anthroposophical geeks*, bearing gifts

*an anthroposophical geek is an adept at the arcane arts of anthroposophical thinking

It may seem odd to describe anthroposophical thinking as an arcane art, but this is the case.  Many in the Anthroposophical Society believe they are being anthroposophical by learning the concepts given in Steiner’s lectures and books on Spiritual Science.  But Spiritual Science and Anthroposophy are not the same - although two sides of one coin.  Thinking/method (Anthroposophy) produces thought/content (Spiritul Science).

The Incarnation of Anthroposophy cannot happen fast, being as it is a state of consciousness - an attentive and intentive willed thinking.  We do it.   We don’t read about it.

The Society Steiner tried to foster fell from grace when he died.  Such a Society only really works when at its core are anthroposophical connections between the human and the spiritual worlds. Right now this Society is mostly disconnected.

Anthroposophical geeks bearing gifts are two individuals: myself (Joel A. Wendt) and Elizabeth Ancrum MacKenzie.  In us lives examples of this missing process of connection in a finely attuned way, mostly supported by the interest of the higher worlds.  Not even Steiner could do what he did without the cooperation of the higher worlds.  His so-called “great deed” is in reality far overshadowed by an even far greater sacrifice coming from cosmic Beings.

Humanity needs what the Society bears within it as a seed.  The nature of this seed is an awareness that there is more to  thinking than what ordinary consciousness possesses.  This does not make ordinary consciousness any less special.  The relationship is more like how water is distributed in the world.  In some places there is more than enough, and sometimes that excess can also be far more pure.  At the same time, where there is little, and the streams seem polluted, that is exactly where Christ lives most strongly - where He is needed.

When you have pure water you also have a choice.  Do you share it, or not, for it is after all life-giving.

This is the problem that faces Elizabeth and I.  We sit aside a stream of pure water, meant for the Anthroposophical Society, not for us.  The really funny aspect of all this is that there is little or no evidence the Society members want this life-giving water of the spirit (true new spiritual research out of the new Mystery of Thinking).  The Society, as a collective culture, often seems to believe that (and to act as if) Steiner gave all we will ever want and that we need only live on the remains of what he gave in the Past.

That is very foolish.  The Water of the Living Spirit is only Living in the Present.  In point of fact what is most harmful to the Society is its constant drinking of the dead thoughts of the Past, simply because they originated with Steiner.   Not to say we do not all have access to living thought, but rather that when we pollute it with dead thought, or prefer the dead thought to our own intuitions, we then interfere with what otherwise wants to flow toward us from the pure waters of inspiration.

The purest water (spiritual research) is timely.  What Steiner gave he gave to the moment.  What Elizabeth and I have to give is for the moment.  Steiner’s moment and our moment are not the same.  The modern Society does not live in the monuments of its infamous Past, nor can it recreate the fantasy magic of the Christmas Conference that failed. 

Nor need the Society become dependent upon us the way it became dependent upon Steiner.  This is not the Europe of the intellectual soul, and in America the consciousness soul is much stronger.  Elizabeth and I are like a tiny flame meant to ignite other flames.  It is not how we burn that counts ... it is how you burn.

Our writings are free, just as water should be free.  To have to purchase the water of the spirit is wrong.  Yet, in the time of Ahriman’s Incarnation that is exactly how we think about spirit - that it comes in books or courses or lectures and we have to buy it.  Strange that within us lives this same water, were we just to recognize that it is there.

Everyone thinks and has thoughts.   Everyone.  Elizabeth’s The Shepherds’ Fire can be read for free on my website, as can my The Art of God: an actual theory of Everything.  Go to Shapes in the Fire, at http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/ and enjoy!

 Why anthroposophical geeks bearing gifts?  Seems like a warning.   For the institutional Society, sure, Elizabeth and I are dangerous.   We mean to be.   We mean to get inside the walled City of the Society and tear down the barriers to individual thinking and thought - barriers built every time someone writes or speaks: Steiner said.  Barriers built every time a hierarchical organization believes it’s Executive, or Councils and Section leaders have the right to lead the thinking of the individual human spirit.

Steiner’s book: The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity is a book promoting spiritual anarchy.  Make no mistake - that’s what it is meant to do.  The thought-error folks can make is to believe anarchy (spiritual freedom) must lead to social disorder, and so they prefer social order (some kind of assumed diplomatic brotherhood) over individual spiritual freedom.  Can’t have someone rocking the boat.  Got to be all on the same page - too much individualism is dangerous.

The social culture of the Society does tend to deny freedom and urge conformance.  Just hear the stories of how hard Elizabeth and I (and others) have tried to be published only to run into walls and to be rejected.  Better we should all think alike, which is why we have “themes of the year”.  Better we should all worship the same guru, the great initiate Rudolf Steiner.  Granted there is resistance, and some sensible people, but here we are in 2012 still listening to Europeans tell us Americans how to be spiritual.  That’s not right, and never was right.  Its true name is spiritual imperialism.  Ahriman likes it - he likes rigid order and the repression of free intuitive thought.

Elizabeth and I say: burn it down to the ground.  The English alternative rock band Muse, has this refrain from their song Uprising: They will not force us; They will stop degrading us; They will not control us; We will be victorious.

Is the collective - the so-called Society, with us, or against us?  Don’t like us and them, then get rid of hierarchical social order and the intrinsic nature of endless lectures which are social/thought dominion over; and then replace that with circle-like conversation or communion with - what Steiner called: the Reverse Cultus.  We only need each other.  There are no special or leading “anthroposophists”, and Elizabeth and I have no interest in joining that club.  We believe in rock ‘n roll - that is we believe in no clubs at all.

About “spiritual research”:  The problem isn’t that individuals can’t, with a subtly more conscious ordinary thinking, have contact with the spirit.  No, the problem in the Society is the lack of scientific discipline in the thinking.  Just to have thinking in the will and will in the thinking is not enough.  Our self-knowledge, and our research, must be empirical and reproducible.  It must also be open to critical examination by others in our communities.  Where are the arguments common to the scientific enterprise?  Not in our Society, which wants comfortable (ahrimanic) social relations, and to hide disagreeable behaviors under the rug.  Those were the sins of Elizabeth and I.  We wanted science and vigorous  challenging discussion.  Too many Society leaders wanted social power and egoistic recognition - to be free to lecture and publish whatever they wanted, without any critical review of their thought at all.  All that was needed were the magic words: Steiner said.  No wonder many see us as just another cult.