one aspect of the political-legal sphere) was not
able any
longer to be devoted to goodness out of freedom, and into this
vacuum
stepped a Consciousness Soul response that was world wide:
Civil
Society.
At the time
then of the arrival of the
global economy, with its huge raw forces and influences, a
counter-pole
came into being as a necessary balance - a new cultural
impulse (the
Wise-Earth, see first essay above). So effective was
this
counter-pole, that the institutionally supported and hired
minds of
those seeking to rule economic life recognized it long before
most
thinkers on threefolding in the anthroposophical Society and
Movement
recognized it. Civil Society, a free moral (Mary
Impulse) gesture
that organized social forms for the purpose of solving
humanity-wide
social problems, represents to such thinkers as Perlas and
Ben-Aharon
the coming into being of a world-wide transformation of the
Cultural
Sphere of humanity. Kobran seemed to disagree, and I am
certain
he is not alone.
The difficulty
lies not, in my
experience, in one or the other being more correct in their
views, but
in the fact that the Martha Impulse tends to think about the
threefold
social order through a different inner process than does the
Mary
Impulse. Since the method (or gesture) of thought is
different,
the resulting thoughts and conclusions will of course be
different.
One of the
phenomena that can be observed
in the anthroposophical Society and Movement is that there are
two
major and quite different paths of development: the Knowledge
of
Higher Worlds path, and
The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity
path.
In several essays in this book I make reference to this,
and I
will not be repeating myself here about this in any great
detail (all
of which can be found elsewhere).
A major
characteristic of the former is
that it seeks the spiritual indirectly through the world of
the senses,
that is through the world were Ahriman has a certain
influence, both
within the soul and outside it in sense reality. The
latter seeks
the spiritual directly, through self observation
(introspection), and
here encounters the realm of Lucifer, again inside the own
soul and
then at last at the Threshold.
Both paths
influence the development and
awakening of more conscious thinking. As the Society and
Movement
developed over the 20th Century, the inner core of Martha folk
(who are
far more numerous) became quite involved with Knowledge
of
Higher Worlds. Those who
followed The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity
tended to
the edges, and thus we find such as Barfield, Kuhlewind and
Ben-Aharon
on the Periphery of the Society, where the Mary folk are
gathering.
The thinking,
as practiced and modeled in
the Center, tended toward a kind of European idealism of the
soul.
While on the Periphery there was an instinct for a more
pragmatic
(almost American) introspective life. The Martha folk
looked at
threefolding as an ideal to be incarnated, and the Mary folk
as a
phenomena of social existence to be perceived (a division
rooted in the
difference between the Aristotelians and the Platonists?).
So we
find Kobran, for example, carefully reading Steiner, and
vetting any
thoughts about world threefolding development against the
ideal of
threefolding given out by Steiner. On the other hand,
such as
Perlas and Ben-Aharon tried to live into the phenomena of
social
existence and listen to that social-forming spirit speak into
their
thinking.
Where this
takes us next is something we
have to be very careful about understanding.
The knowledge
that comes into thinking,
from that which we have called a kind of progressive spirit
vision
process, is out of the future. While the knowledge that
comes
into thinking, from that we have called a kind of
traditionalist spirit
recollection, comes from the past. The former pulls us
forward,
and the latter anchors us to our necessary roots. It is
only
through spirit mindfulness, in the present, that we can meld
the two
poles together into their natural unity and harmony. Too
much
sympathy for the past make an idol in the present, and too
much
antipathetic measuring of the present against a vision of the
future
ungrounds us.
Paradoxically,
the threefolding idealists
are living in that aspect of the Mary Impulse which is the
core inside
of the Martha folk. So to perceive the ideal of that
which is not
yet fully incarnated is to have a vision of the future.
While the
threefolding phenomenologists, fixed in their thinking on the
present,
are really only seeing the past in the present - what has
already
become, for that which is living (changing) in the present is
not fixed
in form, but is rather invisible or hidden as it were.
Their
inner core of the Martha Impulse tends to fix the views being
developed
by the Mary folk.
At the same
time, those on the edge, in
meeting the rest of humanity at the Periphery of
anthroposophical (the
conscious Michael community) activity have to set aside the
Steiner
idealism in presenting threefolding. The unconscious
Michael
community has no use for what would appear to them as a dogma,
so the
Steiner given idealism in the conception of threefolding has
to be
stripped away, otherwise its presentation will be sterile (see
the work
in the world of Gary Lamb for a healthy example of this).
What
the Martha folk want to present out of traditional
Anthroposophy has no
use for the wider world, and Steiner even pointed this out in
suggesting that when Anthroposophy truly entered social life
it would
disappear.
The movement
from the Center, out of the
contemplative Martha aspect of the sister-souls, outward
toward and
through the Periphery and as a gift to humanity through the
actions of
the Mary aspect of the sister-souls, involves the
disappearance of
Anthroposophy, at least as presently conceived. The
Martha folk
conceive of Anthroposophy as the substance and content of
Rudolf
Steiner's works, which need (correctly) to be preserved and
kept linked
to his name. The Mary folk conceive of Anthroposophy as
the
method of cognition, the will to spirit in the soul that leads
to
living thinking. Such living thinking is not owned by
Rudolf
Steiner by the way, who was only one of those who discovered
it (for
example, Coleridge and Emerson discovered it before him).
Christ is the
creator of the human
potential for living thinking, and its major co-participant
when we are
able to engender it out of ourselves. At the Periphery
of the
Society and Movement, where the rest of humanity is
encountered, it
will be Christ who is ultimately linked with this living
thinking, for
it is Him that is the Life that comes into us when we learn to
think in
this new way.
It would be
possible to say then that the
Martha folk would view the current world conditions as lacking
something of the ideal as represented by Steiner in his books
on the
social organism. The Mary folk would view the world of
social
phenomena as a logos speaking of macro threefolding (the
appearance of
Civil Society) into a cultural dynamic as an opposite pole to
an
economic dynamic (Elite Globalization). However, if you
read
carefully what Ben-Aharon has written in his book on America's
Global
Responsibility, his presentation is a bit weak on certain
levels.
As this is important I am going to take up this subject
next.
That is we are going, for a time, to look at the present
day
threefold conditions of the social world out of spirit
mindfulness,
rather than out of spiritual recollection or spirit vision.
*
Years ago I
wrote of this theme and
offered an article on it to the Threefold Review which choose
not to
print it. Several years later I was able to publish it
on my
website, where aspects of it drew the attention of the English
anthroposophist Terry Boardman, and he wrote of these ideas in
an essay
called: The
Idea
of the Threefold Society at the Dawn of the Third Millennium, which was first published in the book referred
to
above: The Future is Now: Anthroposophy at the
New Millennium.
Here is some of
what Terry Boardman wrote:
"In his lectures to
the West-East Congress in Vienna 1922,
Rudolf Steiner spoke of Europe-Asia as 'the problem' of modern
times
and Europe-America as 'the solution'. By this he meant that
Europeans
were preserving the dessicated remnants of an ancient Asian
spirituality in the dusty abstractions of their intellectual,
political, and religious systems. The future lay rather with
the will
to create out of nothing. And this willingness he saw in the
youthful
energies of the Americans. It is no surprise therefore to
learn that it
is an American anthroposopher, Joel Wendt, who has articulated
best
this need for Anthroposophy to enter the belly of the Media.
Wendt has
written: (13)
"What else have
politicians, terrorists,
single interest groups, businesses etc. been fighting to
control and
manipulate? Within Media the People come to common (equalized)
self
knowledge and mutual understanding. Within Media the idea of
the State
and of the rights and duties of citizenship come to common
form. Media
shines light on the activities of the State, and media
personalities
(with varying degrees of consciousness and moral integrity)
believe
they act thus for the People. However we turn our thinking, if
we
remain pictorially descriptive of the dynamics of social life
as these
actually play themselves out in the political-legal sphere we
will come
to the perception of the threefoldness of State-Media-People.
"It is a risk, Wendt
says, to enter this realm, but a risk
that should be taken, a nettle that should be grasped if the
Media
serpent is not to continue merely to slide in the dust.
"Media, if its
present condition is
clearly understood, is young; i.e. it is still undergoing
formative
developments, and functions today with a kind of moral or
spiritual
immaturity. In this sense Media may take one of two different
courses
of future development. It may become a kind of moon center,
rigid,
arid, not light originating, but rather only able to reflect
those
impulses which come to it from the outside. Or, it may become
a sun
center, a source of warmth and understanding, a medium of
creative
forces flowing into the social order and carrying both in deed
and in
word a true image of man as a being of soul and spirit. I
imagine then,
Media becoming a sun, a true heart of the heart of the social
organism,
so that the common understanding of the People will find a
renewed
vision of the State. In Media a song can yet be heard, the
song of the
truly free man, the moral man. In this way the rigidification,
the
mechanization, the image spell-binding of the word will be
overcome,
and a true understanding given to Western civilization of the
Idea of
the Threefold Social Organism as a dynamic social form already
latent
in human social existence in the West....There is of course no
predicting how events will proceed, yet it seems clear to me
that this
historic moment is pregnant with certain kinds of potential.
Just as
there is great risk of a further fall into materialism, so as
well
there is much possibility for spiritual transformation. If we
do not
blind ourselves with a kind of threefold dogma (for example,
that the
first need is to free the spiritual cultural life), but
instead truly
perceive the actual dynamics. Then as far as I am able
to hold in
pictorial thought, the ripe moment lies in bringing moral
trans-formative forces to the thinking active within the Media
- to
bring a song to life just here in the heart of the heart of
the social
organism.
"Here speaks
a true American voice - a voice of idealism and the will to
courage."
Leaving aside
Mr. Boardman's kind words,
let us consider then the concept that during the development
Western
Civilization, a kind of natural threefolding occurred in the
newly
being born Life of Rights (which arose when the Greeks and the
Romans
began to see the State as one pole of the Life of Rights, and
the
Citizen as the other pole). During the course of this
unfolding
of the Life of Rights, it threefolded within itself, not
unlike the
natural threefolding of the Cultural Sphere into Science, Art
and
Religion (or what is latent in the Economic Sphere:
production,
distribution and consumption). Only with the Life of
Rights we
have a natural threefolding into: State, Media and People (or
Citizen).
This makes
Media to be the heart of the
heart of the social organism. Since the middle realm of
a
threefold organism (such as the human being, which is the
Archetype of
the Social Organism) is, in part, a melding together of the
two poles,
yet which seeks to be the selfless servant of both, we can see
in
modern media the struggle between economic and cultural
impulses.
Like the rest of the social organism, Media is dominated
today by
the cold calculations of profit and power seeking motives.
Yet,
this is the outer Media and it is now being enriched deep in
its
interior core by that free moral spirit currently inhabiting
the
Internet.
The Internet is
to a great degree that
natural anarchy in which is hidden beneath the surface
Steiner's
instinctive Consciousness Soul idea of ethical individualism.
We
find this individual and natural anarchy in the Open
Source
communities and their various services given away for free to
the
Internet, and in the struggles between the free exchange of
ideas and
art that is giving fits to those who cling to the old Roman
idea of
property rights under the current term: intellectual property
rights
(which wants to own the products of spirit, by the way - but
that is a
whole other story). In any event, between the millions
of blogs
and millions of individual websites, the Internet is an
extraordinary
development of a free Media process as it works deeply within
the
middle of the threefold nature of the Life of Rights: State,
Media and
People.
This was the
means, as was noted by
Ben-Aharon in his book on America, that enabled Civil Society
to defeat
the introduction of a horrible attack on the economic life of
the world
social organism in the guise of a treaty called: the
Multilateral
Agreement on Investments, which would have turned all
economies world
wide into prey for the concentration of wealth among
speculators and
huge financial capital institutions. The Internet has
become the
physical apparatus of living social reality: free Media, which
is the
free moral heart of the heart of the social organism, and was
absolutely necessary for people to become informed of this
attack (and
essential to the use this same resource - free Media - in
repelling
this attack). The whole confrontation, against the
Multilateral
Agreement on Investments by Civil Society, would have been
impossible
without a truly free Media in its current form of development.
If I was to
point toward the most special
place for the Mary Impulse to work, it would not be so much in
Civil
Society itself, but within free Media on the Internet.
This free
Media is the beating heart of the lifeblood of the community
of wisdom
that is Civil Society, or the instinctive Michael community.
This
heart is built up out of the streaming intelligence, from
below and
above, yet is that one place were the opposing nature of these
streams
can be mediated.
We confuse
ourselves if we turn away from
the Internet because it is based on an ahrimanic tool, the
computer.
It is the uses this tool is put to that are
important.
From above, out
of a somewhat luciferic
Civil Society comes those ideals and dreams that represent an
active
and instinctive free moral intelligence, while from below, out
of the
ahrimanic economy, with its technological excesses comes the
tool - the
Internet. Somewhere some people have to be wise enough
to
consciously serve this confluence of downward streaming wisdom
as it
intersects with upward streaming wisely authored earthly
formations.
Here is the point from which to alter the world conceptions of
the
community of human beings meeting on the Internet. At
the same
time, it is not the Martha Impulse that will function best
here, but
the Mary Impulse.
The ideal (but
unpracticed) living
thinking, cultivated in the contemplative core where the
Martha Impulse
struggles to nurture the Mother - Anthroposophy, has to move
out
through the Mary Impulse into the beating heart of free Media,
and from
there into the social periphery where the instinctive
Consciousness
Soul of humanity can come to collective self-consciousness.
Only
in free Media can the living nature of social threefolding, of
the
reverse cultus, and of a scientifically based new gnosis come
to
conscious world-wide understanding. Here, in this
periphery,
lives Christ. In the interactions on the Internet,
world-wide in
scope and crossing all former barriers of culture, race,
language and
religion, the Michael gesture predominates. Human beings
seek
each other as human beings, no longer as Jews or Arabs or
Americans or
Chinese. Then, in the interweaving exchanges, carried by
a human
created physical structure no less significant than the cosmos
created
physical structure which is necessary for speech, Christ lives
in
between. All is, of course, crude and barely workable,
but even
so, if we look at the drivers behind much of the human
activity on the
Internet, it's use is forged by hundreds of thousands of human
intentions to create bonds of contact across former
boundaries, which
ultimately leads to face to face interactions (from the
world's Social
Forums such as FaceBook to Moveon's American meet ups, to
individual
love affairs and marriages).
Let us look a
little more closely at one
very odd, yet quite compelling Internet phenomena: YouTube.
YouTube is a website where anyone anytime can post
home-made
videos. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people
world-wide go daily there to look at these individually
created picture
stories born frequently in the impulses of instinctive
consciousness
soul activity. Whereas mainstream culture, such as
television and
movies is mostly dominated by corporate culture and impulses
of greed,
YouTube, a representative phenomena spilling upward out of the
social
commons, lets everyone be a TV producer or film-maker. Short
films to
be sure (some less than a minute), but if it strikes a cord,
in a short
time it can be viewed by millions.
What if the
creative arts and selfless
thinking of anthroposophists, as individuals, were to join in
this
world-wide artistic community dialog. Instead of
thinking (as the
Martha folk tend to) that people should come to us, we (as the
Mary
folk are inclined to do) go to them - to
where
they are.
Far too many
anthroposophists are so
focused on the rightness of what they are doing, that they
often miss
what the rest of the world is doing. In case the reader
of this
doesn't want to be asleep, they should read; Blessed
Unrest by Paul Hawken; and, World
Changing:
a user's guide for the 21st Century,
edited
by Alex Steffen, Forward by Al Gore.
*
Let us now
weave back in a previous
theme: Steiner is the one, who in The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity found the
way to this living thinking through the application of the
methods of
natural science to the processes of introspection. That
deed will
remain linked to him for a very long time. In a certain sense,
the Mary
folk are the mediating principle between the inner core of
anthroposophical tradition and Steiner study held dear by the
Martha
folk, and the wider world of humanity. Martha strives to
keep the
treasure house pure, while Mary tries to distribute the
treasure freely
to all, humbly and without need for credit, just as Christ
gives
Himself away without needing any acknowledgment.
As American
anthroposophists (and perhaps
others in the world) wake up to this conception of the
sister-souls and
their natural relationship, this waking up may foster in both
realms
impulses toward a greater clarity of activity. For the
Martha
folk this may arrive in the form of a desire to deepen their
relationship to Anthroposophy by taking up more firmly the
inner work
of The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity - that is to approach the spiritual more
directly
(instead of indirectly) through a scientifically based
introspective
activity. For the Mary folk this may bring about in them
the
desire to deepen their practices of the reverse cultus, for
they will
find that not only does the wider world have an instinctive
relationship to free moral action, but also to deeper group
practices
rooted in the spirit.
After a century
of anthroposophical work,
it seems to be the time in which the belief, that The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity is too hard,
has to be overcome; and, that Knowledge
of
Higher Worlds, while a quite
definite path
to the spirit, has to be seen as Steiner saw it, as lacking
the same
surety or exactness as The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity
(see
Steiner's remarks toward the end of the fifth Chapter of Occult
Science:
an outline). Out of such a
change of emphasis in its contemplative directions, the Martha
Impulse,
in the core of the Society and Movement, will find itself able
to
achieve much that before was impossible. They will, by such an
act,
remove from the dust heap of the 20th Century the most
important work
Steiner created, and return it to its throne as the true ruler
of
anthroposophical spirit activity, since it represents
Steiner's own
path of development (which Knowledge
of Higher Worlds does not).
At the same
time, the reverse cultus too must
be rescued from that same dust heap into which
the understandably spiritually immature activity of
anthroposophists in
the 20th Century discarded it. Let me create for the
reader an
Imagination of such a Rite in action, as an aid to
appreciating what
has been lost. For this Rite - the reverse cultus - is the Queen of the New Mysteries, just as The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity is the King.
* *
*
The Circle
gathers, with one shared intention - to consciously work with
the
spirit. No member of the Circle is more important than
any other
member. First in silence they recall what Steiner taught about
why
Judas had to kiss Christ. The truth at that time in
Palestine was
that when crowds gathered to hear teaching, the teaching came
from all
those in the circle around Christ. The Christ spirit
spoke
through all, first one and then another. For this
reason
Judas had to kiss the One who was the center, otherwise the
Centurions
would not know whom to arrest.
After this
mood is engendered, in which each recognizes in the other a
true source
of spirit presence, the members of the group begin to speak.
What
they offer is not a pre-thought theme, about which one may be
more
expert than another, but rather the simple feelings of their
hearts in
the moment. These heart-felt concerns are the sharing to each
other
that opens the hearts to each other. The Circle meets
each other
in this art of coming to know each others deepest concerns,
which can
(and often will) be entirely personal. This knowing of
each other
is a great gift to give and to receive.
In this brief
sharing will begin to emerge the spirit music latent in the
coming
conversation, for the co-participating spirit presence knows
the truth
of our hearts, and is drawn to these concerns out of the
darkness
represented by the Threshold and into the light and warmth of
the
sharing. Thus, in acknowledging each other in silence as also
true
speakers of the spirit, and then in sharing the true matters
of the
heart as exists for each at that moment in time, the Chalice
is born in
the Ethereal - in the mutually shared world of thought.
Now comes the
Art of Conversation, the Royal Art.
Here too no
one is better than another for as Christ is quoted in the John
Gospel:
"What's born of the flesh is flesh, and what's born of the
breath is
breath. Don't be amazed because I told you you have to
be born
again. The wind blows where it will and you hear the
sound of it,
but you don't know where it comes from or where it goes; it's
the same
with everyone born of the breath".
The breath of
spirit blows where It wills, not where we will It.
The Royal Art
is deep indeed and begins (as Tomberg expressed it) by
learning to
think on our knees. At the same time, these inner skills
of
thinking and listening will have little effect on where the
wind blows,
and while the study of The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity
may make us
individually more awake inwardly, the will of the spirit
presence in
the conversation belongs to that spirit presence, not to us.
So the
conversation proceeds in the heart-warmed Chalice of the
shared
experience of the world of thoughts. Each contributes
what is
thought in them. Together a weaving of a whole is sought, but
no one
can judge whether anyone else's contribution is a needed
thread or not.
Often, for example, something, which on the surface
seems
antagonistic or oppositional, is precisely what is needed in
the moment
to stimulate another in the offering of their part of the
whole.
It is
possible then for this circling weaving conversation to rise,
in the
nature and the substance of its overall meaning, nearer and
nearer to
spiritual other-presence. It will not do, however, to
believe
that as the conversation of the members of the group draws
near this
other-presence, that It will tell us what is true and good.
That would violate our freedom. The true
touch of the
wind in the soul is otherwise in its nature.
In each soul
lie latent embers of spirit recollection, spirit mindfulness
and spirit
vision. We are already as thinking spirits, in the
spiritual
worlds. What is fostered in the Chalice is something
rooted in
the teaching of Christ: Wherever two or more are gathered in
my name,
there I am.
He is with us.
Moreover, He
is very interested in what we choose to think, not in our
obedience to
Him. Our obedience we owe to our higher self, not to Him
- that
is to the Not I, but Christ in me. He loves everyone in
the
Circle equally, and observing the latent embers of
recollection,
mindfulness and vision within each separate soul, He aids our
communion
by breathing on these embers. He gives to each,
according to that
individual need, that aspect of His Life which is His Breath -
what
John the Baptist in Matthew 3:11 called holy breath.
["Now I
bathe you in the water to change hearts, but the one coming
after me is
stronger than me: I'm not big enough to carry his shoes.
He
will bathe you in holy breath and fire."]
With His
Breath, during the communion that is the conversation in the
Chalice,
the latent embers of our own soul are given Life. Within
the
thoughts of each arise that which belongs to each, but which
is also
seen by the Love of Christ, and enthused with His Life.
We rise
on the moral quality of our will in recognizing the spirit
presence in
each other, and in the sharing of the concerns of our hearts;
and, as
we do this, the weaving of the thoughts into a whole - still
resting on
our own insight and will - is given Eternal Life, in the form
of the
good and the true.
Thus
revealing the truth that: "I am with you every day, until the
culmination of time." Matthew 28:20
* *
*
What does this
mean for the sister-souls,
the Martha Impulse and the Mary Impulse?
In the Center,
where the Martha folk
strive to keep the work deep, in addition to their renewed
studies of The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity,
can be
added a renewed interest in the reverse cultus. At the Periphery, where the Mary folk
strive to
integrate with the wider world, they will find everywhere,
just as they
had previously observed an instinct for free moral action, an
equal
striving for the spirit in conversation. Whether it is
in a
formal setting such as the striving in 12 Step Groups or the
study of
Non-violent Communication, the instinctive path of spiritual
communion
through conversation is everywhere - for again: Wherever two or more
are
gathered in my name, I am there;
and, I
am with you every day,
until the culmination of time.
Christ
does not make a distinction between anthroposophist and
non-anthroposophist, nor from a certain perspective should we.
The Martha
Impulse recognizes the
treasures that Rudolf Steiner spent his life forces to give to
humanity. The Mary Impulse recognizes the need to meet
people
where they are. Turning everyone into anthroposophists
is not the
mission of Anthroposophy.
The deeper is
the contemplative core
(Martha Impulse) of the conscious Michael community, the
richer and
more practical will be the realization of what Steiner taught,
especially in all the daughter movements. The more other
(thou)
directed is the active rim (Mary Impulse) of the conscious
Michael
community, the more will the wider world be able to receive
the dying
into becoming of Anthroposophy as that metamorphosis of spirit
is
transmitted from the Center, through the mediating Periphery
thence
into service in the world.
There is a
direction of movement in the
horizontal social, from left to right:
>Center-Martha
Impulse
<(Michael)> Periphery-Mary Impulse
<(Michael-Christ)> World>
which as a
social impulse (in the
horizontal) eventually loops around (a cross within a circle)
and pours
itself into the individual biographies, from within (this,
from the
vertical-spiritual), or: Fires in the Biography, upward
and
downward.
holy breath
/\
\/
free moral activity (instinctive and conscious)
/\
\/
reverse cultus groups (instinctive and conscious)
/\
\/
sharing of trials in the group creation of the chalice
(instinctive and conscious)
/\
\/
trials by
fire in the biographies
where it once
again spreads out in the
horizontal-social, the whole inwardly a lemniscate gesture on
the one
hand, and outwardly a circle-cross gesture on the other.
This
creates in the in
between, where Christ lives, the
spiral-like
gesture of development of which we all should now be well
aware.
It is in the
fires in the trials of the
biographies that the outer gesture of our baptism by holy
breath and
fire appears. Outwardly we are baptized in trials by
fire in our
individual biographies (through Christ's Art as Lord of
Karma), and at
the same time we are inwardly baptized by the Living Christ
via holy
breath.
Thus does the
future and the past, via
Anthroposophy both in its concentrated form (conscious Michael
community - the sister-souls of Martha and Mary) and
distributed form
(unconscious Michael community), homeopathically pollinate the
present
social world of humanity in a natural way. Through the shared
gesture
of free moral activity, and conscious conversation (whether
fully
awake, instinctive or somewhere in between) humanity is united
in
spiritual communion with and via Christ.
For
anthroposophists, this creates
significant responsibility. If they fight among each
other,
unable to recognize the value of the different Impulses, they
will
cripple their own work. Only by walking side by side,
each
honoring the other, may the two gestures - the sister-souls -
accomplish the work that neither can do on its own.
The Class, the
School of Spiritual
Science, the work of the Sections, the work of Branches and
Group - all
this concentrated Steiner focused activity, essentially
contemplative
in nature, is one kind of work. It supports and enables
the other
kind, the active in the world work - the work of outreach.
Some will
prefer to limit their work to one sphere, and others will move
back and
forth. All that is really needed is for the two to
understand
each other, instead of judging each other. On the
success of that
seeking after understanding, a great deal depends.
For the real
challenge in the end is
whether the Martha folk and the Mary folk can combine their
ideal
intentions in such a way that humanity is served - such that
something
begins to come to light in free Media - that is Anthroposophy
leaves
the Society and Movement and dies into the living world social
organism
as a fully awake and conscious gesture of service. We
are not
meant to create a new philosophy or a new sub-group of spirit
practitioners - that is to spread the idea of Anthroposophy -
but to
instead purely and simply serve the needs of humanity through
the practice
of Anthroposophy.
[As I was going
through my final review
of the whole text of this book, the following is a second
statement
(the first is above at the end of In Joyous Celebration....) that appeared in an essay, written by
Michael
Howard, in the News for Members: "A crucial aspect of
the
Social Art is the question: how do communities and
institutions
metamorphose? If the Anthroposophical Society is to play
a
leading role in the cultivation of the Social Art, then what
better
starting point than for the members of the Society to take up
action
research regarding the ways the Anthroposophical Society will
metamorphose." On reading this
statement I had the hope that the essay above, written some
time
before, might make a contribution to this riddle.]
********************************************
[for the
neophyte: we enter here a great
and central mystery of our Age. We have touched this
previously,
but now it becomes necessary to look at this more closely and
with a
certain personal intimacy. We are to look at the dark
within,
discover its real meaning and significance, and begin to learn
how to
master it.]
The Mystery of Macro and Micro Evil
and the relationship of the Shadow
(the threefold
double-complex) to the American Soul
[warning
for
all readers...facing the fact that
we are
the door through which evil enters the world can sometimes be
a
shattering experience, for often our general attitude of mind
is that
evil is in the other, not in ourselves. This is why the
teaching
of Christ on the mote and the beam is so crucial. Below
the
reader will be led directly into some of the deepest aspects
of the
beam in their own eye. At the same time there is a
danger that we
will apply this beam in judgment of ourselves - we will be
tempted and
encouraged by the double itself, to look upon this fact (that
we have a
shadow being so intimately within our souls) as a defect
or flaw.
This is not the
case. As was
pointed out far above in the discussion of Ahriman's
Incarnation, the
opposing beings are a gift and a treasure. Further, in
our
biographies we are watched over by the Divine Mystery at all
times, and
whatever our state of soul - whenever we are in the deepest
despair and
pain, that is the time when we can turn to the Mystery in
prayer.
The 23rd Psalm is a quite exact description of our real
condition
in any given moment of time in our biographies, and even harsh
conditions of soul pain and despair are as much a part of our
development of any other experience we are to meet in life.
Rudolf Steiner advised us, and experience itself proves,
that the
hardest experiences are the most fruitful, even though we may
not like
them at all. To labor in an inner trial of life is to do
a
spiritual developmental work that can be accomplished in no
other way.
The opponents and the shadow beings are a gift, and the
Divine
Mystery is always ready for and open for us to surrender, just
as was
captured by Michelangelo in the Pieta. The not I but Christ in
me will in these trials go though
passages much like death,
as the trials strip away from us our excesses of egotism.
When the unredeemed aspects of the soul dies
through
these experiences into a new becoming, we are always held in
such
moments by the Mother, exactly as is depicted in this
remarkable work
of art: the Pieta.]
*
I recently had
a discussion with a
leading anthroposophical doctor, who was also many years a
leader in
the Society as well, and who on the question of the Shadow
said to me
that it was his view that I could not speak of such things,
without
first discovering and mastering everything Rudolf Steiner said
about
the Double and about (I believe) Lucifer and Ahriman.
I found this to
be a most incredible
statement, for it seemed to assume that if one was to take up
any
subject Rudolf Steiner spoke about, the first path to
knowledge of the
matter had to go through him. Since Steiner himself had
urged us
again and again to not make him into any kind of authority, I
wondered
just what was being said to me by this doctor who has been
seen for
many years to be a deep anthroposophist. I found this
all the
more peculiar in an anthroposophical doctor, for at the end of
the
lecture cycle Spiritual
Science and Medicine, Steiner was
asked by a
doctor/student what should one do with Paracelsus, whom
Steiner had
recommended be studied. Steiner replied that one should
think out
things for themselves first, and then go to Paracelsus for
confirmation. My view has been that this is a good
approach to
Steiner as well.
This doctor's
attitude was also not
something new to my experience, for I had run into similar
views many
times during my 25 plus years as an anthroposophist.
Basically
this view was that all that we could think, had to be tested against what Steiner had said.
This is, of
course, logically impossible.
If taken to the extreme of what it implies, it would
suggest that
no one can have a thought about anything since Steiner
incarnated.
Further, it represents a view that imagines thinking to
be
incapable of having its own direct spiritual connection,
independent of
Rudolf Steiner, while at the same time assuming that Steiner
never made
an error, never could make an error and ought not ever to be
questioned. (At a recent Branch meeting, a Christian Community
Priest
said to me: we
are never to doubt Rudolf Steiner.)
Given the
logical absurdity of the
doctor's statement to me, what was in fact living in this
point of
view? I would say that it was in fact the Shadow itself
speaking
to me, trying mightily to rise out of the doctor's
sub-conscious soul
on streams of anxiety and doubt and thus to keep its nature
hidden.
The Shadow cannot not bear the light of reasoned
examination, or
the true heart-warmth of genuine humor, and will trick us at
every turn
whenever we let ourselves sleep inwardly. But this is
getting
ahead of ourselves.
Where did the
doctor's unconscious
anxiety come from? It came from the fact that he did not
know me,
and even though he had read some of my writings, had no basis
in his
experience to have confidence in me. But he was asleep
as to this
lack of confidence, otherwise that is what he would have said.
He
would have said, that if I was to write of the Shadow, I
needed to
explain how it was that I felt qualified to speak, for people
(such as
himself) would need to be able to have some trust right from
the
beginning, otherwise they will believe that all that is said
is theory
and Steiner-said - everything but something actually grounded
in direct
experience.
This then is
where I will begin - with my
experience.
I have practiced introspection for over 35 years now, ever since at age 31 when I underwent a remarkable, unexpected and spontaneous change of personality. From one evening on going to sleep to the next morning on awakening, a light - a new small flame of self-awareness - awoke in my soul that had not been there before, such that I began to see inwardly (into my own inwardness) where previously all had been enfolded in the normal darkness of ordinary consciousness. Lest one think this was a godsend, let me set the record straight, for it separated me from my fellows and has since lead to all kinds of troubles and challenges. To be awake where others are sleep is not always a good thing.
Fortunately,
the personality that I was
before the change was grounded in a kind of simple faith, and
so in the
beginning I turned to the Gospels in order to understand the
meaning of
what I began to observe in my inner life as a consequence of
this
spontaneous inner and brighter self awareness.
Seven years
later, I met Rudolf Steiner's
writings, and became attracted almost at once to his works on
the
science of objective introspection (A
Theory
of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception, and The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity).
Already naturally introspective (inwardly awake to the
processes
of my soul), I now found the way to make this very alone
journey with
the aid of scientific thinking. The main trouble that
followed
(these things never take a straightforward course), was that
among
other anthroposophists, I found almost no one that was as
inwardly
awake and as carefully studying their soul life out of the
impulse of
an introspection following the methods of natural science.
Oh, people did
read the books on
epistemology, but mostly they absorbed the concepts from the
books,
such that they thought about the content of their souls
through the
lens of the indications of Steiner, and did not in fact
actually look
to their own souls as a book itself that can be studied.
Slowly over
time I found myself again at odds with what I had assumed were
my
fellow students in Anthroposophy, because we were not actually
studying
the same material. I was studying my soul and they were
reading
books.
About ten years
ago, I ran into a wall in
these studies. I knew a great deal in practice and had
written
about it in my essay pragmatic moral psychology (see
my
website), but I had not yet met the double (in any kind of
obvious
way such that I felt any confidence in describing it as experience that had
become
knowledge in my soul). I had
read much about
the double, and had all kinds of concepts, but no adequate
experience.
I even stopped completely writing a book I was writing
at that
time because I did not know what clearly was the next thing to
know.
I wasn't even sure that introspection, for all that I
had learned
there, could provide this experience, which seemed to require
actual
clairvoyant perception.
In this I was
wrong. The fact
is that my experience was full of evidence of the double, but
this had
eluded me because I had made certain assumptions about what I
was to
experience as an aspect of introspection, such that a matter
that was
the most intimate aspect of my inner life - the introspective
experience of the Shadow, I had assumed to have one quality,
when it in
fact possessed another entirely.
This quality was hidden in the process we call our inner voice, or sub-vocalization, or which others call discursive thinking (the spirit speaks, the soul hears). The plain fact was that unless I was consciously directing this inner speaking (the throat chakra), the unconscious (in part the threefold double-complex) was using it. To experiment here, simply count inwardly to yourself up to 23, and then stop and go on to some other activity, possibly involving movement. While you are doing this other activity, this inner speaking (the mental chatter we mostly conceive of as thinking) will continue on its own. There is a kind of endless commentary about everything that is going on, and unless we are consciously directing this inner speaking, it is speaking out of itself, or more precisely out of the presently hidden sub-conscious and super-conscious elements of soul life.
For someone to
whom this is a new idea,
and has little experience with introspection, let me add this
concept.
We all know how it is that we can place iron filings on
a piece
of paper, underneath which is a magnet. The filings will
form
patterns on the paper to line up with the influence of the
magnet's
magnetic field. In a like way the double-complex and
other
aspects of the soul, both sub-conscious and super-conscious,
make
patterns in soul phenomena - patterns that can be observed.
When
we think about these patterns, after a time it is this
thinking
reflection itself which sees (recognizes) the meaning of the
various
phenomena as described in this essay.
Now this
unconscious soul life is not
just the double-complex (the sub-conscious), for the
conscience (the
super-conscious) speaks here as well. In addition, what
the John
Gospel calls the
wind (the Holy Spirit) also speaks
into our
thinking (recall above the essay: In Joyous Celebration
of the
Soul Art and Music of Discipleship).
The whole soul is in fact a kind of inner mystery
temple*, and
requires that we pay attention to it (be scientific about our
introspective experiences), otherwise we will miss a great
deal that
can be observed in the soul. As another example, just
notice the
next time someone seems to have made you angry. Up in
intensity
goes this inner chatter, which then tends to take the
character of all
kinds of thoughts which are unkind and destructive. If
we act out
of these thoughts, we will usually make a mess of things.
*Once we
recognize the soul as an inner
mystery temple, we can approach it with the care and art that
we might
make with regard to a physical temple. How often do we
clean it?
How often do we air it out? What rites to we
celebrate
there? These are just a few of the dozens of questions
we can
take up, once we orient ourselves toward our soul in this
way.]
If we think it
through, we will now
recognize why Steiner so frequently spoke to us about learning
control of
thoughts. Our will needs to
awake in this realm, so that
the unconscious influences become more conscious, the access
to our I
by the Shadow is reduced, and our ability to consciously
co-participate
with the Holy Spirit (the wind) is able to
emerge out
of the general background noise in the soul, because thought
is no
longer allowed to be driven out of the
hidden depths
(instead becoming a conscious act of the own I).
This then
is a basic and essential task in achieving the Living Thinking
or what
is sometimes called heart thinking: control of thoughts.
Some will have
good instincts about
holding back this endless mental chatter (which the Tibetans
call: the
oscillation of the citta). We
will also here come to a sense of the
difference between the lower ego and the higher ego.
That which
appears to introspection in ordinary consciousness as the
seemingly
endless flow of mental chatter is a phenomena of the soul.
I am
not, by the way, in the immediate above trying to solve all of
the
relevant problems. Instead I am simply pointing directly
at soul
phenomena that if studied objectively will lead to experiences
of the
threefold double-complex in the soul.
All that said,
let us now step away, and
come at this more abstractly for a while, instead of so
intimately, for
this outer view, with its generalized mental pictures, is
needed in
order for us to have a context in which to place the meaning
of why we
need to have such an intimate inner companion, the shadow or
double-complex, who appears to be able to use our own inner voice as a
vehicle for
temptation and prosecution and other problems, while at the
same time
the conscience and the wind have a similar
access
to our deepest inner soul realities. In the sense of the
soul as
an inner mystery temple, while it has many general
characteristics,
this temple is also quite distinctively individual and unique.
Also, keep in mind that once we obtain to a certain degree of control of thoughts (the will-in-thinking) it then becomes possible (again see my essay In Joyous...) for us to begin to learn how to perceive inwardly the voice of temptation - egotism (the luciferic double), the voice of inner prosecution - lies (the ahrimanic double) and the influence of the self-created egregorial beings (or better said: the self-generated wounds) in the soul (these wounds by the way, can so weaken the I that it becomes permeable for the influence of the Asuras). Further, the lower ego (the I surrounded by the threefold double-complex) becomes able, via the will-in-thinking (control of thoughts), to begin to consciously co-participate with the conscience (the higher ego - which is itself never really separated from the Mystery).
Here is a
diagram from my book the Way of
the Fool:
Christ Jesus
Guardian Angel
i-Am
[sense world < soul (A/d) < i-AM > (L/d) soul > spiritual world]
human double
(Asuras)
the Divine
Mother
Here is another
diagram, isolating part
of the first one for special attention:
i-AM
(A/d) < i-Am > (L/d)
human double
We need to keep
in mind that the symbols
(the map) is not the territory.
The first
diagram represents our general
experiential relationship to the worlds, both inner and outer.
The second diagram represents the structural
nature of the
lower and higher egos as they sit within this world of
experience.
From within our
biographies we experience
the world, mediated on the sense-world side by the ahrimanic
double and
the sensory parts of the soul, and mediated on the
spiritual-world side of experience by the luciferic double and
the
higher inner perceptual parts of the soul. We are far
more awake
to the former (in the sense-world) in this stage of the
evolution of
consciousness than we are to the latter (the
spiritual-world).
This is an
important point, and one of
the reasons the study of Steiner's The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity is far more
important for the future of Anthroposophy than the study of Knowledge
of
Higher Worlds. Only via actual
introspection following the map that is Philosophy do we begin directly with an encounter in the
spiritual
worlds. In KoHW our approach is indirect, through the
sense world
(a world more informed by Ahriman, who is, in a way a stronger
opponent
than is Lucifer).
Further, not
one of the spiritual powers,
whether it is Christ, the Divine Mother, Ahriman or Lucifer
have direct
access to the social world of the tenth hierarchy. Their
only
access is through us. "...the very purpose of our Fifth
Post-Atlantean epoch is
that man should become increasingly conscious of what takes
effect through him in earthly
existence." R.
S. Lucifer and Ahriman [emphasis
added]. This both insures our freedom and our capacity
to in the
end master the influence of the Shadow forces, as these pour
out of
ourselves onto the shared social world of humanity. As
pointed
out above in my article on Ahriman's Incarnation, his power in
Nature
no longer quite influences us as directly as before, for the
social
world has emancipated itself from the natural world. [It could
come to
pass that this situation will change as Western Civilization
passes
through its death and then toward a rebirth - such that
humanity could
find itself once again deeply integrated with the natural
world, albeit
one badly damaged by our excesses.]
The main thing
that goes on in the social
world is the biographies of six billion plus human beings.
These
are artistically arranged by Christ as Lord of Karma, so that
each of
us lives our biographies in the company of those with whom we
have
special and very much needed shared striving. Once we
incarnate
into the social world of humanity, we are set free of direct
spiritual-world influence, except for the fact of partial
excarnation
every night during sleep. This is where needed
adjustments can be
made to keep us on track with regard to the goals we have
agreed to
experience in our biographies. Here is a great mystery,
and
everyone should really only make a judgment about what this
means for
them individually, and not concerning any other person.
The threefold
double-complex plays a
special role here, for much that the double does is needed in
order for
us to experience our karma, fate and then eventually (perhaps)
to form
our free destiny. We need the Shadow in earthly life in
the same
way we need a physical body. Granted aspects of the
double-complex are similar in kind and nature to immense
spiritual
powers, yet Steiner also describes this as a hierarchical
structure of
gloves within gloves within gloves - a stepping down of the original Power into something much
smaller and
more in balance with the real I. While the double is
like Ahriman
and Lucifer, it is ordained to be in a kind of harmonious
relationship
to the ego, for the freedom of the I is the essential matter.
In the
heart-center of the soul is a
realm the double cannot touch.
In the last
Lecture to the John Gospel
cycle, Steiner also speaks of the result of properly passing
through
the trials of The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity
(becoming
able to reproduce the meaning content of that book out of our
own
thinking, feeling and willing) as producing a condition of
katharsis
(or purification) in the astral body. This purification
is what
makes the soul (the astral body aspect) more permeable to the
Light and
to the Life, and this forms the necessary basis out of which
the Rite
of Initiation can later be enacted.
Every incarnate
human being is thus
accompanied in the biography by a relevant Shadow (threefold
double-complex), which is rich and just in its essential
nature (the
justice element comes from Christ's influence as the Lord of
Karma).
We can begin to observe the field of play of these beings by studying (with scientific objectivity) our
own
inwardness, especially the phenomena of discursive thought.
Because of the laws of karma and reincarnation, the
astral body
also contains (in addition to the ahrimanic and luciferic
doubles) the
human double, we will explore this in more detail next.
In my writing I
used to speak of the
human double as various kinds of egregorial beings. This
is an
ancient term, and refers to a kind of self-generated psychic
parasite
in the astral body or world (the heroin addict calls it: the monkey on my back - a quite suitable imagery). Many times
these
beings are formed collectively by a group, but they also can
be formed
individually as well. Such artificial beings are created
by our
giving into a prompting of either or both of the ahrimanic and
luciferic doubles, except that the egregore requires an almost
rite
like-repetition for its creation. The ritual by which
the heroin
using shots up is one such rite.
The result of
the rite is a kind of
forbidden pleasure (the payoff to the rite), and a kind of
separation
occurs in the astral body such that the egregorial being
becomes more
and more independent of the will of the I as the rite is
repeated.
Steiner hinted at such beings in the last lecture of the
cycle
called: Man as Symphony of the Creative Word, where he called them cancers or tumors of the
soul.
