Tomberg and Anthroposophy

[Rodriel Gabrez]

This makes a lot of sense, but I feel that much of it is sort of describing the past functions of the Church. In the recent meaning crisis essay, I quoted the verse, ""Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth..." (John 15:15) I feel that what you express above about the sacraments and confession is indeed what the RCC provided the intellectual soul in its nascent development, and perhaps even the consciousness soul in the early modern age to some extent. Yet this is what hass already been done by the Lord in the evolutionary process through his body, the Church. I am more hesitant, however, to be confident that the maturing consciousness soul can go to regular Confession honestly and fully.

That hesitance is not simply because I am generally suspicious of the RCC or institutional religion (I used to be, like many modern souls, but I'd like to think I have outgrown much of that), but comes from intimate experience. It has become clear from such first-hand experience how easily prayer and even imaginative meditation can very subtly become routinized, a process of intellectual commentary and going through the motions while the imagination stays on the surface or even wanders to other things. That is a big risk even when we are esoterically informed and are quite aware that it is happening or may potentially happen, let alone when we have no deeper reasons to suspect it's a problem or could be a problem. Unless we have a non-routinized process to compare the genuine prayerful-contemplative-confessional stance with, we may even convince ourselves the former is the latter. And I am sure you would agree that most Church faithful attend these things on Sundays and holidays, and then immerse themselves in the mechanistic and habituated modern environment like everyone else. We are hardly aware of how these environmental influences constantly condition our inner life.

Kuhlewind had a helpful discussion of this that I shared before in the context of object concentration:

If the concentration exercise has reached this phase, that of idea concentration, as will develop organically from practice, the student is still concerned with an object. He or she wants to think the idea and wants the idea to appear, to arise, to flash forth. If this is successful, and he or she has learned to stay with it, so that it is not only a lightning flash, as it tends to be at the start, then the extension of wakefulness to the activity of consciousness will surpass in intensity all earlier experience. For in thinking the idea, activity and object are one: the idea does not exist outside of the activity that thinks it; there is no memory of it and it can never be thought out. We could also say that now we really know what spoon means. The self-perception of thinking has raised itself from past consciousness into presentness.
...
In every kind of exercise, we achieve a first success with relative ease. The second success is generally much harder to reach. This is because, after the first time, the practitioner forms a memory, a mental picture of the experience, almost against his will, and he then awaits its recurrence. The second and third experiences will always be different from what preceded them.

So if we are looking at the consciousness soul as it stands now in its development and continues to unfold from here, I think we need to pay some close attention to these lessons we learn from the esoteric life, because they reveal to us what is always happening beneath the surface of the imaginative life, even when it directs attention to the lofty eternal truths of existence. Unless there is a sustained path of becoming more conscious of different modes of prayer and confession along the spectrum, it's hard to imagine how souls can mitigate the risk of these activities becoming highly habituated, even while they feel it is all carried out in fullness and honesty.

What you say about Confession becoming habitual and the soul plunging right back down into the polluted stream of modern daily life is definitely valid. This is a very real problem. But I'll return to what I've said before about the Sacraments and the liturgy being starting points for esoteric deepening. This is and will continue to be the case, regardless of the time period. A sincere and full confession can and should open one's eyes to the deeply problematic and incongruous situation of one's life in the "mechanistic and habituated modern environment." This very awakening, even if fleeting, is a doorway toward higher levels of spiritual development. You might then say, "that's all well and good, but then where is the apparatus for helping that soul along that path of higher spiritual development? The Church has nothing of the sort on offer." Ah, but the liturgy is right there. The Gospels are right there. These grab hold of the partially awakened soul and begin to work imaginatively into the mechanized thought life. The very serious question, though, becomes: is this process in and of itself sufficient to take the soul all the way, to lead humanity into the Age? Peter himself asked the same question. "Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper [...] ? Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?" To which the Lord replied, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me." So we see that John is needed! But John is the one who underwent the 4 day death-sleep and was raised, thereafter following after Peter into the tomb. Peter needn't pay much mind to John, as per the direct instruction of Christ Jesus. He is there working behind the scenes. So to those souls within the Church who have been awakened to the discordance of our time and been thus spurred toward spiritual development through Peter, one can offer the sincere hope that they find themselves increasingly in the company of John who will assist them and fortify them on their spiritual ascent. Those who fancy themselves Lazarus-John's disciples can decide whether or not this path of sacrifice, the one modeled by Tomberg-unknown, is a worthy one. I think this answer addresses you second question about eternal vs temporary truths as well, but I'm also happy to continue exploring.

