Tomberg and Anthroposophy

[Rodriel Gabrez]

As the cliché goes, ‘the devil is in the details,’ and here we must take this seriously. ‘Gradual’ must be grasped in the correct way. Physicalists today still seek the solution to the abiogenetic origin of life. They believe they pretty much have the general geometry of the solution in the sack and only need to gradually fill in the missing pieces. In the physicalist's defense, it is not easy to be conscious of this implicit geometry of consciousness (fish not aware of the water). When one operates as a brain-bound intellectual being, the whole reality is intuited through this prism. One needs to have experienced at least one more instance of inner space geometry in order to understand this implicitness.

Those who have some feeling of being a soul (and not only a body) have a slight advantage, although in our age this feeling is often so dim that it barely makes a real difference. When the feeling is more pronounced, however, the experience of be-ing is indeed different. In the simplest terms, the physicalist feels skin- and brain-bound. If imaginative activity stretches beyond the bodily volume, one quickly suffixes it with something like “but this is simply an illusion created by the brain.” Those who genuinely feel themselves as souls have more expanded consciousness. Alongside the pixels of inner bodily phenomena, they have at least some sense of being a soul-sphere interfacing with the bodily organs.

Now we need to challenge even this soul-bound experience. Let’s try to imagine the inner, first-person movies of existence of incarnated Christian souls, as superimposed. Earthly lives are so diverse that most sensations largely cancel out. Nevertheless, there are certain feeling and ideal patterns that are mostly in phase. If Christianity is grasped properly, these patterns transcend nation and race, thus they are not the work Folk Spirits (Archangels). Since they are sought as eternal truths, they also transcend the Spirits of the Epoch (Archai). Thus, these universal patterns (speaking of soul geometry) mostly lie in the domain of the Spirits of Form (SoF).

We can never understand these things by imagining some spiritual creature that somehow produces patterns in spiritual space. We need to feel that when we differentiate in meditation from our personal, national, and epochal sympathies and antipathies, and we feel as a pure soul in the light of the Christ, this common inner space geometry, this sense of what we are as a being, is mainly the shape of potential supported by SoFs. As an analogy, if we consider the human physical form, we have the Pentagram. We need to experience it from within. We need to feel the inner space that we sweep with our limbs and head. Then we can imagine this space thickening and containing all conceivable human forms along with the possible transformations that they can undergo.

We should conceive something similar also for our soul geometry. The first thing to note is that these forms of potential are themselves transforming in the course of evolution. These archetypal envelope-forms can be thought of as standing waves within the even more general ideal flow – the inner life of the Spirits of Motion (SoM). I’m sure that these things are quite clear to you, as you say:

Instead, showing the existing structure to be pregnant with the materials of its own further unfolding - with the enlivened thought life of the Spirits of Motion - is the way forward, and the extent to which reincarnation and karma will be realized in this transformation will be the extent to which individual souls come to experience these things inwardly.

Now, it is not hard to see that the present Christian life is dominated by the SoF. The soul feels itself first and foremost as a form. It feels that it has been created by God – created in exactly the way it feels itself to be, with unique gifts and weaknesses. But most importantly, it feels that the soul identity is fixed. If we take clay, we can split it into several bigger balls or a greater number of smaller ones. Once they are split, they become individual; they have concrete identities. This is something that is deeply implicit in the sense of being a soul. We feel that God has created specifically our individual soul-shape, and this is completely unquestioned. This is simply what existence feels like. We should appreciate that the Bible is quiet on the question of the genesis of souls and their ultimate destiny. The common feeling is that we’re granted individual existence and we’ll eternally exist as a soul-being at this level of granularity (i.e, there’s no notion that at some point the clay may merge into greater lumps).

These are very difficult questions, and there are deep reasons why they are left out. It is worth noting that even Steiner hasn’t delved too much in that direction. The reason is that we can truly understand these things only once we overcome our personal existence. As long as we are haunted by the question, “But what will happen with me?” it is extremely difficult to speak of these things.

Anyway. The point is that the present Christian soul-geometry feels like a soul that needs to be polished around the edges (overcoming sin), but its general shape and identity are more or less fixed. There’s no notion of evolution in the doctrine. There’s polishing, but the Earthly sandbox is mostly formed as it is.

For Christianity to go further, the proper relations between the SoFs and the SoMs must be found. And here we reach a significant fact. In a certain sense, the SoFs that support the present common soul geometry are destined to be so-called backwards SoFs. There’s no vacuum in the Divine flow. Every niche is realized. This is not a condemnation, or anything like that. When there’s demand, there’ll be supply. These archetypal forms are destined to continue their existence simply because there are spiritual beings whose destiny unfolds within their envelope of potential.