I have taken to
dropping the term
egregore, and replacing it with self-generated wound. I believe this is more accurate if we
want our
conceptions about such matters to not only be true, but also
good and
beautiful. Steiner also referred to such beings somewhat
indirectly when he described the processes of excarnation and
incarnation (in between death and a new birth) in a way that
suggested
that as the astral body expands (excarnates) into the cosmos,
it leaves
behind pieces of itself, which later during the following
incarnation
process are picked up once again.
Now such beings
are of varying degrees of
harm. Many of us will have had the experience of driving
on a
freeway, and because there was little traffic we let our minds
go into
a kind of reverie, such that 20 miles down the road our ego
consciousness (our attention) returns from the day-dreaming
with a kind
of shock that we did not at all notice what we did as a driver
for the
lost time. Who drove the car while our conscious ego
attention
was participating in the experience of reverie? A modern
thinker,
using computer terminology, might speak of a sub-routine,
which is not
entirely inaccurate since a sub-conscious habit
was driving the car.
We have many
such sub-conscious habits
(physiologists also speak of muscle memory, as if the physical
body
itself could self-direct its complicated activities).
What else
is the training for certain dancers, gymnasts and others, but
the
creation of a whole community of sub-conscious habits.
Experience
in fact teaches us that many such activities require of the
ego that it
not over-think the activity, otherwise we become awkward and
clumsy.
Also, if we come to understand that the ego is much more
than
where our I directs our attention at any given moment, we can
see that
in the sub-conscious and super-conscious of the will are
rather
remarkable capacities.
It is really
only in thinking that the activity of the will can become the
most
conscious (see again In Joyous...).
Now as we know,
the more dangerous and
problematic self-generated wounds (addiction, alcoholism,
etc.) have in
the 20th Century become more treatable. A great aid came
into
existence at the beginning of the most intense period of the
Second
Coming of Christ in the Ethereal in 1933, when Bill W. was
visited,
while detoxing in the hospital for the umpteenth time, by
Christ in the
form of an angel, and the impetus was given for the later
community
development of the 12 Steps. There is no present day
spiritual
discipline better suited for healing self-generated wounds
than the 12
Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I'll not lay
out the Steps here in
detail, but I will do a kind of overview, and point out their
threefold
nature. The beginning gesture of the Steps is one of
surrender.
We recognize our powerlessness before the self-generated
wound
(the monkey on my back, my disease, demon rum etc.), and we
turn to the
Divine Mystery (as we individually understand this - our
spiritual
freedom remains fully intact) for help. Here is some
Novalis
which touches this process quite directly:
The heart is the key to the world and of life.
We live in our helpless condition
in order to love, and be obliged to others.
Through imperfection we become ripe for the influence of others,
and this outside influence is the aim.
In illness we must be helped by others and only others can help us.
From this
point of view, Christ surely is the key of the world.
What actually
happens in a spiritual
technical sense is that by our act of surrender the forces of
the
Divine Feminine (which oversee, from the other side of the
Eight Inner
Spheres of the Earth, the hierarchies of the left) are able to
enter
for a time into the soul and stand in between the I and the
self-generated wound, as well as in between the I and the
ahrimanic and
luciferic doubles as these through inner prosecution and
temptation
encourage the flaw in our character that has led to the
self-generated
wound. We surrender to our helpless condition, and in so
humbling
ourselves make it possible for the soul to have enough
embryonic purity
(humility) that the Mystery can come to our aid.
In the middle
elements of this 12-Step
process we enter into community. We confess to
another.
We admit our flaws to the Divine, and we get ready to
make amends
to those we have harmed. We start to shoulder, on our
own, acts
of purification rooted in the slowly unfolding of this
practice of true
humility.
In the final
elements of this process we
then act in the social community world so as to transform our
character
flaws, and build out of this a conscious spiritual practice
that keeps
us awake in the moment to our next potential fall from grace.
As
we do this it becomes less necessary for the Divine Feminine
to provide
direct inner support, as long as we can remain on the path of
humility
and service to others. The ego is strengthened in the
very best
way (beginning with and remaining in: washing the feet). This process, which I call the elevation
of the
spirit for the mastery of the soul is as follows: 1)
surrender;
2) entrance (naive membership) in the community of
like-wounded; and,
3) then becoming a self-transforming example and actor
(through
service) in this same community.
Lets now look a
little more deeply at the
ahrimanic double and inner prosecution - lies (we hear in our
inner
voice the repeating tape of: you are such a loser!).
This is not all the ahrimanic double does, for it is a
kind of
cold and calculating intelligence. In fact, precisely
because it
is so cold and calculating it has (in a way) a higher order
intellect.
Heart-warmed thoughts are wise and generally far less
clever in
making life decisions. Further, heart-warmed thoughts
often
selflessly involve us with others, such that they can often
lead to
troubles and difficulties (see the film Pay
it
Forward), whereas clever thoughts
are quite
selfish and enable us to avoid more easily messy life
situations.
Now in
extremis, inner prosecution is
often accompanied by what we tend to call depression, using conventional psychological terms.
We have
lost ourselves in self-negative feelings, and out of this
inability to
control our life of feelings, the inner prosecutor (the lying
ahrimanic-double) is given a kind of free reign to provide us
with
negative thoughts (remember from above the need to learn to
control
thoughts). Here the problem involves the mastery of
feelings.
The Shadow during much depression is in charge of the
feeling
life (yes, there are physically based physiological problems
that can
lead to depression, but we need to learn to work within our
own soul
first, before we turn to a pill. The pill can weaken the
I,
because it fails to wake up within and then face the
Shadow-in-the-soul
out of the I's own forces.
By the way, do
not go around giving
advice to any of your depressed friends, unless you have
clearly
mastered the following practices yourself, and they (your
friends)
already have a general spiritual understanding of their own
life of
soul and spirit. What is being said here requires that
it remain
within its necessary context, and if abstracted out of that
context it
will lead to harm.
In effect in
much depression we are in
the grip of the ahrimanic double. Our life of feeling is
not
mastered, nor are our thoughts within our control. Also
remember that
this being is very clever, so one must begin by recognizing
(as in
the 12 Steps) our fundamental helplessness. The best
advice I
have ever practiced in this regard, apparently came from
Dennis Klocek
(indirectly attributed to him through another), and involves
taking
hold of our inner voice, and saying inwardly: Who are you?
This
should be repeated two or three times, with the accompanying
thought
(remember that context) that we are
waking up in the realm of soul and spirit
and speaking to a being
in the still somewhat inner darkness
of
ordinary consciousness.
This being
cannot give us its name, and is compelled, upon being asked to
provide
its name, to withdraw from its activity as a contributor to
the state
of depression. Part of what is going on is that during
depression
we are experiencing a related paralysis of the will.
When we
activate the inner will by asking the question, we take from
this being
a power it has tricked us into allowing it to have, which
power really
belongs to us.
Don't expect immediate relief. Feelings linger, and the depression (especially if quite strong) will not fly away (unless a higher being intervenes, an experience I have also had, but which requires petition - prayer - followed by grace from above)*. Sometimes we just need to lie down, ask the question a few times, and then rest. The being must withdraw and the depression will lessen. At this point, however, we are not yet done.
*[The best time
I have found for petition
and prayer is on going to sleep. We pray to the Holy
Mother for
help with our depressed state, and in the morning on waking,
there
should be a kind of small gap between our I and the shadow
presence.]
Just as in the
12 Steps, when during
surrender there arises a gap in between the I and the
self-generated
wound, so the question (who are you?) creates a gap between
the I and
the ahrimanic double (the inner prosecutor). Into this
gap now we
must assert further inner activity. The best activity I
have
found is to then consciously create a mental picture of this being
and its cohorts. I make a picture of three such beings
(really
seeking thereby to effect the whole threefold double-complex,
for these
tend to cooperate), imagining them being somewhat like the
character
Gollum in Lord of the Rings, but instead of being rounded in
shape as
in the film are actually quite angular with very sharp
features as
described in the early lessons of the First Class.
We imagine
these beings kind of gleefully
dancing, holding hands, and moving in a circle. Then to
this
picture we add something humorous. Perhaps we picture
cold maple
syrup pouring over these beings, making them slippery and
causing them
to pratfall. We, of course, don't want to imagine harm
coming to
them, but we do need to make an inner picture in which their
activity
is seen as quite silly and ineffectual. Maybe we picture
that
they get depressed and then start to eat all kinds of ice
cream until
they get sore of stomach because of the excess.
By this
activity we have first dismissed
the being by asking the question of their name, and then
second made a
counter picture to those negative self images the Shadow has
been
urging on us. The final (or third step) is to become
physically
active. We rise from the sofa or bed where we have lain
down, and
take up some activity (cleaning is good, if we otherwise
because of
weather can't go for a walk). Nature is certainly a good
experience here, or if we are housebound for some reason, then
music,
made by ourselves (singing, playing a recorder, or listening
to a CD).
Something like the Gregorian Chant music that was
popular some
years ago is also helpful. Whatever choices we make, it
is
movement that is essential.
The depression
has paralyzed the will,
and now after we have first asserted the will inwardly by
asking the
question and then developed it further by creating the
humorous
counter-picture, we must then press this will gesture all the
way into
the physical body and into movement. With the state of
depression
lifted, the more harmonious thoughts that we need will come to
us, and
we can return to life.
On the basis of
a picture from Tomberg's
book Inner
Development, I have also taken to
imaging my
will working from the crown of my head downward, pressing the
ahrimanic
double out through the soles of my feet. This is the
last act
before rising from rest (or from inner meditative activity) to
begin
movement. I also try to image this being not having the
capacity
to enter another, or cause harm there, but once pressed out it
has to
return to the realm proper to it in the Eight Inner Spheres of
the
Earth.
Experience, by
the way, shows that this
being does not leave us completely in the beginning. We
are
learning to exercise a certain capacity of soul, and the
threefold
double-complex remains present until we have accomplished all
that we
need to develop in the soul, through the activity of our own
I.
Just as there is no instant mastery of the
physical body,
there is no gain without pain in the purification of the
temple of the
soul.
Next lets look
at temptation -egotism, a
principle arena of the activity of the luciferic double.
Again,
this temptation comes to us via our own inner voice, which we
have,
mostly by habit and lack of development, allowed a kind of
independence
from the I. Our attention is on listening to the
tempting inner
voice to our egotism, and not on control of thoughts or
mastery of
feelings. At the same time we need to keep in mind that
the
luciferic double is also a voice of a kind of wisdom. We
sometimes need this wisdom in life, even though it will tend
to be a
bit ungrounded. Luciferic wisdom takes us off the Earth,
while
Ahrimanic cleverness drives too deep into a mood of gravitas.
Keep in mind also, that Steiner has said that often the
cure for
Ahriman is Lucifer, and the cure for Lucifer is Ahriman.
Essentially the
same problems as above
apply, except that we are not generally depressed (although
often in
states of depression we are more easily tempted). The
root of the
temptation is generally a mood of soul. So lets come at
this from
the problem of mastery
of
feelings (something a bit different
from control
of thoughts). Obviously the
six supplementary exercises are an
essential preliminary support here as well.
There is some
imagery from the
middle-East, Persian or perhaps Sufi, which I have found
useful in
understanding this problem. The soul and spirit can be
described
as consisting of a charioteer, a chariot and a horse.
The
charioteer is the I. The chariot is the self constructed
mental
world - our collection of ideas and concepts which we use to
travel
through life. And, the horse is our feelings or emotions
(e-motions).
The charioteer
is most in balance when he
has consciously created and maintained his chariot, and is
able to tame
and direct the energies of the horse (the mastery of
feelings).
As regards the chariot, we have the need to control
thoughts, and
to not be in bondage in the experience of an idea (unable to
distinguish our I from an idea). As regards the horse,
we have to
be able to step aside from unredeemed (sub-conscious) feelings
of
antipathy and sympathy, and develop the ability to be able to
replace
these with cultivated feelings (such as reverence, equanimity
etc.).
A temptation is
generally a selfish
(egotistical) desire (which Steiner speaks about from many
directions
in The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity). It is a want, perhaps experienced as a
need:
sex, hunger, revenge, etc. Lets just work with hunger
and sex, to
keep things simple.
Hunger is often
a need of the body, as is
sex. The I experiences the need, and in fact often
identifies
with it, having already identified itself with the body.
We
feel/think: I need food or sex (when it is really the body). In the Philosophy Steiner has put the question this way: Can I
want what I
want? Can a desire be an act of will, or am I powerless
before it?
His answer is
that we can will what we
want, if we put before the want a
self-chosen moral intuition. We put in front of the
want, a
self-determined because. Not
after the want, in front of the want.
Just like with depression, the first step is actually to
create
the gap in between the want (the temptation) and the action.
And
the same rules can apply. We experience the want, the
temptation,
which will often appear in discursive thought as if our own
inner voice
was saying: oh
boy, I was so good today with what I didn't eat at lunch, I
can take my
dinner hunger and satisfy it with ice cream
(a friend of mine humorously calls this an ice crime).
If we notice
the temptation, and then we
can say: Who are you? There is also an old folk remedy
from
Europe, where we cross ourselves three times and spit over our
left
shoulder.
Of course there
are all kinds of
temptations and desires, this is just an example. Lets
look at
sex as well, since there is a lot in common with other inner
soul
gestures that can make these questions of soul management (control of thoughts and
mastery of feelings) stand out.
Generally with
sex and hunger we also
deal with inner pictures, and also the lower chakras.
These
images are not insignificant. Further, our culture
through
advertising is constantly stimulating desire. This (sex)
is a bit
of a different problem for men than for women. The
temptation for
men is to see a women just as a women and not as an
individual. A
man just wants to get laid (is the cliche), and is often
in-discriminant about who is the object of his desire.
The
temptation for women is more of one toward immodesty in dress
and
action.
The man is
stimulated by the culture to
make women into sex objects, and the women is stimulated by
the culture
to dress provocatively, forgetting that (or asleep to the fact
that)
men are intoxicated by such stimulation (intoxication being a
kind of
surrender of the I to the aroused passion). No one in
these
circumstances is free, because they are in fact in bondage to
the idea
(the related mental pictures), and mastered by the feelings
(the
passion) instead of being their master.
So the first
problem, as noted above with
depression, is to awake to the situation, in this case the
temptation.
The second problem is to create a gap in between the
desire and
the action, so that before it sparks across that gap, a freely
chosen
moral choice can be inserted in the front of the desire.
Willed
thinking can do this in accord with the teachings contained in
The
Philosophy of Freedom. [With this
understanding we also get an idea of the deeper nature of the
Freedom
contemplated by this book.]
Again, since
the chariot - the mental
construct - is relevant, we can create an alternative mental
picture to
the one prompting the desire. We can shift from a
picture of an
ice crime, to one of another food choice, which our thinking
helps us
recognize as more healthy. We can also try to self
observe the
feeling life which has prompted the desire. We can then
ask,
where did this mood of soul come from, and how can I
substitute another
mood (take the reigns of the horse through the conscious
willed
creation of a cultivated feeling).
The most
significant matter is to have in
our world view of our inner life a quite concrete and accurate
understanding of the relationship of the Shadow (the threefold
double-complex) to the I. With this understanding we now
shift
the battle with evil into that realm were we are most able to
meet it.
We understand that evil (and the good) enter into the
world through us, and since this is the case, we are then able
to meet
it, and more and more slowly render it impotent out of the own
developing I. We don't change the world, we change
ourselves.
As a
corresponding element of this
understanding, we also need to recognize (as pointed out in
the essays
above on the mote and the beam) that what we observe in the
outer world
(the Stage Setting) is more beam than mote. Yes, we can
in the
outer world oppose evil, but first we must master
the beam ("You hypocrite, first you must
get the beam out of your own eye, before you can help your
bother with
his splinter" Christ Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount).
Another thing
the tempter (luciferic
double) can do is cause us to live too strongly in fantasy and
reverie.
This is a use of the imagination (picture making
capacity)
that wastes its energies in the realm of illusion.
A
fantasy is not real, and when we give into this day-dreaming
sub-consciously, we retreat into that inner realm which the
luciferic
dominates. At the same time, there is a great deal that
the
imagination can do, if we but give it the lightest direction
and
guidance.
Here the
artistic impulse finds a great
source for its work. The question that is helpful to ask
ourselves is: Toward what purpose has my I directed my assent
into
inner reverie? Recall, for example, that in The
Philosophy of
Freedom a crucial step involves a moral imagination. The impulse to Goetheanism also finds its
powers
in the use of the picture thinking. We routinely
rehearse our
coming conversations with people in order to be ready for what
is to
happen there. All of this kind of inner picturing
activity can be
lightly directed by the I along directions that are less and
less
illusory, and more and more lending themselves to real spirit
vision.
Day-dreaming
takes only a little nudge
from the I to become meditation and thinking contemplation.
Reverie is a step that lets us calm the soul, especially
when
outer events may tempt us to anger and away from peace.
Picture
thinking is strong in us today precisely because the Sophianic
impulse
lays there, and wants to find itself in our souls once more.
If
we feel a need to understand better someone who is disturbing
our calm,
what better soul quality do we have than the capacity to
strive, using
the picture thinking, to see the world from their point of
view.
The opportunities to grace the temple of our soul with
new inner
pictures are ever present, if we but wake to them.
Let us now
return to the consideration of
Macro Evil, for one of the characteristics of the Stage
Setting (the
cultural historical background to individual human
biographies) is that
because the relationship between the opponents (Ahriman,
Lucifer etc)
takes the shape of gloves within gloves within gloves, giving
thus a
common and general yet specific nature and character to the
threefold
double-complex, a whole culture (even a Civilization) can be
turned in
a certain shared direction because each individual double
expresses to
a small degree the same time-related impulses originating in
its
Hierarch (or ruler, such as Ahriman).
For example,
scientific materialism (an
aspect of the Ahrimanic Deception) arises in Western humanity
in large
part because the individual doubles are able to be
coordinated, and
consists (in part) of inner temptations and prosecutions
designed to
cause natural scientists (natural philosophers at the
beginning of the
scientific age) to make the same (common) error of judgment.
The
whole of Western Civilization pivots in the direction of a
spiritless
(all matter no spirit) world view because most all the
threefold
double-complexes are moved in sync with this basic impulse*
originating
in the realm of the hierarchies of the left.
*[For a
discussion of certain details of
the some of the more common errors of thought induced into
this period
of development, see Barfield's World's
Apart, and Cruse's Evolution
and
the New Gnosis.]
William Blake
called the effect of this
generalized confusion: "single vision and Newton's sleep".
The
natural scientist lost confidence in his senses (which Goethe
said never lie, only the judgment - discursive thinking moved
from out
of the sub-conscious - lies), and so the natural scientist
believed he
could only find the truth of the world through instruments and
mathematics. Thus arose a spiritless world-view, which
while
itself seems a terrible thing, was actually turned toward the
good by Beings more powerful and wise than Ahriman and his
minions.
In the stream
of earthly world events, a
central theme is the evolution of consciousness.
Humanity evolves
by being offered precise tasks in each cultural age.
While not
every biography achieves what is offered it, at the time it is
offered,
the possibility is always there. In terms of the
evolution of
consciousness, the Ahrimanic Deception enabled humanity to
become (more
or less) free of the Gods. The human being was to feel
spiritually alone, until bearing a hunger for a return to the
spirit,
it awoke enough to begin to strive once more for
reintegration.
Even faith was to become arid and dead (thus the
appearance of
spiritual materialism everywhere as a kind of rigid -
ahrimanized -
dogmatic fundamentalism).
As we saw above
in the essay on Methodology, that the
processes in the social that gave rise to the
potential for moral freedom (the development of individualism
and the
loss of the cohesive nature of the family and community), were
accompanied in large part by the effects of natural science
and the
industrial revolution. The social effects of
Ahriman's
character, as stamped on present day civilization, served the
good -
the evolution of consciousness, by causing the I to have to
stand on
its own (leave its childhood behind), and begin to draw from
the deeper
inner wells of its nature a true - self-created - knowledge of
the
Good, or moral freedom (see also above: The
Meaning
of...).
Christ even
told us to expect this
effect, when He said in the Gospels, Matthew 10:34-40: "Don't think I came
to cause
peace across the land. I didn't come to cause peace, I
came to
wield a sword, because I came to divide a man against his
father and a
daughter against her mother and a bride against her
mother-in-law, and
to make a man's servants his enemies. Whoever prefers
father or
mother over me is not worthy of me; and whoever prefers son or
daughter
over me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take his
cross and
follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever found his
life will
lose it, and the one who lost his life because of me will find
it.
Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives
me,
receives my Sender."
Rudolf Steiner
called aspects of this
effect of the Christ Impulse: the loss of the blood ties that
at one
time bound us into various forms of group soul.
This then is
how we need to see (from
this point of view) the Mystery of Evil. Macro-evil, the
Stage
Setting, is one aspect of the living and evolving social
organism of
the whole world. It is context, not essence.
Essence is
micro-evil, which occurs in individual human biographies in
the nature
of the relationship of the I to the threefold double-complex -
the
Shadow. The counter to the Shadow is the own I. We
are the
key to the Mystery of Evil, for real evil (along with the
good) only
enters the world through us. By unfolding within
ourselves the
Christ Impulse (free moral grace via the Second Eucharist), we
start to
learn to tame evil and subdue it at the only point it has
through which
to enter the social world.
We will also
gain something by noticing
from Lecture Five, of From
Symptom to Reality in Modern History,
a hint
from Steiner about the Mystery of Evil, where he says that
what we
think of as evil is a secondary effect of something that is
more
important and part of the Good. He uses there the
metaphor of a
train and the rails that train travels upon. The train
engine and
the direction it travels are important, but the indirect
effect of this
travel is that it wears out the rails. When all we
notice is the
wear and tear on the rails, this is the human conception of
evil.
Yet, this concept misses the main point, which is that
the engine
and its direction are an important and necessary part of human
development and existence.
In the essay
below on sexuality, we'll
come at this again, but let us here just notice that without
sexuality
and desire there is no procreation, no stream of heredity.
Without physical bodies there is no earth existence for
our
development. Without the hunger for food there are
no
forces for that same body's use. In the so-called lower
chakras
are the true Mystery of Evil, the engine that takes us where
we need to
go. That this conscious and semi-conscious giving into
appetite
wears out the body and wounds the soul, through leading us to
excesses
of temptation and addiction, this is a side effect of the true
purpose
of what we, in human terms, call Evil.
Again, and to
conclude: "...the very purpose of our
Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch is that man should become
increasingly
conscious of what takes effect through him in earthly
existence." R.
S. Lucifer and Ahriman [emphasis
added] As well: You hypocrite, first you must get the
beam out of your
own eye, before you can help your brother with his splinter.
*******************************
Encountering
The Mystery of America
- what distinguishes the now emerging natural Anthroposophy
of the American Soul, from the anthroposophical work
of the
Twentieth Century -
[For the
neophyte: The social world
of humanity can be divided into three general regions of soul
activity
(observable with the own thinking, and indicated by Steiner).
These are East, Center and West, and mostly can be
observed in
concrete form in the nature of the general cultural influences
that
emerge from these somewhat distinct soul characteristics.
Below
in various places I will go into details. For the moment
we need
only be concerned with this general observation. Central
Europeans tend to live in the ideal in their thinking, and in
that they
seek to effect the social, attempt to incarnate this ideal
into social
reality. In the West (England and America), and
particularly even
more so in America (what I call the true West), the soul lives
more in
the outer circumstances of life, and desiring to be a helper
there, and
then uses thinking to discover how to practically and
pragmatically
solve social problems.
In the one case
the soul lives more in
the vertical (thus Steiner's indication that Europeans come to
Anthroposophy in a spiritual way) and in
the other
the soul lives more in the horizontal (social), and comes
thereby to
Anthroposophy in a natural way - as a
product of
its engagement and desire to be a social helper. If we
couple
this with Steiner's indication (which again can be confirmed
through
observation of the social) that English speakers are
instinctively in the Consciousness Soul in their Life of
Rights (their striving in the great
political-social issues of
the day leads them to moral choices), then we can see even
more clearly
this distinction between Center and West.
Sadly, my
experience of European
anthroposophists is that when you seek to point this out, they
won't
have any of it. It seems beyond their capacities (in not
all
cases) to recognize that another's inwardness is fundamentally
different. As a possible help for this, let me digress
for a
moment into the following...
The American is
said to wear his heart on
his sleeve (something connected to his instinct for brotherhood - more later). This is also connected to
America
being a product of Western Civilization, in the sense of being
the womb
of the successor civilization. Western Civilization is dying into becoming (a metamorphosis), and in America we find the
youthful
(and raw) organism of the new civilization (the dawning of the Age of Aquarius). For example, in
Central
Europe (in Germany in particular), social life is more formal
(they do
not wear their hearts on their sleeves). So in German
there are
two words for you: sie and du (you and thou).
The
first is more formal, the latter far more intimate.
As a necessary
consequence, in
anthroposophical circles in America, the European wants to
remain
formal, and the America can't bring himself into a social
setting where
he cannot wear his heart on his sleeve.
In any event at
the beginning of this
section I am going to undertake to reveal some of the
unrecognized
depths of the American Soul. This is made especially
crucial by
another tragic fact, which is that in anthroposophical
activity in
America, not only is there the general tendency (common all
over the
world) to walk backward into the future (lean far too much on
Steiner-said, and thus be blind to huge aspects of the
present*),
American anthroposophists are almost universally ignorant of
their own
culture and can't seem to put together a conference which
doesn't
consist of equal parts worship of the past and worship of the
culture
of the Old World (all in full ignorance of the American Soul's
rich
evolving cultural achievements. Below in various places
I'll
write more directly on the details of this problem.
*In spite of
all that Steiner indicated
on this subject, it seems to never really penetrate
anthroposophical
consciousness that the world of spirit and of inspiration does
not rest
or remain fixed in its nature, such that there has come to be
an
unconscious assumption in our circles that everything Steiner
said is a
written in stone vision of the activity of unchanging
spiritual beings.
The spiritual hierarchies evolve constantly, and as
humanity
struggles, they too adapt and change so that fresh and vital
spiritual
impulses are constantly made available to us if we can get out
of the
way in our minds of this excess of past Steiner said (too much spirit recollection and not nearly
enough
spirit mindfulness or spirit vision - see the Foundation Stone
Meditation).
First some
observations of America that
are of the present...]
**************************************
Present Day American Culture
- four
archetypal personalities -
Some years ago,
I was in a conversation
at a small anthroposophical conference, and I used the term: American culture. The European anthroposophist sitting next
to me
snorted, and clearly looking down his long nose at us poor
unenlightened Americans, offered this terse commentary: What culture!?!?! Shall we see? Keep in mind that this
which
is being described is youthful and raw, as against the mature
(but
dying) European Culture, which had clearly reached remarkable
heights
of achievement in the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries.
*
I'd like to
start with someone who is
certain to raise a lot of antipathy in those who haven't
bothered to
think about these things: Clint
Eastwood. Here is a man, not
only
associated primarily with movies, but with violent movies.
Clearly movies are not great literature or opera or
symphonies of
the masters. Worse, Steiner has indicated certain
problems that
can arise when one sits and views cinema. It is a
singular
experience, often passive and lacking in all the greatness and
natural
co-participation of the high arts of Western Civilization.
All
the same lets see what can be observed if we do not
automatically close
our minds right from the beginning.
Born in 1930,
Eastwood begins his career
in television, and is most often remembered by the older
American
generation as a character in a television series called Rawhide, centered around the practice of driving cattle
to
market in the West in America and set in the late 19th
Century.
Subsequently he is tapped by the Italian filmmaker
Sergio Leone
for three operatic Westerns that
essentially made Eastwood into a Hollywood
star. As a star Eastwood then makes a number of
Westerns,
as well as a series of police detective films (the dirty Harry films), which if we use our imaginative
faculties are
really just Westerns set in modern times. These
observations lead us to asking the question: Just what is the
significance of the Western for the American Soul, for it once
dominated film and television, has its own special place in
American
literature, and still (as can be seen by recent films such as
the
remake of 3:10 to Yuma)
captures the
imagination of the American Soul.
We know that in
the background of
European and other world cultures there are Myths, often
profound in
nature and quite revealing of the character of the people
whose myths
are being studied. For the New World and for the
American Soul,
the Western is our Myth - our archetypal story that reveals a
great
deal about our character. Now this Myth is rich, deep
and wide.
It encompasses, for example, a quite dramatic change
overtime in
how Native Americans are depicted. Early Westerns took
the more
European view that Native Americans had no culture and were
primarily
savages. Steiner even uses that term (savages) in a
lecture.
Eventually, beginning with such films as Little Big Man,
Jeremiah
Johnson and then Dances with Wolves the whole bigoted view of America's aboriginal
peoples
begins to be stood on its head.
In this rich
field of activity - the
story telling of the primal Myth of the American Soul, Clint
Eastwood
emerges not only as its master, but in such films as Pale Rider and Unforgiven he uncovers
in the
former film quite spiritual dimensions, and in the latter the
incipient
reflections of the Consciousness Soul.
Consider now
the basic aspects of this
Myth: Evil takes hold of a community, and fear paralyzes the
members of
this community. Then comes the individual, the one
(whether a
member of the community or a stranger-other) who has the
courage to
face down evil, even when the community itself (out of its
fear) stands
in his (or her) way. In the early years these themes
were painted
in stark contrasts of black and white, even to the color of
the hats
the bad guys and the good guys wore. As the Myth is
worked with
over the years, the stories become more and more
sophisticated, and at
a certain point the same Myth gets transferred into literature
in the
genre of detective fiction. The hard boiled detective,
often
himself an anti-hero (as are many Western film characters),
has to
wander in the dark underbelly of society in order to right a
wrong.
The Western
writer Zane Gray begins to
include spiritual elements in his works, but is mostly yet
unknown
outside small circles of fans. It is really Eastwood who
starts
to explore these aspects in the more popular art of film,
first in the
movie: High
Plains
Drifter (1973). In an
interview
years following the film, he offers in his laconic way of
speaking,
that he thought that his character could either be played as
an
avenging spirit come to this town, or as a dead man brought
back to
life in order to right the wrongs committed in the community.
Later, in the film Pale Rider (1985)
[Revelation
6:8: "And
I
looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him
was
Death...")] which Eastwood directed
and
starred in, he plays a dead man brought back to life (there is
a scene
were another character sees this man, who has come to town
wearing a
priestly collar, with his shirt off, and his back is covered
with a
half dozen scars of gunshot wounds).
In fact, the
opening sequence of Pale Rider has a young
girl, who is burying her dog that the evil
doers killed in a raid on the community, praying to god for an
avenging
angel to come. Needless to say, the Eastwood character
kills the
bad guys, saves the town and so forth.
As Eastwood
matures, both as an actor and
a director, he finally creates his Western masterpiece: Unforgiven (1992). The film wins four Oscars, with
Eastwood
receiving two: as best director and for best film. The
main
character is a former killer and drunk, now widowed, who in
the
beginning (in order to make some money) leaves his small
children alone
(they are perhaps ages 10 and 6) and goes off to kill (as in
paid to
commit revenge) a couple of cowboys who had badly cut up the
face of a
whore. Nobody in this film is a mister good guy.
Everyone
is wounded and troubled. None of the moral questions
(which are
fundamental to the films themes) are unambiguous.
Eastwood has
here instinctively found the
core of the questions being faced by the Consciousness Soul
(moral
dilemmas in an age of ambiguity, which force the I to rely
fully on its
own inner resources). Yet, he continues to mature and
more
precisely understand and observe human beings, and the next
two
significant films are modern and face the Consciousness Soul
questions
squarely (it is unnecessary in any Epoch of the Evolution of
Consciousness for those participating in it to use the terms
Steiner
created. They only have to see the core of the human
questions,
and then portray them in their art).
The first of
these is Mystic River (2003),
based on a novel by Dennis Lehane, and directed
by Eastwood. The film wins two Oscars for its principle
actors
(Sean Penn and Tim Robbins), and Eastwood is again nominated
for Best
Director and Best Film.
The story
begins with a flash back to a
time when two young boys watch a third (they are friends in
Boston) be
abducted by a unknown man who subsequently abuses the third.
Then
we come to many years later, and the three become involved in
a
horrible crime (one's daughter is killed - he is a local petty
criminal, another is the lead detective in this homicide, and
the third
(the abuse survivor) becomes - erroneously - a principle
suspect.
Every character (including the wives and friends of the
principles) confronts moral questions, each unique to their
personal
biography. Few make what might be good choices in the
abstract
(idealistic), but between the novelist's vision and Eastwood's
film
rendition, the confusion and moral ambiguity seeps out of
every corner
of the film and almost every scene. Nothing ends with
clarity -
no nice wrapped up package. It is all too real, and the
audience
well knows that this is a slice of life they themselves have
faced at
one time or another at least in part.
Then Eastwood
directs and stars in: Million Dollar Baby (2004). The film wins four Oscars, Best
Film, Best
Director and two best acting awards for two of the principles
(Hillary
Swank and Morgan Freeman, besides Eastwood, who was nominated
but did
not win best lead actor).
Eastwood's
character, a boxing coach,
becomes faced with a horrible moral choice, one that most of
us would
hope never to have to face. He is also a practicing
Catholic, who
goes to Mass almost everyday, although he constantly fights
with his
priest about whether any of this religious stuff means
anything
anymore. Based on a short story by F.X. Toole, the film
leaves
behind the multiple moral dilemmas of Mystic River and focuses precisely on one character and one
principle
question. The character eventually denies his
Catholic
background, makes his own choice (clearly making a
Consciousness Soul
decision) and afterward goes on into (for the movie goer) a
kind of
unknown limbo which we can only imagine never leaves this
character for
the rest of his last few years of life (he is quite mature).
Not content
with these triumphs, Eastwood
next takes on the issue of war, in a time of the Iraq war, and
directs
two more wonderfully related films: Flags of our Fathers, and Letters from Iwo Jima.
In
the first we see the Battle for Iwo Jima from the side of the
Americans, and in the second the same battle from the side of
the
Japanese. Letters sees Eastwood
nominated (but not winning) for Directing
and for Best Picture once more, while Flags
is less successful in that department. Since Flags
actually tells a story about the American military in the
Second World
War, that is not heroic in its nature, the movie is not so
easily
popular. In both, Eastwood once more highlights moral
questions
and their resolution, and most interestingly in Letters we see the struggle between the group soul and
individualism portrayed, as a couple main characters try to
step
outside Japanese military tradition, and make in the moment
individual
moral choices.
Eastwood is, of
course, not the only
director in film to deal with Consciousness Soul questions,
but he is
easily one of the most gifted and focused (again never needing
to do
anything more as an artist but see the human world in
which he lives).
*
Next lets look
at the work of Neal
Stephenson. Stephenson is a
novelist,
and a genius. Born in 1959, Stephenson is mostly seen as
writing
science fiction, about which he says: The science fiction
approach
doesn't mean it's always about the future; it's an awareness that this is different. [emphasis added, ed.]
Coming from a
hard science background
(family and early college), he makes a name for himself with
imaginative novels of a unique character (Snow
Crash, the
Diamond
Age and Cryptonomicon) and is nominated for and wins several awards in
this
field. The latter, Cryptonomicon, actually explores a whole new field of
literature (he
is basically inventing this), which while unique, is still not
yet
recognized for what it contains and what it portends.
Cryptonomicon is part
novel, part exploration of code cyphers and
computers, part real history and part imagined history.
It is
over 900 pages long and actually succeeds in being quite
educational.
In this novel we get a glimpse of the later works, which
do
something with history that so far has only been imagined.
Owen Barfield,
a significant
anthroposophist and researcher into the mysteries of language
(and what
they can say about the Evolution of Consciousness) once
remarked about
the works of R.G. Collingwood (author of The
Idea
of History), suggesting that
Collingwood was
onto something special when he (Collingwood) said that all
history is a
history of thought. It is, according to Collingwood, not
so much
that a certain event happened at all (such as Caesar's
crossing the
Rubicon), but more crucially what Caesar thought when doing
this that
the historian must discover. Steiner's spiritual science
gives us
much of this kind of history, and Steiner himself suggests
that in the
future individuals will be able to do this - that is give us a
history
of what was thought - of the insides, not just a usual history
of
events - of outsides.
It is my view
that Stephenson is able to
do this instinctively, although no one really yet recognizes
the
significance of his genius in this regard. Now I could
try to
demonstrate this with long quotes from his books, but sadly
they really
must be experienced (just as Eastwood's films must eventually
be
experienced). All I can do here is present the idea of
this kind
of new instinctive cognition as regards the representation of
history,
and suggest that Stephenson is able to do this. It will
be up to
the reader to engage his works, in particular those I go to
next, in
order to satisfy themselves as to how successful Stephenson
has been.
Stephenson,
after Cryptonomicon,
took on the subjects of certain aspects of the history of the
world, in
particular mostly Europe, during the time (about 1670 to 1730)
when
Newton and Leibniz were arguing quite fundamental questions,
whose
resolution was essential to the future of physics and
scientific
materialism. While this scientific debate was ongoing,
there were
also struggles among bankers and traders and buyers and
sellers of
financial instruments (stocks etc.), concerning the real
nature of
money, of trade, of currencies and the relationship between
government
and private individuals as to finance and banking. A
great deal
that lives in modern civilization was being given birth in
those years,
and Stephenson has written six novels, collected in three
volumes, for
a total of 2700 plus pages, in which he recreates an
imaginative
picture of what
was
thought by the principles (real and
fictional) regarding these and related questions.
Called the
Baroque
Cycle, the three volumes are also
rich in story-telling, adventure, passion, secrets, plots and
counter-plots. Where a particular question might puzzle
the
reader, Stephenson invents fictional dialogs of explanation.
For
example, a young princess (a real historical figure), travels
by horse
drawn coach for several weeks across much of central Europe in
the
company of Leibniz and another, who in response to the naive
questions
of the young princess are required to explain the nature of
the
arguments among the savants (the leading natural philosophers
of the
day).
In one such
dialog, we find a fictional
character and Leibniz explaining the significance of the
counter ideas
over the nature of matter (Leibniz wants to have his monads have consciousness, and Newton wants to have his
atoms
be mere things without consciousness). In a later dialog
they
recognize in this moment that the course science takes as a
result of
these dialogs among the leading savants, will have enormous
consequences for the future. This later dialog is
remarkable, and
deserves some detailed hints as to its contents (it can be
found
beginning on about page 672 of the last novel: The
System
of the World).
The Hanover
princess Caroline (a
historical figure) brings to her drawing room in England two
other
historical figures (Newton and Leibniz) and a fictional
character,
Daniel Waterhouse. She sets them the task of trying to
settle a
certain argument of which she has become aware (during the
processes of
education in her youth), concerning the relationship of matter
and of
spirit, or in another way: what is the nature of substance and
what is
the nature of free will. Both of these were significant
questions
of the time among the leading thinkers, and Caroline is
portrayed as
being concerned with what kind of cultural future is to be born out of a resolution of
these
questions that leans too far in one direction at the expense
of the
other.
The ensuing
dialog is delightful - that
is it is a pleasure to read, and makes the modern arguments
between
such ideas as evolution and intelligent design (for example)
seem lost
and confused, because they have failed to keep in mind the
more
fundamental questions as Stephenson has so ably recreated them
for his
readers. Steiner, of course, has not lost sight of this
question,
for his The Philosophy of Freedom (or Spiritual
Activity) fully embraces the
question of free
will in the spirit of natural science.
The same
methods of illumination are
applied by Stephenson to finance, trade and the creation of
money.
At various places fictional characters interact with
real
historical figures, and the underlying principles of these
matters
(which effect us now greatly) are examined in quite plain and
clear
language (something we have a hard time getting today).
In addition,
the reality of the times and
places are portrayed starkly. The lives of the poor are
not
whitewashed to any degree. We get to attend hangings
outside
London, wars in the fields of Europe. slave ships prowling the
Mediterranean, parties at the Chateau of Versailles, arguments
in the
English Parliament, what it means to be a soldier for Kings of
all
kinds, what Cairo was like at that time, what the Alchemists
(including
Newton) were pursuing, how women had to dress during the
winter in
order to keep warm at the French Court, and on and on and on.
The world of
Europe (and elsewhere) is so
fully realized, in all its rich detail, that we can't help but
feel we
are there. The novels are never boring (as history often
can be),
and over and over again we find language used in such a way
that we go:
oh, that's where that word came from that we use today.
There will no
doubt be those modern
historians or cultural anthropologists who want to argue with
Stephenson, but they will really be jealous, for he makes us
live in
the time, intimately know the times, and most importantly
understand
the thinking (just as Collingwood suggested was necessary for
history)
that was giving birth to the world we live in today.
Most
significant is that because of what
Stephenson had been writing, and who his readers most ofter
were and
are, we can come awake to an instinctive Consciousness Soul
teaching
and teacher. Stephenson cares about his subjects and his
readers.
He has mastered all manner of questions and historical
details,
and then rendered for his readers (often the very geeks we
recognize as
responsible for the best in modern technology and advanced
green
biology) a true living history of the world in which we stand
today.
Consider the
titles to the three volumes,
which should not be seen as arbitrary in any sense: Quicksilver (not only does he here recognize the strange
world of
early chemistry, but also the mercurial nature of the changes
going on
at this time in history; The
Confusion (everything has become
indefinite,
unformed, ready for new form); and, The
System
of the World (the questions are
resolved, and
science and finance and much else has now to move forward
based on the
questions asked, and then answered, during this period of
European
history (whether correctly or not).
Those familiar
with the lifeless sense of
the history that stands behind our present world conditions,
will be
graced with a great gift in these books, which are always
entertaining,
always informative and always intellectually engaging in the
highest
sense of those terms. A lapse in conventional
education
regarding recent history, which had probably confused many
young minds
today, is in these books overcome. To read them is to
become more
awake to the world that surrounds us.
*
Let us now take
up another novelist, this
time a woman, Ursula K.
Le Guin, born in 1929, a half year
before
Clint Eastwood. She has written so much and for so long,
that it
is almost impossible to categorize her work. Much, as
with
Stephenson, seems to be in the realm of science fiction and
fantasy,
but as with Stephenson this is really a field of literature
(relatively
new) where one can invent stories in which to
clothe
ideas. For example, rather than writing a philosophical
treatise
on the nature of gender sexuality, Le Guin writes an award
winning
novel (The Left Hand of Darkness - 1969) in which she creates an imaginary world
through
which she can not only raise the issues, questions and
ambiguities, but
demonstrate, through the imagination, how these matters might
play out
in life.
Here is some
Steiner and Tomberg on
social life and images and pictures: From Rudolf Steiner's Education
As
A Force For Societal Change: In the future, social
life
will depend upon cooperative support between people, something
that
happens when we exchange our ideas, perceptions, and feelings.
This means that we must base our general education not
just upon
ideas taken from science or industry but upon concepts that
can serve
as a foundation for imaginative thoughts. As improbable
as this
may seem now, in the future we shall be unable to interact in
a
properly social way if we do not teach people imaginative
concepts.
In the future, we shall have to learn to
understand the
world in images.
From Valentin
Tomberg's Anthroposophical
Studies
of the Old Testament: At the present time,
the
mission is different (the mission being the method correct for
the
average student of mystery wisdom in a particular epoch).
It
consists in a thought knowledge endowed with vision achieved
through
the development of the forces of the conscience in order then
to live
powerfully in the creative word.