[Cleric]

What you say about Confession becoming habitual and the soul plunging right back down into the polluted stream of modern daily life is definitely valid. This is a very real problem. But I'll return to what I've said before about the Sacraments and the liturgy being starting points for esoteric deepening. This is and will continue to be the case, regardless of the time period. A sincere and full confession can and should open one's eyes to the deeply problematic and incongruous situation of one's life in the "mechanistic and habituated modern environment." This very awakening, even if fleeting, is a doorway toward higher levels of spiritual development. You might then say, "that's all well and good, but then where is the apparatus for helping that soul along that path of higher spiritual development? The Church has nothing of the sort on offer." Ah, but the liturgy is right there. The Gospels are right there. These grab hold of the partially awakened soul and begin to work imaginatively into the mechanized thought life. The very serious question, though, becomes: is this process in and of itself sufficient to take the soul all the way, to lead humanity into the Age? Peter himself asked the same question. "Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper [...] ? Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?" To which the Lord replied, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me." So we see that John is needed! But John is the one who underwent the 4 day death-sleep and was raised, thereafter following after Peter into the tomb. Peter needn't pay much mind to John, as per the direct instruction of Christ Jesus. He is there working behind the scenes. So to those souls within the Church who have been awakened to the discordance of our time and been thus spurred toward spiritual development through Peter, one can offer the sincere hope that they find themselves increasingly in the company of John who will assist them and fortify them on their spiritual ascent. Those who fancy themselves Lazarus-John's disciples can decide whether or not this path of sacrifice, the one modeled by Tomberg-unknown, is a worthy one. I think this answer addresses you second question about eternal vs temporary truths as well, but I'm also happy to continue exploring.

I think the main question is why "higher levels of spiritual development" are even needed in the one-shot paradigm. It's clear that not everyone is fit for a saint (God created the souls of different sizes and colors). Nevertheless, salvation is a gift to everyone. Most Christians believe they are good enough to avoid the eternal flames. So the average soul does not have a true incentive to reach any higher levels of development. Yes, getting closer to sainthood may be seen as increasing our chances of getting to Heaven, but as a whole, it is seen more like a mission for specific souls created specially by God. Regular folk simply need to be good enough. Putting it in a little cynical way, if I can keep a low profile and pass my life as a decent man, why even bother doing anything more? Of course, at the conscious surface, people avoid thinking in such a way, but effectively, this is what happens. It's not the person's fault. It's simply that the whole game of life is explained to him in this way. "I just need to pass through this strange Earthly condition as a decent man and love Jesus. Anything more than that doesn't really add anything. We end up in Heaven all the same."

[Federica]

That hesitance is not simply because I am generally suspicious of the RCC or institutional religion (I used to be, like many modern souls, but I'd like to think I have outgrown much of that),

We were previously speaking of canonizations and Saint Joan of Arc. How to manage not to be suspicious of a Church which next month will canonize a boy - Carlo Acutis - who died of leukemia in 2006 at age 15 and whose main holy deeds were to be of kind nature and devout, and to have accepted from a priest at his Catholic school the task to create promotional websites for the parish and other religious contents (although an "average student" he was a “computer geek”)? Posthumous miracles were recognized, he will patronage youth and computer programmers.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

AS: this is not to burden Rodriel with more questions. I am only putting a few points in the middle, as question marks. I am sorry if this sounds too harsh. It's not meant to be. But trusting everyone’s perception, I don’t see the point of 'sugarcoating' in this context.



1. Is it okay to call the true nature of the spiritual being of man an amoral, temporary fact, indifferent to the eternal truths?