Now, just as planets happen to have conjunctions, so there’s still a certain overlap between the SoFs that will become progressive and those that will continue on the descending path. In the future, the souls sheltered in the descending envelope of potential will have even greater difficulty conceiving of the needed change of inner geometry. Such changes will eventually be possible only in the period between death and rebirth. In other words, the incarnated souls will fight quite zealously to preserve the soul potential-envelope of their existence.

We are at an important stage of human history where an increasing number of souls have the inner flexibility to align with one or another constellation of SoFs. This doesn’t necessarily need to be developed as clear Inspirative consciousness. It’s simply that the “I” has emancipated from the sheaths of traditional secular and religious life, and at least in its ideal life, can understand the perspectives of the different spiritual outlooks. Not only as definitions, but by really feeling what it means to be a pagan, a muslim, a Christian, etc.

Such flexibility is needed if we are to find our proper place within the properly evolving SoFs. The reason is the following. If these SoFs could express it in words, it may sound something like this: “If we are to find our proper musical relations with the progressive SoMs, we need to work together with you. The Divine flow has it that we are not allowed to simply possess you within our standing-wave forms and carry you forward. You need to find the resonant relations through your own forces, in freedom. These forces are new. These are degrees of freedom that have hitherto been dormant. Until now, while incarnated, you were instinctively flowing within a certain constellation of SoFs, and that simply felt as what it is to exist as a soul. Now that you need to align through your own forces with one or another constellation, you are discovering new means to shift your deeper soul-shape. This is how the spiritual soul awakens. Just as awakening in the ego is at the same time to recognize yourself in thinking, so to awaken in the higher soul means to recognize yourself in still deeper forms of inner activity. To find the proper soul-shape, it is of critical importance to realize that you are not looking for the next fixed inner geometry but to find yourself as an archetypal standing-wave form of potential within the archetypal streams of the SoMs, with whom you need to align. Then, our common form will be the result of this mutual effort.”

As pretentious as this may sound, something like the video feedback meditation already works in that direction. If we really grasp it in the proper depth, we’ll realize that this meditation helps us feel placed differently within the World flow. In fact, the reason we constantly speak of this ‘World flow’ is precisely because we strive to feel our momentary state as the continuously metamorphosing World state, the Tetris-like concretization of potential. If experienced in the right way, this completely transforms our form-dominated (or space-dominated) sense of existence. We no longer feel like a fixed soul-shape that simply needs slight polishing here and there, and everything else is to be expected after death, but we awaken to the fact that our whole existence is only a transitional form in the flow of Cosmic metamorphosis – the Divine turning inside out through our first-person perspective.

If we succeed in experiencing ourselves in such a way in our thinking flow (this is where this sense of becoming can be experienced in the clearest way), the questions of Karma and Reincarnation are simply the most obvious features of such a flow-existence (just like you say above). The reason why these questions seem disturbing, doubtful, etc., is because while we are still form-dominated, we picture reincarnation as our form moving from Earthly space to the beyond-space and then back into a body. Such an image is indeed floating in the air, it’s simply a shaky fantasy, and it is normal that we may feel certain uneasiness about it. When, however, our inner perspective becomes flow-centric instead of form-centric, then we discover this completely factual experience of rhythmic metamorphoses. Then we understand reincarnation from the first-person perspective, and this makes all the difference. Now, reincarnation is no more miraculous than the fact that we experience the alternation of sleeping and waking consciousness. We simply discover that our first-person existence metamorphoses through such rhythms within rhythms.

Returning to the gradual transformation, we can easily realize that there’s no simple way in which the form-centric can be gradually polished until it becomes flow-centric. This doesn’t mean that there’s some vast chasm that we should cross on blind faith. In fact, we can bring them arbitrarily close to each other. It’s only that no matter how much we talk about concentration, at some point we simply need to stop talking and concentrate the force that we use for talking. No matter how refined, the description of the exercise won’t gradually transform into the performance of the exercise.

For this reason, as the ascending and descending SoFs keep getting apart, so will also souls that are sheltered within them. Of course, those on the flow-centric path have no problem understanding the inner life of those who are fixed within a specific form-centric geometry, but the latter simply lack that inner mobility. This is what will lead to the inevitable split. And we should be clear that those in the lines of the RCC, awakening to the flow-centric existence, will be the minority. As such, the majority are those that get to keep the RCC trademark. They’ll be the ones who believe they stay true to the millennia-old Testament of Christ, while the separatists will simply be seen as possessed by demons (this holds not only for the RCC but any form-centric religion).