Remember, here we are coming to know American's who arrive at Anthroposophy naturally, and who are instinctively in the Consciousness Soul in their life of rights.
In Le Guin we
have another instinctive
Consciousness Soul artist, who examines the depths of human
existence
and potential using the imagination. Now some may
suggest that
the classic novel, or even the modern more ordinary novel does
this
well, but in those cases we have a kind of spirit recollection
(past
looking gesture) coupled with a bit of spirit mindfulness
(present
oriented gesture). It is human nature seen most often as
fixed,
settled and unchanging that novels outside the fields of
science
fiction and fantasy often consider. In Le Guin (and
others) it is
spirit vision that is significant, as well as the ability to
illuminate
the present by changing the context imaginatively.
Similar in a
way to Owen Barfield, Le
Guin loves language. She not only employs it with
profound grace
to render her thought into pictures (stories), but many of her
stories
focus on the significance of language itself (such as The
Telling - 2000). Moreover, she
is quite interested in the
spiritual dimensions of existence.
For example,
while her Earthsea stories and
novels seem to be about wizards and magic,
in fact they are morality tales. Her question often is
in these
works: what do you do with power and why do you do it.
The power
can be the great power of a king or a wizard, or the simple
power of
gossip and lies in a small community. In The
Farthest
Shore, the old mage tells the young
man, who doesn't know he is about to become a king (and thus
have a lot
of power), more or less as follows: The important thing
to
recognize is the
balance:
When you lift a rock, while the ground underneath is
lighter,
your hand is heavier. If you change the weather here,
the weather
elsewhere is also changed. Every act has consequences
far beyond
what seems to be immediately true.
Would that modern day political leaders had such an
education!
In the world of
Earthsea, the fundamental power comes from knowing the
true name
of something. Names are important, and this is a theme
of
significance throughout Le Guin's works.
In what I
consider her greatest
achievement (she might disagree but like The Left Hand of
Darkness it won several awards), the
Dispossessed:
an Ambiguous Utopia (1974), she
creates two contrasting worlds that are
neighbors to each other. One world is the large moon of
the
other, a planet. This moon is not airless and bears
life.
At some time in the past, a group of people, in
disagreement with
the direction of the main planet's cultures. were asked to
leave and go
live on this stark and hardly habitable moon. There they
consciously created a society of anarchists (what would be a
natural
consequence of Steiner's ethical individualism). To do
this,
their leader (a woman) invented a whole new language.
Taking the
power latent in naming, she sculpts a new language that can
not only
carry their political ideals, but also the quite naturally
more awake
soul (psychological) realities of ethically free human beings.
Now Le Guin
only instinctively does this
herself, but as she just imagines that it can be done, she
then works
out bits and pieces of what this new language might be able to
do.
Mostly she works with her characters, making the vision
she has
of a society - of people trying to raise children to be
ethical
individualists - live in the reader through her depiction of
their
thoughts and actions.
She is also,
like Steiner and Barfield, a
quite subtle thinker. Consider the title, for example: the
Dispossessed. The world she
imagines
has a very definite set of ideas concerning the relationship
of human
beings to things - to personal
property. In fact, a common epithet
in this community of free individualists is to call another a:
propertarian - that is someone who sets more store in things,
than in
relationships. Further, as children are raised, they are
encouraged to be more other-directed
by being
challenged as egoizers or committing the act of egoizing -
that is
being self-centered.
In essence, as conceived by her, this community finds some degree of its freedoms by becoming dis-possessed - free of possessions. In the first chapter, the main character - a man from the Moon, says this to someone who is from the home planet: "You see, I know you don't take things, as we do. In your world, in Urras, one must buy things. I come to your world, I have no money, I cannot buy, therefore I should bring. But how much can I bring? Clothing, yes, I might bring two suits. But food? How can I bring food enough? I cannot bring, I cannot buy. If I am to be kept alive, you must give it to me. I am an Anarresti, I make the Urrasti behave like Anarresti: to give, not to sell...".
As a genius at
story telling. Le Guin
also tells her tale by alternating chapters from one world to
the next.
In the first chapter, her main character is leaving to
go to the
planet-world from which his fellow anarchists once fled (200
years
before). There, as the novel unfolds, we get to see what
he sees
of what is essentially our modern culture, but from the point
of view
of someone raised in an entirely different fashion. In
the
alternating chapters on the moon, we get the back story, to
who he is
and why he went on his journey.
Using the
contrast between the two
worlds, and the awake consciousness and moral sensibilities
(not always
certain at all, but quite ambiguous just as the Consciousness
Soul age
requires) of her main character, Le Guin not only comments on
our
contemporary society and its many flaws, but also on a
possible ideal
society and its many flaws (remember it is an ambiguous utopia). Also,
at the core of the whole thing she puts
the problem of language and of meaning. A great question
arises
here, for we are confronted with the idea of what could we do
if we
changed our language itself. How could we take hold of
our
communities and our cultural life if we took a firm grip on
the
fundamentals of the meaning of words, and instead of letting
their
development take place sub-consciously, we intentionally craft
all of
it anew.
In this
envisioning, Le Guin has shown us
just what we might be able to do if (as I suggest), Western
Civilizations is dying, and we are on the transition from a
literate
culture to once more an oral culture. This may seem for
some a
degeneration, but if we take hold of this transformation and
introduce
into it new stories, stories carrying the true spirit of our
age (as
born out of Anthroposophy), we might just discover how to be
far more
creative than we yet imagine in our application of the new
picture-thinking.
Le Guin has
done this for us to a degree,
albeit instinctively, for she has set the past and the future
along
side each other (the old no longer socially vital planet-world
and the
new more socially vital moon-world) enabling us, by this
contrast, to
see both with greater clarity and not too much vain idealism.
Yes
it is utopian in its hunger, but ultimately human and
ambiguous in its
true nature.
If I was to
teach a course on Steiner's
threefold social ideas, I'd include, as necessary reading, Le
Guin's
social masterpiece: the
Dispossessed: an Ambiguous Utopia. Why? Because while Steiner's threefolding
ideas are
quite significant, they are too ideal for the American Soul,
with its
quite practical down to earth need to solve problems. Le
Guin
isn't advocating an ideal utopia, but she is imagining the
concrete and
human reality of such a social experiment (as ethical
individualism),
in a remarkably wise fashion.
*
Last, I want to
introduce David E.
Kelley, a writer of television
scripts, who I
call: America's
Shakespeare. Of the four, he
is the
most fully awake to the Consciousness Soul. He is the
principle
writer (and later producer) of several television series: L. A. Law; Picket
Fences; Chicago Hope; Ally
McBeal; The Practice; Boston
Public; and now Boston Legal. In Picket Fences (about 1995), for
example, he
actually has a character say (the sheriff) at the end of a
hard and
morally ambiguous day for everyone: "you know, there are
no rules
anymore, we are all on our own". It would be hard to imagine a non-anthroposophist
more
clearly characterize the human question at the center of the
Age of the
Consciousness Soul.
Kelley is a
former lawyer turned
Hollywood TV writer, and first comes to public attention in
the late
1980's (1986-1994) as a major writer on L.A. Law. When that show had a special 100th
episode (it
was extremely popular and won many awards) instead of a drama,
this
episode consisted of cast and crew interviews. Richard
Dysart, a
lead actor, was asked about being in a drama where there
weren't just a
couple stars anymore, but rather a large ensemble cast.
His reply
was surprising. He said, in essence, that the actors were not
the stars
of the series, but the scripts. It was the ideas in the
scripts
that made the show what it was. There was also a brief
interview
with Kelley as a principle writer, and he talked as follows
about his practice: I like to go into a room, alone, with a lot of
legal pads
and pencils, so I can be there undisturbed with my characters.
This bears some
thinking about so as to
not miss the special nuances. Those who read this who
write
fiction will know this better, but when one is living
dynamically in
the imagination, the plot and the characters (when this art is
at its
best) take on a life of their own. We write and record
what
passes before the eye of the imagination, but are frequently
surprised.
Yes, we do some work in the beginning setting up the
situation
and the structural context, but once we set them free the
characters
begin to take on a life of their own. The more we set
them free,
the more human they become and the more real.
It is also
important to realize that most
television writers might pen four to eight scripts a year and
feel
quite productive. It is not uncommon for Kelley to do
twenty to
thirty, sometimes writing (or supervising) personally all the
scripts
for a series. When Ally McBeal
and The
Practice were running simultaneously
on two different major
networks for a time, it was thought that in one or two of
those years
he wrote over forty scripts personally.
Three other
characteristics of Kelley's
work need to be noted. One is how much actors like to
play his
characters. Not only do they win all kinds of awards
(for
example, the lead female - Kathy Baker - in Picket Fences won a best actress Emmy for three of its
four year
run; a major supporting actor - Ray Walston - won twice in the
same
series, which ran from 1992-1996. In more recent times,
James
Spader has won three Emmys - 2004, 2005 and 2007, playing the
same
character - lawyer Alan Shore - in two series, The Practice and then when that had finished out its 7 year
run, in Boston
Legal), and you can actually see
their love of this work as
they get to speak the words Kelley has given them to speak.
The second
characteristic, and probably
the most important, has to do with an indication of Steiner's
where he
said that: English
speakers
are instinctively in the Consciousness Soul in their Life of
Rights. Kelley, as a former
lawyer and
an artistic genius, as he developed his craft more and more
placed his
characters in courtrooms. Picket Fences, for example,
frequently
spent the first half to two thirds of its plot setting up a
court case,
where the moral and legal issues being dramatized could be
discussed
both legally and philosophically.
Lest we think
Kelley is advocating a
point of view (which he is not afraid to do), in the 100th
episode of L.A. Law referred to
above, it was described of him how he was
able, through his characters to see every side of an issue.
No
point of view was overlooked, or weakly presented. Often
the
judges who had to rule (which is why Ray Walston as Judge Bone
in Picket
Fences won two supporting actor
Emmys) could come off as modern
day - yet quite human - Solomons (or as needed, Falstaff-like
fools).
Consider a plot
line from Picket Fences, with
which the third or fourth year of the series
began. The town in Picket Fences,
Rome Wisconsin,
is a basically white rural community not too far from a large
urban
city. A black federal judge in this large city decides
to bus 400
inner city youth to Rome for the purposes of desegregation.
Kathy
Baker, playing the town doctor, who has recently been elected
mayor,
decides to resist. This crisis, and its implications for
all the
characters in Rome (as well as for the judge) is given four
episodes to
work itself out, with the final episode mostly consisting of
the judge
and the mayor, sitting in her jail cell (the judge jailed her
for
resisting his order), arguing (with great intelligence and
passion) all
the underlying moral and legal issues.
The third major
characteristic of his
work is his fascination with comedy as well as drama. In
Picket
Fences he would often weave humor
into the opening set-up
leaving the serious matter for the courtroom at the end.
For
example, in one story he had the town sheriff and doctor (who
were
married in the series) discover that outside town was a farm
where cows
were being used as surrogate wombs for human babies. A
little
scifi (and certainly funny), but with Kelley one can justly
assume he
read somewhere about this being considered as possible (all
his writing
is very contemporary, and very sound in its understanding of
the
technical background to any story - of course his success lets
him no
doubt hire all kinds of research people). In any event
the
embryos in cows is played broadly and a bit for laughs, until
we get to
the human question of what to do. That decision lands on
judge
Bone's shoulders, for the issues of do we let them get to term
and so
forth are not simple questions.
When Ally McBeal and The Practice were on
the air at
the same time, he split the comedy off into the former and the
drama
off into the latter. Both involved law firms, and Ally
would often deal with somewhat silly legal issues, but mostly
with sex,
love and just plain strangeness (a supporting character in
Ally had
tourette's syndrome - the one where one can't stop from
swearing in
public, and/or other uncontrollable nervous tics and
gestures).
The main character in Ally (the Ally
McBeal) often
saw strange visions and had a love life that had more ups and
downs
than a yo-yo. While The Practice
took on every
serious issue of law it could, but mostly concentrated on what
it means
to defend criminals (rapists, drug pushers and all the worst
our
society produces). Getting people off for murder
(especially one
they committed) requires of a lawyer a very odd moral
character.
None of these questions were down played, and many of
them had
serious consequences.
For example,
different lawyers at
different times in the series, were attacked physically by
clients
(sadists, crazies, you name it) and often in the hospital and
near
death. The relationship between lawyers and
prosecutors was
explored over and over again, as well as with judges.
People had
affairs, got married, got divorced. One lawyer's teenage
son got
caught dealing drugs. Another main character, whose
lawyer wife
was being stalked by a crazy sadist, hires a former client (a
murderer)
to intimidate the crazy, but instead the crazy gets the client
to
murder him, so that the lawyer himself now gets charged with
murder for
hire.
At the same
time, no social issue that
can be made a legal drama is ignored. Law suits are
filed to stop
pollution, to reform political processes, to force
corporations to do
the right thing. In one remarkable episode, a woman is
arrested
for resisting the police when they try to remove her from her
place of
protest at a political event, and make her go to one of these
free
speech zones that have become so common in America as a way of
keeping
protesters' activities away from the television coverage of
politicians.
This woman, not
a liberal by the way (her
issue is more tangible and less ideal), is also somewhat foul
mouthed
and unlikeable. She is something like a waitress
who lives
in a trailer (or some such job and life). She actually
punches
out the officer who tries to force her to move from the place
where she
is holding her sign. All this as a set up for her
to be
able to say from the witness stand, with great passion and
clarity: "I thought the whole country
was a free speech zone!!!"
In the final
couple of seasons of The
Practice, Kelley finally invents his most unusual character,
the lawyer
Alan Shore, played by James Spader (and winner so far of 3
Emmys for
best leading actor in a dramatic series, as noted above).
This
character is so significant a creation, that when The Practice ended as a series, the character became a member
of the
law firm in the successor series: Boston Legal (currently still on the air).
Shore is whimsical and seldom serious of demeanor (even in court). He finds the ethical rules of the legal profession often at conflict with his own moral sensibilities (a classic Consciousness Soul question). He is also flawed and troubled and a bit oversexed. His office repartee with the female lawyers is frequently bawdy, but more clever than coarse.
Spader plays
him with an out thrust lower
jaw, and a posture that represents his aggressive willingness
to say
and do anything to make a point or win for a client. If
you get
him as your lawyer, you are getting a thunderbolt inside a
jar, who
cracks jokes to show up legal hypocrisy. If he needs to
open it
in court, out it comes, and judges, other lawyers, witnesses
and juries
beware. At the same time, he is very very smart (or
written that
way, we should say). He won't get angry, but intense and
pointed.
Since legal ethics doesn't hold him down, he skirts the
edges of
those rules all the time, and when he can get away with it
(usually out
of sight) he ignores them.
[see, for
example, the fictional speech
Shore gives before the United States Supreme Court, that can
be found
on YouTube, at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GG7sj2APpc ]
He is, oddly
enough, an ethical
individualist in training, who still lacks all the self
knowledge that
is possible, but is not unwilling to learn. Kelley has
also given
him, in the actor (a ham getting to play a ham) William
Shatner - what
is essentially Shore's Fallstaff - lawyer Denny Crane.
So we have
the prince - Alan Shore, who can't quite always figure out
what the
right thing to do is, and who can't quite tame his own
impulses in many
instances, but who if you have him on your side, will die for
you.
Then as a partner in crime and sometimes in weirdness
unimagined,
Denny Crane, outrageous in sexual behavior, loves a good
drink, a good
cigar, and a good gun (plays a parody of a conservative to
Shore's
parody of a liberal).
The two fall in
love. Not sexual
love, but the deep brotherly love of men for men which is
seldom
explored so openly in dramas, and certainly not so obviously
as Kelley
has these two do (they have sleepovers). Shatner, by the
way,
wins an Emmy as well.
Having only one
series on at this time,
Kelley has both comedy and drama mixed together, and the usual
collection of strange characters. At least one legal
issue in
every episode is socially aware. Nothing going on in the
current
political climate of America is ignored, and Shore (and other
lawyers
or characters) is often given remarkable speeches to make
(during
summation to the juries) in which the basic moral issues of
war,
politics and their social consequences are examined. As
well, the
other side's view is equally represented and cogently
expressed.
The only problem lies with the fact that a lot of what
constitutes politics today is based on lies and tricks, so it
is hard
to write something that makes these lies and tricks sound not
quite
like what they really are.
Part of what
Kelley teaches us is that if
politicians were forced to give their speeches in a court of
law, where
rules of proof and logical coherence were required and
examined, most
of what is said today would fail those obvious rational tests.
He
is also, by the way, beginning to be fed up, for the amount of
time
devoted to commercials has expanded since he first began to
write for
television, and he has publicly stated that if this goes much
further,
he will not be able to write in such a restricted time
environment.
I suspect he loves his characters too much to continual
cut them
down in order to abide by the rules of commerce.
*
So now we have
examined four American
personalities - four artists working in the youthful
unpolished dawn of
American Culture: Clint Eastwood, Neal Stephenson, Ursula K.
Le Guin
and David E. Kelley. They all use the imagination with
instinctive consciousness, and moral intention, and
demonstrate for us
precisely what Steiner had in mind when he said that Americans
develop
anthroposophy in a natural way. Hopefully the reader
will now
begin to see that these are but the tip of an iceberg, and
that if
anthroposophical institutions in America do not begin to turn
toward
and study what is going on in American Culture, we will not
discover
the deeper truths of our own souls as Americans.
***************************************
[for the neophyte: Having started with a few observations of modern American Culture (so as to see its present dynamics a little bit), we next need to step back quite further in time, for the Mystery of America finds its true roots in the Saturn Mysteries, and these should be our next theme if we wish to penetrate to the essence of the Mystery of America.
What are the
Saturn Mysteries?
Rudolf Steiner called the Red Indian peoples the Saturn
Race, in
his discussions of the meaning and significance of the
hereditary line
of physical bodies (which must be distinguished from the more
significant line of incarnations of individual spirits in
these
different physical streams, otherwise we will evoke a false
racism).
In this he meant to suggest that this was the oldest
racial line,
which he linked to the Saturn Incarnation of the Earth (a very
ancient
period of physical and spiritual evolution - see Occult
Science:
an outline). Those of us doing
research on the Wisdoms of the Peoples of this most ancient
line of
bodily inheritance, have taken to calling these Wisdoms: the
Saturn
Mysteries. There is more that can be discussed here, but
it would
take us too far afield. Anyone wanting to begin this
deeper
research should go to my webpages, to the work of
Stephen Clarke
there: http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/clarke4.html]
Recollecting the True Roots of the American Soul
- America's
aboriginal People's and the Hopi Prophecy -
Part of this
story is very personal in
nature, so I hope the reader will not mind if I include
certain aspects
of my biography as these are an important aspect necessary for
appreciating the Saturn Mysteries.
I grew up in
central Montana. In
the late '40's and early '50's I went to the movies a lot, a
staple of
which was the Western [recall Eastwood above, and the Western
as the
American Myth]. Indians were to us savages, as portrayed
in these
films. Ill spoken, prone to violence, the enemies of
America's Manifest Destiny.
Tribal peoples
were nearby, but they
lived in a quite separate slum, a collection of shacks out in
the open
on "hill 57". We were told that at one point the town
(Great
Falls) as a gift had installed indoor plumbing in this
shanty-town,
only to discover it had been shortly thereafter taken out,
sold for
scrape and converted into money for liquor. To the
extent
"Indians" made the local news, it was as drunks involved in
motor
vehicle accidents, and as petty thieves, prostitutes and
murderers.
There was one
native American girl in my
high school class (our town was then about 50,000 people and
my senior
class was about 400 plus). She wore the same black skirt
and
white blouse to class everyday, which she probably hand
laundered and
ironed every night. Mostly she was ignored socially.
She
left school a couple of months before graduation, and the
rumor that
followed her was that her grandfather had made her leave
school and go
to work to support the family.
As the '60's
emerged from the '50's,
these images, of America's aboriginal peoples within American
culture,
began to change, albeit quite slowly. Books started to
appear
that began to celebrate Native Culture, for a culture-wide
spiritual
awakening was in process, and the Native Americans were being
recognized has having much to teach.
In the mid
'70's I read for the first
time the book Seven
Arrows, by Hyemeyohsts Storm.
I was not
prepared for this experience, and as I entered through this
beautiful
book deeply into the spiritual teachings and Native Cultures
of the
Plains Indians - the Indian Peoples that lived in and around
Montana,
whose names were familiar to me - I was stunned to tears by
the tragedy
of our crimes against these Peoples and these Cultures.
A great
lie had been planted in my soul, and now it was being torn out
through
a process that required a lot of pain and a profound
experience of
guilt.
No doubt others
had discovered the truth
of Native Culture and Wisdom before me, but this was for me
the time of
a significant wrenching of my soul into a new healing
orientation
toward something that had been infecting it since my
childhood. I
actually broke into sobbing tears and grief multiple times
while
reading this book.
Thus began a
long journey to struggle to
find a true relationship to these Peoples who had lived so
gracefully
in the American Landscape for millennia before the white races
came and
nearly destroyed them. It was in this mood of searching
that I
first came upon the stories then circulating about something
called:
the Hopi Prophecy. Soon I found a little booklet, which
contained
an original talk given in January of 1970, by Hopi Sun Clan
Chief, Dan
Katchongva, and then originally published in 1972 under the
title: "From the
Beginning of Time to the Day of Purification".
In
the late '70's, not too soon after first reading this booklet,
I subsequently discovered the writings of Rudolf Steiner and
began the
journey of Anthroposophy.
Among the ideas
contained in the Hopi
Prophecy is an expectation that at a time of deep crisis, the
True
White Brother would appear to the Hopi, from the East, from
the
direction of the rising sun. Eventually in 1984 I was to
write in
the anthroposophical study letter (fostered by Carl Stegmann)
America in
the Threefold World a short essay: Anthroposophy and the
Hopi
Prophecy of the True White Brother.
Subsequently, over the Easter weekend of 1985, at the
insistence
of a Native American woman studying Waldorf Education at
Rudolf Steiner
College, I actually went to the Hopi Mesas in northwestern
Arizona were
I met and spoke to a Hopi Elder named Grandfather David
Monongye.
This is a quite sad but revealing story, so I will tell
it next.
It took some
time upon reaching the Hopi
Mesas to find Grandfather David's home. I was a white
man, and so
suspect right from the beginning. There were in this
brief rite
of passage some interesting adventures, but nothing as
significant as
this short meeting, which took place the late afternoon of the
Saturday
of that Easter Weekend. [When I shared these stories
with the
woman in Fair Oaks who had sent me, she said: You learned in three
hours
what it takes most white people three years to understand." I don't attribute this, by the way, to
myself,
but to the spiritual - Easter - character of the three days
journey
(Friday, Saturday and Sunday) within which these events were
nested.]
When I finally
found the right "house" (a
flat roofed multi-room cinder block structure, sharing common
walls
with a number of other such structures, not at all resembling
a
conventional American house), there were two little boys
playing
outside in the dirt with metal cars. Upon explaining
myself, they
jumped up and ran inside shouting for their Grandfather that
he had a
visitor. They also invited me in.
In the cool of
the house there were two
people. A older man was lying down on a short bench, and
beside
him sat a much younger Hopi (I assume), who was dressed in
jeans,
western shirt and cowboy boots and hat. The younger man
stood up
and stepped between myself and the older man, who also was now
standing.
For the next
five minutes I was
cross-examined by the younger man, who would speak Hopi to the
older
man, and then turn back to me and speak in English. Why
did I
come? What was my interest in the Hopi Prophecy?
Was I
writing a book? Did I expect to make money from this
book?
Who sent me?
Apparently my
answers were more or less
satisfactory, and the young man stepped aside and I walked up
to the
older man who extended his hand toward me. After I took
it to
shake it, he did not let go, but gently insisted we remain in
contact
through our hands, for he was (as I knew before coming) 106
years of
age and blind in both eyes.
Somehow Grandfather David ended up sitting back down on the bench, I was kneeling, and he was talking to me in English. We were still holding hands, and like some blind people do he was rocking side to side a bit. Just then, however, the room began to fill up with people, some native some white. A public Hopi Ceremony had apparently just finished, a younger native woman was scurrying around making a baking tray filled with pigs-in-a-blanket (hot dogs wrapped in pastry dough), that was soon in the oven.
I knew then
that I had but just a few
minutes to make my point, so after a short silent prayer and a
big hope
for the necessary courage, I said first to Grandfather David
(and of
course the whole room heard me): "I think I know who
the True
White Brother is". At this he
became
quite still and the whole room became silent. I then
said
something like the following (I don't remember my exact
words):
"Native
Americans know that the Earth is a living being. Western
Science
has decided not to believe such a thing is possible. I
am
associated with a spiritual movement that comes from Europe,
from the
East, from the Rising Sun, and we are showing the way to
rediscovering
that the Earth is a living being, while at the same time doing
this out
of the true principles of natural science."
What happened
next was quite shocking,
and it was years before I understood the full implications of
this act.
The young woman stepped in between myself and Grandfather David, broke the connection of our hands, and said to me in a tone of voice that would brook no opposition:
"I don't need
you disturbing this old man's dreams. You are to leave.
Now."
Which I did.
I returned to my car,
drove off the Hopi Reservation, parked that night behind a
road sign on
the Navajo Reservation (which totally surrounds the Hopi
lands) and
went to sleep. I woke at dawn on Easter morning, and
began the
long 1100 mile drive home.
Some points to
ponder. She didn't
have faith in the Prophecy or the Hopi Religion anymore (she
was
essentially a materialist). This much was obvious.
It took
me years of further encounters with Native cultures to realize
how
tragic was the reality of her act of disrespect to her
Grandfather,
however. That was really unforgivable.
Never, if she
had been fully traditional in the best sense, would she have
interfered
with a conversation an Elder was having with someone else.
I have
since wondered what might have happen had I been more fully
awake to
their culture, and been able to face her down, and call her
out on her
disrespect in front of everyone else (yet in a proper way).
On
such small acts turn consequences we cannot imagine.
I could have
stood and said to him: "Grandfather David.
Someone has forgotten something important. Perhaps
you
would be so kind as to go outside with me, or if possible to
the kiva,
and if you are willing, I can continue to speak to you, a Hopi
Elder,
on such important matters for both our ways of life.
I am sorry I am in the way here at dinner time, and if you
wish it as
well I will leave.
It would be
important not to criticize
her directly (someone), or even
clearly describe the absence of respect.
It would be enough just to glance at her quickly and
then away,
and remain focused on Grandfather David, leaving to her own
conscience
a sense of what would have been right. By suggesting we
go
outside, I take the matter also from her well understood
traditional
domain (the home is under the woman's stewardship, while males
care for
the outer world), and take our conversation to a place that
belongs to
the Elder and myself, while still recognizing that she does
have the
right to manage that home environment. By bringing
in the kiva
- the prayer room - I emphasize the religious/spiritual
aspect, and by
using the terms "if
possible" I have not asserted any
right of
mine to go beyond where I have been invited.
With the last
sentence as an apology
(again indirectly related to the young woman and her domain
responsibilities), I have also shifted the matter to
Grandfather
David's realm. I respect his role as Elder. I
should also
have brought a gift to Grandfather David, perhaps some
tobacco.
Now in making
this alternative picture I
am not so much trying to do over what had been done, but to
suggest how
little non-natives understand traditional culture, or know how
to
properly behave in its contexts. You also should not
expect that
the above revision is right behavior on my part, either.
I'm not
a good source here, but I have learned enough over the years
to realize
how ignorant one can be, and how important it is not to be
such a fool
if it can be avoided.
I will go
deeper into the Hopi Prophecy
later in this essay, but next I want to write more about the
path that
led me to an appreciation of the Saturn Mysteries.
One of the strange aspects of being an anthroposophist, and an American, was running into the writings of European anthroposophists explaining America to me. There is Carl Stegmann's The Other America: the West in the light of Spiritual Science; Detrich V. Asten's America's Way and then F. W. Zeylmans van Emmichover's America and Americanism. If you look to anthroposophical literature, these were what for a long time you would mainly find - Europeans explaining America to Americans and others.
Now a peculiar
aspect common to all three
above books (and pamphlets) is the dismissal of Native
Americans as a
factor of any significance for the understanding of America.
For
these assumed deep thinking European anthroposophists, America
really
doesn't begin until Europe invades, thus continuing that same
bias and
assumptions that led originally to the near genocide of the
Native
Peoples. Except in this case it is a kind of cultural
genocide
that European anthroposophists seem to favor. Culture to
the
European is what they do, and the rest of us can at best be
poor
imitations (recall what I wrote above about the European who
asked me "what culture", when I
spoke about American Culture at a conference).
The only
counter to this I discovered
that was in anthroposophical literature in America (besides my
piece on
the Hopi Prophecy, although I am sure there are others hidden
out
there), was a little paper written by one Sylvester M. Morey:
American
Indians and our way of life.
This was
an address given in a Waldorf School in 1961, not published
until the
end of the '60's.
Morey
essentially brings forward (and
describes) this remarkable observation: Most of the general
characteristics of Americans (as to character and tendencies)
are not
found in Europeans, but in Native Americans. That is, we
Americans are more like the Aboriginals in many ways, than we
are like
our principle blood ancestors, the Europeans.
Rudolf Steiner
would have no problem
understanding this, for in his lectures he is clear that while
the
hereditary line of the body follows the blood relations, the influence of the body
on the
soul follows the geographical
relations.
The body is born in a region of specific geographic
earth forces
and powers (which vary considerably from one place to another
on the
Earth), and where we are born is a major influence on our
general
characteristics of soul. Steiner also says this, which
is quite
significant for our purposes: "...America is the place where races or
civilizations
die..." Mission
of
the Folk Souls, lecture six.
Now both these
observations can be
confirmed by clear and thoughtful considerations of American
History.
As Europeans came to America and became Americans, they
shed
their cultural history. This did not happen all at once,
but even
in our language we speak of first, second and third generation
Americans, because we recognize that with this passage of
time, as the
new generations were born in the land, the cultural traditions
lost
their hold. Even today, the anti-immigration sentiments
of many
come from people who two or three or four generations before
were
Italians, Germans, Swedes and the like.
America has
been called "the melting pot", and
some resist this image as inadequate and want to
substitute "mosaic" instead.
Both are true and
false, for a more accurate rendering of the process would show
that the
immigrating peoples actually edit their
culture. This
shows us that the culture (or civilization) had certain
characteristics
in the land (geology) of its origin, such that then in America
these
have all undergone a metamorphosis. This metamorphosis
is both a
result of the influence of the land (the influence of the
geography on
the souls of second etc. generations), and the influence of
the
individuality which chooses to maintain certain cultural
values of the
family, itself something that erodes over the coming
generations.
In addition,
the blood and hereditary
lines dissolve through intermarriage - something that is
accelerated by
the close proximity of different races offered by America.
Races
and civilizations do die (disappear) in America.
We can add
another quality to this by
recognizing that the phenomena of social life in America, and
its
cultural icons support another of Steiner's observations.
In this
case his description of the threefold nature of the world,
with an
emphasis on the East being more alive in the Cultural Life,
the Center
in the Life of Rights and the West in the Economic Life.
This
arose because the general soul characteristics of the East
involved freedom, in the Center
equality and in the West fraternity or
brotherhood.
In America, the
deepest poetic song is: America the Beautiful, whose refrain in the first case goes: and crown thy good
with brotherhood.
We can circle around again to Native Wisdom, and
find in Seven Arrows
that the Plains
Indian's mystery wisdom was also called: the Brotherhood Way (as well as the Way of the Shields, and the
Medicine
Wheel Way), for its purpose was to reach across the
distinctions of
Nations and find a spiritual means by which the Cheyenne, the
Crow and
the Sioux (whose true names are the Painted Arrow, the Little
Black
Eagle and the Brother People).
Here we see, as Morey noticed, that Americans are more akin to the Aboriginal Peoples in their general characteristics than they are to Europeans. Add to that Steiner's indication of one of our tasks being connected to brotherhood (the underlying virtue of the Economic Sphere), which in combination with the above suggests something of the Mystery nature of America in that in the heart of America (the great Western Plains which extend from the Rockies on the West to and across the River systems that join into the Mississippi) the most modern spiritual way was also know as the Brotherhood Way. Also, that the Sioux, whose Pipe Ceremony in Celebration of the powers of the Four Directions is echoed in Steiner's ceremony in the laying of the Foundation Stone for the first Goetheanum, and in the Foundation Stone Meditation - this Sioux Nation (which was forced by the European invasion to travel at various times all the way from the Eastern Forests to the Western Rockies) is in their language called the Brother People.
In this and
many other ways, once we have
understood this key, we can begin to see that the Mystery of
America
goes in an unbroken line from the Native Peoples that lived
here for
uncounted generations before the invasion of Europeans all the
way
toward a distant future Epoch - the Epoch of the triumph of
the
American Soul - which Steiner called Philadelphia (itself a
word
meaning from the Greek: brotherly love!)
America then is
one constantly
struggling-to-incarnate Ideal,
extending from Native
Wisdom (the
Brotherhood
Way, the Brother People) then
through the founding spiritual impulses of America, captured
in poetic
verse in crown
thy good with brotherhood, all the
way to the
future Epoch of Philadelphia or brotherly love. Should we be surprise then that we are
going to
discover that the Hopi Oral History and Prophecies remember
Atlantis,
and speak of two migrations one by a younger brother going to the West, and the other by the elder brother who disappears into the East, only to return at
a time
of great crisis, then to be known as the True White Brother?
Perhaps we
should. Perhaps we
should be amazed in fact, that we live in a world were such
Mystery
enfolds our ever striving modern natures and struggles.
In the
present, we only have a glimpse of these struggles to realize
brotherhood, but clearly they are there in the modern social
problems
of race and immigration.
Something is in
the process of being
born, and we as American anthroposophists have the potential
to
contribute to this, with perhaps far greater awareness of the
real
spiritual foundations and issues than most of our
contemporaries.
Sadly, we must soon explore whether the Society and
Movement is
actually facing this so very important task. First,
however, let
us unfold the Hopi Prophecy in full, so that we can then see
far deeper
into the Mystery of America.
There is a lot
of detail that could be
gone into here, but I will just reveal some highlights.
The
reader can find a number of these details in my essay: The
Mystery*
of the True White Brother - an interpretation
of the
meaning of the Hopi Prophecy by a member of the Elder Brother
People [* sacred rite of initiation]
http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/eldbr.html]. This,
however,
should be kept in mind in reading any versions of the Hopi
Prophecy:
There are a
number of differing versions
of the Prophecy. The Hopi themselves are divided, into
different
Clans and Villages. It is clear from reading
several of
these versions (including the main one I rely upon) that
modern events
have polluted the language being used. Like any myth
holding
culture, making its prophecies fit current circumstances is
not
uncommon, something well know to ethnographers. It also
should be
understood that any essentially oral history is going to
undergo what
might be called drift
of
meaning over time. As one
speaker
passes to the next speaker the stories, the meaning will not
remain
stable.
If we were to only rely on the Hopi memory (as it were) we could not come to any useful conclusions. But we have a second source for factual information, Rudolf Steiner. Now we don't precisely have to accept as knowledge all that he taught as someone doing research into the spiritual, but we can still bring those teachings into contact with the Hopi Oral History and Prophecies, and in this way find our way to that higher meaning which emerges when the two visions are brought into contact with each other.
Earlier I had
said that the Hopi
remembered Atlantis - lets start there.
Obviously they
didn't remember Atlantis
by that name. What their oral history tells us is of
having to
flee a land that was being destroyed by the acts of evil
two-hearted
people. Here is some language from the Oral History,
concerning a
time deep in their past: The inventive ones, clever but lacking
wisdom, made many
destructive things by which their lives were disrupted, and
which
threatened to destroy all the people.
We have heard through Rudolf Steiner a similar story about Atlantean times. Then later in the Oral History we find: "The Kikmongwi gathered the high priests. They smoked and prayed for guidance toward a way to solve the corruption. Many times they gathered, until finally someone suggested that they move, find a new place, and start a new life."
As Steiner has
told us, various priests
of the Mystery temples in Atlantis led the migrations to the
East and
the West from Atlantis. We could go on into this in
greater
detail, but here I only wanted to suggest how we can combine
the two
pictures: one an Oral History carried for perhaps thousands of
years,
and the other the research of a modern spiritual scientist, an
activity
Steiner engaged in many times in resurrecting the true meaning
of many
ancient myths.
Another part of
the Oral History speaks
of two brothers, who were given different stone tablets.
Before the first people had
begun their migrations the people named Hopi were given a set
of stone
tablets. Into these tablets the Great Spirit inscribed the
laws by
which the Hopi were to travel and live the good way of life,
the
peaceful way. ... The older brother was to take one of the
stone
tablets with him to the rising sun, and bring it back with him
when he
hears the desperate call for aid. His brother will be in a
state of
hopelessness and despair. His people may have forsaken the
teachings,
no longer respecting their elders, and even turning upon their
elders
to destroy their way of life. The stone tablets will be the
final
acknowledgment of their true identity and brotherhood. Their
mother is
Sun Clan. They are the children of the sun.
In myths we
recognize the existence of
imaginative pictures or symbols. At best, my thinking
regarding
the meaning of this aspect of the Oral History suggests that
the stone
tablets refer to their wisdom. It may also be literally
true in
the sense that some of their traditions are written in symbols
on rock.
We
know
certain people are commissioned to bring about the
Purification. It is
the Universal Plan from the beginning of creation, and we are
looking
up to them to bring purification to us. It is in the rock
writings
throughout the world, on different continents. [This is from further ahead in the Prophecy.
Later
we will come back to the idea of the Purification.]
The stone
tablets, this symbol of wisdom,
is connected to a story concerning two
brothers. While the Oral History perhaps seems to
confuse this,
from Steiner we get the idea of migrations from Atlantis to
the West
and to the East. My view is that the story of the two
brothers in
the Oral History refers to this which Steiner has related.
In a
sense the Hopi remember (after a fashion) that, as Steiner
tells it,
two kinds of destiny and consciousness migrated from Atlantis,
leading
to two different evolving patterns in the evolution of
consciousness.
One form (my
interpretation) had a
destiny to mainly live connected to the world of the senses,
and to see
in the world of the senses the speaking of the divine through
nature.
Thus we have one of the common elements of much of the
Aboriginal
teachings of the Americas - a traditional recognition of the
Spirit
manifesting through the Natural World. This then is the
younger
brother, and we can find in these traditional wisdoms
something that
perhaps has been lost to the destiny of the elder brother -
the brother
that went to the East. We will revisit this a little
later.
Those who went
to the East, of this the
Oral History knows nothing. The elder brother is simply
understood to be waiting for the time
when the younger brother needs him.
Only from Steiner are we given a picture of the work of
the elder
brother - those who went to the East out of Atlantis - and
thus of the
founding then of all the post-Atlantean civilizations, first
in the Far
East, and then the Middle East, and finally Europe and
England, until
the time comes when the Americas are rediscovered.
The civilizations of the elder brother had a different task and a different kind of consciousness. They more and more sacrificed the traditional connection to nature over time (which Taoism remembers as: be at one with nature), eventually becoming able to give birth to individualism (the end of the group soul) and materialism. The evolving (physical and then ethereal) Incarnation of Christ needs this stream of consciousness in which to express its primal birth as the Christ Impulse in the world in a certain way.
If we think
into modern life in the right
way, we will see that individualism comes at the expense of
community
(recall the essay above on Methodology,
and the pictures
there of the development of individualism in relationship to
family and
community). In order for freedom to arise for the
individual, the
traditions of community and family had to dissolve, a process
developing for a long long time in Western Civilization.
Among the
traditional peoples of the
Americas, this has unfolded at a much slower pace and with
quite
distinct characteristics. Just in reading the whole of
the little
booklet From the Beginning of Time to the Day of
Purification, one can find in the
language and the descriptions a way
of seeing the world fully at odds with the invading white
races.
Yet, for all this the Prophecy expects that the Elder
Brother
will still be Hopi:
"The older brother was to take one of the stone tablets with him to the rising sun, and bring it back with him when he hears the desperate call for aid. His brother will be in a state of hopelessness and despair. His people may have forsaken the teachings, no longer respecting their elders*, and even turning upon their elders to destroy their way of life. The stone tablets will be the final acknowledgment of their true identity and brotherhood. Their mother is Sun Clan. They are the children of the sun.
"So it must
be a Hopi who traveled from here to the rising sun and
is waiting
someplace."
[*recall what
Grandfather David's
granddaughter did when he and I were speaking together.]
Here is what
the idea of a person who is
Hopi means, according to the Oral History: "Hopi means not only
to be
peaceful, but to obey and have faith in the instructions of
the Great
Spirit, and not to distort any of his teachings for influence
or power,
or in any way to corrupt the Hopi way of life."
If we
synthesize these ideas, we will
come to realize that the Prophecy expects the elder brother to
have a
deep spiritual kinship with the younger brother, and to have
the wisdom
(the stone
tablet), or life plan for the
future. This is what it
will mean, in terms of the Prophecy, for there to be a True White Brother - this spiritual kinship.
Now let us turn
to the meaning of the Day
of Purification. Here is a lengthy element of the
Prophecy:
"We have
teachings and prophecies informing us that we must be alert
for the
signs and omens which will come about to give us courage and
strength
to stand on our beliefs. Blood will flow. Our hair and our
clothing will be scattered upon the earth. Nature will
speak to
us with its mighty breath of wind. There will be earthquakes,
floods,
and strange fires in different places causing great disasters,
changes
in the seasons, and in the weather, disappearance of wildlife,
and
famine in different forms. There will be gradual corruption
and
confusion among the leaders and the people all over the world,
and wars
will come about like powerful winds. All of this has been
planned from
the beginning of creation.
"We will have
three people standing behind us, ready to fulfill our
prophecies when
we get into hopeless difficulties: the Meha Symbol (which
refers to a
plant that has a long root, milky sap, grows back when cut
off, and has
a flower shaped like a swastika, symbolizing the four great
forces of
nature in motion), the Sun Symbol, and the Red Symbol.
Bahanna's [the White race's] intrusion into the
Hopi way
of life will set the Meha Symbol in motion, so that certain
people will
work for the four great forces of nature (the four directions,
the
controlling forces, the original force) which will rock the
world into
war. When this happens we will know that our prophecies are
coming
true. We will gather strength and stand firm.
"This great
movement will fall, but because its subsistence is milk, and
because it
is controlled by the four forces of nature, it will rise again
to put
the world in motion, creating another war, in which both the
Meha and
the Sun Symbol will be at work. Then it will rest in order to
rise a
third time. Our prophecy foretells that the third event will
be the
decisive one. Our road plan foretells the outcome.
"This sacred
writing speaks the word of the Great Spirit. It could mean the
mysterious life seed with two principles of tomorrow,
indicating one,
inside of which is two. The third and last, which will it
bring forth,
purification or destruction?
"This third
event will depend upon the Red Symbol, which will take
command, setting
the four forces of nature (Meha) in motion for the benefit of
the Sun."
In the above
you can see how the Prophecy
was adapted to events in the 20th Century, linking the Meha
symbol
to Germany and the Sun symbol to Japan. This is
understandable,
and not necessarily accurate (or perhaps it is accurate - take
your
choice). Since we do not know whether or not the Clan
leaders
actually have stone tablets with symbols on them and what
those symbols
are in fact, it is difficult to appreciate what might or might
not be
the truth here. At the least this picture is given:
There
will be three great events (wars?) and at the last great event
(another
war?) this will happen: "This third event will depend upon the
Red Symbol, which
will take command, setting the four forces of nature (Meha) in
motion
for the benefit of the Sun.".