2. In its attitude to “providentially” preserve man from the grave dangers connected with acknowledging the truth of reincarnation, is the Church operating as a field hospital for [constitutionally sick?] souls in need of eternal truth treatment, or has it rather established itself as a sort of premium clinic where souls are pampered with uplifting, authoritatively prescribed, heavenly treatments, which ultimately occupy the soul space to impede man’s appropriate awakening to the higher worlds?

I think that, from any esoteric perspectives - which by nature must encompass the evolutionary substance holding the two sides of eternity together/apart - man's path to salvation cannot be moral before it is cognitive. And haven’t we always said that there is now an urgency for man to discover the lawfulness of all worlds, through the development of Imagination and higher cognition in general? And that the grave dangers arise precisely from everything that delays and deforms such evolutionarily due awakening, either by stressing the unprepared psyche through the use of drugs, or by exposing it to unlawful images, be it with shamanic or nondual imagery, or even just through the adversarial technological demultiplication of unlawful soul food, which we are drowning into in today's world?

And isn’t a Church institution which impedes the awakening to the lawfulness of all worlds ultimately to consider on a par with these retarding intents? “There is already a transformation at work” perhaps, but transformation was due to be working already yesterday, not in a nebulous future authoritatively regulated by the RCC's hierarchy. And, as we know, asynchronicity is precisely the ultimate character of evil. I think there can be hardly any doubts that the temple has to progressively move within, with communal support, not to any obscurely led field hospital for the infantilized man. And I don't see why Rodriel's glorious vision of Ecclesia couldn't be integral to a reality of the Ecclesia as an inner community of souls, that in the future frees itself from the deadly institutional, retarding forms.

I can assure you this discussion is no burden.

1. According to the good doctor himself (Steiner), reincarnation isn't man's "true nature"; it is a condition, and moreover a malady. There will be a time when it will permanently cease. Spirit Man is a non-reincarnating being. The Church's will is directed toward Spirit Man, just as hospital nurses and doctors direct their will toward healthy, fully recovered patients. And since the moral world order beckons to fallen man from the future, the Church fastens its gaze on that future and allows its activities to flow from there.

2. I'm not sure I can say much more than I already have on this point. "Pampered" seems a bit out of touch with the reality of Roman Catholic life, which is ideally a life centered around sacrifice aid and almsgiving.

"Man's path to salvation cannot be moral before it is cognitive." - I believe one finds ample support in Steiner for the notion that moral purification (catharsis) is a necessary prerequisite for Imagination. The development of astral organs of perception is moral work, full stop. This doesn't mean that cognitive work can't and shouldn't be pursued simultaneously - that one must wait until one has become a saint - but it does mean that spiritual faculties are the fruit of moral deepening.

I have never understood anti-hierarchical attitudes to spiritual life. Do we not refer to the angels as "hierarchies"? Properly functioning hierarchies are reflections of the structure of the spiritual world, and are based on sacrifice, not arbitrary authority. Insofar as the Church is a human institution, it will inevitably be susceptible to corruption. Must we therefore adopt the dialectical-reactionary spirit of modernity (the shadow side of the 5th cultural epoch) and reject hierarchy wholesale?

Finally, I just find "deadly institution" to be a misapprehension of what the Church is from a higher perspective. The earth itself is a retarding, moribund entity. Should we seek to free ourselves from it? Or should we seek to align ourselves with that which transforms it from the inside out?

[AshvinP]