Earlier in this
book I wrote about this
last phrase, interpreting it as follows (quoting myself):
"You can find details
below, but let me just render the my
best interpretation of this phrase in the language with which
anthroposophists are familiar (it will be well worth repeating
in
greater depth later). At the time of great crisis, the
World will
be three times rocked into War. It is the last, the
third event,
which is the most crucial. The outcome of this
third event
(Ahriman's Incarnation) will depend upon the Red Symbol, or
the People
of the Rose-Cross. These People of the Rose-Cross, the True White Brother (true in the
sense of also being awake to the living Being of the Earth
Mother and
the Father in the Sky, as once were all Aboriginal Peoples),
will then
take command, setting the four forces of nature in motion.
These
are the forces of the Four Directions (honored in the Pipe
Ceremony of
the Lakota Sioux), or the Cosmic Ethereal Forces (and their
elemental
servant beings in Nature), which even Steiner recognized when
he laid
the Foundation Stone for the original Goetheanum in the Earth,
and then
later the Foundation Stone Meditation in the hearts of those
who
attended the Christmas Conference.
"All this for the
benefit of the Sun. For this, all
we need to remember is that the Hopi Prophecy originated in a
People
who remembered Atlantis (see below). At the time of
Atlantis,
where was Christ? He was in the Cosmic Sun Sphere!
What then does all this come to mean, especially
given that
the Prophecy also recognizes that this needed work of the True White Brother can fail to
manifest?
"The outcome of the
Third Event - the third time the World
is rocked into War (Ahriman's Incarnation) depends upon the
People of
the Rose-Cross bringing forward a scientifically based
knowledge of the
Ethereal Cosmic Forces, not just in the living aspects of the
sense
world, but in the life of thought itself. Moreover, all
this in
service to the Christ, by announcing His true Second Coming in
the
Ethereal, with all its majesty (a Second Crucifixion, a Second
Resurrection, and a Second Eucharist).
"Are anthroposophists
up to such a task? Apparently
that remains to be seen."
To sum up...
When we unite
the Hopi oral history and
prophecies, with the indications of Rudolf Steiner (as well as
the
various observations regarding the evolution of consciousness
as
described in several of the first essays of this book), we
come upon a
quite exact description of present day times. Native
American
culture (the same in most of the Americas as well) is nearly
destroyed.
The people live, while huge aspects of the culture are
nearly
lost.
Great changes
prowl the world. If
we look both at the stage setting and the invisible inner
world of
soul, we can see that intense transformations are unfolding in
everyone's life - in all biographies. These
transformations take
the form of trials of fire, and the result can be an encounter
with the
Second Eucharist as people seek within to know and do the
good.
Thinking can perceive that this condition will
only deepen
and become richer in the sense that more and more we will not
be able
to live comfortable existences. Life will demand more.
This is the
future we now enter, which
the Hopi call: the
Day
of Purification.
Will the people
of the Rose-Cross find
their way to doing what is right? How many will it take?
Just one or two? Will they find the one or two
Hopi (Native
Americans) still practicing the deepest traditions? Who
will
choose to appreciate and understand just what true spiritual
brotherhood is really about?
Is it possible
to understand the Mystery
of America, and the role of service Anthroposophy is supposed
to play
in this regard, without appreciating the Hopi Prophecy?
How can
it be that in America, where brotherhood is to develop, that
anthroposophists mostly only know how to talk to each other
about these
deep spiritual questions which all of us share?
**************************************
[To the
neophyte: we have so far examined
the roots of the American Soul as that can be found in the
Native
Peoples. We have also discovered the existence there of
a well
known Prophetic Tradition, that would seem to strongly suggest
that
Anthroposophy (the True White Brother) was expected to arrive in America just at the
time of
gravest crisis, not only for the Hopi, but for the whole
world.
What graver time could there be than the time which
follows the
earthly work of Ahriman's incarnation?
The whole world
lies on the brink of
social chaos, a process greatly accelerated by Ahriman
himself.
What is it that anthroposophical spiritual science is to
do in
the face of this almost overpowering social catastrophe?
In order to
answer this question, it will
help if we first make an honest assessment of what skills
anthroposophists already possess that might be of use.
Let me
remind the reader here of the tasks that were not accomplished
in the
20th Century, and thus remain undone. Perhaps they show
the
direction we can take. There were three major problems:
A failure
to appreciate and practice the teachings of Steiner's The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity (also known
as the New Thinking); a failure to appreciate and practice the
teaching
of the Reverse Cultus (also known
as the New Mysteries); and, a failure to notice that these
other
failures have led to an intellectualization of the Michaelic
Cosmic Intelligence - the creation
of a weak tea spiritual philosophy most
aptly called: Steinerism.
Before trying
to move forward, let us
first probe deeper at these defects, for the better we
understand them,
the easier it will be to correct them. This leads us
then to:]
Anthroposophy and the Russian Soul
- a lesson from life: instruction for all three world-aspects of
Anthroposophical activity, in the West, the Center and the
East -
introduction
This is a
another essay that wanted to be
written just for this book. I should not have been
surprised, but
I was. In fact, it was on the evening of my 66th
birthday, that
it became my choice to rise or not from bed and write.
Having
trusted such impulses now for many years, how could I refuse.
So,
with a cup of hot chocolate for company, and in the quiet of
the
midnight hour on December 23rd - 24th, 2006, I wrote the first
words of
this essay.
While this
essay was originally set in
the section of the earlier version of this book (Dangerous
Anthroposophy) in the section on Critical
Anthroposophy, it would be an error
to assume that in any way
antipathy is involved here. The only authentic
motive for
writing any of these essays has always been the same - love.
Love
for the object of the thinking, whether it is earthly
personalities,
Anthroposophy itself, America, Rudolf Steiner, or any aspect
of the
Divine Mystery - the motive is the same - love.
It is not a
pleasure, however, to have to
write words that some are certain to consider an unkindness.
Love
is not always easy, as the reader will know. It often
requires of
us difficult tasks. It frequently requires courage, and
without
doubt a willingness to appear foolish, or even to expose ones
own being
to another's excesses of antipathy. However, there are
acts that
must be done, or the soul loses something of itself that in
the
beginning we can only call self-respect, and in the end we
will have to
recognize as a love of the true and the good, at whatever cost
to the I.
main body
In other places
I have written concerning
a man that has to be considered a giant in our work: Sergei O.
Prokofieff. His genius as a reader of Steiner, and his
efforts to
re-ignite our appreciation for the Christmas Conference are
graces of
soul well deserving of our admiration. But, as he
himself said to
me at the Ann Arbor Conference in August 2005, when I spoke to
him for
several minutes regarding the Gordienko book, as well as my
own
thoughts concerning his work: "None of us are perfect".
Now this can be
both a self-serving
observation (an excuse), and something wise as well. I
had asked
him if he was knowledgeable and practiced with regards to
certain texts
and aspects of soul life, and instead of directly replying, he
offered
his comment. In effect, it appears he was saying no in
answer
to my question. Even if we just assume this, we still
have the
wise observation that each of us can be discovered to have
holes in our
character, for he didn't say "I am not....",
he said "None
of us are perfect."
Anthroposophy
is something with which we
all strive, but will probably never fully attain in a single
life time;
and, the questions next to be addressed concern grave matters
of
direction in our Movement and as regards the future of the
Anthroposophical Society. Given the seriousness of the
problem
and the need for the greatest discernment, I ask the reader's
forgiveness for whatever human errors enter into the following
discussion. I would be wrong not to address these matters, and
just as
wrong to assume that I will get all of it right.
In order to
place some context around the
theme of this essay, I have broadened it beyond Prokofieff,
and set out
to include a number of those who work out of the Russian Soul
in their
contributions to the Life of Anthroposophy. Some readers
will
perhaps not consider this important, but Steiner certain did,
for his
considerations of the threefold nature of the world were
numerous and
extensive, sometimes involving whole lecture cycles. In
fact, if
there is a finger pointing to this, it can be found not in the
presence
of deep and wise considerations of the different primary soul
gestures
in the world in modern anthroposophical literature, but rather
in the absence of their discussion among modern
anthroposophists.
These matters are hardly ever discussed in our circles,
which
relegates their perception into the sub-conscious, a soul
place that
frequently subverts our best intentions. It is time to
be honest
and forthright about the fact that not only are none of us
perfect, but
we are quite different in fundamental soul nature, whether we
are of
the East, the Center or the True West.
In America in
particular, we still suffer
greatly from confusion in our circles where Central Europeans
and
Americans work side by side. We remain asleep to the
soul
differences and are unable thereby to effect the consequences
of those
differences. Strife arises, errors of judgment are made,
assumptions practiced. Many Europeans, living strongly
in the
soul gesture which seeks to incarnate the Ideal, as a
consequence don't
actually perceive the soul life of their American brothers and
sisters,
who do
not live in the same soul gesture.
When Americans
imitate this gesture, harm
arises for all of anthroposophical work, for the American is
not a
European. What is sometimes worse, is the habits
European
anthroposophists have fallen into of explaining the spiritual
nature of
Americans to Americans. They are fascinated with us, and
have
thought about us, and written about us (I mentioned above:
Carl
Stegmann's The Other America: the West in the light
of Spiritual
Science; Detrich V. Asten's America's
Way and then F. W. Zeylmans van
Emmichover's America
and Americanism.) To really
appreciate
this, we have to consider what it would feel like to Central
Europeans,
for example, for Americans to go there and lecture them on
their folk
soul characteristics, and the meaning of their lives.
Clearly
this would not be tolerated, for how could someone who doesn't
have
such a soul, really appreciate its depths or its cultural
expressions.
At the same
time, we do know that as
individuals, we learn a great deal about ourselves from
others, and
perhaps this principle has some meaning in terms of folk soul
and
cultural characteristics. It is useful for the American
that the
European wonders about us and expresses his wonder.The reverse
should
also be true. So we should be cautious and not assume
that it is
a black and white situation, for as much as it helps Americans
to find
their reflection in the thoughts of others, we must also
deepen our
self understanding to levels far more penetrating than done so
far.
In fact the whole of this book tries to deal with this
kind of
problem from multiple directions. Here, in this essay, we come
at it
from one more point of view.
The
Anthroposophical Movement and Society
have encountered a number of Russian Souls, of which I will
refer to
four: Valentin Tomberg, Gennady Bondarev, Sergei O. Prokofieff
and
Irina Gordienko. Each has their following among
anthroposophists,
and each is controversial, some more than others.
It is my
observation that the Russian
Soul loves tragedy. I don't mean this in the sense that
this Soul
seeks out tragedy and encourages it, but rather that this Soul
finds
earthly existence to be a veil of tears, which one should not
only
expect, but to a degree embrace. In a way, this Russian
soul -
this soul of the East - is the opposite of the American Soul,
with its
endless romantic belief that all problems have a solution (all
movies
must have a happy ending), and its heart on its sleeve efforts
to
solve, pragmatically and practically, social problems.
Even the most
cursory examination will
reveal that pain of soul when engaged in life is celebrated in
Russian
literature and poetry. This Soul of the East is not yet
very
awake to the Consciousness Soul (toward which the American
Soul has far
better instincts), but bears within and behind its outer
tragic
countenance the dreaming seeds of the Spirit Self - of the 6th
Cultural
Epoch. This embrace of expected suffering builds a
camaraderie
which will ultimately form the basis for that aspect of the
Spirit
Self, which is to find that it can not feel whole unless it
forges true
empathy with the suffering of others.
This dreaming
tragic Soul of the East
then encounters in the Center: Anthroposophy. The
Russian Soul's
deep yearning for the Christ Mysteries (themselves partially
Mysteries
of great suffering) cannot but lead it to the flame of new
spiritual
Life being born in the Center. A powerful hunger to not
only
understand, but to embrace and meet, fills this Soul, and
Anthroposophy
becomes the object of its spiritual passions.
Tomberg, to
begin the examples, arrives
in Dornach (in the early 1930's) where the premature death of
Steiner
has led to the serious internal strife on the Vorstand (which
was
ultimately to lead to the split among the national societies).
Here is spiritual tragedy on a grand scale. Gifted
inwardly
with remarkable genius, Tomberg pours his whole soul into a
striving to
contribute to the struggling Spiritual Scientific Impulse.
His
passions, however, are too much for many in the Center, who
had lived
for a long time with Steiner's, relatively speaking, more
restrained
force of personality. As a consequence, Tomberg makes
enemies,
and by 1939 has been encouraged to leave the Society, which he
does.
Ultimately he finds a place for his genius and his
passion in
what he calls: Christian Hermeticism, yet still carries with
him a
whisper of anthroposophical tragedy, for many in the Movement
and
Society refuse (wrongly) to accept his later work as
spiritually valid.
Because Tomberg
is the more successful in
his spiritual endeavors, it is likewise more difficult to
perceive his
real weaknesses with respect to Anthroposophy. In his
book Meditations
on
the Tarot: a Journey into Christian Hermeticism,
we can find his love of tragedy, as regards
Anthroposophy, further developed into a serious blindness.
He
does not see or recognize in that book Steiner's achievement
as regards
objective philosophical introspection (for details see the
next essay).
Nor does he in this book appreciate Goethe's scientific
works or
the follow on Goethean Science being developed out of
Anthroposophy
(Goetheanism). This is not all he does not see in
Anthroposophy,
and it would seem that his sense of tragedy regarding the fall
of the
Society and its capture by an excess of fascination with the
hierarchies of Evil (a whole other story) has blinded him to
the real
meaning of Anthroposophy in the world. For all the
breadth of
Tomberg's observations of the riches of the spiritual life in
the
Center (as laid out in this book), he was unable (or
unwilling) to
really include in his survey of Western spiritual life the
full nature
of the positive developments of Anthroposophy.
But Tomberg is
not the main lesson here,
so we must move on.
Many years
later, Bondarev follows the
flame of Anthroposophy, and absorbs Steiner's writings as if
he has
spent the early parts of his life in a spiritual desert.
He too
has genius, and becomes a master of Steiner-thought.
Yet,
his Russian Soul finds the world following the second great
war to be
full of tragedy and evil, and applies his anthroposophical
learning to
the task of painting word pictures of this evil in the world
on large
canvasses - books full of anthroposophical terminology.
He
mistakes his passions in a number of cases for truth (not
having
mastered and transformed in his soul the impulses to antipathy
and
sympathy), and offers such a critical view of the Jews and of
the
Holocaust, that the Anthroposophical Society is eventually
forced to
officially reject him.
Not to long
thereafter comes Prokofieff,
who as a youth too senses a great tragedy in the
Anthroposophical
Movement in the form of a general failure of the members to
appreciate,
with his
same passion, the Christmas
Conference.
He too has genius, and like Bondarev absorbs the
writings of
Steiner to a degree few would consider possible. But
this
striving is rooted in a great flaw, to which we will later
return.
Finally comes
Gordienko, who is not only
a contemporary of Prokofieff, she is also rumored to have been
romantically attached to him. The tragedy that
calls to her
is her perception of Prokofieff's fall from grace, and using
her
youthful genius of spirit (she is a mathematical adept in the
field of
topology), she writes an astoundingly detailed book (Sergei
O.
Prokofieff: Myth and Reality)
criticizing
Prokofieff's works, and the Society and Movement in general as
failing
to understand what it means for Anthroposophy to be a science. Shortly
after its publication, she dies alone on
a mountain road, apparently struck by a vehicle that did not
stop.
This then is the movement from the East, from the Russian Soul, as it pours forces perhaps not yet fully in the Consciousness Soul into and onto the Center - the Anthroposophical Movement and Society mostly as it is configured in Europe. Deep passion and openness to the tragedies of life burn in this Soul and direct its light.
What are we to
make of this, if we wish
not to be asleep ourselves to the truth being written here?
Consider for a moment an approach of Goethe, who looked at certain phenomena of nature as representing an archetypal instance worth a thousand - a single gesture of nature which explains much deeper and more general conditions. In this light then let us consider Prokofieff. It is not his personal flaws that are to help us understand something, but rather that particular flaw which is so typical of the Movement and the Society, that in understanding how this arises in Prokofieff, we acquire great insight into the deepest weaknesses of our shared work. His genius makes this typical flaw not only very visible, but the flaw itself becomes a remarkable teaching, and we should be grateful that: "None of us are perfect".
In becoming
aware of this, we also become
aware of how a certain law of karma reveals itself to us.
Many
biographies, in that they stir us to excesses of antipathy or
sympathy,
are in that instance a sacrifice - a gift. The more
public and
outstanding the flaw, the greater the lesson to those who
learn to
observe its truths. Prokofieff, in this sense, then
displays his
flaw (which normally in biographies are usually private) on a
grander
scale, as perhaps a sacrifice chosen before birth, so that not
only do
we learn from each others genius, but we can also learn from
each
others mistakes.
In this way the
Russian Soul then gives
us not only its genius out of its fascination with life's
suffering,
but as well the sacrificial example of its own tragedies and
failings.
What then does Prokofieff teach us out of this
sacrificial and
public display of his own (and our) imperfections?
First, of
course, he teaches this lesson
itself - that grand errors made in biographies also teach.
There
are many public figures in the world toward whom we feel
antipathy (or
an excess of sympathy), who have made similar sacrifices. [See
the
latter part of the essay earlier in this book: The Meaning of...., as well as the discussion concerning Ahriman's
incarnation and the role of his helpers.]
Second, he
confronts us with a personal
question, as to whether we can receive such a lesson without
making the
compounding error to turn his natural feet of clay (which we
all have -
"None
of us are perfect", which by the
way has to
include Steiner) into a reason to question all the rest that
his life
has given. There is a deep challenge here to practice
discernment
- to distinguish the true from the false, the essential from
the
non-essential - in such a way that (to borrow a horrible but
apt
cliche) we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
What then is
Prokofieff's flaw that
teaches, in that it is a weakness so very typical of far too
many
modern day anthroposophists?
It is the
failure to have taken up the
objective philosophical introspective practices of Steiner's The
Theory
of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception and The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (Freedom), with the consequence that we do not
know
how to distinguish in the soul the
difference between belief, understanding and knowledge. [Lest
someone
believe there is no basis for this conclusion, Gordienko's
book
carefully examines the evidence for whether Prokofieff knows
the philosophical material, whether he knows
Goetheanism or whether he knows the
Consciousness Soul.
The result of her examination is that he does not know
any of
these quite important matters of soul life. In addition,
during
my conversation with him in Ann Arbor, I specifically asked
him if he
felt he knew these matters. I explained Gordienko's
views, and my
own views (made on the basis of reading his book on Tomberg).
After which I asked him directly if he knew these three
(the
scientific philosophical introspection, Goetheanism and/or the
Consciousness Soul), to which question he replied: "None of us are
perfect".]
When this
confusion about the difference
between belief, understanding and knowledge is coupled with the
ongoing idolatry (excess of sympathy) regarding Steiner-said,
the
result is a religion of Steinerism,
full of dogmas that
are never questioned and seldom even understood.
Prokofieff then
becomes, as far too many also have become, a mere theologian of Steinerism, and not a true practitioner of Anthroposophy
(the New
Thinking) or the New Mysteries, both rooted in the highest
impulses of
science.
Many
anthroposophist have devoted hours
upon hours (totaling perhaps years of their lives) to the
reading of
Steiner's books and lectures. Few appreciate, however,
the
consequences for the soul of filling it to the brim with the
thoughts
of a single individual, without developing the conscious
ability to
stand in relationship to such a enormous world view in an
independent
(free) and objective fashion. The soul drowns in such a
excess of
concepts, and the I is unable to breath freely in such an
atmosphere,
flooded as it is with almost nothing but undigested and weakly
understood words from Steiner. This is not to suggest at
all that
we not pay attention to Steiner. On the contrary, we
need to pay
the most careful attention, but at the same time recall that
Steiner
said in the last sentence of the original preface to The
Philosophy
of Freedom, that we can end up in
bondage to an idea.
What is worse
is that this defect in the
introspective discernment of our own soul activity causes our
work to
acquire an excess of either of what we ourselves call the
luciferic or
the ahrimanic. Prokofieff, already full of Russian
passion for
tragedy, writes frequently out of luciferic flights of fantasy
and a
vague mysticism, such that the gold he does produce is buried
under a
burden of excesses of concepts - flocks of ungrounded thoughts
(long
long books), when what might have been much more useful was a
few tight
lines of verse (his best book by far, on Forgiveness, is quite
short).
Some others in
our Movement, suffering
the same inability to distinguish belief, understanding and knowledge, reduce Steiner to
rigid rules of conduct, giving to the public face of
Anthroposophy the
ahrimanic tendency to dogmatic moral judgments, such that
drives others
to think we are nothing more than a fundamentalist cult.
Yet, such
gestures within the Movement
and Society are not without their higher purpose, for the
Russian Soul
calls out to the American Soul - the East calls across the
Center to
the true West. This then brings forward that earthly
pragmatic
Consciousness Soul sensibility of Americans, as the right
counter-balance to the dreamy, mystical and somewhat premature
flirtation with the Spirit Self that Prokofieff unwisely
promotes.
[This essay and
this book may more be
read in America than elsewhere. If American
Anthroposophists take
up these indications, then much will be set right in the
Movement and
Society as the 21st Century continues to unfold.]
Even so, we now
need to address what it
means that so many do not appreciate in practice the
difference between
belief,
understanding and knowledge, for
this is the
typical state of soul of most anthroposophists, for which
Prokofieff is
being offered as the archetype. [the following was written
Christmas
Morning, 2006, when I found time to return to this work]
The core
question is to what extent do we
have self knowledge of how concepts arise in the soul.
If this
self knowledge were easy to come to, it would not have been
necessary
for Steiner to write his books on objective (scientific)
philosophical
introspection. At the same time, there is an initial
decision
that has to be taken, and that is the decision to
self-observe.
Merely reading the books, A
Theory
of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception or The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (Freedom) is
not enough. We
have
to be willing to become objective as we look within.
For the human
being to have knowledge, they must be
able to unite in the soul two elements of
soul life: the experience (the percept) and the thought (the
concept).
In the absence of the experience (the percept) there is
no knowledge. To read about Michael, or Christ, is
quite
different from having an experience of
either.
Reading may lead to understanding,
but only experience can lead to knowledge (in
the sense Steiner
has used this term).
The true study
and practice of The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (Freedom) is
to lead to a practical appreciation of monism, not just its
idea.
[Monism in the sense being used here means that for
every
experience there is an Idea - a Being. Gravity, for example, is not an
abstract force due to mass, but rather the will of Cosmic
Beings.
On the simplest level this means that for every object
of
experience there is a corresponding complex of concepts or an
Idea.
Experience and thought are two sides of one coin.]
The 19th
Century left behind a strong
residue of materialism in philosophical thought, such that it
was held
that the human being could not know "the
thing in itself".
Steiner showed how to discover in ones own
experience, that thought bears within itself the inside of its object.
Thought can know
"the thing in itself." But this does not happen
automatically.
It is not a given aspect of thought, but comes only into
being if
the I itself calls it forth, and this calling is an inner act that is essentially moral in
nature
(thus The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity speaks
so
exactly of moral imagination, moral intuition and moral
technique).
Most of what is
read by those reading
Steiner produces only concepts (thought), without the related
percepts
(experience). This means that when we read, for example,
about
the various incarnations of the Earth in Occult
Science:
an outline, we do not acquire knowledge, as we lack the relevant experience. It is
also
possible we have not intensely enough read the material, or
worked it
over, so that the concepts we do create out of reading the
text are a
kind of weak tea in relationship to the concepts we could
create were
we to be more active inwardly.
If we are
sufficiently active inwardly
(consciously awake to our recreation of the pictures, instead
of
passive) during the concept formation process of reading, the
deeper
will these texts (such as Occult
Science: an outline) give us understanding. If we read carefully the introductory material
to both Occult
Science: an outline and Theosophy (for example) we will find there that Steiner
repeatedly
uses the term understanding and never
uses there the word knowledge. Only
in the books on objective philosophical
introspection does he use the word knowledge in the particular way a practical monism
requires.
With the fall
from grace of the Society
and Movement that followed Steiner's death and then the
internal wars
on the Vorstand leading to the split in the Society, it slowly
became
an unquestioned habit of soul for many to act as if the
reading of a
Steiner text gave knowledge. People
began to treat the texts as a source of
spiritual knowledge, such that
recently I heard a lecture given by the head
of the pedagogical section of the School of Spiritual Science
that had
this phrase: "We
know through Rudolf Steiner that...".
This
sentence cannot be true. It could be said: "we might understand
through
Rudolf Steiner that...", but not
that we know.
Real knowledge never comes through
another, but only out
of our own activity such that we are able to unite experience
(percept)
and thought (concept), which is a major reason why Steiner
repeatedly
insisted we not use him as an authority (the
other major
reason is that we are not to make our thinking dependent on
him,
otherwise we are not free).
What this
social process (the almost universal
assumption that a reading of a Steiner text provides
knowledge) means is that not only
have we failed to appreciate the
true value of these texts for enlivening our understanding, but we may have allowed this material to enter
the soul
as mere belief. In this way then the teachings of
Spiritual
Science become in the soul religious - not scientific,
which is why I have been forced to use the term Steinerism to describe this system of beliefs.
This process
also has led to the intellectualization of
the Michaelic Cosmic Intelligence given by Steiner,
but that is a theme better related elsewhere.
This problem is
exacerbated by the habits
of conduct within the institutional social forms of the
Society and
Movement, wherein the books about objective philosophical
introspection
are read, but not practiced (if they were practiced, we'd get
a whole
different kind of activity out of the Vorstand and Councils).
Instead people seem to concentrate on the Six Exercises and Knowledge
of Higher Worlds. This
substitution
will not achieve the same inner result. It is the
Vorstand itself
that tolerates the fall from grace that has made of Spiritual
Science a
system of beliefs. And it
is Prokofieff, with his Russian mystical
passions who has made vast aspects of Spiritual Science into Steinerism in his soul and released it over our Society and
Movement filled with a hypnotizing beauty and power not unlike
that of
Lucifer.
So that we may
be clear about this, let
me state it quite plainly: Much of what Prokofieff writes and
teaches
is not true, not knowledge and not based on understanding.
Those
who read his works and treat them in the same way they already
treat
Steiner, have just added another layer of mere belief
(Steinerism has
become Prokofieffism). For details, as to what
Prokofieff
misrepresents that Steiner wrote and spoke, read Gordienko's
book.
Absent the
profound, necessary and
intimate understanding of his own soul-life through
introspection,
Prokofieff teaches a Lucifer-like visionary Steinerism (a near ecstatic system of mere beliefs), and has set himself up as its chief
theologian.
This is what Gordienko discovered, which is why she
criticized
anthroposophists in general for their failure to be
scientific, and
Prokofieff in particular in that his luciferic visionary and
mystical
mixture of beliefs
and
understanding that falsify
what Steiner actually
taught. [Gordienko, by the way, demonstrates considerably more
self-understanding via introspection, than did her countryman,
Prokofieff, which is what enables her book, Sergei
O.
Prokofieff: Myth and Realty, to be
so
essentially sound. This is evident from the descriptions
of her
approach in her book.]
This problem is
made all the more
difficult, in that much of what Prokofieff gives is filled
with some
degree of understanding (but
seldom, if ever, knowledge), which is
why it resonates so strongly with the
membership, who share this confusion of understanding mixed with belief.
With all of them
lacking the needed deep introspective knowledge of their own
souls, the
result is that the vast majority of the Society and Movement
are unable
to distinguish that which in Prokofieff's theological
teachings of Steinerism is true from
that which is false in the understanding, or to separate out what is mere belief.
Some may assert
to themselves: I
understand myself. I know myself, Wendt is a nut job!
Obviously I cast a wide net here. At the same
time,
thinking which has come to know itself,
also recognizes
when such thinking is absent in another, or when our
institutional
leaders speak and behave in ways that essentially demonstrate
they do
not know, in a practical fashion, what is to be learned
by a many
years practice of the science of objective philosophical
introspection.
The proof is not to be found in any ones assertions.
It only appears in deeds. The New Thinking
leads to
inner and outer action, and is not a mere thought-content.
As Steiner predicted, karma will hold sway. What was sown in the 20th Century is now being reaped. Further, as he also predicted in The Challenge of the Times, there would come a time when the East would come to discover and to regret its own tragic failures in that its over-reaching into the Center actually harmed the spiritual life of that Center.
Is it the point
of this essay to blame
Prokofieff for this? Not really. He entered an
anthroposophical social environment which had already fallen
away from
its scientific principles. He was taught an unscientific
standard
of the practice of Anthroposophy, as this unscientific
standard had
already taken possession of the Society and Movement.
When he
offered his first work (Rudolf
Steiner and the New Mysteries) in
his late
twenties, he was not met with the same skeptical resistance as
was
Tomberg, whose first offerings were at age 31-33. In
Tomberg's
case, Marie Steiner had insisted that Tomberg violated a
spiritual law
(attributed to Steiner) that said one could not teach original contributions to Spiritual Science before age
42.
In the case of Prokofieff, this assertion seems never to
have
been made, perhaps in part because so many are unconsciously
confused
as to what in Prokofieff's writings is original and what is derivative.
I doubt even
Prokofieff could separate out his beliefs and understandings that are
rooted
in what he has read in Steiner, and those original thoughts that arose in his own soul. There is no
evidence
he has produced his vast corpus of work with the necessary
degree of
self awareness.
Another way to
appreciate this, but which
requires some self observation, is to recognize in our own
minds the
nature of associative thinking. This is a kind of
thinking that
is normal and characteristic of our time, in which we (without
any
discipline) allow concepts to move more or less of their own
accord
into various new groupings. For example, one can read
something
on one Steiner book, and then another thing in a different
text.
Following this we join these two (beliefs, or weak tea
understandings) together, that is we bring about their association.
Because we do
this without any real self
awareness or discipline, we don't notice that the product of
bringing
these two concepts into association is a third concept, the
result as
it were of a kind of conceptual intercourse. In forming
this
association, rooted in two different experiences, in two
different
texts, of concepts drawn from Rudolf Steiner, we have made
something
that can be entirely fictional.
The joining
(the association) makes sense
to us, because our associative activity does function with a
kind of
instinctive logic and intelligence, but this satisfaction of
our
instinct cannot be a basis for believing the resulting
associative
thought is true. We will hear each other express this in
our
group work, where someone says something on the order of: "I imagine that ...". This is a sign to us that the speaker
has made a
semiconscious association of two or more separate facts
understood or
believed from the works of Rudolf Steiner. Were a
natural
scientist to speculate in this fashion, they would be soundly
criticized.
We find a lot
of what is written and said
in the Society and Movement, and certainly in Prokofieff, to
be rooted
in this unscientific associative speculation. Prokofieff
(and us)
simply cannot author sentences about higher spiritual
realities solely
because we read something in Steiner. We have no
experience which
justifies us in pretending to this higher knowledge.
Also with
respect to Prokofieff's works,
just consider and contrast that work with the work of Jessiah
Ben-Aharon, as appeared one after the other in the book: The
Future
is Now: Anthroposophy at the New Millennium.
First in order
in this book, was
Prokofieff's essay, The End of
the Century and the Tasks of the Anthroposophical Society. This essay was largely confusing and
rambling,
with its main focus a kind of self justification for
Prokofieff's
already favorite theme, The Christmas Conference. Again
and again
Prokofieff urges us to believe what he believes, namely that
from the
spiritual world one can hear today (suggesting he himself
hears) "...this call of the Guardian of
the Threshold, this voice from the land of the spirit sounding
to us
from the entire esoteric essence of the Christmas
Conference..." such that this "...leads a person to
actually laying the Foundation Stone
in his heart, ...".
Without doubt
a most wonderful sentiment, but is it the truth?
Clearly these
thoughts are the result of
loose associative thinking propelled by Prokofieff's
semi-conscious
Russian mystical passions. Moreover, these are typical
of a kind
of religious, unscientific thinking common in the Society and
Movement.
Contrast this
then with Ben-Aharon's
essay that immediately followed : The
Global
Situation at the End of the Century.
Here we read that a true development* of the "...way to higher
worlds,
brings one to the time-place in which Rudolf Steiner and the
anthroposophical work was striving to enter rightly into world
evolution in 1922/3/4/5. This place-of-time, this very
specific
sought-for entrance (though not, of course, the eternally
relevant content of the First Class)
is
wholly past. Its place has been taken by subsequent
esoteric and
exoteric history".
*[Ben-Aharon
established his
developmental credentials with his remarkable The
Spiritual
Event of the Twentieth Century, a
most amazing three panel Imaginative Cognition of the Second
Coming, as
well as his book The New
Experience of the Supersensible.]
One says turn
to the Christmas Conference
and follow me for I know its value for the present, and the
other
clearly says that "This
place
in time...is wholly past. Its place has been taken by
subsequent esoteric and exoteric history."
We could ask ourselves whether the Christmas Conference,
shortly
to be followed by the death of Steiner and then the Vorstand's
descent
into disarray, can in any way have the same esoteric
significance for
the 20th Century as the Second Coming of Christ in the
Ethereal.
Prokofieff
writes and writes and writes
huge long books preaching the Christmas Conference as the main
spiritual and esoteric heart of the 20th Century, becoming a
star in
the tiny firmament of the Anthroposophical Society, while
Ben-Aharon
writes very little, and does far more in the contemporary
world of
activists and members of Civil Society, living his life in the
quite
dangerous world of Israel. Who do you think knows more
about the
esoteric truth of the 20th Century?
It is a fair
question to ask how I know
what is asserted here, concerning the nature of belief, understanding and knowledge. The simple
fact is that the confused mixture of belief and understanding (as well
as the
problem of loose associative thinking) was also taught to me
by the
social environment through which I meet the Society and
Movement.
My own soul, in its efforts to imitate what it assumed
was a
healthy anthroposophical practice, eventually found itself
lost and in
prison - captured by the excess of not-experienced
(percept-less)
concepts. Further, I had also assumed (incorrectly) that
my
fellow anthroposophists took the science of objective
philosophical
introspective teachings seriously. As a result, I had to
learn to
untangle this confusion of belief, understanding and
knowledge (as well as undisciplined
associative thinking) on my own, for the Society and Movement
knew
not this problem or its significance. Otherwise, we
would be
taught these dangers from the beginning, instead of being feed
the
so-called basic
books, and have modeled for us in
lecture
after lecture the approach that essentially teaches that
Steiner has
given us knowledge.
As a result,
Prokofieff is as much a
creature of the anthroposophical community that accepted
uncritically
his youthful Russian passions, as he is the victim of those
same
passions. The two unscientific impulses, one social and
surrounding and the other inward and unfolding, married each
other,
with the result that the Vostand accepts and supports beliefs mixed in a confusing fashion with understanding, all the while ignorant of the real necessity
for knowledge. [The following was written after
attending Mass
late on Christmas Day. Why do I go to Mass, by the way?
Am
I another anthroposophist seduced by Tomberg into joining the
Church? I
go there, every once in a while, because Christ is always
there (as He
told me He would be - see my book the
Way of
the Fool), and it is a wondrous
experience to
open the soul in prayerful meditation in the social
environment in
which the Mass is celebrated.]
Is there a way out for anthroposophists as regards the problem of learning to distinguish in the soul mere belief, from true understanding and both of these from real knowledge?
Oddly enough
the way out is Faith.
The soul is not meant to only be of the Kings and of
Gnosis, but
also of the Shepherds and of Faith. We are entitled to
have Faith
in the New Revelations of Christ given to us in the form of
anthroposophical Spiritual Science as taught by Rudolf
Steiner, as long
as we are conscious of this acceptance and do not mistake, as
an
experience and activity within our own souls, what is mere belief for true understanding or either of
those for real knowledge.
What does this
mean in practice for both
the individual and the group?
For the
individual this requires of us an
introspective observation of our own soul life, in order to
with almost
brutal self-honesty admit that we are acting as if we know
something, when in fact we may only believe it, and/or may not entirely understand it. We have to carefully and with
discernment,
tease apart the collection of concepts we hold concerning the
spiritual
and its relationship to the material. We have to
honestly ask
ourselves: What do I in fact know?
What do I have that
is both concept and percept (experience and thought) united?
What cannot
pass that first test, which
for most will be almost everything they ever read in a Steiner
text, we
have next to more carefully examine. Of this large
collection of
concepts, we then need to ask what do I hold as mere belief (all of which should be held at a distance from
the I,
in order to not be imprisoned by the concept: "One must be able to
confront
an idea and experience it; otherwise one will fall into its
bondage." R.S. The
Philosophy
of Freedom), and what then finally
remains that I can honestly say I understand of what Steiner gave. This then we can draw
nearer,
and contemplate carefully. Yet, in this last category
there again
may well be little, for understanding
in the sense that
it was offered to us by Steiner requires inner activity and
not mere
passive reading.
As to the
group, when we do this it will also become necessary to change
the
social environment of the Society and Movement itself. We need to introduce into our
shared vocabulary these three words: belief, understanding and knowledge. We need to
speak in
this way to each other with modesty, and admit that this which
we have
read I believe, this which we have
read I understand, and of this which
we have read I do or do not have knowledge.
Only in this
way will Prokofieff's
sacrifice, so as to model our most fallen ways, serve our
need.
It is not Prokofieff who needs change as much as us.
The
fallen nature of the Society and Movement cannot be redeemed
by those
in the institutional hierarchies, but only from below out of
the social
commons where the New Mysteries are meant to be practiced in
the Branch
and Group work (via the reverse cultus).
*
Let us finish
this contemplation by
adding one more nuance. As we have come to understand,
real
knowledge, as conceived by Steiner and as is potential in the
soul,
requires the union of experience (percept) and thought
(concept).
Yet, in the literature of Anthroposophy, in part as a
result of
certain necessities faced by Rudolf Steiner and today as often
practiced (especially by Prokofieff), we have an excess of concepts for which we have little real
experience.
This excess of
concepts really needs to
become grounded in experience, otherwise it floats free of the
earthly
element of life (becomes luciferic).
In the East,
where the ancient mysteries
of Light were produced, the soul finds its more natural state
above the
Earth. Gautama Buddha sought and achieved Nirvana - the
Way of
Enlightenment - the leaving behind of the cycle of
reincarnations for
the surrender of ego to the experience of the heights.
The East
elaborates its intercourse with the Divine via this
Enlightenment into
profound pictures of Cosmic Existence, which then have slowly
become
remarkable systems
of
belief. For the East, the
belief in
Cosmic Truth alone is the center of the spiritual element of
earthly
existence, while freedom from the wheel of karma is the
ultimate goal.
The Russian Soul bears an aspect of this impulse within,
thus its
tendency to religious mysticism.
In the Center,
where the ancient
mysteries of Man found a home in the social life of Western
Civilization, the striving to fully leave behind earth
existence is
tempered by the Way of Initiation, which seeks to bring down
from the
heights into earthly social life, via Art, an understanding of the
Divine
Mystery. Here the Ideal is sought to be comprehended,
and then to
the extent possible, incarnated. All is to be made into
Beauty.
(which is why so many of Steiner's lectures and books
are really works of art, with some of the deepest truths
rendered into verse
- the Calender of the Soul, and drama
- the Mystery Plays.) Think also of the remarkable
Statue of the
Representative of Humanity.
In the true
West, under a whispering
influence of very ancient mysteries of the Earth (the Saturn
Mysteries), social life is most fully sought to be realized in
practical ways. Science as a means of knowledge takes root quite easily here.
Enlightenment and
Initiation are less important, and the center of earthly
social life is
found in character, which is what becomes the founding ideal
impulse of
the United States of America - the citizen as incarnated
Virtue, or Goodness.
So we have then
in the poetic vision of
the song America the Beautiful, a
profound truth expressed in these words: "...and crown thy good
with
brotherhood...". It is out of
this
striving for earthly virtue that union with all other humans
flows as
an impulse into earthly social existence, first appearing most
strongly
in America, and now reaching across the Center, from the true
West, and
toward the East. In spite of the wanderings and flaws of
politicians, the true West wants to Love the Center and the
East, yet
only out of its own - pragmatic and earthly - genius; that is:
because
of the Goodness of such Love. It is in this spirit that
this essay
was written. [For hints on the New (as contrasted with ancient) Mysteries of the Earth, see the next essay.]
*****************************************
[for the
neophyte: let us continue on
this theme of deepening our understanding of anthroposophical
work in
practice, looking now more toward the future.]
This essay, was written just for this book during the Holy Nights,
2006-2007,
after Christmas had passed.
The New, and profoundly
human, Mysteries of the Earth
Many years ago,
in 1919 to be exact,
Rudolf Steiner gave some lectures on the Cosmic New Year, in
which he
elaborated on three somewhat ancient mystery streams: The
Mysteries of
Light (from the East via Greek civilization); The Mysteries of
Man
(from the South via the Egyptian civilization) and the
Mysteries of the
Earth (from the North via the Scandinavian Peoples).
These three
mysteries combined in a way in the social order of Central
Europe.
[An significant discussion of this can be found on Bob
and
Nancy's Waldorf website (bobnancy.com), by going to their
section on Anthroposophy, and then
within that section to the translators corner and there to the essay: Kraft,
the
Passive Voice and the Three Mystery Streams.]
Since the time
in which Rudolf Steiner
gave those lectures something new happened - the
Second
Coming. The older mystery
streams had come into being via an older initiate
consciousness and in
hierarchical (top down) social form, but with the
Second
Coming and the deepening of the Age
of
the Consciousness Soul, the moral authority of the individual
is
beginning to discover its sure capacity for creating new
social form. Something is surging upward from the social
commons,
albeit stronger and sooner in America. On a world-wide
level,
Civil Society has entered into world affairs and begun to
successfully
challenge the hidden aristocracy of concentrated wealth.
Might it be possible, perhaps even necessary, to speak of New Mysteries of Light and of Man and of the Earth? This essay means to suggest this, without forcing the matter. The reader, who wants to know, should weight this question in their own active soul [for a better sense of this term - active soul, see the quote from Emerson in the next essay.].
I have thought,
for example, that it
would be wise to think of Rudolf Steiner's work as fostering
in the
Center the
New Mysteries of Man. Such that as these impulses radiate out
into the
world, the East will out of its own intuitions foster the New Mysteries of Light,
and the true West (the Americas) would foster out of
its own intuitions the New Mysteries of the
Earth.
Steiner
sometimes called Anthroposophy the wisdom of man.
He also created books such as The
Study
of Man and Man
as
Symphony of the Creative Word.
Most
crucially, he begins the panels of the
Foundation
Stone Meditation: "Soul of Man!"
America, as
expressed earlier in this
book, is to have its own version of Anthroposophy, as remarked
by
Steiner in his lectures to the workman at the Goetheanum.
What
could be meant by such a statement? What could be meant
by the
New Mysteries of the Earth?
I have
suggested in previous essays the
need in America for the New Sun Mysteries to marry the very
ancient
Saturn Mysteries. This is not marriage in the sense we
think of
as a social form created of two separate individual human
beings, but
marriage in the sense of individual inward mystical union.
Those
who have read Ben-Aharon's The
Spiritual Event of the Twentieth Century (the
Imagination of the Second Coming), will be aware that this
Event is
described as the birth of a New Sun in the Earth.
In my essay on
The
Meaning of Earth Existence in the Age of the Consciousness
Soul, I described the moral act
leading to individual human
knowledge of the Good as an ethereal Eucharist - a second Eucharist,
which begins that process of creating the New
Jerusalem, the future ethereal Jupiter incarnation of the
Earth.
The Hopi
Prophecies conceive (from their
point of view) of this marriage of Sun and Saturn Mysteries as
a
meeting between two once separated brothers - two bearers of
what was
once a united wisdom, leading to the inauguration of
what they
call: The
Day of
Purification.
I have also
suggested that Anthroposophy
was to take its mostly earthly social form in America.
As the reader should now be able to see, there is a common tread weaving in all of these themes, or perhaps a central idea, seen from many different perspectives.
The American
finds himself on the Earth
faced with trials of a social nature (a call from the surround
of his
biography) requiring moral actions in the world. As the
Consciousness Soul Age moves through the present birth trial
of the
beginning of the 21st Century, an increasing chaos in the
social will
force moral choice upon almost everyone in Western
Civilization.
As this transformation spreads throughout the world it
will seek
to dissolve the remaining social traditions throughout that
same
world still binding the I to the group soul.
This does not
mean that there are no
Consciousness Soul gestures in the wider world, only that more
people
are coming to this sooner in the Western Democracies. At
the same
time in the wider world, especially where we see Civil Society
and the
like, we see the Consciousness Soul emerging.
Most social
forms will expire, under the
pressure of the still increasing chaos (it will end after a
time, when
the metamorphosis of Western Civilization reaches a new
steady-state).
During this process, communities will either dissolve
completely
or collapse into some seed-like form, and this includes all
those
social forms in the Anthroposophical Society and Movement.
Social
tradition will be of no avail. Deep will then be the
hunger for
new social form - for wise social form - for new and more
conscious
understanding of the nature and structure of community in this
Age
(this hunger too can be found emerging everywhere). The
egotism
of the I is to be made to face its choices to accept moral
trials (or
not) as an individual; and, to be offered the opportunity to join with
others in
new ways. These possibilities and potentials are given
to us by
Christ as the Artist (Lord) of Karma through the manner in
which
individual biographies are woven into communities.
Recall once
more what Christ said in
Matthew 10:34-40: Do
not
think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not
come to
bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man
against
his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a
daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law; and a man's foes will be those in
his own
household. He who loves father or mother more than me is
not
worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more that me is
not
worthy of me; and he who does not take his cross and follow me
is not
worthy of me. He
who
finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my
sake
will find it. He who receives you receives me, and he
who
receives me receives him who sent me. [emphasis
added]
On the other
side of this process, of the
breaking down of traditional community all the way into the
family, we
will have the choice to form new bonds (new social forms) as
free
individuals.
Some
anthroposophists will seek to root
such new social forms in Steiner's ideas about threefolding.
While this gesture is not entirely unworthy, it assumes
there is
a power to be found there that factually cannot be found
there.
Social life is immensely complicated, and we are far
from even
knowing what the best questions are, much less drawing near to
discovering useful and practical answers.
But a wise
Providence does not ignore our
need. The Saturn Peoples of the Americas were not only
stewards
of the lands on which they lived lightly, but they have also
kept
faithful care of deep and profound wisdom regarding social
forms and
needs. The humanity went to the East from Atlantis had
slowly
sacrificed its ancient social wisdom in order to produce a new
partial
wisdom (natural science and the flirtation with the forces of
death -
see Steiner's From
Symptom to Reality in Modern History)
leading
to the birth of individuality and ego consciousness. The
humanity
that remained in the true West of the Americas, sacrificed
that same
potential for an early individuality and ego consciousness, in
order to
preserve their partial aspect of the deepest social wisdom.
Recall what was written earlier about the broken stone
tablets in
the Hopi Prophecy - two parts to the ancient wisdom - one
going to the
East from Atlantis, the other to the West.
In order not to
confuse what is being
said here, the suggested mystical union between the ancient
Saturn
Mysteries and the New Sun Mysteries takes place in the
individual soul,
not in an institutional sense. It is entirely a
consequence of
individual free spiritual choices. No one commands such
work be
done, nor can any group or individual insist it not be done.
Only
the individual, out of their work in the social commons, can
author and
source this union in their individual way.
Just as those
coming to the New Sun
Mysteries have read Steiner and met with many of the Daughter
Impulses,
so the ancient Saturn social Mysteries can be read of and met.
Throughout Civil Society, for example, the influence of
aboriginal peoples is seen everywhere. The union of the
New
Thinking with the ancient social wisdom, as it takes place in
individual souls, produces something new, and is already
active where
people are waking up.
The influence
already of that ancient
social wisdom on the American Articles of Confederation and
the U. S.
Constitution is well known. And, when we look at the
poetic
inspiration of the song America
the Beautiful, we
arrive
at: "...and
crown
thy good with brotherhood...".
The moral freedom of the fully developed ego
consciousness of the
human being is now bringing about the ability to unite the I
within the
soul with the eternal - that is with the Good, while at the
same time
this reaching for goodness is meant to be the soul and spirit
foundation for true brotherhood - for the new healthy social life.
It is no
accident of history that America
exists, or that the roots of the American Soul are in the
Aboriginals
here. It is no accident of history that the
individualism that is
the ripe fruit of Western Civilization has emerged most
prominently
where the memory - where the spirit recollection - of the
oldest social
truths has left its mark. It is no accident of history
that the
Hopi Prophecy exists to help point the way.
Nor, sadly,
is it any accident of
history that the vain spiritual imperialism of an idealistic
shadow
captured European spiritual life seeks to impose its personal
karma of
wounds in opposition to this potential. This is not, by
the way,
a consequence solely of Europeans. This spiritual
imperialism is
the semi-conscious, shadow driven, effect of flaws of both
European
anthroposophists and American anthroposophists. Ahriman
wants to
keep Anthroposophy in American lame, and works from within
outwards,
through the shadow, toward this goal.
Europeans
contribute to this process by
assuming their soul idealism is common to other souls in the
threefold
world. Americans contribute by their worship of European
culture,
while ignoring American culture. Both contribute by
their
absorption in the three basic flaws of the 20th Century: the
failure to
grasp the personal significance of The Philosophy of Freedom,
the
failure to grasp the community significance of the Reverse
Cultus, and
the common descent into the intellectualization of the Cosmic
Michaelic
Intelligence.
The needed
Marriage of the New Sun
Mysteries and the Ancient Saturn Mysteries is vehemently
opposed by
that Spiritual Power, which would define the world of human
meaning
through continuing the Ahrimanic Deception beyond its true
place in the
evolution of consciousness. This Power would also seek
to rule
the coming social order out of a corrupted American military
and
economic might. This battle, between the European soul
idealism
and the pragmatic natural spirituality of Americans, within
the
Anthroposophical Society in America, is as a result profoundly
relevant
to world events and decisions. In a very real sense,
this battle
here to free the American Soul to find its true inner calling
is at the
very heart of future world events.
The world
economy, under the forces we
call globalization, has reached a certain stage of
development.
At the same time, with the dawning of the first century
of the
Third Millennium the Lords of Finance* - the
aristocracies of concentrated wealth - are having an
increasingly
difficult time ruling the world with the same degree of
license as they
had for most of the 20th Century.
The American
People are central to the
next steps to be taken in world historical events, which is
why
Ben-Aharon wrote: America's
Global Responsibility: individuation, initiation and
threefolding.
The Dark Powers
went out of their way at
the beginning of the 21st Century to bring about the
crucifixion of the
American Dream in the minds and hearts of the world's peoples.
It
was important to these Powers to falsely represent America
more and
more as a deranged and degenerate society, and to accomplish
thereby as
much as possible the ruination of this needed
imagination of the Beacon of Hope in the
minds of the poor and disenfranchised the world
over.
These same
Powers, by also encouraging a
shadow driven European spiritual imperialism, have also lamed
the
American Anthroposophical Society. They want to hold at
bay the
new Life Forces of Christ from entering into the course of
world events
in the way it is possible for them to do if the awake Marriage
of the
New Sun Mysteries and the Ancient Saturn Mysteries can be
brought about
in individual souls. They also desperately need to keep
the
future development of the world economy from being confronted
in
America by these same new goodness-filled Life forces of
Christ - Life
forces seeded directly in the yet unrealized potential of the New
(living heart) Thinking and the New Mysteries
(the reverse cultus).
This potential
power of individual moral
freedom is the gravest danger to an emerging new form
of ahrimanic group soul via the demands for Corporate
allegiance, which
seeks to ensnare the moral nature of the I by seducing that I
with
extraordinary material (sense world) rewards. It is this
that
stands behind all the effort expended to repress this moral
Life's
emergence, through the very subtle inner misdirection of the
Anthroposophical Movement in America. This misdirection
does not
come from without, but from within, through our failures to
recognize
and practice: the New Thinking; the true Nature of the New
Mysteries
(the reverse cultus); and, the slow and necessary mastery of
the
reality of the threefold double-complex and its influence on
our shared
spiritual life.
While it is true that this Marriage of ancient Saturn Mysteries and the New Sun Mysteries is already instinctively happening in Civil Society, and in such groups as the Bioneeers, here we must be concerned with the very sleepy American Anthroposophical Society, whose task it was to bring in these new Life forces of Christ in a more awake way.
In the face
then of these awesome and
crucial challenges in the present conditions of the world,
what will
the anthroposophists in America, and world-wide, do?
They are supposed to know of the
New Thinking, of the potential for the
New Mysteries out of the Social Commons of Branch and Group
work via
the Reverse Cultus and of the returning understanding of the
need for
human beings to take up the personal battles with the Shadow
in the
Soul. This is dangerous knowledge,
for it is
a truth at odds with present day social norms, especially
secular
humanism, scientific materialism and religious fundamentalism.
In
a time when certain secular humanists attack Waldorf Pedagogy
and try
to equate Steiner's folk soul teachings with National
Socialism, and
when Science and Religion fight over the meaning of evolution,
and when
humanity hungers and needs new insight and revelation, one has
to
wonder where the needed Michaelic Courage, to present to the
world this
dangerous
knowledge, is hiding out.
The
Anthroposophical Society and Movement
seem to be sitting on the sidelines, watching its collective
navel,
while the great issues of the day are decided by others.
This
does not have to continue. However, for it not to
continue
requires a series of choices, choices that begin with brutal
self
honesty about the real history of the Society and Movement in
the 20th
Century, about the nature of the Mystery of America and about
how well
we are moving forward in the tasks set before us by Rudolf
Steiner with
regards to the New Thinking, the New Mysteries and the shadow
forces in
the soul.
But we
anthroposophists are individuals.
Even our social forms are in
decay. So who will act?
Who will choose? Who will find deeds out of which
to
incarnate the Good that Lives in Anthroposophy? Those
choices,
those deeds, birth for the future something that can come in
no other
way; and, these are social deeds that I can only think to
call, in that
they are meant to emerge from the social commons: The
New,
and profoundly human, Mysteries of the Earth.
America is
uniquely placed to be able to
step into the social life of humanity carrying the essential
nature of
the New Mysteries and the New Thinking in the Branch and Group
work.
Profound premonitions of the reverse cultus exist here. The ancient social wisdom here
rooted
itself in numerous circles of conversation among equals, in kivas
and around campfires. The Transcendentalists intuited
this theme
in their deep recognition of the meaning of friendship.
Circles
of Care arose in Boston in the mid-1800's, birthing the first
sense of
the need for a different approach to the care of the
developmentally
disabled. In 1933, under the inspiration of an encounter
with the
ethereal return of Christ, the impetus was given to the
founding, out
of a circle of friends, of the profound work with the shadow
forces via
Alcoholics Anonymous. In the last half of the 20th
Century we saw
the birth of the group work called: non-violent
communication, born in the American
Soul and becoming world-wide in
scope.
Yet, in the American Anthroposophical Movement, the American Soul is held captive, its major prison built by us in our own souls out of the hard and rigid stones of Steiner-said, coupled with an excessive admiration of things European. American anthroposophists carry now a special capacity and potential, which can be lost if not exercised. Dynamic living spiritual communities hover over our work, waiting. Recall from above these remarks from Ben-Aharon's Imagination of the Second Coming:
"Now when they
identified themselves with the situation of
earthly humanity, the souls who remained true to [Archangel]
Michael
prefigured, in their planetary Earthly-Sun life, the great
Sacrifice of
Christ. They walked again in
His steps
[emphasis added]
as they did in former earthly lives, only now the order of
following
was reversed. They went before Him, showing Him the way,
acting
out of free and self-conscious human decision, and
He
followed in their steps only after they fully united
themselves with
the divided karma of Earth and humanity. Only then
could He
offer His sacrifice as the answer to the new, future question
of human
existence: the question concerning the mission and fate of
evil." Jessiah Ben-Aharon, The
Spiritual
Event of the Twentieth Century [emphasis
added]
The communities
of spirit related to
Michael and Christ wait on our choices. They have
committed
themselves to trusting human beings. We know the reality
of
earthly existence in a way they do not, and to us they look
for
leadership in this time. They honor our freedom above
all else,
and this makes our choices ever more acute and poignant.
I too
wonder: What
will
my fellow anthroposophists do?
Well, I do have
three wishes, if you have
read that essay on my website, so let us end this with that,
for these
are really simple matters.
1) That we
create a true history of our
movement's activity in the 20th Century (spirit recollection);
2) that
we take an deep interest in the Mystery of America as it comes
toward
us out of the future (spirit vision); and, 3) that we stop
saying: Steiner
said (a gesture only possible out
of memory), and instead
begin to share our own in the moment heart thoughts (spirit mindfulness).
These are not
difficult acts, and I can
promise you that where they are carried out, the Opposing
Powers will
back away, forced to make room for the Life forces of Christ
as these
flow into human beings via the Moral Grace that is the Second
Ethereal
Eucharist. Small acts of courage are asked for in these wishes, acts which are
much
needed in the Branches and Groups - the social commons of the
Society
and Movement. Small acts of rebellion are these as well, against the sleepy social
traditions
in which we dream and from which we need to awake. Small
acts,
coming from ordinary people, in celebration of the mystery of
ordinary
consciousness. Small acts of individual first steps
toward the
new heart thinking, birthing in the only way possible the New
Sun
Mysteries as the New,
and profoundly human, Mysteries of the Earth.
More than
anything, these small acts of
moral courage are the most profound spiritual power that can
enter our
circles. It is not inspiration from above we need as
much as
inspiration from out of the social commons of a shared
struggle to
birth the New Thinking and the New Mysteries in the Chalice
of
the Reverse Cultus.
Visualize now,
for a moment, Raphael's
Madonna and Child. Here obviously portrayed is a truth
not yet
well known or understood. The Christ is held
in the bosom of the Mother. The moral order of the
social world,
in which Christ works out of and through freely chosen human
moral deeds, is held in the bosom of
the Earth - the Mystery of the Divine
Mother. Christ in us is the Flowering Heart of the
social world,
but the Mother is the Root, Stem and Branch of the social
world.
And where is this Root, Stem and Branch most remembered,
most
spirit-recollected in America? In the ancient Saturn
Mysteries,
that's where - among those who knew Her directly - and spoke
of Her as:
the Earth
as
Mother (Mother Earth and
Father Sky).
Down to the
Root of the social world we
must go, deep into the Mysteries of the Americas. Down,
down into
the dark moist of Earth, through the spheres of lies and evil,
to the
other side where waits the Golden Realm of the Divine
Feminine.
Like Christ on the Saturday of His crucifixion we must
descend
into Hell, and through Hell to Her. This is the work of
confronting the Shadow in the Soul, which as a social or
community
process has been best practiced to date in the group work
centered on
the Twelve Steps.
As He told us:
"he who
loses his life for my
sake will find it". Visualize
next the
Pieta. Christ dead, yet held by the Mother. We die
into the
Mother - we surrender, we give up, we put down our burdens,
our woes,
our karma of wounds, our despair. The soul dies to its
collections and attachments to the past, whether old thoughts
or old
feelings or old impulses of will.
We actually do
this every night when we
go to sleep. Every night!
What are little
children taught in many
places to pray? Isn't it some version of: Now I lay me down to
sleep, I
pray the Lord my soul to keep. But if I die before I
wake, I pray
the Lord my soul to take.
We surrender to
the Mother every night in
prayer. We sleep and cross the threshold. We die
the little
death. Then we are reborn each morning, new. At
which
point, if we wish to awake to the Second Ethereal Eucharist,
we begin
each day seeking Moral Grace, seeking to practice Love - to
take up
Christ's kind and light Yoke of Love.
The changes we
seek to inaugurate out of
our freedom can be very small, very much our own to author,
and very
human. Like the great oak that grows from the tiny
acorn,
remarkable spiritual changes can flow out of the simplest of
deeds.
What is called
for then is simple and
dangerous rebellion against illusions living in the worship of
things
European, and the homogenization of thought in the Branches
and Groups
in America. One must have a hunger, a need that must
have freedom
from the mental chains of Steiner-said. But best of all,
a
recognition that the heartfelt thoughts of the own I are
exactly and
precisely what needs to be uttered in our work for the New
Mysteries to
appear. Into the Branches and Groups we
pour
ourselves - a small, but very
great, deed.
We are not
being an anthroposophist when
we quote Steiner. Only our own thoughts, which are
rooted in soul soil of the seeking
for the Good, can have Life. And that Life can be, in the social context, filled from
within by
personally authored and sourced goodness, beauty and truth.
And,
because it can appear superficially at odds with its social
surroundings (while in its reality it gives deepest healing to
these
same social surroundings), this Life has to be called in the 2nd Century of
anthroposophical
endeavors, not just dangerous Anthroposophy, but American
Anthroposophy.
***********************************
[For the
neophyte: It has been mentioned
above that most of those in the Anthroposophical Movement and
Society
concentrate on the study of Knowledge
of Higher Worlds to the exclusion of
The
Philosophy of Freedom. Knowledge
of
Higher Worlds is not representative
of
Steiner's own path. In this next very
brief essay I will endeavor to shed
some
light on Steiner's own path as an aide in understanding this
matter,
and as well the light it can shed on certain other problems we
have
been addressing above.]
Rudolf Steiner's Own Path - The Philosophy of Freedom
or Spiritual Activity - a
re-imagination
(written for
this book after Epiphany, 2008)
Rudolf Steiner
wrote only very limited
commentaries on his inner life. We know facts of his
biography
and certain indirect things he said about his inner
experiences, but in
the main he did not put that aspect of his personality
forward.
We have hints, and from some comments in other
circumstances we
can (like a detective in a murder mystery) infer certain
particulars.
For example, he
spoke of inner trials
having come at certain points in his inner work, but did not
elaborate
or describe. He often spoke in a way that suggested that
language
could not even carry the reality of spiritual experience,
which
provides a further reason for an understandable reticence on
his part.
I am not, by
the way, trying to rewrite
his biography, for others have already done that with great
skill.
It is just that in listening to various anthroposophist
speak and
write over the years, it is fairly clear that many have not
given much
thought to his real experience (we know what he thought about his
experience, but not
the
experience itself). It is
after all
a sublime and mysterious world of experience in which Steiner
often
lived, and unless one themselves knows such experience, it is
often
difficult for someone unfamiliar to really appreciate what is
involved.
An Internet friend of deep experience once said that
just as one
could not give to a virgin any idea of what making love was
really
like, it was impossible to describe for others (who have never
had such
moments) the real nature of spiritual experience.
With this
essay I hope to shed some light on this as well.
I am also going
to contradict somewhat
the general consensus on certain aspects of Steiner's life,
but given
what has already been written by me, this should come as no
surprise.
My views here will try to show exactly on what they are
based,
but the reader should expect that I will be saying things not
generally
said in Steiner biographies, and perhaps left out of his own
as well.
To give a
concrete example, let us begin
with the clairvoyance of his youth, which most biographies
tend to
portray as having arisen around his eighth year and continued
from
there on, to and through the rest of his life. If we look at
other
things he has said about the subject of these kinds of
clairvoyant
experiences (those which arise naturally in young people), he
often
used the term atavistic, meaning
apparently something that was of the past of
the soul and not related to its the present potential.
Clearly, if we
think it through, Steiner
did not earn this youthful clairvoyance
in his
current biography in the same way he spoke of when he said on
other
occasions that even initiates have to re-earn that achievement
in every
life - it does not come automatically. We can perhaps
imagine all
kinds of causes for his youthful clairvoyance, but that
speculation
will not serve us. Instead then, let us simply maintain
these
questions of whether: a) the early clairvoyance was atavistic;
and, b)
whether it did continue throughout his life (or did something
else
happen)?
Another clue
for us can be found in the
last verse of the John Gospel, wherein it is said: There are many other
things
that Jesus did, such that if they were written down one by
one, I don't
think there would be room in the world for all the resulting
volumes.
There is in
this verse something that can
be applied analogously to Steiner, in that we hardly know at
all this
inner life of his, and what deeds arose there. In
Steiner we have
someone who has been having spiritual experience throughout
most of his
life. We also know of (but these are apparently not yet
published) the existence of many many notebooks Steiner
created over
the years, in which can be found material additional to the
books and
lectures already published. What deeds stand behind the
production of these notebooks?
Recently in
thinking-meditation I
realized that Steiner did more than lecture when he spoke to
an
audience. I was re-reading the first of two lectures
collected
under the title Geographic Medicine (given in St. Gallen,
November
15th, 1917). It was a curious lecture after a
fashion, for
it kept circling around and repeating its basic themes.
When I
recalled the lecture during thinking-meditation (a way to
increase ones
understanding of Steiner's offerings), I was suddenly struck
with the
fact that he was not just speaking to the audience, but
simultaneously
to the dead then also present before his spiritual vision.
This lecture
takes place around the end
of WWI, and the themes being repeated in it are basically two:
1) when
one dies a sudden violent death in youth, in the next
biography around
the middle of that life, a gift is received; and 2) many of
the dead,
having taken in an excess of materialistic thought, have a
great deal
of difficulty finding the spiritual world (the afterlife), for
these
materialistic thoughts bind them to the earth, but if they can
find
other thoughts, then this binding can be overcome.
With this
insight it all of a sudden
occurred to me that almost any lecture might have just such
components,
for before his spiritual vision almost anything could be
happening.
Years ago, for example, I had been reading a lecture and
found
therein a thought quite personal to me. Upon
re-reading the
lecture later (several times I tried this) I could never find
the
thought there in words. Is it possible on occasion that
Steiner
saw through the veil of time to future readers, and spoke not
just to
the audience but to these future readers whose intense
interest in what
he was writing and saying may have bridged across time as
well? I
have heard it said that he would sometimes speak to quite
specific
members of the audience, able to see that everyone else was
essentially
asleep but this one person.
I write these
things because I want us to
look upon his work and recognize that it contains Mystery.
Even
though much is rendered into seemingly fixed conceptual
structures,
there is more going on there than we can imagine, for even if
I could
not bridge time, who is to say my angel cannot, and that he
spoke to
angels as well the dead when he lectured.
We need to keep
in mind that Steiner was
doing something that the other nine hierarchies could not do,
which is
to render into human concepts the truths of their realms.
Some of
you will have heard something on the order of: The stars once spoke
to man,
and now it is time for man to speak to the stars.
Next I want to
take up an important
subject, that is certain to be controversial. I did not,
by the
way, invent this material on my own, but first heard these
ideas on an
Internet discussion list where individuals of deep wisdom were
gathered
together. This is the story that eventually became told
over
time, as I have come to understand it with my own thinking.
Also,
in the brief narrative below don't pay too much attention to
the
suggested ages. My thinking finds the general nature of
the story
to be true, but just exactly during which years of his life
this story
unfolded, and the precise character of the details, this I do
not know.
Here is the story:
In
his teens, as Steiner was becoming awake to his own thinking,
and to
the philosophical views of the 19th Century on the problem of
knowledge, he came to realize that his present clairvoyance
had certain
weaknesses and limits, and so he consciously (perhaps with
some
guidance) set out to destroy this youthful atavistic (in the
blood)
clairvoyant ability. He did this by beginning in his
late teens
to regularly, on a daily basis, drink alcohol. As we
understand
from his indications, alcohol causes a separation of the ego
or warmth
body from the blood, so we can see just how this might work.
Once then freed
of the atavistic
clairvoyance, he undertook to apply his will to thinking in a
new way
(a risky step into the unknown - one no doubt of many which we
have not
appreciated), and to see what can be accomplished there.
He
already knew spiritual experience was possible, but the
question was
what might happen if thinking was developed out of its own
forces.
As a result of this activity he achieved, sometime
between
perhaps age 19 and 22 his real modern initiation, apparently
over the
Holy Nights.
[To those who
may know more details here,
please understand that it is simply not possible (or even
desirable) to
read everything,
so you need to appreciate that I already know
that what I have written may be elsewhere elaborated in a far
better
fashion.]
We also know
that Steiner was by nature
cautious. He kept a great deal to himself, and did not
offer
something to the world until he had worked it over many times.
In
addition, he would step outside the personal element of his
spiritual
experience, and seek to behold it objectively (as if he was a
stranger
to himself). As a consequence we get what was achieved
first as a
direct experience by Steiner on the cusp of his adulthood, but
worked
over again and again until it was ripe enough to be presented
to us in
his book The Philosophy of Freedom.
He actually says quite clearly that the book was written
in the
order that follows exactly the path that he had taken.
So when we
read this book, we should also realize that the problems he
has been
discussing in that book, came before his thinking conscious
experience
many years earlier, in precisely the order in which they are
presented
in that book.
First he has
the experience. Then
he works on it, finally taking out the personal elements and
objectifying it. This is consistent with everything he
wrote
about the problem of knowledge, namely that first we have the
experience, and then we exercise the cognitive faculty.
We know
too that in The Philosophy of Freedom there
is no mention at all of his later spiritual research.
Yet,
whenever necessary he reminds us that the book is the
foundation for
all the later work - without the training of the cognitive
faculty,
with the exactness and precision available through
introspection
following the methods of natural science, it is not possible
to take
sublime spiritual experience and render it into the language
needed for
the modern Age. [See Ben-Aharon's first chapter in his book The
Spiritual
Event of the Twentieth Century, for
more details.]
Understanding
this then gives us a key
for realizing that what he speaks of later often tells us
indirectly
something of what actually happened to him personally earlier,
such as
likely occurred during the period of his real modern
initiation.
For example, in the last lecture of the John Gospel
series,
Steiner writes of how The
Philosophy of Freedom path leads to a purification (katharsis) of the
astral body,
preparing it for the initiation experience. We need to
realize
that he is not here speaking of his theory of initiation, or
out of
something seen imaginatively (or told to him by spiritual
beings), but
rather directly
from
his own experience, and now
separated
from the personal and objectified.
Further, when
he suggests in the same
lecture that the student of this book should at a certain
point begin
to think (with the developed cognitive capacity won through
the own
introspection) on the first 14 verses of the John Gospel, he
is again
relating something he knows from direct experience.
Having
followed Steiner on this path now for many many years, and
come to an
experience of the living thinking, I can confirm his
indication as
regards the thinking-meditation on these verses, having had
recently my
own Holy Nights (on Epiphany) experience after working
intensively with
these verses for some time (which as an experience was by the
way
completely different from anything I had even imagined -
speculated -
it might be like).
Part of what I
am suggesting here is that
we can find, sprinkled throughout Steiner's writings and
lectures,
objectified statements actually derived from his personal
meditative
and spiritual experiences. As a final example, let
us take
up just one set of lectures, which are collected under the
title The
Fifth Gospel.
We should know
by now the care with which
Steiner offers his findings, and that for him to apply such a
name to
this material (The Fifth Gospel), is not something to be taken
lightly
at all. Here I only want to ask a question: What
cost, in
terms of pain of soul and trials, did Steiner have to pay in
order to
acquire the ability to give such an intimate report on the
conversation
between Jesus and his mother?
We could think
that the so-called akashic
record is out there in spiritual space somewhere in a kind of
condition
where one can pick it up like part of a encyclopedia in a
library and
read what one wants. We should not do this. We
could also
think that Steiner has these meetings with various spiritual
Beings and
they tell him stories which he can then relate to us in his
lectures
and writings. We should not do this either.
The encounter
with a Cosmic Spiritual
Being (and I speak here from experience) shakes you to the
roots of
your own nature. You are stripped bare of all
pretension, and all
sense of ones self as a person of accomplishment. While
we like
to talk of Steiner's great deed, and of him as being a great
initiate,
we really have no idea how small one becomes in the face of
Cosmic
Spiritual Beings.
Now oddly
enough it is not the we are
diminished in any way, or even made less free. It
just
becomes impossible to think of ones self in a human
comparative way
anymore. We know, for example, that while Christ Loves
us, we are
just one of billions that are the object of such Love.
The
English rock group The Moody Blues have a wonderful bit of
verse in one
of their songs:
"With the eyes of a child
You must come out and see
That your world's spinning round
And thru life you will be
A small part of a hope of a love that exists
In the eyes of a child you will see."
(Eyes of a child by Moody Blues,
1969) [emphasis added]
The reader
would be surprised, for
example, how essential failure is as a preparation for
spiritual
experience. One can find people in the Society and
Movement who
want to think of Steiner as somehow morally perfect, never
realizing
not only that no one human being is morally perfect, but that
it is as
someone incomplete, a failure, weak, ignorant and otherwise
all too
human, that we are best prepared to meet Higher Beings.
So when
Steiner speaks or writes of trials, he is
not referring to
something that is easy, or which one comes through by some
kind of
superior mastery.
The Cross has a
vertical axis and a
horizontal axis. The vertical axis has an upward
gesture, and a downward gesture. We travel in our life
of soul
both up and down. Christ dies on the Cross and descends
through
Hell to the Mother's Realm on Saturday, before the
Resurrection can
occur. When we die the many little spiritual deaths that
lead to
various soul transformations through trials, we also travel
down,
before we can go up - not once but many times.
Remember, it is the purification of the astral body that must arise on the path to initiation. Nor is Crossing the Threshold the end of purifying necessity. All that initiation means is that one not only now struggles in earthly conditions rife with the possibility of failure, but now also in spiritual realms where the same possibilities of temptation and failure exist.
We also need to
realize that while
Steiner gives us an incredible conceptual content, and
demonstrates
remarkable intellectual faculties of his own, none of these
qualities
of being have any meaning in trials of purification. What is the theme as stated by the
Alchemists?
We are purified in a crucible!
The dross is
burned away in fire.
I have hoped
with these words to suggest
a somewhat richer picture of Steiner's path, trying to connect
it in
particular to the thinking-initiation, and also to what he
himself on
more than one occasion tried to remind us - processes of soul
pain are
required. In effect, we need to embrace our trials and
to realize
that in them lies a richness otherwise unobtainable. The
Christian-Rosicrucian Path of Initiation is described as
following
Christ's path as laid out in the John Gospel: the washing the feet,
the
scourging, the crowning with thorns, the carrying the cross,
the
crucifixion, the entombment and the resurrection. Does any of that sound pain free?
For a wonderful
contemplation of
Steiner's life in relationship to this path, one should read
Tomberg's
anthroposophical Inner
Development, especially the last
sections
where he expressly takes up Steiner's path as an example of
the
Christian-Rosicrucian Path of Initiation.
So also we must
view Steiner's life and
recognize, as has been suggested by Ben-Aharon in The
Spiritual
Event of the Twentieth Century,
that we ourselves need to take responsibility for many of
Steiner's
trials, and for the fact that his life ended early. When
he
joined his karma to ours, the possibility of error by his
students,
also became a responsibility he accepted. This is a two
way
street.
This question
then remains: If we truly
wish to see ourselves as students of Rudolf Steiner, how can
we not
follow his path - the path of The
Philosophy
of Freedom (or Spiritual
Activity)?
******************************
[for the
neophyte: this is probably
something quite important for those new to Anthroposophy -
those not so
new either know this, or have ignored it.]
a letter to a young
anthroposophist
this essay
was written in the spring 2004, and is self explanatory
I received an
e-mail the other day, from
a young anthroposophist. As I contemplated my answer, I
found
living in my soul certain ideas and ideals wanting to be
pointed out to
many such young people. These then have found
expression in
this essay.
Here we have a
classic situation in a way
- the young seeker in her early twenties, asking something
from a
virtual stranger, who it turns out is passing beyond age 63,
supposedly
no longer quite so strongly subject to karma. What can
be said
across such boundaries? My life, in the sense of most of
its
experiences, is past. Not only that, most of what I have
experienced will not be something this young person will
experience at
all. What I lived in the 1950's, '60's, '70's and so
forth, for
example, during my late teens, twenties and thirties, are not
what the
young person of today will experience. The times are
vastly
different. What is even more true is that my imagination
really
can't take hold of the life the young are to live in the next
decades.
The beginning of the 21st Century, coupled as it is to
the Dawn
of the Third Millennium after Christ's Death and Resurrection,
will
certainly be a time of great change, and great challenge, all
joined to
the potential for even greater folly.
The author of
the e-mail that prompted
this essay was responding to a poll I had written over seven
years
before, and published on the Outlaw (rebel) Anthroposophy
portion of my main website: Shapes in the Fire. The
poll was an addendum to a two essay journal, that I had
created and had
had distributed at an anthroposophical conference in Ann Arbor
in the
summer of 1997, which journal was called: Outlaw
Anthroposophy
- the journal. While the
main two essays were quite serious, the poll was a bit
tongue-in-cheek,
for I wanted to leaven the previous material (the serious
essays) with
something containing a hint of levity. Of the dozen or
so folks
that have responded to the poll over the intervening years,
however,
most have treated it seriously, as did this young
anthroposophist.
This has made
me believe my sense of
humor is a bit too subtle. In any event, in what follows
this
poll should be considered part of the background context.
The
poll and the other essays can be found on-line at:
http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/oajnr.html
There yet
remains the question: does a 63
year old man have something to say to a young anthroposophist?
Well, there would be little point to this essay if I
were to
answer this question no, so let us assume that such might be
possible,
and I will indulge myself in what comes next with the writing
down of
such thoughts and feelings as arise in the soul in
contemplation of
such a question.
*
Between 1861
and 1925 Rudolf Steiner
lived, mostly in Europe. He was, by any standard, an
unusual man.
The terms genius, great initiate, and scientist of the
invisible
have been spoken regarding him. He also has his
detractors (see
for example: the Waldorf Critics). He left behind a vast
corpus
of works: over 30 written books and 6000 lectures, the
majority of
which were recorded and have since been published. In
addition,
he founded, or inspired, several social movements which live
on beyond
his death: Waldorf Schools, Biodynamic Agriculture, Goethean
Science,
Camphill Communities, The Christian Community, the
Anthroposophical
Society (with its international and national groupings),
to name
but a few. Many of those who study his life and works have
themselves
become quite productive - some rather famous (Saul Bellow, and
Owen
Barfield, for example).
Many others,
who take in some of this
work (both Steiner's and those who follow his lead), stand in
awe of it
and for good reason. I am one who stands in such awe.
The
plain fact is that much of what I have been able to accomplish
in life,
particularly my studies of the social and political aspects of
human
existence, would not have been possible without Rudolf
Steiner's
influence and mentoring (as well as the work of many of his
students).
I owe him (and them) a great debt, and to honor this
debt is (and
has been) one of the main motives in much of my work since my
late 50's.
At the same
time, there is One who stands
above us all, and Who cannot be ignored if any sense at all is
to be
made of Steiner's life, my work, or a great deal else that
appears in
modern times that is progressive in a spiritual sense.
This is:
Christ Jesus. The natural scientist and the secular
humanist may
not appreciate this, but those who have had the kinds of
direct
experiences of Christ, available in the present Age, are
forever
changed, and can in no way forget to acknowledge that
Encounter.
To aid those
seeking such an Encounter is
the whole point of the modern spiritual work that Steiner
created and
fostered. Yet, the Anthroposophical Movement, which Steiner
founded,
has fallen on hard times and fails anymore to wisely promote
this
possibility, so that it then becomes the unavoidable
responsibility of
those who understand this to outline, for the younger people
who are
drawn to Steiner, the realities and complexities of this
dilemma.
And, at the
same time, we must live our
own biographies. Neither Christ or Steiner mean or want
to live
our lives, but rather know full well that we must live them
and make
the choices there to be found. Whether to seek an
Encounter with
Christ, or to become a student of Steiner's - these too are
choices we
must make and for which we must accept personal
responsibility.
What I write
here is, as well, my own
choice.
History teaches us that spiritual movements often suffer a kind of decay when the founding genius dies. This is true also of the Church founded on the Rock that was Peter, and defined by the Heart that was Paul. Everything that is human must endure the forces of the Fall (that is, become Earthly), before they can rise again and realize their deepest possibilities. Such are the rules of existence (including our own biographies), and the Anthroposophical Society and Movement are not free of these same realities.
Anyone who
reads a true history of the
Movement and Society following on the death of Steiner knows
this to be
the case.
History also
teaches that what Falls can
become lifeless, and its institutional forms rigid, dogmatic
and
sectarian. As the counter to this, individuals arise
within such
institutions who bring the forces of resurrection - who bring
new life
and new inspiration. So it has been with the Church (St
Francis,
Luther, and so forth), and so it has been with the
Anthroposophical
Society.
At the same time, these forces of renewal seldom find sure purchase in the main institutional body, which really only tolerates them, for the institution itself becomes more of a home to bureaucrats and theologians (spiritual bean counters and theorists) than it does to true creative genius. So we can see in the Anthroposophical Society and Movement a succession of personalities that come by, but yet find no true connection to the main institutional structures (Tomberg, Barfield, Kuhlewind, and Ben-Aharon to name but a few).
Yet, the fire
of genius that created the
original impulse lives on in such as these, far more than it
does in
the institutional forms and its favorite personalities.
Those
young anthroposophists, who want to become current on such
matters (as
of 2004, the time of the writing of this essay), need to read
Irina
Gordienko's book: Sergei O.
Prokofieff: Myth and Reality, for
the heart
center of the institutional form of the Anthroposophical
Society in
Dornach is currently possessed with a cult of personality.
Filled
then with bureaucrats and anthroposophical theologians,
Dornach cannot
provide either the life giving spiritual inspiration that
young
anthroposophists need, nor can the light of true
anthroposophical
insight flow out from there to take its right place in the
wider world.
This last is a
great tragedy, in a time
of great tragedies.
[So that
understanding can be clear, let
me illuminate what I mean by the bureaucratic and theological
impulses
as they live in Dornach (and other places in the
anthroposophical world
were institutional processes dominate). The bureaucratic
impulse
sees great value in preserving all that Steiner said and wrote
- it
focuses on the past, and influences the institutional
structures in
such a way that what ought to be living and vital becomes dead
and
empty tradition (things are done in the present mostly because
they
were done in the past). Even the smallest acquaintance
with life
processes would suggest that social forms should also evolve,
live and
die, and undergo metamorphosis. But the bureaucratic
impulse
holds tight to what was done, and thus strangles that
inspiration that
might come from a truly living breath of spirit.
In a somewhat
analogous fashion the
theological impulse takes what Steiner said and elevates it to
Eternal
Truth. Once elevated to this illusory state, the masters
of
Steiner-thought then comment endlessly on the great teacher's
insights
and indications, strangling in this way all current and future
insight
living outside the corpus (bible) of what are called the basic
books.
Someone such as Prokofieff then buries his own mystical
interpretations within long recitations of Steiner-thought,
that become
to the reader and listener a kind of sorcerous enchantment of
their
minds. Where the bureaucrat kills the social forms with
rigid
traditions, the anthroposophical theologian kills the living
spirit of
their readers and listeners by promoting the idolatry of a
worship of
Steiner through an endless repetition of Steiner-thought.
Here is some
Emerson that is fully
relevant: from his lecture at Harvard in 1837: The
American
Scholar:
Books are the
best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What
is the
right use? What is the one end which all means go
to
effect? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had
better
never see a book than to be warped by its attraction clean out
of my
own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The
one
thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. This
every man
is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although
in almost
all men obstructed and as yet unborn. The soul active
sees
absolute truth and utters truth, or creates. In this
action it is
genius; not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but
the sound
estate of every man. In its essence it is progressive.
The
book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any
kind, stop
with some past utterance of genius. This is good, say
they - let
us hold by this. They pin me down. They look
backward and
not forward. But genius looks forward: the eyes of man
are set in
his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates.
Whatever talents may be, if the man create not, the pure
efflux
of the Deity is not his; cinders and smoke there may be, but
not yet
flame. There are creative manners, there are creative
actions,
and creative words; manners, actions, words, that is,
indicative of no
custom or authority, but springing spontaneous from the mind's
own
sense of good and fair.]
What then,
given the empty
spiritual-calorie nature of institutional Anthroposophy, is a
young
anthroposophist to do?
Live your
biography. The moral
heart of spiritual development is only found there. Life
itself
is the greatest gift and the greatest teacher, for in every
meeting
between ones own I-am, and the I-am of the Thou lives the
potential for
the presence of the Third (wherever two or more are gathered in my
name, there also
I am). Christ is found most
directly in
life, in between I and Thou; and, in seeking to meet our
biography, out
of our own moral insight, we do the essence of the great work
of
spiritual development. No text, or written work, nor the
words of
any teacher, can give us what is to be learned in our own
biography.
Yet, if you
want the best of what is
written that Christ can give at this stage, then read the
Gospels and,
most crucially, work at applying them in practice in life.
There is no better understanding of the center of
moral
life than that found in the Sermon on the Mount (e.g. Matthew,
Chapters
5-7)
If you want the
best that Steiner can
give in aid of our soul nature (consciousness soul) in these
times then
read and
practice the works on objective philosophical
introspection: The Theory
of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception; Truth and
Science; and The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity (Freedom).
Self-knowledge in our time depends upon serious and
brutally self
honest introspection. We must come to know both the
universals of
our own minds (soul-spirit nexus), and the particulars in
which can be
found the expression of our individuality.
What is
involved in the act of thinking
is one of the great mysteries of our time, and the path to
that mystery
lies entirely within our own work at self-knowledge.
Moreover,
this cannot be rushed. We don't learn what needs to be
learned
reading the books which Steiner wrote. We only learn it
by
looking within - that is by reading the book of the own soul.
We read then
two books: the book of life,
and the book of our own inwardness. There is no
substitute for
this work, and that this is not said from Dornach, over and
over again,
reveals clearly how little has been learned there or is taught
there.
In support of such work is this admonition also from Ralph Waldo Emerson: In self trust all virtues are comprehended (also from his lecture: The American Scholar).
For those who
feel a need to read more
than just the books of their own life and mind, and who like a
book you
can hold in your hand, here are some other works and their
relevance.
Inner Development by Valentin
Tomberg. Here we find, among much else, a discussion of
the Seven
Stages of the Passion of the Christ, as outlined in the Gospel
of John
(washing the feet; , the scourging; the crowning with thorns;
the
carrying of the cross; the crucifixion; the entombment and the
resurrection). The more we live a self-determined moral
life in
our biographies, the more the biography takes the shape of a
mini-version of the Seven Stages of the Passion of the Christ.
What Christ lived during Holy Week, we will live out in
the
course of our many incarnations, blessed in that we only have
to endure
that smaller degree of suffering which arises more gently
because it is
spread out in these multiple lives, thus reducing the
intensity of any
particular experience. This consciously chosen moral
life then
becomes an alchemical crucible of development that takes the
same shape
as the Passion of Christ.
[For some
people, Valentin Tomberg is a
controversial figure. S.O. Prokofieff has even written a
critical
book about him (The Case
of Valentin Tomberg). The
problem has
to do with a book that Tomberg wrote and which he had
published
anonymously after his death: Meditations
on
the Tarot: a Journey into Christian Hermeticism.