What you say about Confession becoming habitual and the soul plunging right back down into the polluted stream of modern daily life is definitely valid. This is a very real problem. But I'll return to what I've said before about the Sacraments and the liturgy being starting points for esoteric deepening. This is and will continue to be the case, regardless of the time period. A sincere and full confession can and should open one's eyes to the deeply problematic and incongruous situation of one's life in the "mechanistic and habituated modern environment." This very awakening, even if fleeting, is a doorway toward higher levels of spiritual development. You might then say, "that's all well and good, but then where is the apparatus for helping that soul along that path of higher spiritual development? The Church has nothing of the sort on offer." Ah, but the liturgy is right there. The Gospels are right there. These grab hold of the partially awakened soul and begin to work imaginatively into the mechanized thought life. The very serious question, though, becomes: is this process in and of itself sufficient to take the soul all the way, to lead humanity into the Age? Peter himself asked the same question. "Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper [...] ? Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?" To which the Lord replied, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me." So we see that John is needed! But John is the one who underwent the 4 day death-sleep and was raised, thereafter following after Peter into the tomb. Peter needn't pay much mind to John, as per the direct instruction of Christ Jesus. He is there working behind the scenes. So to those souls within the Church who have been awakened to the discordance of our time and been thus spurred toward spiritual development through Peter, one can offer the sincere hope that they find themselves increasingly in the company of John who will assist them and fortify them on their spiritual ascent. Those who fancy themselves Lazarus-John's disciples can decide whether or not this path of sacrifice, the one modeled by Tomberg-unknown, is a worthy one. I think this answer addresses you second question about eternal vs temporary truths as well, but I'm also happy to continue exploring.

Thanks, this discussion certainly helps me get a better sense of your view, which I'm sure is relatively representative of Catholic esotericism.

Along the lines of Cleric's response, the sticking point for me is how the modern soul deals with the 'grey area' of its life within the consciousness soul. In a certain sense, it has perfected the sensory-conditioned intellectual faculty to the point where it can no longer resonate with the spiritual gestures weaving within deeper scale images and rituals, which is what the scripture, sacraments, and liturgy surely are. Instead, it weaves in clear-cut, logically precise chains of mental pictures and the life of feeling is heavily mediated by such pictures. Yet it hasn't brought that intellectual faculty to the point where it is liberated from its sensory conditioning and can rediscover the spiritual gestures from the 'other direction', the depth axis of the supersensible. So it faces the Catch-22, which has been emphasized in many of the recent essays. The way you describe the inward effect of the sacraments and liturgy above sounds to me like what becomes possible only after the soul has expanded the 'boundaries' of its imaginative cube through a phenomenological path (which is surely cognitive and moral, simultaneously and synonymously). Only then can the modern soul realize the fruits of what was sown through Christ and his Church. As we know, it is only through the lucid cognitive life that the soul remains free in its interactions with the deeper scales of the soul and spiritual worlds.

If the sacraments and liturgy could truly serve as a starting point for the consciousness soul, then it may experience a spiritual deepening-awakening but it wouldn't be free, rather, it would be the result of non-intuitive formative influences that bypass lucid cognition. You mentioned before that a certain karmic disposition is needed for souls to entertain the higher cognitive path with enthusiasm and interest. I think that is true, but I think the sphere of such karmic dispositions is growing, because the perfection of the sensory-conditioned intellect allows for souls to make a somewhat natural transition from contemplating the existential questions, as most educated people do, to contemplating the thinking that is contemplating the existential questions. It surely requires a leap of trust and a prayerful stance, but even the least bit of such an inner stance can enable the initial transition, and this generates a positive feedback effect. On the other hand, it seems the sphere of karmic dispositions needed to start from the ancient spiritually-imbued texts, images, and rituals is shrinking. It is becoming more and more difficult for the consciousness soul, which strives for lucid cognitive understanding and inner freedom, to immerse in such content with enthusiasm and without resentment (for bypassing its clear-cut and intuitive mental pictures).

So the verses, symbolism, and patterns that you are presenting seem quite valid to me, but I think they are only fulfilled for most intellectually-oriented souls (which is practically everyone in the developed world) through a new mode of cognitively interfacing with the Christ. When we contemplate the image of Christ washing the feet of his disciples, I believe it points quite precisely to the RCC, the scientific institutions, cultural instutitions in general, and each individual intellectual soul 'bending down' from their rather exclusive focus on the 'eternal truths' and tending to the lawful processes (in the Goethean sense) through which humanity may bring those eternal truths to fruition. Although the new Heaven and new Earth will surely be fulfilled, it isn't guaranteed that Earthly humanity will be the ones fulfilling it.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