This book, besides looking favorably on the
Catholic Mysteries, and taking a quite different approach to
spiritual
development than Anthroposophy, was also critical (in a way)
of certain
aspects of the anthroposophical movement. Critics
comparing the
two approaches, from an anthroposophical viewpoint, found Meditations wanting in many regards. In my view this
criticism
failed in that it was a comparing of apples and oranges, or to
put the
matter more directly, Steiner's teachings were meant for one
group of
human beings, for whom reason (thinking) was more important,
while
Tomberg's final work was meant for an entirely different
group, for
whom devotion (willing) was more important than cognitive
work. I
could say more, but here I only wanted to acknowledge that for
some
Tomberg is not liked, which in my view is not really
justified, this
disliking being based upon a false assumption. What
Christ hopes
for humanity cannot possibly be carried by just one teacher
and just
one stream. His Love is too profound. At the same
time, it
needs to be remembered that Inner
Development was written at a time
when
Tomberg was a practicing anthroposophist.]
Becoming Aware of the Logos:
The Way of St. John the
Evangelist by Georg Kuhlewind.
Another,
but beautifully different, look at some of the same problems
by someone
who also (as was Tomberg) is able to speak from authentic
spiritual
experience.
The Spiritual Event of the
Twentieth Century by Jesaiah
Ben-Aharon. This book serves two clear
purposes. Early on in our biography it gives us an
imaginative
picture of the Return of the Christ, as that has already
occurred in
the years 1933 to 1945 - something with which we very much
need to
become acquainted. As we ripen in our development (which
only
occurs over time), this same text can then begin to serve its
truer
purpose, which is as a set of instructions for meditation
practice that
is meant to lead us to our own direct experience and
participation in
this Event. Yes, that is right: participation.
This Event,
being Timeless, is always ongoing. As more and more people
learn to
actually develop their thinking in the way pointed to by
Steiner, this
thinking then transcends its time and space limitations to
become
capable of becoming part of the Event. The Light that is
there
then becomes richer and richer over time, as each of us learns
to
transcend time and offer our own thinking-light to the Event,
which not
only reveals the Return of the Christ and the Second Golgotha,
but also
reveals the participation of humanity in its unfolding.
Yes,
there is a paradox here, but it is not something about which
we need
worry.
These then are
books which help us orient
our inner development within the current stage of the stream
of the
evolution of consciousness. Yet, as we all know, our
moral life
requires our participation also in the shared social life of
all
humanity. We only develop that moral character in life,
in
conjunction with how we meet and deal with each other, and how
we met
and deal with the life of nature upon whom our own existence
depends.
In support of this outer social development, here then
are some
other texts, which might serve to help orient us in our
understanding
of our shared social existence.
In approaching
this we need to keep in
mind the modern folk wisdom found in this saying: think
globally, act
locally. We need to understand the whole (think
globally), in
order to see how to play our part (act locally).
America's Global
Responsibility: individuation,
initiation, and threefolding by
Jesaiah
Ben-Aharon. Clearly the modern social political world is
dominated by something that has found a center and an entrance
into
humanity's affairs that is most strongly localized in America.
Here is an excellent consideration of modern social
conditions,
with some historical background. If you want to think
globally,
this is a good start.
Saving the Appearances: a
study in idolatry by Owen Barfield.
Here is a study concerning the
nature of natural science, its historical background and the
place of
all of this within the ongoing evolution of consciousness.
Just
as we need to appreciate the outer historical context in our
thinking
globally, we also need to understand how the history of ideas,
and the
evolution of consciousness play into that social context.
In addition,
Barfield's Speaker's
Meaning is a most remarkable small
book, one
which I have read many times given the wonder of its
understanding of
language, meaning and their significance for appreciating the
current
condition of scientific materialism.
Also the books
of Dennis Klocek should be
considered. Here is a link introducing his writings:
http://www.steinercollege.org/consciousness.html , and one
should also
seek on Google a link to Doc. weather,
an important
website he created and maintains.
I am next going
to refer to my own work.
In defense of the obvious charge that this is somewhat
egoistic,
I can only offer this: It is a poor artisan who doesn't
appreciate the true nature of his or her own skills and craft.
Being human, my
work is flawed (as no
doubt are others' efforts), but nonetheless there are some
valid
questions I have asked (and struggled to answer), and while my
work is
often incomplete, here are two whose structure is intended to
illuminate our inner and outer social present.
My main website is Shapes in the Fire, and basically concerns the death, and the resurrection, (the metamorphosis, the dying and becoming) of Western Civilization.
The Way of the Fool:
Along side the general tendencies regarding the
metamorphosis of
civilization, there is also an ongoing metamorphosis of
Christianity,
wherein the previous top down hierarchical form of the Church
is
passing away, and the next stage of development of
Christianity is to
appear bottom up and individualized in the Body of Christ,
born out of
the work of individual practitioners of Christ's Teachings.
In
this next stage (there will be several more), the once
separated Ways
of Faith and of Gnosis will re-unite within the I-am itself,
as it
begins to realize itself in individual acts of moral grace,
freedom and
love.
Here also is a recent essay of mine on the new thinking: In Joyous Celebration of the Soul Art and Music of Discipleship (found at the beginning of this book).
While the young
anthroposophist will
naturally find their own matters of interest and concern (and
related
books and teachers), there are some additional matters,
developed by
the healthier parts of the anthroposophical movement, that
ought to
have some attention addressed to them.
In his
autobiography, Steiner pointed out
that he was not able to move from the Moon Sphere of
clairvoyant
research onto the Sun Sphere until after he had formed an
appropriate
relationship to modern natural science. While natural
science is
materialistic in its fundamental paradigms (points of view),
it remains
essentially moral in its recognition that one should only
offer to
another as true, that for which one can also offer the means
to
discovering it for ones self. In the age of the
consciousness
soul, truth must come to us accompanied by the appropriate
means by
which we may ourselves replicate its discovery. This is
why, for
example, Steiner's works on objective philosophical
introspection, with
their emphasis on a careful and methodical introspective
practice, are
so crucial.
For this
reason, those works out of the
anthroposophical movement dealing with natural science and
extending it
(sometimes called Goethean Science) are very important.
I
recommend the following: Man
or
Matter: Introduction
to
a
Spiritual Understanding of Nature on the Basis of Goethe's
Method
of Training Observation and Thought by
Ernst
Lehrs; The Plant
(vols I and 2) by
Gerbert Grohmann; The Nature
of Substance by Rudolf Hauschka; Radiant
matter:
Decay and Consecration by Georg
Blattmann; Man and Mammals: Toward a Biology of
Form by
Wolfgang Schad; Sensitive
Chaos: The
Creation
of Flowing Forms in Water and Air by
Theodor Schwenk; and Weather
and Cosmos by Dennis Klocek.
These are,
of course, but a few of what could be studied, but to which I
add the
following collection of essays: Evolution
and
the New Gnosis: Anti-establishment Esssays on Knowledge, Science,
Religion and Causal Logic by Don
Cruse with
Robert Zimmer, as these essays concern a detailed study of the
errors
in reasoning and logic which lead to those processes by which
scientific materialism (especially in the form of a theory of
evolution) as a paradigm, was enchanted into our shared world
view.
I don't use the
word enchanted merely as
metaphor by the way. The young anthroposophist will
find, as they
grow into a deeper understanding of the natural and social
worlds, that
enchantment is a very accurate word for exactly that means by
which
much that exists has come to be.
One last
encouragement: Rudolf
Steiner led us forward in our development with his
scientifically based
teachings on objective philosophical introspection, wherein we
are
shown how to have an exact and reproducible means to this deep
philosophical question of introspective self knowledge.
But
philosophy is itself incomplete, without an appropriate
mathematics in
the sense that number ratios and the like as stand behind the
aesthetic
in nature. This means even that a true earthly vision of
higher worlds
perhaps can even be found in music, and in the often strange
and
paradoxical ways in which human social and political processes
transform over time. For us to learn to appreciate this,
we need
to add to our self education - to what Steiner points out for
us in his
philosophic studies - the study of projective geometry.
The mind
(soul-spirit nexus) knows first
of itself through an introspection that is coupled with a
philosophic
discipline. But the mind only knows part of its whole
through
such means. Thomas Taylor, in his wonderful 18th Century
text, The
Theoretic Arithmetic of the Pythagoreans,
tells us of his distress that the teaching of young minds has
begun to
exclude the theoretic aspects of natural numbers, and is
replacing that
study with what only concerns itself with accounting and
surveying - no
true theory, only the practical. This is unfortunate to
Taylor,
for he says that the arithmetical cannot be found in nature,
and is
therefore, in that it exists to our minds, only a product of
our soul
and spirit. This being the case, what we then find in
mathematics
and geometry that is of the sublime and the beautiful is
really a
reflection of the true nature of the mind itself. This
means that
when we study projective geometry we study that higher element
of our
self in which true beauty arises.
Not to make my
tale longer, but again to
help the young anthroposophist appreciate the importance of
this, let
me add the following story. Abraham Lincoln is said,
upon
deciding to take up his own education, to have spent many many
hours,
days and months in the study of Euclid's
Elements, the basic building blocks
of the
older geometry. He thought thereby to train his
thinking, and
give it discipline.
We today have
an even greater opportunity
with the study of projective geometry, for here the true
mathematics of
life can be seen, and thus that within the mind (soul-spirit
nexus)
that is akin itself to life, comes before us in geometric
forms and
movement (if you know of the work of the American Frank
Chester, you
will have some familiarity with potential results). We
need
greatly to step beyond mere abstract concepts, to the living
forces
within ourselves and the natural and social worlds. Here
then is
the first step: the study of projective geometry.
The best book,
in my view, is currently
out of print, but is worth being sought out and photocopied
endlessly
until those responsible get off their sorry behinds and return
this
text to general availability: Projective
Geometry:
Creative Polarities in Space and Time
by Olive Whicher. Here we engage the study of projective
geometry, not by the dry methods of abstract symbolism and
proofs, but
by the living processes of drawing and inner imagination.
There
is no better training for our thinking than this study, with
its exact
and precise disciplines regarding the free and metamorphic
movement of
form in space and time.
If this is not
to be found, then one can
substitute Physical and Ethereal Spaces by
George Adams Kaufman. This is very introductory, but it
will do
in the absence of Whicher's book.
A few final
words...
Everyone is engaged in spiritual development, and we dare not let ourselves suppose we know better what another person should do. I really do not know what is best for the young anthroposophist, but rather have simply indulged myself, in the way an older man wants, in the giving of advice to the young.
The most
important matter here, however,
is to understand that I am a product of the 20th Century, and
the young
anthroposophist will find that their lives will be fully
engaged in the
21st. At the best the above may be a bridge from the one
Century
to the next.
Even so, I am
very grateful for the
e-mail correspondent whose questions led me to such
expression, for it
is entirely possible that one or two matters presented here
might be
useful for this or that person. And, that is all the
justification such an exercise needs.
**************************************
[For the
neophyte: As it is my view that
we can have in the Society and Movement an excess of ahrimanic
gravitas
(as well as some luciferic ungroundedness) , I am approaching
the end
of this book with an item that is to a degree meant to be more
in the
vein of levity. Not exactly humorous, but done for fun,
as it
were. Life is meant to contain joy, and certainly sex is
something that we do because we enjoy it - because it gives us
pleasure. Eros (something far more complicated than the
mere act
of sexual intercourse) is in fact an very high art - an art
best
expressed for the love of its doing.
Another way to
see this is to appreciate
that the American, being firmly of the Earth, is likewise by
necessity
placed in a situation where his most earthly appetites and
desires need
ultimately to become spiritualized by thought.]
The Redemption of Eros
- Seeking
Comfort and Companionship in a time of increasing Social
Chaos; or, Sex
and the Single Anthroposophist -
Those carefully
observing modern social
processes will have become well aware that an era of
increasing social
chaos has been with us for some time. These are
necessary
developments arising as a consequence of the current stage of
the
Evolution of Consciousness. In order for human beings to
confront, in their biographies, the needed moral dilemmas
belonging to
their individual consciousness soul development, a degree of
social
disorder is required. This has two effects. One is
that it
further weakens the ability of the social order to require
conformance
to moral rules, whether rooted in social tradition or
religious
instruction. The second is that the I is meant to be
thrown onto
its own resources as much as possible. It is not to be
able to
rely for its moral determinations on community support,
or any
outside set of rules, but only on its own intuitions.
This process
can be very isolating.
Such isolation, however, is not necessary if the I is a
member of
a community that recognizes the significance of individual
moral
choice. The Anthroposophical Society and Movement are
meant to be
one such community, but it is clear from what is written and
said today
in anthroposophical media that this situation is little
appreciated or
understood within our circles. We simple fail to
honestly observe
our own activity, and treat it instead with a kind of happy
talk
illusory conceptual process that lives mainly in denial of the
real
events in everyone's lives.
An appreciation
of the rhythmic elements
of time, as this increasing social chaos intensifies, suggests
that one
peak will be around 2012 (the end of the first third of the
first third
of the 21st Century, as well as the end of the current great
cycle of
the Mayan Calender). Anyone following the news is well
aware of
how fragile the world social order has become, and that there
are far
more ways in which this increasing disorder can intensify,
than there
are ways in which it can moderate. Students of complex
systems
are aware that such systems occasionally undergo massive
transformations, which generally take the form of increasing
disorder
until a kind of condition of chaos* ensues, after which a new
equilibrium emerges. Such is what the near future of the
social
organism offers to all, including anthroposophists.
*[A proper understanding of the ancient idea of chaos is that it represents the unformed, the uncreated state, from which everything that is to have form must eventually emerge.]
While this
transformative chaos serves
the needs of the developing consciousness soul, that aspect of
this
process which leads in the direction of isolation is really
meant to
make us more aware of our need for community. We suffer
the
isolation precisely in order to appreciate all the more the
accompanying loss of the old and tired traditional community,
such that
we may then find within ourselves the will forces out of which
to
engender new community. Such a creative process is,
however, far
more difficult that we imagine, for the I has to forge the new
community out of freedom, and this leads to all kinds of
challenges.
Among the
social traditions that have
fallen into distress, because of the increasing individualism,
is the
institution of marriage. While the Christian Community
tries to
maintain to a degree the Sacrament of Marriage, it is not
really yet
able to provide true community building forces outside its own
circles,
and this includes the Branches and Study Groups which are the
core
social element of anthroposophical life (in fact the Christian
Community is destructive of community building in the Society
and
Movement- see Lecture Six: Awakening
to Community). We all know
this.
Marriages. and other long term relationships, everywhere
increasingly fail, following which people are unable to
provide for
themselves the natural spiritual-soul-physical intimacy that
belongs to
a healthy psychological (or soul) life. The whole of
Western
Culture exhibits stress and fracture lines just in this realm,
and if
we are to consider ourselves to be true bearers of new wisdom,
then
certainly we ought to be able to address these issues.
What did Christ
mean when He said in
Matthew 19: 3-5 that husband and wife are to become one flesh
and cleave? How can we bring this, in a living way,
into
modern life and the language of the Consciousness Soul?
Lets approach
this in a deeper way by
first engaging in spirit recollection and remembering some
recent
history.
In the 1950's
in America, there arose
what was soon to be called the sexual revolution (aided
considerably by
contraception in the form of the pill).
This had many
positive and negative social effects. Women's liberation
emerged
from this transformation, and ultimately gay activism.
These were
social and political challenges to the status quo of Western
Culture,
that were feared by many and embraced by many. Social
dancing
changed, such that erotic movements became more in style,
which today
in the commercially driven Pop and Rap Music Culture can be
seen to
have achieved a kind of level of clear excessive absurdity.
There
is no Art in these dances, only an excess of individual
expression and
animal energies. In my book the
Way of
the Fool, I have called this social
condition, that dominates our culture: Fallen
Eros.
The true
significance of that aspect of
love, which was once understood as Eros, has become culturally
degraded
in the extreme. For more about the basic four aspects of
love
[selfless human love (Agape), nurturing love (Storge),
brotherly and
sisterly love or comradeship (Phileo) and erotic and sensual
love
(Eros)], that discussion will be found in the book the
Way of
the Fool.
Following this
sexual revolution there
arose a period in which sexual activity increased, with many
people
frequently engaging in many casual sexual encounters. As
might be
expected, this led to an increase in sexually transmitted
disease, one
of which has reached epidemic world-wide proportions: AIDS.
The
excessive freedom of casual sex in the 60's and 70's became in
the 80's
a place of grave danger. People had to think more
carefully (if
they cared to) about casual sexual encounters.
Something new
came into the world with
the generation born in the later years of these changes.
Where in
the 1950's, the focus was on going steady and monogamous
relationships,
by the beginning of the 21st Century young people incarnated
with a
different ethos. They stayed away from forming couples
and began
to go out in groups. They recreated casual sexual
encounters, but
gave it a new name: hooking up. Protective devices
against sexual
transmitted diseases were encouraged, as well as a great deal
of birth
control. Prompted by a backlash from traditional
Christian
sources, abstinence and virginity become an ideal for
some.None of this
was, of course, perfect by any means. Even so, something
had
changed. The social aspects of the sexual revolution
engendered a
period of chaos (the 1980's), which appears to be seeking to
find a new
equilibrium in the emerging ethos of the young.
In the wake of
this, more mature people
still carried some baggage from the past. Tradition
demanded
couples, casual sex was dangerous, and in terms of the soul
needs, the
idea of a relationship and commitments remained dominant.
If one
needed physical intimacy and touch (being held, or
nurturing love often was only
available through the rite of passage
into a sexual relationship), there were few clear social
rules, and
much confusion. Television and film dramas express these
social
phenomena quite well (c.f. Ally McBeal, Sex and
the City or
Desperate
Housewives). What woman or man
could
ask a different sex friend to come over for the night just to
hold each
other and be comforted (cleave), as a
healthy
psychological response to enduring the stress of modern life
(something
common in the marriage bed, but unavailable to single people)?
The need to be nurtured by touch could only be met
through
casual sex, often too much in the thrall of Fallen Eros.
In point of
fact, among both women and
men there is a great deal of confusion about the true
significance of
the erotic and sensual aspects of our human nature. Eros
has
fallen far indeed. It is just here in our self
understanding of
our more primal natures (the lower chakras: when we think
about all our
issues with food and nutrition, rampant obesity, and various
addictions
for example, we are quite involved in these lower chakra
dilemmas, not
just when we think about sex) that our civilization exists in
a chaos
of confusion and essentially bad information about what it
means to be
a woman or a man. One could say that this is also
necessary for
the development of the I, via the consciousness soul, but in
the
absence of new wisdom in the culture nothing here will turn
out to the
good. While Rudolf Steiner had a great deal to say in
many areas
of life, about this he clearly avoided the issues (no one was
then
ready).
Steiner, by the
way, had a few troubling
problems with the questions of Eros. His basic response
was to
hide from assertive feminine energies in marriage. Not
that these
were especially personal problems, but it was not an easy
subject to
take up in the culture in which he was teaching (see in this
regard the
essay by Catherine MacCoun: "Work on what has been spoiled"
http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/ktmc1.html (It is well worth
reading,
but not for the faint hearted.). Can you imagine him
trying to
deal with American women in the early 21st Century, after the
sexual
revolution and women's liberation? Maybe you can.
Here is Steiner himself on the problem of the differences between higher development and more ordinary social interaction (as quoted in Catherine's article above):
"The force that
enables us to understand the spiritual
world belongs only in the spiritual world; this same force
causes all
kinds of harm if it is directly and thoughtlessly transferred
to the
physical plane. For what is the nature of this force? It
consists in
making ones thinking independent of the physical plane. When
this
capacity is applied to the physical plane itself, it turns
into deceit
and dishonesty. Thus, people who were called upon to
disseminate
spiritual science have always seen great danger in doing so,
because
what is needed for understanding higher planes of existence is
harmful
when applied directly to the physical world."
Steiner also
writes quite explicitly of
sexual desire in The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity,
and I've
included a great deal of what was expressed there, below
(including a
few comments of my own).
Anyway, here is
the problem as I see it.
As anthroposophists, with our increasing individuality
and moral
freedom, we have seen (as has the greater general social
order)
difficulty in maintaining relationships, whether in marriages
or
outside a marriage. The elements of desire, the nature
of love,
the significance of Eros and sensuality, - a thousand
questions can
bloom once we start to ask them; and, in our Society we have
many many
single people, all of them with various emotional and physical
needs.
What makes this matter harder for us is that we are
deeply
involved in our spiritual Way, and this is so important to us
that
forming any level of intimate relationship with another
person, not of
the same Way, becomes quite difficult (many do, but many more
do not).
We also live,
as we have seen, in a quite
over-sexualized culture (Fallen Eros). Everything is
sexually
stimulating (from the obvious advertisements to the more
subtle curves
of many commercial products, for example), and women are in
constant
states of undress (much immodesty), or wearing clothes that
are too
tight fitting. Men generally don't understand themselves
as
sexual beings, and probably most women as well. There is
more bad
information than good out there about our sexuality.
We naturally
seek partners in life,
someone who is both attractive and interesting to us, and
whose soul
life is on the same page as our own. Yet, we also often
seek sex
when what we really want is to receive nurturing touch
(comfort) and
other related physical intimacies. Something
indefinable, called
"the relationship" is frequently a goal, when our actual needs
are
otherwise.
At the same
time, the Way of
Anthroposophy, even our quite individualized version of it,
reaches
deep into our souls and touches almost every aspect of how we
live
life. In Waldorf, for example, we know of many there who as
parents
have lost the marriage to disagreements over Waldorf and/or
Anthroposophy. As socially responsible human beings,
struggling
to form communities with each other, can we any longer fail
begin to
have conversations with each other in which we seek together
for
wisdom, for new ways of being human with each other in regards
to our
most intimate needs and passions?
Presently we
have to go outside our
circles for such conversation, to therapists or to the priests
of the
Christian Community, all of whom may be quite skilled and many
of whom
can no doubt help us with problems. But what if our
questions are
not about problems, but about just being I'm okay and you are
okay too?
Don't we get to come at this from a position of just
plain folks
and adequacy instead of having to define ourselves as having a
problem
first?
Perhaps our Branch life has not kept up with our human needs. Perhaps we need more purely social gatherings were individuals can meet each other, especially single individuals can meet single individuals. Perhaps we need to take these kinds of questions out of the closet of our fears and anxieties, and put them squarely in front of us in the realms of social (horizontal) conversation, where we share our hearts with each other, and seek together for inspiration to move within our circle so that something we cannot think of alone, we might be able to think of together. This social (horizontal) conversation is not meant, by the way, to be the same as the reverse cultus (a vertical conversation).
This, however,
brings once again the
mystery of the quote above:
"The force that
enables us to understand the spiritual
world belongs only in the spiritual world; this same force
causes all
kinds of harm if it is directly and thoughtlessly transferred
to the
physical plane. For what is the nature of this force? It
consists in
making ones thinking independent of the physical plane. When
this
capacity is applied to the physical plane itself, it turns
into deceit
and dishonesty. Thus, people who were called upon to
disseminate
spiritual science have always seen great danger in doing so,
because
what is needed for understanding higher planes of existence is
harmful
when applied directly to the physical world."
What does this
mean in practice?
Here is a very good starting question for conversation,
for who
among us can give a concrete example of this force which
Steiner has
only represented in the most vague fashion.
Who then has
the courage to begin to
explore these questions of the rite of passage that comes
prior to
adult play and intimacy. Yes the details are private,
but doesn't
the community have an interest in the psychological health of
the lives
of its members? How do we as a community foster a
healthy human
environment where people can learn to understand themselves
and each
other; and, where people make those first steps leading to
getting
their intimacy needs met as single people, and yet remain
involved in
the wonderful anthroposophical life of personal development
and
freedom? Does anyone reading this think that we are all
supposed
to be celibate, and that sex is only for marriage? If
there is a
rule - a moral rule - that some think should apply to all,
where is our
human freedom?
Here are two
more paragraphs from
Catherine's article:
"Now the great
initiate, if he wishes to avoid being
pestered night and day with such questions, would be wise to
shrug and
respond, "Beats me." But Steiner, it seems, never met a
question he
didn't like. The shrug was not in his repertoire. He
complained
repeatedly that members of the Society were failing to take
initiative,
that they were wearing him out by insisting on his
participation in the
most trivial administrative matters. He had become an esoteric
micro-manager, unable to delegate even when he wanted to. And
this can
be traced to the fact, that despite his avowals, there was no
horizontal matter that he or his students regarded as strictly
horizontal.
"In the social life of
a spiritual community, a strict
separation between the horizontal and the vertical cannot be
maintained. Community life is moral life, and the moral is the
meeting
point of vertical and horizontal. While failure to
conceptually isolate
one dimension from another is a cause of much craziness,
failure to
bring them together is a cause of stagnation. Healthy
spiritual life,
both for the individual and for the community, is a matter of
circulation - fluent movement from one dimension to another,
and within
each dimension according to its own laws."
I can only
compare our weak approach (to
these significant elements of community life) to those
amazingly
healthy traditional approaches in Native American communities.
If
we were to discover how to listen to this sometimes still
living
wisdom, one yet deeply rooted in its own spirit recollection,
we will
notice that as their children mature into adolescence, a
number of
social processes of initiation into the mysteries of adult
responsibilities and behaviors are undertaken. The
community has
a deep interest in there being healthy soul (psychological)
life among
all its members, and to ignore that we are beings of
sensuality and
erotic impulses is to ignore reality.
Granted a
strong remnant of the group
soul clings to these traditional social and community
ideas/ideals, but
if we trouble ourselves to listen carefully, we will find in
the
community wisdom of the Saturn Mysteries (the younger
brother's half of
the stone tablet) a quite valuable resource. There is a
soundness
to this ancient wisdom, and while we have to update it for the
situation of human freedom, it has much to teach us. The
secret
here is to turn the tradition into a question. For
example, the
ideal of the Five Nations Peoples (the Iroquois Confederacy)
is that
there is only one law, which is the seven generations law -
otherwise
all is dependent upon individual freedom.
This self
perception of modern Natives
overlooks the social coercive effect of community living in
the need of
the individual to be liked and accepted, but other than that
freedom is
the ideal. For us, who want to engage in the marriage of
the
Ancient Saturn Social Wisdom and the New Sun Mysteries of Love
Engendered Free Moral Grace, we take this social law, of
keeping in
mind what will be the consequences of our actions unto the
seventh
generation, and we turn it into a question. Instead of a
law, we
have a question. I'll give another example later,
concerning the
idea of dominion and surrender in the marriage relationship.
*
I have often
felt at anthroposophical
meetings that there was an undercurrent of sexual energies,
repressed
and unacknowledged, that would burst forth as such energies
do, into
tiffs and minor arguments between individuals that are
attracted to
each other, but have chosen (for reasons of karma, or out of
just plain
confusion) to join a spiritual community that wants to remain
asleep to
fundamental human impulses and needs.
These are not
matters for some book, by
the way, or some lecture, but rather correctly and acutely
belong to
any community that wants to bring conscious wisdom to its
human
relationships. Steiner has suggested strongly to us that
social
difficulties have to be solved in site - in the actual
community
concerned, from out of its internal resources, not from the
outside.
The whole outer society of Western culture has been in
dialog for
decades now on these issues, but where among anthroposophists,
in the
clear light of shared conversation, are they addressed?
the problem
of desire as seen from the point of view
of The
Philosophy of Spiritual Activity
Next are some
quotations from Steiner's The
Philosophy of Freedom (Spiritual Activity),
which then could form the background for our shared
considerations of
these so very important matters. Steiner has attempted
to face
these matters squarely and there is here much food for
thought.
All the same,
if we vainly believe that
he has said everything, and that there is no room for any
other thought
that could be truer or wiser or more beautiful, then it would
seem that
the Gods have made a very strange error in letting anyone
else, after
Steiner-said, think. If Steiner is to be the authority
to which
all other minds must bow down, then why do the rest of us have
minds at
all?
Out of such an
obvious impulse then, I
urge the reader to look at what is below with two additional
thoughts
in mind: 1) Christ loves us, whether we are unfree or not,
filled with
desire or not, and He has artistically woven together our
mutual karma
fully aware of the nature of appetite and desire*. 2)
the Divine
Mother, who rules the dark of humanity from below, has placed
in the
powers of sexual attraction the grace and gift of procreation.
Eros overcomes moral/ideal resistance all the time,
precisely in
order to make it possible for the stream of heredity to create
the
bodies needed by everyone (EVERYONE!) to incarnate.
Below, where
Steiner seems to have had to forget this (and other aspects of
horizontal existence), I have inserted a few comments in
[brackets].
*[While this
was mentioned above, we
should return once more to this theme... In the lectures From
Symptom
to Reality in Modern History
(Lecture
Five), Steiner writes of the Mystery of Evil in such a way
that he
suggests that what we as human beings see as evil is a
secondary effect
of spiritual forces, whose primary purposes are not the
production of
evil. He doesn't elaborate, but my own work with this
question in
meditation suggests that perhaps it is the spiritual forces
behind
desire and appetite, whose primary purpose is procreation and
the
maintenance of the human physical body - that is giving us
earthly
bodies in which to incarnate and thus unfold that development
that can
only take place on the Earth. These forces (which seem
to produce
pain avoidance and pleasure seeking) then have a secondary
effect, in
that we are free to engage in excess, such that evil can be a
result.
The metaphor Steiner has used in this lecture is that of
a train
engine that incidentally to pulling the train to its
destination wears
out the rails. The wearing out of the rails (evil) is
not the
primary purpose of the engine (desire and appetite?), which
Steiner
below often characterizes as an instinct. What is the
true
purpose of the lower chakra forces? Why does the I
remain their
potential victim? Could Steiner have spoken more
plainly
about these questions? Certainly in the Age of the
Consciousness
Soul, where the book The
Philosophy of Freedom encourages us
to learn
to place in the front of the impulses of desire and appetite a
freely
chosen moral ideal, we find our way toward this Mystery in a
more sane
fashion. Perhaps only American Anthroposophy can
accomplish the
necessary synthesis of Steiner thought and earthly human
experience
that enables us to comprehend this. As noted in
the
introductory materials to this book, Steiner was required to
render
much of what he taught in the language of the Intellectual
Soul.
Perhaps the language of the Consciousness Soul, which
this books
hopes to inspire in our circles, we will find the next steps
to take.]
From Chapter 1:
"On no account should
it be said that all our action
springs only from the sober deliberations of our reason. I am
very far
from calling human in the highest sense only those actions
that proceed
from abstract judgment. But as soon as our conduct rises above
the
sphere of the satisfaction of purely animal desires, our
motives are
always permeated by thoughts. Love, pity, and patriotism are
driving
forces for actions which cannot be analyzed away into cold
concepts of
the intellect. It is said that here the heart, the mood of the
soul,
hold sway. No doubt. But the heart and the mood of the soul do
not
create the motives. They presuppose them and let them enter.
Pity
enters my heart when the mental picture of a person who
arouses pity
appears in my consciousness. The way to the heart is through
the head,
Love is no exception. Whenever it is not merely the expression
of bare
sexual instinct, it depends on the mental picture we form of
the loved
one. And the more idealistic these mental pictures are, just
so much
the more blessed is our love. Here too, thought is the father
of
feeling. It is said that love makes us blind to the failings
of the
loved one. But this can be expressed the other way round,
namely, that
it is just for the good qualities that love opens the eyes.
Many pass
by these good qualities without noticing them. One, however,
perceives
them, and just because he does, love awakens in his soul. What
else has
he done but made a mental picture of what hundreds have failed
to see?
Love is not theirs, because they lack the mental picture."
[If I have a
need for physical intimacy,
what saves my seeking that from being merely bare sexual
instinct?
It would seem that I can actually admire the spirit of
the person
with whom I am to dance the dance of the rite of passage from
casual
social intercourse into a more intimate sensual and erotic
experience,
and thus remain free (not driven by my appetite). I do
this by
consciously forming a mental picture of the truth of who they
are - see
really what they will - not how they look. If I live in
a
community that develops a vocabulary and an understanding of
such free
social processes between individuals, then how much healthier
is my
soul life, my psychology? If the community has discussed
what is
a healthy relationship and what is not, yet without attempting
to
create standards or coerce our freedom, that discussion
becomes a basis
in the life of the community for honest and straightforward
verbal play
among adults who discover consciously that they are seeking a
same or
similar intimacy, whether just a single night of emotional
satisfaction
and shared comfort, to something more in the nature of
courtship
perhaps leading to marriage and children.
"The healthy social
life is found when in the mirror of
each human soul the whole community finds its reflection, and
when in
the community the virtue of each individual can live". Observation of community building
processes
reveals that as people in any community have conversation with
each
other, they create a shared vocabulary of meaning. Right
now in
anthroposophical circles this process remains semi-conscious,
resting
then far too much on our instincts (and Steiner-said).
In the
time of the Consciousness Soul it becomes important to take a
more
active interest in this process of shared meaning
creation, keeping in mind the need
to balance the community and
individual impulses. Steiner's social motto above
contains that
ideal. Realizing that ideal in practice, particularly in
America
where the basic social gesture is not to incarnate the ideal
(the
European gesture), but to solve immediate social problems in a
pragmatic fashion, will take some effort and care.]
From Chapter 9:
"The first level of
individual life is that of perceiving,
more particularly perceiving through the senses. This is the
region of
our individual life in which perceiving translates itself
directly into
willing, without the intervention of either a feeling or a
concept. The
driving force here involved is simply called instinct. The
satisfaction
of our lower, purely animal needs (hunger, sexual intercourse,
etc.)
comes about in this way. The main characteristic of
instinctive life is
the immediacy with which the single percept releases the act
of will.
This kind of determination of the will, which belongs
originally only
to the life of the lower senses, may however become extended
also to
the percepts of the higher senses. We may react to the percept
of a
certain event in the external world without reflecting on what
we do,
without any special feeling connecting itself with the
percept, as in
fact happens in our conventional social behavior. The driving
force of
such action is called tact or moral good taste. The more often
such
immediate reactions to a percept occur, the more the person
concerned
will prove himself able to act purely under the guidance of
tact; that
is, tact becomes his characterological disposition".
[Not to make to
much of it, but this
commentary made me wonder whether Steiner was a virgin.
I don't
mean this in a critical way, just that without actually having
had
sexual experience, how could he not see that precisely one
element of
desire is necessarily the letting go of thinking in the
direction of a
state of not thinking at all. Of course, I have heard
and been
told that Steiner was sexually active. He certainly was
married.
But did he know how to be a lover? Did he
understand the
nature of sensual abandonment? What would seem
necessary, in
order to remain morally free, is that one enter this rite of
passage
seeking intimate companionship with a great deal of wide awake
conversational play, in which an agreement is reached, without
one
person invalidating or dominating the other*. This
agreement is
one of ultimately and mutually surrendering into the
abandonment of
almost any and all restraint rooted in thought. At the
same time,
we all know (who are not virgins) that thought never really
leaves us.
The truth is that we are more like the rider of a horse,
who more
and more gives free rein to this animality, yet never actually
stops
paying attention - never loses conscious awareness of what is
happening. Yet, without frank adult conversations, how
are we to
learn from each other that necessary vocabulary that enables
us to meet
each other in the pursuit of sensual and erotic experience,
which
satisfies many emotional and intimacy needs quite beyond the
mere
moment of the so-called climax - the moment of presumed
deepest
surrender. What I think he is doing above is actually
laying the
foundation for a healthy social life in which human sensual
and erotic
desire is seen as fully capable of being moral, yet he had to
go at
this from such a round about set of circling phrases and
sentences,
that we almost lose the true train of thought. He lived
among
people who were not in any sense sexually liberated, nor were
the women
seen as more than subservient to men. In such a social
environment, circumlocution is essential in order that the
heart of the
message not get lost in some sensationalism connected to a
particular
(though significant) detail. This sense then of "tact",
or "moral
good taste", is the insight leading to the how that speech and
gesture in ordinary social intercourse
can lead to that agreement and consent to move beyond verbal
flirting,
into verbal foreplay, and then into the sensual and erotic on
the basis
of a true encounter with Unfallen Eros. By discussing
this in a
community, we enable the male and female natures - the active
and
receptive gestures, which are not actually confined to
physical gender
- to express their practical sense of such tact and good
taste.
We teach each other something very important and needed
by all.
Until we take up such a task, it remains undone, and we
remain in
social darkness and confusion.
*Obviously the
use of intoxicants, can
render us essentially unconscious, due to the effect of many
of them in
causing the ego to loose its hold on the blood. All that
I have
written here assumes a state of normal (un-intoxicated)
consciousness.
Although love making is an intoxication of its own
kind.]
From Chapter 9:
"There are many who
will say that the concept of the free
man which I have here developed is a chimera nowhere to be
found in
practice; we have to do with actual human beings, from whom we
can only
hope for morality if they obey some moral law, that is, if
they regard
their moral task as a duty and do not freely follow their
inclinations
and loves. I do not doubt this at all. Only a blind man could
do so.
But if this is to be the final conclusion, then away with all
this
hypocrisy about morality! Let us then simply say that human
nature must
be driven to its actions as long as it is not free. Whether
his
unfreedom is forced on him by physical means or by moral laws,
whether
man is unfree because he follows his unlimited sexual desire
or because
he is bound by the fetters of conventional morality, is quite
immaterial from a certain point of view. Only let us not
assert that
such a man can rightly call his actions his own, seeing that
he is
driven to them by a force other than himself. But in the midst
of all
this framework of compulsion there arise men who establish
themselves
as free spirits in all the welter of customs, legal codes,
religious
observances, and so forth. They are free in so far as they
obey only
themselves, unfree in so far as they submit to control. Which
of us can
say that he is really free in all his actions? Yet in each of
us there
dwells a deeper being in which the free man finds expression."
[Again, it is
obvious is it not, from our
vantage point, that custom is not to restrain free men and
women
(ethical individualists) from understanding their carnal
nature - the
gifts woven into having incarnated in a physical body.
The
problem, as seen from the point of view of The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity, is that we
learn how to ride the horse of desire in a manner in which our
conscious free moral intention never forgets that it is
holding the
reins of the lower impulses, and can direct them out of higher
motives,
thus redeeming what seems merely animal and making it something that can
justly be
called human. In the Age of the Consciousness Soul we
are
challenged to face all of carnal desire and inform it from out
of the
own I with freely chosen moral goodness]
From Chapter 13:
"By a very different
argument von Hartmann attempts to
establish pessimism and to make use of it for ethics. He
attempts, in
keeping with a favorite tendency of our times, to base his
world view
on experience. From the observation of life he hopes to
discover
whether pleasure or pain outweighs the other in the world. He
parades
whatever appears to men as blessing and fortune before the
tribunal of
reason, in order to show that all alleged satisfaction turns
out on
closer inspection to be illusion. It is illusion when we
believe that
in health, youth, freedom, sufficient income, love (sexual
satisfaction), pity, friendship and family life, self-respect,
honor,
fame, power, religious edification, pursuit of science and of
art, hope
of a life hereafter, participation in the progress of
civilization -
that in all these we have sources of happiness and
satisfaction.
Soberly considered, every enjoyment brings much more evil and
misery
into the world than pleasure."
[This last
sentence - as well as most
before it - would seem to be von Hartmann, not Steiner - in
any event
the reader is cautioned here.]
Again, from Chapter 13:
"I can speak of pain
only when desire runs up against the
impossibility of fulfillment. Even when an enjoyment that I
have had
creates in me the desire for the experience of greater or more
refined
pleasure, I cannot speak of this desire as a pain created by
the
previous pleasure until the means of experiencing the greater
or more
refined pleasure fail me. Only when pain appears as a natural
consequence of pleasure, as for instance when a woman's sexual
pleasure
is followed by the suffering of childbirth and the cares of a
family,
can I find in the enjoyment the originator of the pain."
[Is Steiner
here giving the counter
argument to von Hartmann? This is a chapter on
pessimism, and von
Hartmann would seem to be a pessimist, such that Steiner is
showing us
how carnal desires and pleasures, even though they can in
excess lead
to moments of pain, the pleasure remains itself. Read
the first
sentence above again, especially the word: only.]
More from Chapter 13:
"Anyone who follows
fairly closely the line of thought of
such thinkers as Eduard von Hartmann may believe it necessity,
in order
to arrive at a correct valuation of life, to clear out of the
way those
factors which falsify our judgment about the balance of
pleasure and
pain. He can try to do this in two ways. Firstly, by showing
that our
desire (instinct, will) interferes with our sober estimation
of feeling
values in a disturbing way. Whereas, for instance, we ought to
say to
ourselves that sexual enjoyment is a source of evil, we are
misled by
the fact that the sexual instinct is very strong in us into
conjuring
up the prospect of a pleasure which just is not there in that
degree at
all. We want to enjoy ourselves; hence we do not admit to
ourselves
that we suffer under the enjoyment. Secondly, he can do it by
subjecting feelings to a critical examination and attempting
to prove
that the objects to which our feelings attach themselves are
revealed
as illusions by the light of reason, and that they are
destroyed from
the moment that our ever growing intelligence sees through the
illusions."
[Again, is
Steiner agreeing with von
Hartmann, or disagreeing, especially in the last sentence
where Steiner
writes: attempting
to
prove. I believe Steiner is
disagreeing, but again in the style of circumlocution
necessary to not
losing the main message in something that others might
sensationalize.
We are the judges of our pain and pleasure, and the
eventual
masters (out of freedom) of our choices in this regard.
To argue
that carnal (bodily) pleasures are illusions is to mistake the
medium
for the message. Illusions abound, but they are not
without
meaning, for everything that is maya instructs us, and gives
us
choices. If there is any comment that needs to be
brought here,
it is this (and it is from Tomberg in his book Meditations on the
Tarot). Tomberg there makes
the observation that
pleasure, pursued for itself, is sterile. That is it is
unproductive. I suggest this is an excessive judgment on
his
part. It is true that pleasure for itself's main flaw is
that you
have to go back to it again and again. It does not
remain.
Yet, the physical body we are told is the most perfected
of all
aspects of our organism. Not seeking the pleasure
potential in
the carnal body would justly seem insane. Again, here is
a point
of view, if we leave it unexamined, that would make of all of
us
perpetually chaste monks and nuns, such that no children would
come
into the world, and there would be no bodies in which people
could
incarnate and seek out their karma. Tomberg has hidden
in his
judgment a moral ideal to which he seems to think all should
agree.
Has Steiner in his book on Freedom done anything
similar?]
From Chapter 14:
"It is impossible to
understand a human being completely
if one takes the concept of genus as the basis of ones
judgment. The
tendency to judge according to the genus is at its most
stubborn where
we are concerned with differences of sex. Almost invariably
man sees in
woman, and woman in man, too much of the general character of
the other
sex and too little of what is individual. In practical life
this does
less harm to men than to women."
[Is this here
the seed of understanding
out of which was to be grown women's liberation? We are
led then
to wondering what would happen today, in anthroposophical
circles,
where adult women are liberated, and the adult men more
sensitive (and
I say both of those with a bit of irony - understanding that
such is
only partially true), we took up among ourselves frank
discussions of
that which general human culture has been debating for years.
Without dialog, all remains unspoken and potentially
prey to the
Shadow out of the unconscious. This essay is much more
of a
warning, than it is an advocacy of some kind of sexual excess
in our
Society and Movement. My experience is that we are more
in danger
from the consequences of repression - of keeping such matters
in the
closet, than we are in danger from the consequences of
enlightened
conversation. Individual members of the Anthroposophical
Society
and Movement - that is members of our social community - have,
for
example, on occasion mistreated members who were gay men and
women, in
circumstances where unredeemed antipathies and sympathies were
allowed
to lash out at particular individuals. We have a long
way to go
as a community, and once more this essay merely seeks to
suggest that
it is time to take the bull by the horns and get on with it.
It
will be messy in any event, but the longer we wait, the more
likely
that something of these carnal forces and powers will join
together
with the Shadow and make of our work something far more
chaotic than
any of us need.
Years ago I
discovered a principle.
I found that I had created whole piles of undone deeds,
because I
saw them as difficult and set them aside for later.
Doing only
the easy matters first, I soon had too much of the hard and
difficult
ones on my plate. Then I began to look at any day, and
select for
the first deeds of the day the most difficult or otherwise
uninteresting. I soon found that these were quickly
done, and
that their apparent terror (in the form of anxiety) was
greater in my
mind than in the doing. Moreover, the rest of the day
was much
easier, for the hardest tasks had been cleared away, and I was
no
longer bothered by them. In our social and community
life as
anthroposophists, we face similar problems - not only
mistaking much
that is non-essential for the truly essential, but also never
doing the
truly essential because it appears to be too difficult.]
{an aside: many
thanks to Tom Last for
providing me with the Steiner quotes from The
Philosophy
of Freedom. Tom knows
this book better than anyone I know, and his website at
http://www.philosophyoffreedom.com/ is easily the most
significant
Internet source for the study of this book}
One last
comment here, before going
onward...
We ought to
keep in mind the precise
nature of Steiner's thinking, and realize that in his mode of
expression above he took great pains to speak on animal
desires on the
one hand and human choices on the other. Elsewhere in
his
spiritual research he was careful to speak of what we share
with the
rest of Nature, such that the animal kingdom, especially the
mammals
(see Shad's Man and Mammals, please) is
described as bearing a physical body, and ethereal body and an
astral
body, just as do we. It is no wonder then that
materialistic
science describes us as the human animal, without perhaps recognizing just what that
phrase
actually means.
Clearly, in
that we have an I (which the
lower animals do not) means that we bear the capacity to rise
above and
rule that which is animalistic in our corporeal nature.
This is, by the way, not meant to demean or
suggest we
experience shame, with respect to the necessity of our lower
impulses
and chakras in that they contribute out of their perfection to
our
experience of earth existence. I suspect, in fact, that
we must
not only learn to rule these passions, but also more
importantly, come
to understand them. Only through such understanding will
we be
able in the future to reach down into the animal kingdom,
recognize the
sacrifices made there for our benefit, and then discover how
to raise
our brothers and sisters there up to the human level of
existence, as
is our potential destiny.
Let us now
come at this from another direction entirely...
There is much
confusion in the
Anthroposophical Society in America, far more that people
would
imagine. The main source of this confusion is because we
live so
strongly under the influence of Ahriman here. This comes
to us
through our three-fold double-complex - we are very ahrimanic
out of
the influence of the double. Now the form this takes is
very
interesting, and somewhat obvious at the same time. What
American
anthroposophists tend to do is to take
in the teachings of Rudolf Steiner in
such a way that makes them quite comfortable. We can
take these ideas into us and make a kind of very comfortable
world view
out of them.
For example, we
may
see various kinds of aspects of modern social life that will
evoke in
us a kind of horror. We see these terrible things, and
then we
explain them away by seeing that these horrors arise because
of the
work of the opponents. We have explained that which we
have
observed away and actually not made much contact with it at
all.
Now not everyone does this. Some, who are of the
Mary Folk
(see the essay above: The Natural Transformation of the
Anthroposophical
Society in America), react more
strongly, are
more disturbed in their feeling life and find they have to
enter into
the wider social world process more directly. But for
many
others, they have this explanation using the opponents-idea,
and this
makes them comfortable.
A similar kind
of thing happens when
anthroposophists look at our Society and Movement. Here
the
gesture for comforting thoughts is more powerful. All
our media
are full of happy talk about the Society and the leadership of
the
various Councils in America and about Dornach, as if
everything was
wonderful, and there were no problems at all. So our
thinking
experiences our own social life and makes these very
comfortable inner
pictures. Yes, we say to ourselves, nobody is perfect,
but at the
same time everything is just fine. We are well led and
nurtured
from our institutional leadership. They give us all the
right guidance (when of course they should give us no guidance
at all,
for that harms us).
Of course, one
has to fail to notice
there is no growth in the Society - the number of new members
more or
less equals the number who drop away out of disinterest, and
few young
people are drawn into the work. We have less membership
today
than we did five years ago. We have to fail to notice
that
Waldorf in America is falling apart socially (the schools are
full of
social problems), or that Anthroposophical Medicine is held
entirely at
bay - no growth at all in America.
Those who
criticize, as this quote from
Emily Dickenson reveals - "Assent, and you are sane; Demure; -
you're straightway
dangerous and handled with a chain",
are
ignored, their thinking put in the chains of don't listen to
him, he is
dangerous. Don't bring us bad news says the comforting
voice of
the ahrimanic double, we don't want to be troubled by the
prospect of
any kind of failings.
That is just
one part of it, for the
other is the luciferic influence. We have this very
dreamy
relationship to what Steiner taught. We follow it like
some kind
of old favorite story-book play of which we never get tired.
Our
Society walks backwards into the future, and has yet to even
get on the
ground in America. Among the most recent major sponsored
conference events here (in the year 2007) were remembrances of something Steiner did a hundred years ago
(the Arts
Conference), and what the Templers did 800 years ago. We
are
trapped in a cul de sac of spirit recollection, a very
luciferically
fascinating study of everything Steiner every did and said.
But
the spiritual present, what the spirit wants to show us today,
to that
we don't yet know how to listen. We can't hear this
inwardly
because we have woven around ourselves this world of rigid
(old)
comfort that is disconnected from any thought that might make
us wake
up in the present and really begin to take responsibility for
the
spiritual future.
We also have
lost to the present a great
deal of what was healthy and done in the past - in the 20th
Century, by
anthroposophists other than Steiner. Over and over again
Steiner's books are republished, while the books of genius by
others,
who where inspired by Steiner, are allowed to go completely
out of
print. How often does a Study Group take up one of those
books,
instead of something by Steiner?
Most
anthroposophists actually don't know
how to experience the world directly into our thoughts.
Instead
we dip into memory - what did Steiner say we ask ourselves.
I had
a very brief discussion this last summer (2007) with a leading
anthroposophical doctor about the double (I mentioned this
above in the
essay on the Shadow). He said to my face that I couldn't
say
anything about the double until I had read and mastered
everything
Steiner said about it. It didn't seem to occur to him
that
someone was sitting across the table from him who had spent
ten years
working on this question of the shadow and who had a rich
inner life
full of experiences. He believed everyone he met in
Anthroposophy
thought like he did, and had to rely on Steiner. What an
easy way
to dismiss another, by comparing them to a dead authors words
from 100
years ago as if the spirit spoke only once to only one man and
never
had anything original or true to say to any other human being.
Of course, for
me to speak to an
anthroposophical doctor about the double was challenging to
him, albeit
probably unconsciously. Steiner had pointed clearly at
the double
and its relationship to health (see Geographic
Medicine), and if one asks
anthroposophical
doctors about this subject, we find that, in all of the 80 or
90 years
since Steiner and Wegman began this work, no new knowledge
about the
double and illness has susequently come forward. There
are just
some hints, but no research. Moreover, the double is
hardly
spoken of at all in the medical literature out of
anthroposophy.
Now what's the
point here. Well, if
we read Steiner (and there are a lot of reasons to read
Steiner for
inspiration) we will come upon the idea in his writings on
Lucifer and
Ahriman, that the cure for the luciferic is the ahrimanic, and
that the
cure for the ahrimanic is the luciferic. This idea is
then what
stands behind this essay on sex, and which is almost the end
of the
main text of my book on American Anthroposophy, because we
here are on
our way now to coming nearer the earth.
In order to
overcome the unground
luciferic tendencies in the Society here (the walking
backwards into
the future in this dreamy way - too much spirit recollection),
we take
up in the social the encounter with the sensual. We begin to
meet each
other in the social as beings who have lower, sense oriented
(pleasure
and pain) chakras, not just higher (dreaming luciferic)
chakras.
We have appetites. We celebrate the life of desire
by
seeing its oh so very human qualities and their necessity
(what Steiner
called the train engine, and the Sufi's the horse). We
make the
journey down the vertical axis into the Realm of the Dark (the
Realm
ruled by the Divine Feminine by the way). We think
together about
what it means to be beings of desire and appetite. When
is the
last time, for example, that an anthroposophical group in
America had a
backyard barbecue or a cocktail party - that is something
typically
American as a social gathering. Too much of our social
life is
ruled by ungrounded idealistic European assumptions that are
never
questioned.
To cure the ahrimanic, the world of rigid (old) comforting thoughts we have woven around our conceptions of our work as if it was all right and everything was perfect, we have to consciously dream (imaginatively seek spirit vision). We have to embrace luciferically imaginative pictures of what we could be if we were truthful about our real state of being as a Society. We seek visions of the future from a point of view that is honest about the present. How do people think the future arises? It comes from the dreamers, the ones who trouble themselves to be discontented (not comforted) with the present. We have to be first discontented with the Society, in order to properly dream its betterment.
I am, by the
way, not advocating lecture
courses at Branch meetings where the learned hold forth on
their views
of sexuality, or other aspects of the lower chakras.
This would
not be a healthy social environment - it would be too formal.
Much better would be small groups, such as a study
group,
gathering together in a social way - over food and in a
relaxed
atmosphere. We want to avoid too much gravitas.
Imagine as
follows: the study text has
been set aside (our usually weekly diet of anthroposophical
thought),
and once a month we are just social. At the same time
our
conversation takes a more intimate and earthly turn.
Everyone can
share stories from life here, and as you'll see next below
there are
principles from the Twelve Steps that can be fruitful.
We can, of
course, remind ourselves of
the very first questions of Steiner's The
Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity (or Freedom). Can I want what I want?
Am I
the prisoner of my desires, or can I be free before them?
Can the
higher chakra's rule the passions of the lower chakra's,
without
disabling the real and necessary functions of appetite and
desire?
Can my conscious spiritual activity, in seeking to place
in front
of any action a self determined moral reason (a sacrament of
the Second
Eucharist in the temple of my own soul), grant me that ideal
state of
true human inner freedom toward which Rudolf Steiner's every deed
pointed?
men and women
as sensual beings
The next
material is offered as
inspiration and stimulation for conversation, not to set out
great
truths to which one must bow down. All of this material
can be
found repeated in different degrees in my little book: Seven
Dates -
erotica transcending.
That book represents an
attempt at the art of erotica, yet at
the same time informing it with what wisdom
about love I have been able to acquire in my life. Below
I will
just cover certain basic principles in a somewhat linear
fashion, as
are expressed more fully in Seven Dates, and surrounded there by an imaginative story.
You
could, if you want, think of Seven Dates as my version of a mystery play, only this time
it is
about the mysteries of Eros, that which in the human being is
of the
dark moist earth, and the life of passion, mutual sensual and
erotic
intoxication, and submission.
Starting with
the obvious: men and women
are different. The individual spirit that inhabits the
male and
female bodily forms is even more different - uniquely
individual in
fact. However, the spirit is influenced by the body, and
of
course by culture and upbringing. As a consequence there
are
patterns which we share that can and ought to be called:
general
characteristics (what Steiner in The
Philosophy
of Freedom called genus).
Steiner
spoke often of these matters from different perspectives, and
in the book: Sexuality,
Partnership and Marriage, by the
Christian
Community priest Wolfgang Gadeke, Gadeke describes the male as
attracted to the female by his physiology (an impulse
originating in
the gonads apparently) and the woman attracted to the male by
her
recognition of something in his soul. The male is drawn
to the
physical and the woman is drawn to the soulful (to put it in
perhaps a
too simple way). Yet, Gadeke seems to suggest that this
attraction is mostly semiconscious. My
experience
confirms this observation, to a degree (the differences in our
points
of view are significant, however).
For example,
introspection often reveals
things others have not yet understood. While beauty is
in the eye
of the beholder (which Steiner referred to above when he
talked about
the mental picture we have of the spirit of the other), there
is to my
self-observation a sense related experience common to men, and
which is
rooted in the aesthetic of the female form. Steiner has
given us
to understand that the male form is more incarnate and the
female form
less so. To my experience, the shape and curves of the
female are
akin in their expression to that art and craft of the Divine
Mystery as
expressed in the beauty of Nature. That this is a common
experience of men is stamped all over our culture of Fallen
Eros, which
culture is itself dominated by men. A whole book could
be written
about pornography for example, which earlier ages just
considered erotic art of a high
order (it seems to some recent analysts that
the Victorians created the idea of pornography, and that in
many
cultures there is no shame at all attached to the creation or
experience of erotic art). To me the instinctive drivers
of the
attraction of the male to the female (in the sense of genus,
disregarding for the moment individuality) are far more
complicated
than Gadeke's observations. The reader should understand
here
that I haven't said even a part of all that could be said.
Gadeke does
point out that sexual
gratification for gratifications sake is ultimately fruitless
(Tomberg's notion of the sterile nature
of pleasure).
People can become lost in what Steiner describes as
animality
(meaning, as I have suggested, that which we share with the
kingdom of
nature just below us, in that we have carnal bodies).
At the same
time, social reality is far
more complicated in fact, and we have to be very careful about
our
generalizations. For example, last evening (of the
morning I
first wrote these paragraphs) I watched an HBO special on the
pornography industry of Southern California (11,000 full and
part time
sex workers, billions of dollars in income). The women
sex
workers (not all are as exploited as critics of this industry
like to
imagine) described that the main danger to their careers (incomes of
$8,000 to $10,000 a month were normal) was
falling in love. Once you fell in love, the ability to
engage in
the art of sexual expression before a camera, became a moral
problem.
Those exact words were used: moral problem. Here, of course, is again a consciousness
soul
phenomena in the individual biographies of people working in
an
industry that folks with too much beam in their eyes look down
upon.
Anyway, to
return to men and women as
sexual beings, keeping in mind the danger of
over-generalizing...
In the Age of
the Consciousness Soul, in
America, there is a general instinct for seeking the good, for
acting
out of ones personal moral compass. While there is
everywhere the
stimulation of Fallen Eros, there is also the return of
UnFallen Eros -
mostly in the form of a renewed interest in romance. The woman, having an instinct and a
hunger for a
soul to soul and spirit to spirit relationship, wants men to
be
sensitive to their needs. A man who approaches a
potential lover
today, solely for his own gratification, will only be received
by a
similarly imbalanced female nature. A great deal of this
is also
connected, no doubt, to karma.
Our language
talks of what are called: chick flicks - movies where one is stimulated to feelings of
sympathy,
and in which the male/female dynamic is one of dreamy hope and
passionate completion. If we step back from this, and
similar
cultural phenomena, we might be able to see that, in spite of
the
sexual revolution, much remains semiconscious. We grope
toward
something higher, having a sense of it, but can't quite find
our way.
What is this higher?
Eros!
Yet, Eros is a
partnership - the man bears within himself one aspect of
this
Mystery, and the woman another. They can only find its
deepest
truths together, and that only in the selfless adoration of
the other -
the Thou. My little book, Seven
Dates -
erotic transcending, could be a help
to couples who read it to each other.
Not as something to imitate, but as something to
stimulate and
inspire their thinking. Here are a few of its basic
thoughts,
although they are here expressed in isolation (in a linear
fashion
absent a needed imaginative context).
Men don't
understand their own sexuality,
for Western Civilization and culture is full of bad
information.
Women don't understand themselves either. What
they don't
understand is not the same thing, however. The general
characteristics of misunderstanding are different, yet
related.
From Native
Americans we might find the
idea of dominion
and
surrender. While this is a
Saturn
Mystery - a spirit recollection of a prior time when
individuality was
less important and the group soul more normal, this idea is
still
useful to contemplate for the questions it raises are
significant.
In this idea in the marriage, the woman gives the man dominion over her body, and surrenders to his expression of passion and erotic
intoxication.
He's the active principle, she the receptive. They
are in a
way the archetypes of the Father Creator and the Mother
Creator.
He is the spreader of seed from above, and she the dark
earth
into which the seed is received and then nurtured.
Father Sky and
Mother Earth.
There is a
reason I make a distinction
between the sensual and the erotic. The man is more
drawn to the
sensual in a certain respect, and the woman to the erotic.
The
male lives strongly in his earthly senses, while the female
lives
strongly in her emotional experiences. The senses give
us
sensuality, and the emotions eroticism.
Again, keep in
mind that this is a
generalization, and that each partner in love making bears
something of
the needs and wants of the other in the deepest aspects of
their
individual being. A woman, properly loved emotionally,
experiences and feels her sensuality all the more strongly,
while the
man properly loved sensually can experience his feelings more
deeply.
What Seven Dates
goes into is that
idea that woman tend not to understand very well how to be
good lovers
to men, to the same degree that men do not understand how to
be good
lovers to women. The film Don
Juan
Demarco is a wonderful examination
of how a
man can be a lover of a woman, yet our culture lacks a
corresponding
expression of how a woman can be a good lover of a man, taking
hold of
his real sensuality and so strongly giving him what he hungers
for
there, that his feelings, carried on the winds of her erotic
passions,
open him up emotionally in ways he never knew possible.
Women need to
stop thinking that men
should be like them. The main male character in Seven
Dates teaches the woman about his
own nature, which
instruction invites her to instruct him as well. It took
me ten
years to begin to unravel my own confusion as a man (a process
that is
always ongoing), due to the bad (immature) information in my
culture (a
project that was inspired in me by a meeting with a Native
American
woman).
In order to
appreciate these matters it
is useful now to add some vocabulary. Here I am going to
borrow
from other sources. First, from Catherine MacCoun's
remarkable On
Becoming an Alchemist, we can find
the idea
that one way to view spirit is as energy, but that to appreciate its individualized
nature we
need to add the idea of style.
Steiner spoke of
energy in this sense as enthusiasm, and MacCoun has added the
idea of
the individual expression of this energy of spiritual
enthusiasm as
being reflected in style. Each of us
has our
own unique style of being, from
the way we dress and walk and speak, to
the art of our biographies and on into the finest details of
our lives.
This will include our sensual and erotic expressions.
Consider
Tomberg's Meditations
on
the Tarot - a
journey into Christian Hermeticism,
in the
discussion in Arcanum Eleven: Force. Here Tomberg introduces two ideas (not
particular
his own words, but certainly he has unfolded the surrounding
explanations in a quite original style):
Bios and Zoe. Bios we
might see (in the context of our human
sexuality) as the electrical
chemistry
of sexual attraction or those arts
connected to getting
turned
on, for the man mostly in the
physical
plane and for the woman mostly in the soul/spiritual plane.
Zoe
is (in the erotic realm) the emotional merging and bonding
made possible by the process we call: getting to know each
other. Now both Zoe and Bios
are far more complicated
and actually penetrate all of existence (see Tomberg's
discussion for
details, it is very enlightening), but here I just wanted to
apply the
general idea to the subject of our discussion.
The male
carries more the mystery of
Bios, of the electrical chemistry of attraction in his hunger
for
dominion, which is expressed in his seeking out the woman in
an active
way, and in his effort to turn her on.
The female
carries more the mystery of Zoe, of the emotional merging and
bonding,
which she expresses in surrender and receptivity, but also by
erecting the rite of passage of
getting to know each other.
The secret for
both (in a situation that
is not animalistic - i.e. where the raw sexual hunger is ruled
from out
of the human I) is the: getting
to
know each other. The female will
make an error if she assumes that what the man wants is for
her to get
to know him in the same way that she wants to be known; and,
the male
will make an error if he assumes that what the woman wants is
for him
to get to know her in the same way he wants to be known.
The male
wants his efforts to turn on his partner to be met by her
efforts to
turn him on, all leading to physical intimacy.
While the
female wants to have her interest in being known intimately
emotionally
to be met by an equal interest in sharing from the side of her
partner
(she wants him to express his feelings too*).
*[See, for
example, the climactic
emotional scenes in the movie As
Good As
It Gets, starring Helen Hunt and
Jack
Nickelson. What ultimately melts her resistance - the
rite of
passage - is his finally expressing and confessing what she means
to him.]
The solution to
this dilemma, in
practice, is found in (what for some is a very odd place) the
Fifth
step of the Twelve Steps of AA, which reads: "5. Admitted to God,
to
ourselves, and
to
another human being
the exact nature of our wrongs."
[emphasis added]
This practice
of mutual
confession, inspired by the Second
Coming of Christ in conjunction
with the gradual re-emergence of the Feminine Mysteries (as
noted in
the essay on the Shadow, the Steps begin with the creation of
a
profound mood of surrender, then go on
to a journey through their social heart -
which is community confession ["hello, my name is
Joel, and I am an addict"] - thence to their fruit,
which is service), takes away
from the excesses of Roman Catholicism a
quite profound human spiritual art. No longer is an
ordained
priest, ruled from above by a hierarchical social structure,
to be seen
as the only place in which confession and absolution (divine
forgiveness) can arise.
In my book the
Way of
the Fool, I described the potential
social
future as having the individual home as a Temple of Love, in
which the
bedroom is a Temple of Eros. In the Temple
of
Eros, this place of profound
physical and
social intimacy, the core practice can be mutual confession.
We
share the deepest places inside ourselves with each other
through confession, and receive from each other this gift: listening without
judgment. If we do this while
recognizing the presence of
the Third, of Christ, then the basis for forgiveness is ours.
We also prepare
the ground for this in
our anthroposophical social-community practices, which rooted
in the
ideal of the social motto* also lead us right into the Reverse
Cultus.
What is a first principle of the Reverse Cultus, as
elaborated by
Steiner in Lecture Six of Awakening
to Community? The sharing of
each to
the other of our heartfelt concerns of the moment.
*[The healthy social life is found when in the mirror of each individual soul the community finds itself reflected, and when in the community the virtue of each one is living.]
Now not all our
most intimate secrets are
or ought to be the subject of community knowledge, but at the
same time
all of us need at least one place where we can have moments of
some
degree of deepest mutual confession and to be received into
the arms of
one offering us, at the least, nurturing love. Who can
really
deeply confess, and not sometimes need to be held.
And, if we
idealistically (and falsely)
confine this gesture in the Temple of Eros only to the
marriage bed, we
create great psychological harm. Not all of us are to be
so lucky
as to find just that one person with whom to form a
partnership leading
to marriage. For the rest, there is no reason to assume
we have
to be denied that physical and spiritual intimacy our true
soul health
needs. Thus, the somewhat tongue-in-cheek part of the
subtitle to
this essay: Sex
and the Single Anthroposophist.
Years ago, a
friend of deep instinctive
spiritual life, spoke to me of the movement from more ordinary
social
relations to one of deepening emotional and physical intimacy
as a rite of passage (as
noted above). This concept is, I believe,
crucial. There is little possibility of renewing this
art - of
redeeming Eros - without some shared intimate discussion among
friends
in a social setting. For men and women, who are also
anthroposophists, to gather and share with each other their
thoughts
and feelings about this rite of passage,
inside and
outside of marriage, can become a very profound socially
creative deed.
A larger community (such as a Branch), in which there
are a
number of little gatherings engaged in seeking such human
understanding, will soon see, in its wider social relations,
the
presence of a vivifying life, born out of both Bios and Zoe as
these
become the natural and conscious expression of the individual
human
beings of which that community is formed.
That the male
tends to be naturally more
gifted with Bios energies, and the female tends to be
naturally more
gifted with Zoe energies, simply means that the order and
organism of
social existence, as Created, reflects also the higher order
Cosmic
relationships within the Divine Mystery.
It might be
useful, to make this all a
bit more concrete, to conceive of it this way. When two
individuals find themselves at the cusp of both wanting deeper
intimacy, there are three paths (see my Seven
Dates). The starting point is
to be awake in the moment,
and to share what is wanted and desired. To hold
the
passion at bay for a moment and make sure that which path
taken is one
that is mutually agreed upon.
The path of
Bios alone is the path of
mutually turning each other on (intentionally moving forward
on the
chemistry of the attraction). The path of Zoe alone is
the path
of deeper mutual confession. In Bios, for example, we
are
physically touching and undressing - getting rid of any
physical
barriers to intimate physical contact. In Zoe, to
continue the
example, we are touching and caressing with words, perhaps
even lying
down fully clothed and talking to each other, but with a
physical gap,
all in order to pass through the normal psychological barriers
to
intimate emotional contact.
The middle way lies in awake conversation, and moving from one to the other. Some Bios and some Zoe, with the conversation mediating in between.
What is crucial
is that each partner
recognize in the other - the Thou - the
fact that the
dominant need is other. Just as
one is male and one is female, the drive
for intimacy is also polar, different yet mutually bonded -
one a key,
its urge to penetrate obvious; the other the lock, its secrets
hidden
and needing to be coaxed cautiously and carefully into
revealing its
inward depths. Neither alone is complete. Both
together are
a miracle.
Welcome, dear
friends, to the upward and
downward gestures of the vertical axis of the Cross, the dark
moist
Earth, Fallen Eros and the Realm of the Shadow, all to be
healed by the
Zoe of the Feminine Mysteries of the future through
spiritualized conversation (The Redemption of Eros), in
collaboration with the Second Coming of Christ, the Second
Eucharist in
the Ethereal and the dawning of American Anthroposophy.
"I reason, earth is short,
And anguish absolute,
And many hurt;
But what of that?
"I reason, we could die:
The best vitality
Cannot excel decay;
But what of that?
"I reason that in heaven
Somehow, it will be even,
Some new equation given;
But what of
that?"
So writes Emily Dickinson,
but what of
that? What indeed.
********************************
The America Soul -
an evolving synthesis at
its moment of birth:
- much has been written above -
here is a small effort at a summary, with a few
additional
insights offered as a concluding theme
An interesting
point to note at the start
here is to consider that the American Soul is a work in
progress - it
appears not to be finished in any way
similar to other soul gestures in the world.
The processes that are forming this soul have barely
begun, would
be one way to look at it. To think carefully about this,
however,
requires that we think first about the soul itself, how it
arises, and
in what way can it be observed. We also have to reflect
on the
term "folk soul", something Steiner mentions.
While I have
referenced a few of
Steiner's indications throughout the text, my main effort has
been to
remain phenomenological: that is, to discover the
characteristics, and
past and future nature, of the American Soul indirectly though
the
observation of various social phenomena. If I succeeded
in this
endeavor, the reader should expect to have a lot of good
questions, but
only a few definite answers. This will hopefully leave
to the
reader the task of forming their own conclusions, or perhaps
even
better, their own questions.
*
First, let us
recall some aspects of the
themes as laid out above.
Steiner
expected America to have its own,
yet similar, version of Anthroposophy, which he characterized
as
initially wooden (plant like and dreaming), but nonetheless
natural and
instinctive. He also expected Ahriman to incarnate
prior to
the 21st Century, and that he should be discovered and named.
This then is where this book began, with the questions
as to what
would this American Anthroposophy be like, and how that might be influenced by the
Challenge of Ahriman's incarnation.
Steiner also
thought that the
counter-force to the too earthly aspects of the physical
organism of
Americans would be from the head, and in the form of knowledge
of what
he called: the Mystery of Golgatha - a Mystery that is always
ongoing.
This we took up in learning of the Second Eucharist in
the
Ethereal - the inward baptism of human beings by Christ
through holy
breath (the Holy Spirit - the Mystery of the Three in One) and fire, where
out of our freedom we come to
knowledge of the Good.
But the problem
of freedom is not simple,
so next we took up the question of method, of how we create
the
metamorphosis of thinking called for by Steiner in his books:
A Theory
of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception, and The
Philosophy of Freedom (or Spiritual
Activity). Here we discovered
that
Americans have a natural and instinctive affinity for the
stream of
Discipleship - the stream of the Shepherds, and are less drawn
to the
stream of Rosicrucianism and Alchemy - the stream of the
Kings.
We are drawn into the social world as social helpers,
and this
call for moral deeds in the world reflects deeply on the
nature of our
souls.
We deepened
this understanding of moral
inner work by learning to apply the new thinking to the
general social
conditions of humanity, not just in the specifics our our
individual
relationships. This methodology of a new - cognitively
spiritual
- social science then enabled us to take a profound look at
the
institutional expressions of our mutual work, and at the
Martha and
Mary impulses to be found there. But this was not
enough, so as a
last open secret of our understanding of The Mystery of
Golgatha in
practice, we took a look at that most intimate aspect of our
soul life:
the Shadow - which work begins with the problem of the mote
and the
beam.
Now we had the
tools with which to
counter the Challenge of Ahriman's Incarnation.
It then became
our task to deepen our
appreciation of the Mystery of America itself. First by
recognizing with spirit mindfulness the remarkable spiritual
creativeness of our youthful culture in the work of four
contemporary
living artists.
Second, we then
went down into the roots
through deep spirit recollection, to discover not only a
previously
unrecognized relationship to the First Nations Peoples here,
but also
how, via the joining of Steiner's research and the Hopi
Prophecy, we
can create a picture of the extraordinary task this Mystery of
America
faces - the trials of creating true brother and sisterhood,
not in an
idealistic way, but down in the crucible of life, in issues of
race, of
immigration, and ultimately across the fundamental differences
between
men and women.
Along the way,
we looked briefly at the
threefold soul nature of the social world, at positive and
negative
aspects of East, Center and West. We also tried, through
spirit
vision, to get a glimpse of the future Mysteries, particularly
the New
Mysteries of the Earth and their relationship to America.
All of this was
woven together, as much
as possible, in a way that made these themes companionable
with
Steiner's fundamental legacy and work. American
Anthroposophy ought to complement
all that Steiner did, which we have
inherited, and for which we are now the stewards (The Philosophy of
Freedom, i.e. the New
Thinking-Cognition; the Reverse Cultus,
i.e. the New Mysteries of Community; and, through these
two means we discover how to restore the missing Life forces of Christ to the Michaelic Cosmic Intelligence which needs
to flow
through all the Daughter Movements born so far in
Anthroposophy).
What then is
the American
Soul?
*
The Soul arises
as a mediating principle
in between unique conditions of the Earth, and the Immortal
Spirit or i-AM,
on
its path to earthly incarnation. In the ancient
traditions of
the East, for example, only the undifferentiated Ocean of
Spirit is
thought to be real, while all astrality, all ethereal forces,
and all
earth existence and karma are but illusions. In the true
West,
however, matters are far different - in fact, as might be
expected,
completely opposite or polar to that of the East.
In the true
West, where there is a
remarkable natural talent for Cosmogony, the so-called world
of Maya
is/can be known here to be the Creation, the product of the
sacrifices
of the Son, in which He has embodied Himself - in which He has
come to
rest in living equilibrium. Thus has arisen the profound
Mystery
of the Christ as the organizing principle which Goethe
discovered
Speaks in Nature, and which we are learning to realize also
Speaks in
the Social World. The Word is made Manifest in such a
way that
our imaginative faculty can learn to hear/perceive all the
Creation as
symbol - as the Logos Speaking in images, what one science
writer
(David Bohm) called implicate order.
This
manifestation is not only outside
and surrounding us, but more crucially is to be found inside
us, for
thought also is of the Creation. We too are the Word
made
Manifest. The Kingdom of Heaven is within, and in all
that can be
discovered there inside us, through scientific introspection,
we will
also experience the Logos Speaking. No one comes to the
Father
except by me, and so as we learn to
experience the Good, the Holy Breath of Christ within, we
begin the
journey through the Narrow Gate to the core of the Divine
Mystery
Itself.
In the prologue
to the John Gospel, it is
there written: And
in
the darkness the light is shining, and the darkness never got
hold
of it. This is our condition
today.
Where once (out of spirit recollection, via Steiner's
research,
we have come to understand that) the inner world was light
filled, and
the outer world dim, the condition today has evolved into its
polar
opposite. The outer world is now light filled, and the
inner
world is dark. We even assume, because of this, that the
inner
world is less important, so fascinated have we needed to
become with
the world of the senses.
Thus the basis
of our freedom, for the
Fall has brought us to a very special state of consciousness.
Coming to Earth has turned us inside out, as it were,
enveloped
us in a world of physical sense experience just so that we
would feel
ourselves to be lost to the gods. If we turn around
inside
ourselves and away from the sense world, when we struggle to
birth the
scientific introspection of our own inward gateway to the
spirit, all
that we experience there is dark - or so it seems.
Without our own
activity in the mind - in
the soul, via our spirit - there is no sound, no light, no
being, no
meaning. The Christ Impulse, the Word within the i-AM,
in
thinking brings this missing light. We bring this missing
light. All introspection, all
looking within, shines light where first there was darkness.
We
are that light - our will is that light. Even in
ordinary
discursive thinking, the inner speaking which our naive
consciousness
knows as first stage thinking, is a sounding in the darkness within.
For example, if
we sit quietly in
meditation, simply observing the flow of mental images that
pass before
our concentrated attention and intention, there will be a
rising and
falling away of pictures we do not create, but only observe.
Yet, from what mystery comes the light by which
these are
seen by the inner eye of the spirit? Our own I is the
source of
that light. By our attention and intention in the inner
world we
created the light that is there, and which illuminates the
mental
picture.
Materialism - that is the Ahrimanic Deception - causes us to believe that this inner nature - our Soul - is bound to the brain, confined to the head, and cut off from the life and light filled world of outer and inner nature, as a subject never to know the truth of its object. The sense world enchants us, and we are fascinated with all its pain and pleasures.
Yet, in The
Philosophy
of Freedom (or
Spiritual
Activity), Steiner provides a map to
the
narrow gateway to heaven within. Wake up here, he sings.
Look within, scientifically. Objectively.
Shine the
light of Reason, the own Logos Nature - the own Word - in that
darkness
the Ahrimanic Deception would have us believe is a dead end.
Sense Free
Thinking. Pure Thinking.
By these disciplines we then know out of our own willed
action
(Emerson's active
soul): And in the darkness
the light
is shining, and the darkness never got hold of it.
Soul of Man!
*
Races and
civilizations come to die in
America because America is the womb of Philadelphia - of the
ultimate
brother and sisterhood of all human beings. There is no
American
Soul in the same way there has been a French Soul or a Russian
Soul or
a Chinese Soul. The American Soul is basically a void,
unformed
uncreated chaos waiting that form to be given to it not by
beings of
the hierarchies of Folk Souls, but by the own i-AM itself.
What the world
experiences of the
American Soul is the latent force of the
unformed, the
uncreated - of individuality unleashed. The American is
perceived
as different because he is not like that which perceives him.
The
French do not recognize themselves here, nor the Germans,
although many
would like to do just that. It would be far more
comfortable for
many to see in the American a mirror of what they believe to
be their
own highest natures. The unformed can be made to do
that,
precisely because it is unformed. In a like fashion many
will see
in us that which they most despise, even in their own souls.
At the same
time the unformed is
receptive. It amalgamates that which seeks to impress
itself upon
it. Thus, we so easily take in European Anthroposophy
and imitate
it. We hunger for spirit, and sensing the high idealism
there we
pull it in - water for a dry sponge. It is our youth
that does
this, the same way the child imitates its parents and then its
teachers. Ultimately however, this is not enough, for
precisely
because we are essentially unformed (no real folk soul
characteristics
in the Americas in the same sense as the rest of the world - races and
civilizations die
in America), we now bear within our
individuality a special capacity with respect to the Christ
Impulse.
We would will the Good, out of our own I.
*
the temple within...
Waking up to
the Narrow Gate, and the
truth of our own spirit activity within, we come upon a
temple, half
built, with dusty cobwebbed corners, many windows empty of art
and
color, and locked boxes of thoughts, feelings, impulses of
will - all
contained by the prison-like nature of our previous
unconscious and
sub-conscious states of soul.
Yet, wherever
our heart has touched this
temple, there the dross is made into gold. In this
temple we seek
the Good, and on the altar of our heart-felt thoughts born
naturally
and instinctively in the Sacrament of the Second Eucharist in
the
Ethereal, we know/are/create the Good and then manifest it in
the
Creation, both outwardly and inwardly. Out of us flows
the Good
into the shared Social World, the shared womb of evolution for
all of
the billions of i-AMs. Where we
love, we add our love to that of Christ.
We take up along side and with Him Christ's kind and
light yoke
of Love (Matthew 11: 28-30).
Yes, this is
not easy. It is a Path
full of dangers and sidetracks and pitfalls. We can be too
serious (an
excess of gravitas), and/or too ungrounded (not concrete
enough in our
thinking). The Soul moves from one excess through the
heart
center and then to the next excess, for we must never forget
just how
human we are. Even Prokofieff has this right: "None of us are
perfect."
All the same, the American Soul has something unique to offer, something in the Art of the Social, the Royal Art. To find this we must clean up the temple, open some of the locked boxes, and let in the fresh air of our own thinking. We can also find a great deal of important inspiration in other places than just the books of Rudolf Steiner...
The Shakers, an
ecstatic Quaker
community, had this as a song, from their American Elder
Joseph
Brackett in 1848:
Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
to bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning,
turning we
come round right.
which tune was
used by the English Quaker
poet Sydney Bertram Carter, to write his The Lord of the Dance
in 1963:
I danced in the morning when the world was begun
I danced in the Moon & the Stars & the Sun
I came down from Heaven & I danced on Earth
At Bethlehem I had my birth:
Dance then, wherever you may be
I am the Lord of the Dance, said He!
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be
And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said He!
(...lead you all in the Dance, said He!)
I danced for the scribe & the pharisee
But they would not dance & they wouldn't follow me
I danced for fishermen, for James & John
They came with me & the Dance went on:
I danced on the Sabbath & I cured the lame
The holy people said it was a shame!
They whipped & they stripped & they hung me high
And they left me there on a cross to die!
I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black
It's hard to dance with the devil on your back
They buried my body & they thought I'd gone
But I am the Dance & I still go on!
They cut me down and I leapt up high
I am the Life that'll never, never die!
I'll live in you if you'll live in Me -
I am the Lord
of the Dance*, said He!
*[Or, as
Steiner (and
I)
would
like to put it, not having quite the same poetic inspiration
as
Carter: Christ is Lord (artist) of
Karma]
Last here, a
more modern American (and
unique voice): Harvey Bornfield*
*[Harvey was
born into this veil of tears
Friday May 4th, 1945, called
back to the
Source, Sunday January 8th, 2006, passing unnoticed by
the world
which had no place for him, except in the smallest of
ways among
family and friends. Here is what I wrote in my
collection of his
prose/poems from many years of e-mail discussion groups, to be
called: Silent
Passage: " - imagine
what might happen if the Sufi poet-mystic Rumi, and the deaf
composer
Beethoven, decided to write together (as dance partners)
some
seeming prose as an organic (spontaneously alive and
evolving) sequence of jazz riffs -"
Harvey's works
are best felt in the heart
when
read
aloud, with occasional trills of passion. The
collection Silent Passage
should be
available on my website for free, and in book form on lulu.com
for
cost, at the end of Summer, 2008.]
RONDO
Name is but clothing, Thought's the weaver
and I but Footprint, a moment of snow
Let the River write the book, make us her sailors
She our voice, We her words
so upon her ways shall we widen, join tide,
and singing, soar like flame.
All these are stairs, thinks he,
Upon such rungs are fairy tales spun
the same that ancestor the nations,
and straightaway the Nomad set sail upon a Swerve of Wave
and was silver-seated atop crown and swell of
diamond
crests.
Spearless, robed in white and swim of winter verse
He descended into the roar of the world
Fire, Air, Earth, Water
welcomed him to this Theater of Chameleons
dressed him in reach of Sun and swelling Wind,
in Floor of
Rock and Sprawling Sea
He donned the glove of the elements
Chaste of Presence, dare not even hover
Even silence was louder, grass loftier than he
for he had no flowering song
no floating dream, no piercing deed
to bestow
upon the planets.
And when he had made such stairs his food
was made chameleon,
diverse with fractures, quilted in shadow
he thinks, Song is but travel, man her flute
and I but
mirror, a moment of sun
Thus downstream he wove a tale
And it was as bedrock,
undetected, the same on which worlds glide ropeless round
The Owl ushered him into glowing night
loaned him his talons, his Branches of the Dark
the Dove, Her Kingdom of Breathless Poem
Inlaid like the rungs of a ladder
between molten core and icy rim was he.
Fire, Air, Earth, Water orphaned him in camouflage of seasons
made him
volatile, delivered him into a cradle of war
Along the way
he met the Carver of Rivers
Saw her pouring strands of hair
Sweep down from crisp perch to swallowing valley
Like a caress of unoutspoken waterfall
downstream stretches forth, stretches out her lute strings,
offering her
crystal braids to the thumbs and fingers of the wind.
Hears her tremble, hears her whisper in some unpaved dialect
“Now the Father of Ballads, the Author of Chords may strum me!”
for Name is but Mask, Thought's the Jailer,
and I, your
Locksmith, a Century of Sand.
Downstream of Sky, somewhere between dust and flight he dwelled,
and at long last, sailed into salt sorrow
for along the way he chanced to meet the Mother of Mysteries
Named her the sea, for mermaid-green she was
spacious and
unrelenting, large of mercy, cruel of justice
Saw her ferocious claws of tide
ribbon the cliffs in chains of bursting tears,
while all the while she kneeled like a psalm,
for he was Uncrowned, Hollow of Presence,
Even Mirror was more announced than he.
for he had no flawless Dream, no Flaming Deed
to leave
behind where worlds glide ropeless round.
Into broad lanes of sea he was wove,
held fast as a star in a cave
and lived in the caress of a sword
The Dolphins clothed him in crevasses
outfitted him in the husks of the world,
obscured him in an alphabet of atoms,
For Name is but tread, life's the whirlwind,
and He the
dancer, a shadow of the Sun
Till, when he drowned and was as jewel kissed,
summoned into raging dark
unmentioned, unknown even to Fable,
sunk to a place none could find him,
saying 'Now no longer shall I be orphan, be island
Then Mother of Mystery sings to him,
Her showers steal away his Shadows,
Then she choreographs him in leap, Knights him a River
and doubtless outposts him at the far corner of a distant rim
in a Morning Kingdom
Where I believe on the spine of a diamond's eye
he spins well-woven songs, rising dreams, and searing deeds
For life is but street, thrilled by a star
and I am but
cirrus, a moment of Swan.
Harvey Bornfield, Keams Canyon, Arizona, December 11, 1994
****************************************
"Are we having fun yet?"
the American cartoonist Bill Griffith's character
Zippy the Pinhead, expressing the core riddle of the Zeitgeist
****************************************
end stories
1) America: the Central
Motif;
2) Bicycles: a Children's
Christmas Story for Adults
and the poem:
3) the Gift of the Word
first
America: the Central Motif (by Patrick Dixon)*
*reprinted with permission, and at the same time with
a great deal of gratitude that this exists...
1.
It could be
said that the American Dream
has lived within and accompanies the generalized westward
motion of
those civilizations that are collectively known as the Post
Atlantean
Epoch, comprising seven cultural ages (from 7227 BC 7894 AD)
The impulses
for the Post-Atlantean
(Aryan) Root Race were taken east; and from a region in the
Himalayas
the sowing of the seeds of those cultures that would begin
their long
westwarding sun-following journey was brought about by the
Seven
Rishis; who were the bearers of the seven Higher senses, as
I'lands
that would descend upon an arising humanity in the future.