I think the main question is why "higher levels of spiritual development" are even needed in the one-shot paradigm. It's clear that not everyone is fit for a saint (God created the souls of different sizes and colors). Nevertheless, salvation is a gift to everyone. Most Christians believe they are good enough to avoid the eternal flames. So the average soul does not have a true incentive to reach any higher levels of development. Yes, getting closer to sainthood may be seen as increasing our chances of getting to Heaven, but as a whole, it is seen more like a mission for specific souls created specially by God. Regular folk simply need to be good enough. Putting it in a little cynical way, if I can keep a low profile and pass my life as a decent man, why even bother doing anything more? Of course, at the conscious surface, people avoid thinking in such a way, but effectively, this is what happens. It's not the person's fault. It's simply that the whole game of life is explained to him in this way. "I just need to pass through this strange Earthly condition as a decent man and love Jesus. Anything more than that doesn't really add anything. We end up in Heaven all the same."

It's a good question: what's the point of gnosis if it's not necessary for salvation? First of all I think this framing is too flat and must be made sense of from a more holistic, multi-level perspective. We must remember that man-in-Christ is a fundamentally collective-individual organism. I will point back to Steiner's key insight of the alternation between the head and limbs between successive incarnations. Will impulses in one incarnation become thoughts in the next. A person whose lot in this life is decidedly non-gnostic but who nonetheless passes through the "strange Earthly condition as a decent man and loves Jesus" has sent will impulses into the spiritual world which will flow into the next earthly incarnation and be reflected in the cognitive life. Now, this man in our 5th cultural epoch will surely have interwoven his etheric body with Ahrimanized thought activity. This thought activity will dissolve into the cosmic ether upon his death, where it will contribute toward the Ahrimanization of the world he is subsequently born into. Having acquired spiritualized cognitive faculties and karmic associations from the will organization of the previous life, he will be at least somewhat more gnostically inclined and in at least a somewhat better position to cognitively navigate the further Ahrimanized world he finds himself in. Others karmically involved with him will no doubt have surpassed him in development - having entered the John stream - and will be in a position to help further develop his capacities. His spiritual advancement across multiple lifetimes has thus sprung forth from the limb-man within the Peter stream, where his feet were washed by Christ Jesus. "A person who has bathed needs only to wash his feet." (John 13:10). The Peter stream has, the entire time, focused primarily on the limb-man, providing veiled tools for the head-man's development who carefully aids his brother's less mature development. So, gnosis is a telos not an arche of the process of salvation. Once achieved, it must be sacrificed for the good of the collective organism whose head is turned toward hell and whose feet reach into heaven.

[Federica]

I can assure you this discussion is no burden.

1. According to the good doctor himself (Steiner), reincarnation isn't man's "true nature"; it is a condition, and moreover a malady. There will be a time when it will permanently cease. Spirit Man is a non-reincarnating being. The Church's will is directed toward Spirit Man, just as hospital nurses and doctors direct their will toward healthy, fully recovered patients. And since the moral world order beckons to fallen man from the future, the Church fastens its gaze on that future and allows its activities to flow from there.

2. I'm not sure I can say much more than I already have on this point. "Pampered" seems a bit out of touch with the reality of Roman Catholic life, which is ideally a life centered around sacrifice aid and almsgiving.

"Man's path to salvation cannot be moral before it is cognitive." - I believe one finds ample support in Steiner for the notion that moral purification (catharsis) is a necessary prerequisite for Imagination. The development of astral organs of perception is moral work, full stop. This doesn't mean that cognitive work can't and shouldn't be pursued simultaneously - that one must wait until one has become a saint - but it does mean that spiritual faculties are the fruit of moral deepening.

I have never understood anti-hierarchical attitudes to spiritual life. Do we not refer to the angels as "hierarchies"? Properly functioning hierarchies are reflections of the structure of the spiritual world, and are based on sacrifice, not arbitrary authority. Insofar as the Church is a human institution, it will inevitably be susceptible to corruption. Must we therefore adopt the dialectical-reactionary spirit of modernity (the shadow side of the 5th cultural epoch) and reject hierarchy wholesale?

Finally, I just find "deadly institution" to be a misapprehension of what the Church is from a higher perspective. The earth itself is a retarding, moribund entity. Should we seek to free ourselves from it? Or should we seek to align ourselves with that which transforms it from the inside out?

Rodriel, I understand that reincarnation will not persist at eternity, and I'm fine calling reincarnation a true condition, rather than a true nature, if it's more correct, but if reincarnation is a malady, then the Earth is a malady too? And if the Earth is a malady, then the planetary conditions also are a malady, I suppose? By virtue of which, all that remains which is not a malady is the dimension of eternity/Oneness (similar to one of Ashvin's questions)? I understand this view, and as I said before, although it is true at a certain high level, it is untrue at the level at which humanity needs to operate today, as I see it. And so we are back into the well known dichotomy...

With "pampering", I mean infantilizing, taking away part of the responsibility (or incentive, as Cleric has called it) to pursue a higher development as an independent individuality. But maybe that's not what "pampering" evokes, and by the way, you are right, "deadly" is a mishap, I should have written "dead", or "petrified". Besides, I completely agree that soul work is a prerequisite for higher development. I have not suddenly changed my mind. However, as I see it, this moral daily work, this effort to recognize and amend one’s soul weaknesses (as described in the first chapters of Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, to be clear) is different from a full comprehension of the moral character of the Spirit, which is, in your perspective, what the Church is determined to imbue the faithful with. So, what I am saying is that if man, despite being discouraged by the Church, does not first take responsibility for his individual cognitive higher development (which includes the moral work prerequisites) he will hardly be able to commune with the highest eternal moral Ideal that the Church, as you say, has as a purview. Instead, he will be more likely inclined to comply with the ‘common denominator behaviors’ that would give him a pass to the kingdom of Heaven, without any knowledge whatsoever of what requires remedy from previous lives, with all the consequences that such induced ignorance entails.
(In this connection, a question I would like to ask you, as a Catholic esotericist, is: how do you feel about your fellow church goers who do not suspect the wealth of understanding that esoteric development has given you, which leaves them unaware of the tasks pending on them by virtue of their past lives? and I guess the answer cannot be "it's their karma").

Finally, about hierarchy: reality is hierarchical in nature! But there’s a big difference between the Ideal and the Ideas of hierarchy, and some of the troubled, worldly, politicized manifestations of that principle (again, I am criticizing the institution, not the Ideal of Ecclesia).

[Cleric]

It's a good question: what's the point of gnosis if it's not necessary for salvation? First of all I think this framing is too flat and must be made sense of from a more holistic, multi-level perspective. We must remember that man-in-Christ is a fundamentally collective-individual organism. I will point back to Steiner's key insight of the alternation between the head and limbs between successive incarnations. Will impulses in one incarnation become thoughts in the next. A person whose lot in this life is decidedly non-gnostic but who nonetheless passes through the "strange Earthly condition as a decent man and loves Jesus" has sent will impulses into the spiritual world which will flow into the next earthly incarnation and be reflected in the cognitive life. Now, this man in our 5th cultural epoch will surely have interwoven his etheric body with Ahrimanized thought activity. This thought activity will dissolve into the cosmic ether upon his death, where it will contribute toward the Ahrimanization of the world he is subsequently born into. Having acquired spiritualized cognitive faculties and karmic associations from the will organization of the previous life, he will be at least somewhat more gnostically inclined and in at least a somewhat better position to cognitively navigate the further Ahrimanized world he finds himself in. Others karmically involved with him will no doubt have surpassed him in development - having entered the John stream - and will be in a position to help further develop his capacities. His spiritual advancement across multiple lifetimes has thus sprung forth from the limb-man within the Peter stream, where his feet were washed by Christ Jesus. "A person who has bathed needs only to wash his feet." (John 13:10). The Peter stream has, the entire time, focused primarily on the limb-man, providing veiled tools for the head-man's development who carefully aids his brother's less mature development. So, gnosis is a telos not an arche of the process of salvation. Once achieved, it must be sacrificed for the good of the collective organism whose head is turned toward hell and whose feet reach into heaven.

Everything you've written about the alternations between incarnations is great. It stands to reason that these oscillations should spiral closer and closer into unity with each next incarnation, until a rhythmic uninterrupted flow of existence is achieved.