The five
Islands sunk as the five senses
became immersed in the physical plane and the human being
began to rise
above the sea of pre-individual clairvoyance; to see the
Promised land
of ego-based consciousness. This condensation of and
separation between
the watery and aerial mantles of the Earth (this fall of the
sea out of
the sky) paralleled the fall of the Etheric body of the human
being,
into closer proximity with the densifying physical body that
was rising
into differentiation as the less defined etheric body was
sinking. This
division between the water and air elements reverberated
deeper and
higher, both densifying the earth as a receptacle for the more
gravity-bound water and dividing further the sub- and super-
terrestrial fires. Levels that were clearly defined to higher
beings
then began to form into the Jacob's ladder that would be
experiencable
to beings bound to a sense world losing consciousness of its
supersensible origins.
The great
sequence of civilizations that
unfolded as the Post Atlantean moved generally in a westward
direction,
focusing and converging towards the Incarnation in the Middle
East. The
voyaging of the Sun against the eastward turning motion of the
Earth's
material body was a reflected image of the Solar Logos as it
moved
across the Earth, both entering more and more deeply into
matter,
whilst also becoming more and more committed to strive against
it and
transform it. This reached a climax in the event of the
Incarnation, in
a body so constituted that it would be able to lead the newly
formed
Ego being of humanity out of the dark severance into which it
had
fallen.
The western
experience (for people on all
landmasses) became archetypally associated with the setting of
the Sun.
This picture has several meanings, one being the sinking of
consciousness down into the dark unconscious region of the
Will, deeper
than the feeling realm of the heart, into a place from where
there can
arise either the light magical acts of an awakened being, or
the
nightmarish deeds of the self-darkened self. The dawn is a
daily
remembrance of the time when the Sun left the Earth, just as
dusk is a
presentiment of that future state when with all its
transubstantiating
powers it shall rejoin our planet; and that which has poured
light into
the eyes of physical sense shall dawn out of new eyes as a
Spiritual
and soul Sun, new eyes that shall become one I that shall
bestow life
and consciousness on all that it shines upon.
For this 'all
seeing eye' to become an
all being I' it must set into the darkest, most separate
place, die to
itself as the seed in the soil, give itself to the deepest
purpose of
all, then by a mysterious alchemy, the Will of all shall
surrender to
the one, and there shall arise a type of human being who will
perceive
the Universe as being an Individual while they and other human
beings
are experienced as being universes within themselves.
2.
The landmasses
of Eurasia and Africa
extend from the Arctic to well south of the Equator but the
greatest
area of land unfolds in an east west direction. The northern
Hemisphere
is the one dominated by dry land; the southern is more fluid,
womblike
and feminine, as the metabolic region of the body; and like
the
interior depths of the body, it lives below the perception of
normal
sense faculties or thought.
The dry land of
the north was a basis for
the development of objective consciousness (the dryness of
thought
rising as a continent above the seas of feeling). The
Afro-Eurasian
landmass spoke of the Eastern past and of the Western future;
it
neither completely remembered the one nor foresaw the other.
The
Americas are the arriving at the future and the returning of
the past
out of it.
The Americas
stretch from pole to pole
linked by an almost continual belt of mountains. In Central
America it
could be said the Eastern Pacific overreaches itself to almost
touch
the Western Atlantic as it flows into the Caribbean. In this
place the
meeting of the great eastern Water and the great western Sea
and the
touching of the Northern Continent and the Southern landmass
describe
an immense planetary cross of the earth and water elements.
Here, also,
there rise in the chain of mountains many that are firetopped
instead
of snowcapped, and blowing to and fro across these and up and
down
their length are winds from every quarter It is a heart formed
by the
rhythms that pulse into it, and like the heart in the human
being it
receives and passes on influences from the upper to the lower
pole and
back; and like the heart, it is located above the planetary,
bodily
centre of gravity of the Equator. It could be called a dynamic
centre
of levity.
The North polar
ice cap, like a skull
enclosing, frozen over the more fluid brain, or, in another
way, like
thought crystallized out of feeling, carries its cold
conditions south
by way of the high spine of mountains that reaches down
through the
Americas; and in this one can see how two conceptions of
height and
upwardness are united, the upper pole of the Earth with its
drier nerve
sense extremity, and the polar conditions that are found above
a
certain height on all mountains. Special influences are
received by the
Arctic from the constellations that are above it; the
condition of the
water beneath the ice cap is highly receptive to cosmic
influences
because it is far removed from the rapidly turning Equator and
its
burgeoning life; these waters like a finely tuned instrument
pass tones
of infra- and ultra- sonic frequency that are received by the
myriad
fish and marine mammals that disperse down into the warmer
waters; also
along the spinal cord of metals and minerals that are
contained within
the backbone of mountains that straddle the Earth through the
Americas
are passed magnetic forces and resonances not detectable by
present
instrumentation; these are those received by the Poles from
the Cosmos,
that advance and retreat, according as to whether the Pole is
tilted
away from or toward the Sun.
At the other,
Southern Pole, it is not an
enclosing of fluid, rather it is a rising out of it by solid
land, just
as the solid bones of the limbs descend out of the soft
fluidity of the
metabolic abdominal region. the cold of the upper pole is in a
spiritual sense the cold of thought, withdrawn and aloof, the
cold of
the lower pole is the cold of the will that goes its own way
that
separates and asserts itself against life; it is a cold that
denies and
rejects the existence of others. The Antarctic is colder,
stormier and
more desolate than the Arctic; in human and spiritual terms it
could be
said that one is as an inner cold of the self, the other a far
more
dire and active cold that spreads beyond the self and makes
all others
as itself.)
The primary
polarity of the poles to the
Equator is again divided in itself into a secondary polarity
as to the
unique qualities of the North and South; in the great land
bridge of
the Americas and along its length cross and mingle the
currents of
these opposites. America was to be the place where human
beings would
be able to bring harmony and equilibrium between the pole of
Thinking
and that of Will and this made possible through the
development of the
Heart center of Feeling. The longitudinal alignment indicates
that no
longer journeying toward the Promised Land of reconciling
these
extremes into a new conscious balance, the American will have
arrived.
This is the real American dream, where each either attains
mastery over
and harmony between the opposing tendencies of human nature,
or is torn
to pieces by the conflict between them.
3.
Now we must
enter upon a dark passage in
American history, that has cast its spectral shadow over all
levels of'
manifestation, a tunnel that had no light at the end of it,
which could
have brought the Fifth Epoch to a dead end. It takes a special
light to
see in this darkness, but see in it we must, if we are to
illuminate
with new understanding many of the difficulties and trials
that America
has had to and still will have to face.
In Central
America at the time when the
Solar Logos was incarnated in the Middle East there arose as a
counter
Mystery of the heart, the practice of human sacrifice
expressed in the
ritual of cutting out the heart and sometimes the stomach, and
there
was also widespread ritualized decapitation; these practices
vanished
and reappeared from then on in Central America right up to the
time of
the landing of the Spaniards. However they were initially
inspired and
for a very specific purpose at the turning point of Time
(c.1-33 AD).
The being that instigated these dark mysteries knew full well
that
anti-spiritual and materializing forces flowed most powerfully
from
West to East; an attempt was made to sacrifice, remove the
hearts, and
shed the blood of as may human beings as had been involved in
the lines
of descent of the Hebrew people up to the Incarnation; and
this
quantity of murders had to be performed within a limited
amount of time
if they were to have the desired effect, for the initiator of
this was
diabolically attuned to the Divine Mystery that was unfolding
itself in
the Middle East, and through this was holding, as it were, a
shadowy
mirror up to those events that would bring forth a reversed
image of
all that was purposed in the deed of Christ. If this Adept of
the dark
path had been able to work unhindered and deflect all the
light
streaming from the acts of Christ into the reversing mirror,
the
humanity of the future would more and more have become a
shadow, a
benighted reflection, an inverted image of itself, where all
good
intentions would be twisted, polarised outwards and manifest
as actions
of evil effect.
However this
being was hindered and
caught in his own mirror and all the intended effects were
reflected
back upon their initiator, for another, a forerunner of those
humans of
the future who will balance all the sides of their nature and
solve the
equation of the Poles came with the Great Dream and with that
fought
the American Nightmare so that the Dream could be realised in
the
prophesied American Awakening.
Advancement on
the sinistral path means
the decision to avoid self sacrifice, and the evasion of this,
inevitably leads to the sacrifice of others, for the giving
out of what
has been developed inwardly is a process essential for the
evolution
and movement forward of all systems. The primal aim of these
rituals
was to prepare, through deliberate desecration, a climate,
location and
milieu in which the Ahrimanic entity could work its purposes
most
powerfully; this Being destined to incarnate and by this we
mean, to
bring together in embodiment on the surface of the Earth,
members of
its being that had previously been separated and formerly
worked out of
different spheres; this incarnation would act as a lens that
would
bring into focus the unified beam of its Will and its
Intellect. But
there was one great obstacle to this, and that was the
phenomenon of
human Feeling which at the time of the Incarnation of the
Solar Logos
was to receive an irresistible strengthening. So the realm of
Feeling
had to be cut out, removed from the inner Sanctum from where
it was
ordained to bring about the transformation of the external
world from
the Soul outwards. The heart is destined to 'come out' of the
body when
it has evolved from its present physical objective noun state,
in which
it is subjected to all the pressures and oscillations that
work upon it
from the terrestrial and sub-natural planes, when it has again
become
etheric, no longer bound by a physical form, but then become a
spiritual force, a verb, as it were, able to subject the world
of dead
objects to its own ensouling powers that will raise the
Physical
condition of Form and Mineral condition of life into higher
states of
conscious communion.
Had the light
hierarchies only been
involved in our evolution, the internal organ systems of
animals and
particularly of human beings would never in their finished
work-state
have been revealed to outer perception, but it was the
activity of the
Luciferic that caused an enclosing away from and separating
out of life
forms from their cosmic origins, and also a turning of the
senses
outward while sealing off the organism from consciousness and
vision of
what Divine cosmic Beings were bringing about within.
Therefore it
became increasingly difficult for humanity to live in the lap
of the
Gods, to bathe in the creative light by looking within; the
consequence
of this was that the hierarchies began their withdrawal,
sacrificing a
part of their being to become the foundation principle of the
more
deeply incarnated human body. The ensuing opacity brought
forth that
severance inherent in a physical and materialized condition of
there
being one dimension that was visible and one that was
invisible;
cutting in to, or bringing to the light of the human senses
that
interior physical world (which can only be safely done by
Christ
consciousness), removing it from its hidden matrix, meant
endangering
or bringing to an end the life of that beingness. Exposing the
Life
pole to the untransformed Consciousness Pole would bring about
a
divisive death impulse, the converse exposure would bring
about madness
arid chaos. Wherever there is confusion, order has been taken
away;
wherever there is death, life has been taken away, somewhere
else,
stolen into another realm that has no legitimate order or life
of its
own. One of the signatures of the Adversaries is that they
interfere
with the rhythmical time aspect of World development. And so,
the heart
was taken out prematurely in a material state not brought
forth in due
time as a redeemed power by individuals from within
themselves, but cut
out by an entity outside themselves. This was so that the
sacrificers
could grasp hold of the organ which had come to a completion
as far as
the Higher creative Beings were concerned. Because these
latter had
withdrawn, leaving the fruits of their Wisdom in its
structure, the
Lords of the Dark Face knew that now was the time to unseal
it, to tear
it out, before it was too late, before it changed from being
an organ
of Cosmic Divine Wisdom to being one of Human Divine Love.
The after-effects, echoes and reverberations from these blood rites have been many and varied and will continue to work so long as we do not bring any heightened awareness to bear upon them: first, the removal of a rhythmical integrator; then, a closing of the gap left, the creation of a Ring of power so that, in the present world, the atavistic clairvoyance of an earlier state of feminine oneness (which the Mexican Mysteries wished to preserve in the Solar Plexus of the Amazon to the south) and the premature onesidedness of masculine intellectuality, as found in the modern United States, would have no mediating influence that would heal them both into a new relationship. Rather the head pole would impose its rigidifying logic of the inorganic upon the life pole; and that, in answer, would react with natural catastrophes and disasters, diseases of the Earth's metabolism.
The Middle East
above the Equatorial
midline, was the place for the initiating of the evolution of
the Heart
as being the heart of Evolution. Central America was the
location where
the Heart won for itself, after a fearful attack had been
launched upon
it, that magical capacity for reconciling the polarities that
is the
essence of being human. Although the battle for the heart has
been won
for the light, the preparation for the Incarnation of Ahriman
goes on,
and though the full intention behind the Ritual murders was
not
realised, many things were achieved through them, that can be
felt in
every aspect of contemporary life.
4.
The history of
North America and its
peoples reveals initially a tremendous activity of the Will in
the
pioneers, but a will asserting itself against Mother Nature,
and then a
correspondingly great activity of Thought, to devise the
sciences that
would enable the imposition of the technological over the
biological
and natural.
America is also
the story of different
Races and how they have all been subject to the American
Nightmare, how
they have all lived in the Dream and shall all participate in
the
Awakening. It is a building with many stories and they are all
interconnected; it is the story of the Metals, how as Atlantis
was
sinking, the Etheric essence of the seven planetary Oracles
was taken
East, and the seven related metals sank further into a
physical
condition in the West. The way cosmic forces were transmitted
through
the planetary oracles of Atlantis reappears as the physical
properties
of electricity and magnetism, which are residues of cosmic
powers from
earlier times that have fallen under the influence of matter
and
gravity.
America is a
Nation of Races at the
present time. Before the arrival of the European, America was
a Race
with many nations. The situation of a Nation overarching
different
Races (some of which are again under different Folksouls)
marks the
beginning of the end of the present Races: each can play their
part in
attuning to the new moral and social imaginations that are
proceeding
out of the Second Manifestation of Christ. The Red Indian, the
Saturn
Race, in living closely within the cycles of Nature, helped to
insulate
North America, from many of the harmful residual influences,
that
worked northwards out of the darker Mexican Mysteries: when
the white
Man came and largely displaced the Indian and their relation
to the
land, these influences could begin to infect North America
more
strongly: some of the Folksouls of the Black Race, in a
gesture of
sacrifice, allowed their peoples to be enslaved, and as it
were to be
inserted between the newly forming Nation of North America and
these
Mexican forces: the Black Race absorbed these in being subject
to
slavery; and like a new string in the great instrument, did
much to
heal the damaged rhythmic system of the Continent.
The Indian
Folksouls loosened a part of
their being from the physical Plane, sacrificing their oneness
with
nature, and rose - transforming into a Time Spirit, that now
and into
the future, will bring to all the Earth, in full wakefulness,
the
harmony in which they lived as in a dream in a part of the
Earth. Now
in the Happy Hunting grounds, they seek as the Spirit of the
Echo -
Logos, awakened echoes in the Ego-sphere, awakened Egos in the
Ecosphere.
5.
There are
certain events and phenomena in
the American story that are as it were templates that have
already and
will further appear in other parts of the world; there is now
a kind of
eastward flowback of social and consciousness forces of the
American
Experience. The activities of souls, who are open at this
threshold of
the West and East that is California, will occur as human acts
of light
and darkness in the future all over the Earth. The American
state goes
beyond its Western margin, and via the state of Hawaii closes
its ring
of power through its influence upon Japan. On a deeper level
the war
that involved Japan was brought about as part of the
Adversary's plan
to permeate and inoculate the Orient with those Institutional,
Social
and Economic structures that would later facilitate the
incarnation of
a World Government. On a profounder level, this plan is merely
part of
a much vaster one: the world Unity expressed in one Legal
system, one
Currency, one Language, one Military, provides those things
that
Ahriman shall attempt to enforce upon humanity prematurely
from the
outside, having first created the world situation that seems
to justify
those measures. This imposing of future forms prematurely (on
a smaller
scale the introduction of intellectual abstract thinking into
the
education of very young children) is actually initiated to
prevent the
integration of the Ego into the Human Being within those
rhythms of
development that alone make it possible for the person to come
to
self-possession and responsibility to others. One language and
Religion
would have within it a reemergence of Ancient Egypt; one Legal
and
Military would recapitulate the Centralized power of Rome; one
Currency
would replay the Hebrew and Mosaic Laws of property and the
Babylonian
application of Number and work which on a small scale was used
in
connection with slaves.
Before the
Incarnation all humanity was
in a sense becoming enslaved to the Physical plane, and the
enslaving
of others was the turning outwards of the idea of work. Both
the
receding of consciousness of the spiritual behind Nature and
the
darkening and hardening of substance turned work from being
led by and
inspired by semi-Divine Beings, to being something that was
enforced by
beings becoming demonic: from inspiration to perspiration. Yet
this
slave-driving and wringing of sweat from large groups of
people had its
place, because through this suffering and toil the astral body
was
purified and was prevented from either falling asleep on the
physical
plane or becoming completely diverted by it. This pain drew
the I
closer to the embodied state and prepared the house to receive
its
dweller. After the Incarnation, the idea of work was to become
more
structured, more differentiated and individually chosen. Under
the
influence of the Second Manifestation of the Logos we can
expect the
meaning of work to evolve again to an understanding of the
individual's
place in the Great Work. Outer work will become in the sphere
of
Agriculture, Architecture, Chemistry and Medicine and many
other areas,
both the conscious transformation of the self, and of the
planet, into
higher conditions of Form and Life. The work of one
incarnation will
also be remembered and picked up in the next; the sense of
purpose and
fulfilment will extend beyond the limits of one lifetime and
expand
beyond the bounds of one dimension; work will become being,
inner and
outer work will become one in a way, as never before; and so
masculine
and feminine, work and recreation will unite in joy and this
Joy is the
seed that will be contained within the Love that is the fruit
of this
Earth-incarnation of the Earth, this fruit to be formed on the
Tree of
Wisdom that grew out of the living soil of the Old Moon state
of our
Planet; the seed is the Joy of those human beings who will
have
mastered the forces of Life and Death, and out of this seed
will arise
the joyful creation of Jupiter.
The mission of
the Earth-incarnation of
the Earth is essentially to bring about a harmony between
Thinking,
Feeling and Willing; the basis of what would later manifest as
human
Will being laid down upon the Ancient Saturn incarnation of
the Earth,
that of Feeling upon the Old Sun embodiment and that of
Thinking on the
old Moon, these three stages also laying down successively the
germs of
the Physical, Etheric and Astral Bodies. This triangle and the
other
ones of Goodness, Beauty and Truth; Religion, Art and Science;
and
Bull, Eagle and Lion, represent principles that once balanced
and
attuned will turn what is now being composed, into a living
symphony of
Love that will be received into the Cosmos as a new Music of
the
spheres; out of the great Pralaya, into which the Earth's
planetary
body shall be carried by a Humanity changing its Earthly Form
into a
Universal Force, the Planets, their solid body being leavened,
being
spiritually potentised as it expands into the sphere of what
was its
orbit, (this being the result of human beings loving in full
awareness
across the threshold of Death), so the spiritual worlds shall
become as
full of conscious human individuality as the Earth existence
is imbued
with spiritual Community. There will come a point when the
veil shall
be lifted and we shall see clearly where we have come from and
where we
are going; physical sensations shall become soul experiences,
all
subjective states shall be seen objectively for what they are,
and all
that was previously the immovable dead world of outer objects
shall be
subjected to an inner life so powerful that it will raise them
to a
living inwardness in which there will seem to be No-Thing,
nothing but
Being, no things only Beings. This will be a Pralaya of the
second
order: this will be the womb out of which the Jupiter
incarnation of
the Earth will be born.
The preparation
of this distant future
state is active now and asks that we wake up more and more and
participate in it.
In this
preparation, the purpose of pain
is partly to draw our consciousness to a certain area of our
body or
being because that part needs healing, which means
transforming; for
whenever we are healed, at whatever level, our condition is
not simply
returned to what it was but returns on a higher curve of the
spiral; we
re-cover, closing ourselves to the Healing activity of others
(again
able to take up the full responsibility for our own health);
we
re-cover processes that must remain hidden until our
consciousness is
strong enough to enter into them and take them over. The
premature
uncovering of certain soul and bodily faculties before they
have truly
become our property, that is before we have awakened to the
seeds
within us and how they should be nurtured, allows these seeds
to be
taken and grown for other purposes.
This
prematurity is one of the hallmarks
of America, having found the wealth of all the world, before
having
found one's own soul America jettisoned the old forms of
Church and
State and growing synchronously with the new forms of
Technology, the
steamboat, railways and telegraph, it proceeded westward at an
ever
increasing rate leaving first villages, then towns, and
finally cities
in its wake. This first great wave determining the pattern of
the next,
the establishing of trade routes, the arrival of the internal
combustion engine, the laying of roads, the American Engine
shifted
into a faster gear: mineral resources from one part of the
country were
freighted to another involved in manufacturing some product;
this was
transported to a third place; the endless never sleeping
circulation
had begun. The question of how to do things overtook the
question of
why they should be done; it seemed unnecessary to ask why any
more,
that was of the Old world. The New world knew what it had to
do and
only asked of itself how it should be done. A tide of humanity
was
surging in from the East; half of Europe seemed on the move.
As if in
anticipation of this, the West had to be opened up. Forests
had to be
cleared. The Indians had to conform or be fought. The coming
of
motorized transport, mass production, aviation and the
manifolding
power of Electricity spun the web into completion; the nerves
of the
State now reached into all the muscles of the Nation; but what
of the
land? Did it have and was it having surgery performed on it?
Were its
vital organs being removed? Was its heart being cut out to
make room
for a transplant from another part of the World? Modern
America was now
embodied, as a new vehicle constructed, a new house built, but
would
something try to steal that vehicle and drive it off the
High-way of
evolution, into a cul-de-sac for humanity; some landlord take
over the
house, and demand a rent the tenants could not afford to pay?
The voice
of the Land, the Red Indian, was not heeded or even heard
amidst the
noise of the accelerating drive of the New America. If it had,
it would
have sounded a warning: to transplant the living heart forces
from one
part of the Earth to another may be possible and necessary, to
bring
about new life, but to remove the Heart of a land, then
manufacture one
of materials that have not evolved within a body and implant
it as an
artificial heart, will bring about either the rejection of
that heart
or the death of the body into which the organ is introduced or
both.
A great image
of the desecration of the
land can be seen in much that has been done in the name of
agriculture;
the deforestation of much of the broad-leaved deciduous
forests that
stretched for hundreds of miles westwards from the
Appalachians,
similar to the cutting down of the larger part of Europe's
deciduous
temperate forests; this did much to the rhythmic system of
North
America.
The natural
zones that traverse the
landmasses of the Northern Hemisphere appear in belts or rings
that
modify effects and influences that proceed up and down between
the
poles and the Equator. This is seen very clearly in the
Continent of
America with its pronounced North-South axis. The Arctic Ice
cap and
Ocean yield to the Permafrosted Tundra; this surrenders to the
coniferous Taiga which in turn capitulates to great Plains,
Evergreen
rainforest to the west, wooded hill country to the east; then
into what
was the vast wooded region of the Forest Indians; this area
then bows
down along all its varied front, gradually defeated by the
vast tracts
of scrubland and semidesert to the west and the warm temperate
wood and
grassland to the east, this region falls away through Mexico
giving in
to the superior power of the Tropics, and running up and down
through
all these changing zones, rise the mountains, varying in their
foothills as they stride from north to south, but little
changed in
their heights on their peaks. From these serene and lofty
heights a
vision of Eternal America may perhaps be beheld, a deep gaze
and a high
seeing, that could stretch from the time of the American Sleep
when it
lay beneath the sea of seeing before it rose to become a Land
of Being,
through the American Dream, unperturbed, through the American
Nightmare, to the American Awakening when all gold that is
trapped,
stolen out of the life into material darkness shall be
dematerialised
and rise up as an inner Sun force dawning out of the
transformed hearts
of human beings.
6.
Now we must
descend again from such
poetic elevations, to the present time and those broadleaved
forests.
Their partial removal has meant that cold air from the Arctic
has been
able to descend further south less warmed than it should be
and warm
air from the Caribbean has been able to go further North, less
cooled
than it could be; though the great plains are a band that
stretch
almost from the edge of the Boreal forests to the coastal
plains in the
South, the grasses of the Eastern plains are generally taller
and more
luxuriant. This factor like the Broadleaved forests of the
East,
moderates movements of air and temperature within the day and
night and
seasonal cycles. The interference with these is an
afterworking of the
Dark Magician of the Mexican Mysteries; where the unmodified
effects of
one Pole, the cold, are brought inappropriately and
prematurely into
relationship with the hot Pole. This has definitely enhanced
the
activity of what is known as Tornado Alley, (where
approximately 700
tornadoes swirl annually, collectively equal to the power of
one
hurricane).
The tornado is
an external image of the
way in which forces work in the human being, when the
modifying
activity of the heart-lung system is unable to relate the
inner with
the outer and that which is below with that above, in the
normal
balanced way. The tornado is a kind of meteorological
heart-attack,
also stroke with the heat of the Metabolic system spiralling
upwards on
one side and the cold of the Nerve sense system spiralling
down on the
other; this, transferred within the human being, is similar to
what
precipitates a heart attack*. The conception of the heart as
being
merely physical, has the effect of taking it out of the soul
rhythms;
this makes the middle system more subject to external
temperatures and
pressures and the oscillations of the Earth's electromagnetic
fields
which start to affect it adversely. And this is intensified by
removing
the life cover of the outer environment, forests and such
like, which
through the Etheric connect the Earth with the Cosmos. The
drive
towards the denudation of the life realms of the Planet's
surface, is
part of the Adversary's plan to bring about a uniformity of
environment
causing a withdrawal of the Risen Ethers and a corresponding
exposure
and surfacing of the fallen etheric matrix, which compels all
organism
towards mechanism, denying the threefold lemniscatory movement
which
socialises the innate antisocial tendencies of both the
Metabolic and
Nerve sense Poles.
This polarity
is expressed in two of the
most recent developments in technology, that of Nuclear Fusion
and that
of Superconduction, the one needing tremendous heat, the other
requiring intense cold. Superconduction through the use of
newly
discovered materials with certain impurities is getting
warmer: Fusion,
it was recently claimed, was getting colder (this has
temporarily been
denied - it may yet be achieved).
What is the
significance of this? It can
be described as a convergence towards the temperature of human
blood,
the two poles of a Being coming towards incarnation. The
incarnation of
Ahriman focuses and compresses into one body and one locality.
The idea
of Fusion and Superconduction are part of the American
archetype in
many ways. Through the activity of Christ we are all
participants in
the great Fusion programme, the fusing of the indestructible
individualities of humanity into a new Spirit of Form, a
Cosmic
Pralayic chrysalis, out of which the imago of future states
will arise.
All these self-important programmes of scientific endeavour,
to draw
more energy out the material world for material purposes, are
only
caricatures, parodies compressed into the mode of substance
and
mechanism, of those nearly silent mighty processes of
evolution through
which the superstances of Higher Beings are drawn upon by the
inner
work and moral development of human beings for the
transformation of
the Earth. The Sun is silent and yet without it there would be
no
Music, no Sound, and no noise on this Planet.
*(the seed of
the spiritual heart wishing
to open, meets the resistance of the Adversary, that aims to
hold it
back, out of the stream of evolution, so that it remains bound
in the
physical condition of Form & Mineral Condition of Life. It
is this
meeting of the stirring seed, with the present conditions,
that is
behind much Heart Disease)
7.
The fourth
Occultism can really be called
that of the Musical (the Mechanical being more connected with
Saturn,
Hygienic with Jupiter and Eugenic with the Moon respectively
of the
West, the Central and the East). The Musical is of the Sun,
and is of
the whole world harmonising the other three. And it was this
Occultism
from the Sun Lodge (transformed from the Sun Oracle of
Atlantis) which
held the mysteries of the Etheric body and its transformation
into the
Life Spirit. It was this knowledge that lived in Vitzliputzli,
Sun Hero
initiate of the sixth degree. In growing up he would have
learned to
attune himself to the experience of the soul as music within
the body,
and how out of the being of humanity there would arise that
which would
raise the Americas into a mighty monochordal instrument,
strung and
fretted with mountains, forests, plains and rivers, in which
and across
which resounded the Elementals orchestrations of air, water
and light;
how the Sun plucked the different zones into motion as it
moved daily
from East to West and yearly North to South; in a fusion of
the mystic
and the ecstatic he learned to hear the Music of the Spheres
echoing
both in the depths of his inner self and in the elementals
behind outer
Nature.
This Echo Logos
(who was able to be and
echo the deed of Christ) would bring a tone to the Americas,
that would
be sought in the Vision Quest of the North American Indians;
and arise
again in a materialised form as the modern superhero, bringing
harmony
to a society out of tune.
The human being
as a bridge and a
conductor between the elementals and nature Devas and the
creator
Beings of the Hierarchies, this was Vitzliputzli. Christ was
the bridge
for the human soul back to the Spirit; the future mission of
Vitzliputzli could never be realised without the deed of
Christ coming
to fulfilment, so the Light Magician of Mexico was drawn in to
ensure
the success of Christ's task.
The deed of
Vitzliputzli in overcoming
the Dark Magician, was one preeminently of timing, that is of
Music.
Christ said not my will but Thine, and sacrificed Himself into
the
discords of the whirling sympathies and antipathies of the
Whirled and
stepped into the rhythm of the Passion in Harmony with the
Father
Force. Vitzliputzli communicated this stupendous performance,
to "the
dance of the elementals."
The Dark
Magician tried to tap into the
discords of the Sixth interior Sphere of the Earth, which is
connected
with the Earth's volcanism. Volcanoes in the Tropics,
particularly in
Central America (because of the prevailing wind system
patterns), have
a property unlike volcanoes in higher latitudes, of spreading
the plume
of their effluvia over the entire Earth. The aim was to excite
such an
intensity of hatred, such an outpouring of human selfishness,
that this
would have reacted upon the sub-physical Fire Earth of the
sixth
interior level so that this would have answered with a massive
volcanic
eruption that could have cast a mantle, a pall of dust and
debris,
around the entire globe. This would have been the dwelling
place of
dark elementals, cutting out the Sun and the Cosmos, and
making it
impossible for human beings to become anything but expressions
of what
had existed in the interior of the Earth, but now enclosed
it.( When
the first Atomic Bomb was tested in Alamogordo, New Mexico,
the same
being was at work, constrained then and for the rest of
Earth's
evolution to work through human minds benighted by
Materialism; both
Nuclear winter and the words of the Revelation that speak of
the Sun
being darkened are all related to this.)
What happened
in Mexico was one great
attempt at this: the Aztecs feeding of the Sun with human
blood was
brought about by a fear of the Sun going out if it was not
nourished.
This fear was kindled by the Dark Magus - "the De-sol-ator";
in a
counter mystery of the Etherisation of the Divine Blood given
by the
Solar Logos as eternal nourishment for humankind. The False
Prophet,
another name for the Magician, through causing this new
Atmosphere to
rise out of the interior of the Planet would also have gained
for
himself, a new sphere-encompassing sheath to his body.
Vitzliputzli,
through the presence of
Christ on Earth, was able to Orchestrate the elementals of
earth, air,
fire and water, and the Devas of the mountains, the forests,
the rivers
and the plains, and the Guardians of wood and metal to resound
together
and subdue the sixth interior Sphere.
The
anti-Christian feelings that
surrounded the Solar Logos during the Passion were to be the
fuel which
from the Sixth Sphere, would have enabled Ahriman to have been
sucked
out of and blasted through the Mineral Sphere, coming to
power, in
turning the world inside out. The many murders performed by
the
desolating One" had enabled him to project and incite such a
blasphemy
of hatred, half away across the world in the Middle East. This
power
and the knowledge of its use had been gained through a long
established
pact with Ahriman.
The supreme
moment had arrived, between
the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, before the entrance of
Christ
into the planetary Etheric. It was then that the Earth's dark
Shroud
was intended to come forth from the interior: but as in all
suspenseful
drama, at the last minute of that eleventh hour, such a chorus
resounded from the Poles along the mountains, setting in
motion chords
resonating through the great rings of forests, plains and
metals, along
the mountain spine, (as notes of changing pitch moved the
Devas linking
North and South, East and West, inspiring the sylphs of the
rivers and
streams, and of the rising and falling airs), that the mighty
American
Cross of the Elements reverberating through the Being of
Vitzliputzli
as Echo-Logos for an eternal moment set into vibrant sympathy
the Rings
of Mineral, Plant and Animal, elemental being and Deva around
the
entire Earth, the Rings that remembered the encircling of
Cosmic
Creator Beings, as they were whirling the World into being,
the whirled
into seeing, (because of the fall, the landmasses had
separated the
rings had broken, the peoples consciousness had fallen apart
into
locality). This moment was both a memory, of the time before
the One
Song had fallen into the many Languages, and also a prophecy,
of a time
when the Rings shall again be reforged, by a world-encircling
human
Imagination; when the broken rings shall be united and human
feeling
shall girdle the Earth, as it did then in Vitzliputzli; when
human
awareness shall encompass the sphere, and the Suffe-ring
become a
spiral.
The power of
the creator beings flowed
through him into their estranged offspring, the Elementals,
and these
answered with a music that in its composing brought about the
decomposition of the Dark Magician's plan, so that what would
have been
the terrible noise, which could have finally deafened the
world, and
brought the Deaf-end of the planet, in which the Music of the
Spheres
might never have been heard again, instead became the glorious
hymn of
the Resurrection.
It was the love
of Vitzliputzli for the
elementals and Nature spirits (this love made possible through
the
Being of Christ) that brought to these Beings the idea of
sacrifice and
heroism, which enabled them to participate with a human being,
as they
would with all who would rise to a true Ecology in the future.
*
America
struggles with its shadow and
dark reflection: this landmass was rediscovered, settled and
established synchronously with the descent from the higher
worlds of
the great dispensation of Music that is based upon the
interval of the
Third; this an image of the Devachanic descending to the
Earth. The
transformation through Bach into Beethoven offers a kind of
Memory of
the deed of Vitzliputzli; and a foretelling of the higher
human being
of the future, who will bring Harmony between the rhythms of
world
communities and the Melodies of Eternal Individuality.
**************************
second
BICYCLES
- a
Children's Christmas Story for Adults -
This story is
dedicated to Gabriella, Catherine Rose, Ross Gregory, and
Adam, who
were on my mind Christmas Eve, 1996, as their fathers (of
which I must
confess I was one) were absent from home for the Season. It
was written
the following Christmas Morning.
There once was
a girl, who found herself
weeping in the dark, alone in her room.
This is nothing unusual. Many people, not just children, can be found weeping, alone with their pain in the dark of the night.
But there was a
difference. Although it
was not a difference as infrequent as we might imagine.
And the
difference was this. While she
was weeping an Angel appeared, sitting quietly at the end of
her bed.
It was quite a
while before the girl
noticed the Angel. Yet, this did not bother the Angel, who had
been, if
we do not mind, created out of patience and joy.
After a time
the girl stopped weeping,
and the two simply looked at each other for a while.
Finally the
Angel reached out and touched
the girl on the shoulder, and asked: "What is troubling you
child?".
Now it is true
that the Angel already
knew the answer to this question, but the Angel also knew that
the girl
needed to talk about her grief.
This was the
girl's answer.
"It is
Christmas Eve." she said, "My
father and mother have quarreled and my father is not here. I
don't
even know when, or if, he is coming home."
At this the
girl, who was at that very
awkward age between being a child and being a young woman,
began to
weep again, even more deeply then before.
After a while
she stopped, looked at the
Angel and asked: "Why?" and, then began weeping some more.
Now you may
wonder why the girl wasn't
troubled or confused by someone being in her room at night.
The fact is
that when you meet an Angel there is no question about what is
happening. No doubt, no confusion. Angels aren't like anything
else
except Angels.
This is how the
Angel answered the girl.
"Are you ever
bad?" asked the Angel.
"Yes", she
said, a bit hesitantly.
"Are you ever
bad on purpose, knowing you
are being bad?"
"Yes", she
said, almost whispering now.
"Are you ever
bad by accident, not having
thought about what might happen?"
"Yes", she
said, a little more confident.
"Do bad things
ever sometimes happen even
though you were trying as hard as possible to do something
good?"
"Yes", she
said, back to herself finally.
Then they sat
together for a while. She
was thinking and the Angel just was.
"O.K.", she
eventually said. "Mother and
father aren't trying to hurt me, and I didn't do something
wrong."
"Right", said
the Angel.
"But", she
said, having just reinvented
philosophy, "Why is the world such a terrible place?"
After a very
long pause the Angel said,
"It's because of the bicycles."
Now this was
said with a straight face,
as much as an Angel can be said to have a straight face, their
normal
countenance being filled with patient joy.
Even so, the
girl's dark mood broke and
she laughed, and then caught in this odd feeling she tried to
stop and
ended up almost falling out of bed because she was giggling so
much.
Again there was a passage of time, so that the girl could ask her next question without breaking up. It actually took several attempts before she could get the question out.
"What do you
mean by "it's the
bicycles"?" she said, pulling up the hem of her nightgown, as
much to
distract herself as to dry the tears of both suffering and
mirth.
"Well", said
the Angel, "As you have
guessed the bicycles are invisible, being made out of ideas
and dreams,
hope and despair, all stuck together with bits of conscience
and just
plain stubbornness.
"Everyday
people wake up and ride around
on their invisible bicycles, forgetting the bicycles are there
and then
because they have forgotten them, people just keep banging
into each
other.
"Soon all the
bicycles are in great
disrepair. Some with flat tires, some with crooked wheels, and
some
without even handlebars to steer by.
"It takes a
great deal of courage for
people, for mothers and fathers, to get up in the morning and
ride
their bicycles out into life each day. A great deal of
courage."
Then the Angel
was quiet again and so was
the girl.
After a while
the girl, having graduated
from philosophy to theology, asked: "Why does God let this go
on? Why
doesn't he fix the bicycles or make people learn how to ride
them
without banging into each other?"
"Hmmm." said
the Angel
Now before you
imagine the Angel is
pausing to think, I should tell you that is not what was
happening.
Angels do think, but when they do something happens. For
Angels
thinking creates. The reason the Angel said "Hmmm" was so the
girl
would first reflect a little about what she had said, before
the Angel
answered her.
"Do you ever
talk to God?" asked the
Angel.
"I think so,"
said the girl, tentative
again, and rightly so.
"You should you
know.", said the Angel.
"You can't interrupt him, or bother him when he's doing
something else.
He always listens. Always. And when you talk to him he never
interrupts
you, never tells you he's heard it before or done it himself
or knows
more than you. You couldn't ask for a better listener. And
when you're
done he doesn't give advice, or tell you what to do, or
criticize what
you've done or tell you, you aren't adequate. He just listens,
and
accepts you and loves you, whatever you have to say."
Then the Angel
asked another question.
"Do you ever
get angry at God?"
"What!"
exclaimed the girl. "Get angry at
God !?!"
"Of course."
said the Angel. "God loves
you and wants your love. People who love each other get to be
angry
with each other. It's a way to care. God doesn't mind your
anger. Now
your indifference? That's another matter."
"O.K." said the
girl, now a little more
in touch with her own frustration. "But you still haven't said
anything
about repairing the bicycles or giving lessons on riding
them."
"Didn't need
to" said the Angel. "All
kinds of excellent repair and riding manuals already out
there. There's
the Bible, and the Vedas, and the Torah, and the Koran, and
the Sutras,
and the..."
"O.K.. I get
it." she said, interrupting
the Angel, who didn't mind at all. Then she paused and thought
a little.
"All right."
she said. "This is what
you've said. The reason the world is so difficult is because
we all
have our own ideas and dreams and conscience and stubbornness,
and when
we go out and ride these "bicycles" in life we bang into each
other, or
ride over each others feet, because we have forgotten about
these
invisible things. But if we want riding lessons and repair
instruction,
that information is already there. We just have to use it.
Right?"
"Right." said
the Angel.
"O.K." said the
girl, after a very deep
sigh, "Just one more question."
"Granted God is
the best listener in the
world, always available and never critical. But how come he
never
answers me?"
This last was
spoken with a great deal of
anguish, as only the very young can feel at the impossible
burdens they
sense when they contemplate growing up and being really free
and
responsible for themselves.
Again the Angel
waited for a while, as
silent and beautiful as a starry winter night.
"How well do
you listen?" the Angel
answered. "He always answers you, always. You just don't
always hear
him. He answers in many ways. With the continued breath of
life, or
with a fading sunset. With the touch of a breeze on the cheek
or a
crash of thunder. In the most quite place inside yourself he
whispers
to you. More softly then the endless beat of your heart he
sings to you
in the voice of the dancing colors that delight the eye. You
eat his
answers for breakfast and when you walk barefoot through the
dew wet
grass his answers touch your feet.
"Do you have
eyes, ears? Or if not even
these, you have the thoughts you choose. You believe or not.
Is that
not a great gift itself? To have faith or not, hope or not,
charity or
not, according to your own will. God does answer. With life,
with
freedom. And yes, with sorrow and with pain. Are these not
gifts as
well?"
Again there was
a harmony of silence
between the two of them. Then the girl smiled and looked
mischievously
at the Angel.
"Do you have a
bicycle?" she asked.
Then the Angel
laughed. And outside the
girl's window the birds sang to greet with joy the first hints
of dawn
on Christmas morning.
**********************************
third
"the gift of
the word" very much wants to be read aloud, with some passion
and the
occasional rush of words. It also likes to have someone
read it
to us, so that we may concentrate only on "hearing" it.
the gift of the word
Speech, / Words, letters, sounds, / heard by both the inner ear and the outer.
Letters, sounds, words, / linked invisibly to ideas and thoughts.
Ideas, thoughts, letters, sounds, words, / a woven tapestry of meaning,
carried by Speech, / sometimes with grace, / but most often just carelessly.
Meaning, / a weaving of thoughts, sounds, words, letters and ideas,
spoken into the air and left there, / abandoned.
Words, spoken and heard. / Meaning intended. / But what is heard?
That which is heard is also intended. / Two intentions, two purposes, two meanings.
How difficult then communication, / suffering as it does the contrary pulls of multiple intentions, purposes and meanings.
I speak, you listen. / I mean, you grasp. / Somewhere in this delicate dance of words, sounds, letters, thoughts, ideas and purposes; / understanding is sought after.
Perhaps. / Sometimes.
Voice. / Speech reveals the unspoken. / Anger, fear, pride, arrogance, true humility.
The ear of the heart hears what is hidden in voice.
Posture, gesture. / Speech is more than sound. / The eye hears things the ear cannot, just as the ear sees things the eye cannot.
One mind. / Two minds. / Speech a bridge of woven light between two minds, and sometimes, although rarely, / between two hearts.
Speech, rich and full of flavor, / a light bridge, / joining two separate beings.
Speech denatured, / No sound, no gesture, no posture, no voice.
Speech reduced to lines of dark on light. / Written. / A treasure map in code spilled across a page
Words, letters, ideas, thoughts, sounds, / reduced to marks upon a parchment. / Speech dying.
Yet, / even in death, murdered by pen or pencil mark, / some essence of Speech still.
Meaning embalmed. Understanding buried. / Until read.
Reading. / Words, sounds, letters, thoughts, ideas, meaning, purposes, intentions,
Speech resurrected in the silence of another mind.
Speech. / Light bridge dying into print, / reborn when read in the inner quiet of another soul.
Speech, / The Spoken Word. / Writing, / The Word entombed. / Writing read, / The Word resurrected.
That this is so, / that human beings live in such an exalted state having Speech, this is Grace.
The spoken word, the written word. / Things so ordinary, so taken for granted, so pregnant with possibility.
The emptiness
between two souls is always
/ chaste, virgin, pure, / waiting for Grace, for the bridge of
light, /
for Speech.
The Gift of the Word, originally called Speech, was written on
Epiphany, Jan. 6, 1997, in the evening, in about a third of an hour.