This John-Peter mystery is indeed a significant one. It has to do with the fact that, as the Edenic flow was becoming more and more decohered, it was still needed to preserve the coherence of being. As a metaphor, in our age, birds utilize human-made materials in their nests - plastic straws, cigarette butts, fabrics, etc.


(Here's a funny one)

Yet, they do not have awareness of the incredibly complicated human world that makes it possible even for a single plastic straw to exist. If we backtrace the threads (as we follow the industries involved, commerce, engineering, education, etc.), we'll see that almost all branches of human civilization are needed to some extent for this single straw to exist. Yet, the bird manages to cohere its own existence by utilizing the scraps falling from human existence. In an analogous sense, our whole Earthly World can be thought of as the lawful (musically contextual) Divine Spectrum, stroboscopically aliased and built as a 'nest' from the spiritual fragments of the lawful kingdoms. These 'nests' are the first-person human being experience as we know it today, which took (from a certain perspective - grotesque) mineralized form, only because of the interplay of the Ahri and Lu intents. It is these Macrocosmic 'birds' that cannot find their be-ing along the lawful spectrum, and instead seek a sphere of coherence by repurposing the aliased elements, making their Cosmic sheaths from them. Collectively, this more or less unitary patchwork is called the eight sphere in esoteric terms. It is important to keep in mind that this World is not in some parallel universe. It is completely intertwined with the Divine flow. Stroboscopic aliasing is indeed a powerful metaphor for this.



The key point is that the strobing produces relatively stable flows of being, which can feel quite orthogonal (independent) to the underlying carrier flow. The latter can even be lost from consciousness.

It is this strange 'wagon-wheel-effect' World that we seem to live in, and which feels self-contained to a large extent (especially to physicists). The critical thing to realize is that the metamorphoses within this strobed World are (obviously) dependent on the strobing going on. Or, in other words, the continuity of many worldlines of existence is threatened by the transformation of this World. Thus, there's a true incentive to fight for one's existence. Not only at a physical creature level but also regarding the Macrocosmic 'birds'. From their perspective, they have nothing to lose - they simply strive to preserve their eight-sphere nest - which is the kernel of their own be-ing.

Man is in a special position here, because even though most of our sensory-intellectual organism belongs entirely to the 'wagon-wheel-effect' World, part of our being still feels united with the Edenic flow. There are so many things here to expand on, but let's focus on the Peter-John axis.

If we imagine these things as two different church institutions (one esoteric and one exoteric) that must somehow unify, we completely miss the point. Let's use another metaphor. In our aliased condition we're like in an underwater cave system - a true labyrinth. In the video above, as the rotation and strobing rates are varied, the bands of the disc seem to rotate in different ways, which represent Maya, concealing the true motion. In our state, we cannot just go 'cold turkey' and remerge with the Edenic flow. To an extent, we do that every night, and the result is that our intellectual being cannot recover anything from that state, thus it appears as a dark, dreamless sleep. So we can transform the flow only by painstakingly tweaking the strobing rates, such that we can reach the Edenic flow without severing the continuity of existence. In other words, the labyrinth cannot be ignored - it needs to be evolved out of. We cannot simply say "I care not about the geometry of this underwater labyrinth. What I care about is that on the other side there's fresh air and sunlight." Obviously, just focusing on that end goal and doing nothing else will not save us from drowning.

Initiates, of course, were well aware of this tricky situation. Thus, Peter was tasked by Christ to "Feed my lambs". The Church can be thought of as a more experienced diver who navigates the cave system and the other divers follow him, just like the lambs follow the shepherd.

Then, however, we reach a very peculiar narrowing in the cave system. It is a place where Peter the shepherd should say, "To pass through here, everyone would have to go on their own. There's not enough room to go together. I can only lead you so far. While passing through the narrowing you will experience a state of being alone as one can ever get, even like the Christ said before his last breath "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

This narrowing is nothing other than the gate of death. Like Lazarus, we enter the Johnian mystery only by crossing the threshold of death. And herein lies the most important distinction - we can only understand the Johnian mystery if we realize that everything expressed from thence is spoken from the 'other side' of the threshold of death. As explained, however, this 'other side' is not an adjacent geometrical space but the ability to loosen from the suction of the sensory-intellectual spectrum and find our coherency of loosened-from-the-body be-ing within the Christ-attractor, in the Edenic flow. This is Initiation in the proper Christian sense.

There are so many things that can be said here. The whole outpour of spiritual science starts from this point. But now we focus on the fact that proper evolution of humanity should lead every lamb individually through the narrow opening. If we expect that the Johnian stream can simply be somehow grafted onto the Peterian Rock, we can end up with some form of a more mystically oriented Christianity, but the lambs still remain swarming at the narrowing and expecting that after death they will simply be teleported into the light and air.

If we understand that, it will be clear that Ecclesia cannot be reached by some form of upgrade of the existing patchworked nest (no new wine into old wineskins). The true Ecclesia is a community of souls who have passed through the narrowing. It is only from within this position, within the true Edenic flow (spiritual world), reaching down into the 'wagon-wheel-effect' World that the nest can be slowly disentangled.

And the latter is really one of the most exciting things for anyone who has ever had a genuine interest in the World and its workings. It's like the small bird starting to awaken about the true origin of the straws and cords its nest is woven of, then gradually discovers the flow and Intelligence involved as it retraces them.

The key, however, remains that the Johnian stream can only connect to our Earthly nest by crossing the narrowing. And that means that the Church can only serve its evolutionary duties if it becomes an Initiatic School. Leading the lamb to maturity, where they can individually experience the death and resurrection, then continue to disentangle the nest and align it with the Edenic streamlines. This is something routinely and conveniently ignored about spiritual science - that it is not so much about the descriptions given but about the method of Initiation brought to the open world, which can be elegantly and safely approached from the foundations of PoF.

Of course, the cave/labyrinth metaphor falls short because it makes it feel that when we cross the narrowing, we remain more or less the same lamb, except on the 'other side'. However, we need to realize the kind of inversion of existence that this leads to. Steiner has noticed that something like Projective Geometry makes a better metaphor.



On the 'other side' we realize that our seemingly 'substantial' lamb-self (the circle) is really only an effect of the coherently imploding spiritual activity coming from all 'directions' of inner space (the lines). Thus, on the other side, we experience ourselves as a meeting point of intuitive intents from all directions (and similarly, the intents that emerge from our unique perspective are such a 'line' for some other relative perspective).

[Rodriel Gabrez]

Another fascinating connection to contemplate:

We've touched on the fact that the transition from the 4th to 5th Post-Atlantean epoch is prefigured in the Peter-John pattern. One sees the same pattern again in Joan of Arc as well, who in disguising herself as a knight - the culminating image of the waning 4th epoch - outwardly and proudly delivered the new impulse from within the vehicle of the old. And the knight was not discarded; rather, he became Faust. The age of Lancelot and the age of Faust - these are the 4th and 5th ages insofar as they have to do with culture. With respect to the Church, we see that the virgin soul in whom conscience has blossomed (the John stream) enters into and wears the previous outer form (the Peter stream), transforming it from the inside.

Note that in the 4th cultural epoch, the Church - as it eventually became the primary institutional force - "dressed itself and walked wherever it wished," having replaced Caesar with Peter. But it seems we are told that Caesar will return (as the mechanized outer world) and "dress it, taking it where it does not want to go" (John 18:19). Caesar will encroach ever more intensely and insistently. An image: Peter again being crucified upside-down in the age of the etheric return.

[Cleric]

PS: Something I forgot to stress upon above: while it can be said that Peter (the Church) is our shepherd before the threshold, after passing through the narrowing, Christ is the true shepherd. In other words, in the meditative state, the Church doesn't stand between us and God. Then we become part of the fabric of the Living Ecclesia, whose head is the Christ.

With all of this, I don't want to demean the Peter pole. We are all Peters when we reach down through the threshold into the 'wagon-wheel-effect' World to work and help others in the Great Work. And also, let's not forget that the crossing is not a one-time event. Our conscious spiritual development only begins at that point.