Such a deeper understanding is vital. And hopefully, by the way it is spoken of, it is clear that it’s not about abstract schemas. Everything above refers to the completely living ways in which we experience our existence. If we do not understand these archetypal carrier flows of our existence, then that which is to happen, and is already happening, will be completely misunderstood. For example, we may think that it is a matter of talking the descending RCC out; we may believe that it’s a matter of providing them with more convincing arguments. This, however, will only outrage them more. Such things have already been experienced on a smaller scale here.

So to summarize, we need to comprehend (that which you have also very exactly pointed out) – our next step of development depends on finding the flow-centric mode of existence. This is at the same time the attunement of the SoFs and the SoMs within the human being into a musical ensemble. It is inevitable that SoFs that maintain the form-centric mode will preserve their Cosmic meditation, which, however, is already on a descending path. It goes increasingly out of tune with the ascending Divine flow. The corresponding religions sheltered in these SoFs will inevitably degenerate. If we contemplate the John impulse from within these descending communities, we’ll say, “It is not yet the time. The souls around me are not yet prepared to approach these things. For the time being, I’ll keep them a private concern.” On the next day, however, we’ll say, “Conditions have worsened. The transition needs to be delayed a bit more.” And in this way, with each new day, instead of getting closer to the transition, it becomes more and more remote. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t help the souls that are still form-bound. But we need to be aware that the full blossoming of the flow-centric human being will require new wineskins.

Thank you for another incredibly thorough and insightful response. I'll need to take some time to ponder it.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

Thanks for sharing this, Rodriel. I am wondering if you can elaborate on this 'progress' a bit, as this has been a central theme of discussions on this forum lately, for example, in the "saving the materialists" thread. Generally we have tried to hone in on what the most appropriate 'bridge' looks like from the form-centric to the flow-centric soul life, i.e., what kind of specific affinities and resistances are at work when approaching an introspective cognitive path where the real-time flow of thinking is lifted out of the blind spot. I think we probably agree that 'progress' in this domain cannot be evaluated only at the content level, where chains of philosophical, scientific, or theological concepts seem to align with esoteric descriptions of reality. (many discissions on the Discord chat come to mind here). Instead, the soul needs to feel its concept chains, not as fully finished and unquestionable forms, but as fluidly embedded within a concrete intuitive landscape of meaning through which it is instinctively steering.

Well firstly I don't mean to suggest that I'm particularly experienced in all this. (Your own writing is, I feel, a great example of formulating Anthroposophical ideas in an impactful and digestible way. It's still pretty challenging, but it has potential to land, I'm sure, with philosophically inclined souls). The Tombergian path is pretty new for me, having taken shape over the past 5 years or so. So in terms of progress, it's mostly been pretty modest. What I've been able to do in most cases is at least get people to begin considering Anthroposophical ideas. Considering how hostile the general attitude is between Anthroposophists and Catholics, I consider this admittedly small step a significant one. There are plenty of Anthroposophical truths which, while we of course ultimately want people to rise above the discursive/schematic level, are perfectly capable of being framed in traditional language. That this hasn't been attempted is somewhat surprising to me. For instance, the fourfold, sevenfold, ninefold, etc. membering of the human being is relatively easy to convey, these having a solid precursor in Aristotelian thought. The astral world and elemental beings, considered highly suspicious if not heretical due to misunderstanding, can also be accounted for Thomistically, in such a way that a seamless bridge is built. The Thomist fellow I referenced above found it speculative but worthy of consideration due to my Thomistic translation which followed the standard "causal" rules and hylomorphic soul model demanded by tradition. I'm happy to expand on this if you like.

With other people I have made progress in imparting ideas about specific dynamics within the hierarchies and how this relates to Christ's redemptive act and the etheric return. The sophiological language of Sergei Bulgakov has helped with this. Yes, it's an abstract system, but one that was informed by Steiner and which brings Catholics and Orthodox one step closer to an understanding of the cosmic significance of Golgotha (which has been all but totally lost in Catholic soul life).

These are things I've mostly tried out with an admittedly small group of close friends and acquaintances. Outcomes have varied, but I've found the mere fact of receptivity promising.

[AshvinP]

Rodriel,

How do you think the Catholic conception of Christ and the Incarnation can be reconciled with the anthroposophical conception? The Church radically rejects the idea that there were two Jesus children or that the Incarnation was only complete after the baptism, among other things.
This would essentially declare the Church’s interpretation as entirely false.

The Church’s teachings (Catechism and Dogmatics) cannot integrate these elements without completely abandoning its doctrine. I also cannot imagine that this will happen. Rudolf Steiner and Valentin tomberg are likely considered as heretics by most Catholics. Of course, there are theologians who are more open, such as Hans Urs von Balthasar. What would happen if a cardinal or a pope began publicly discussing the idea of two Jesus children or other antroposoohical elements of Steiners christology?

It is important to note here that we are dealing with incommensurate content between Church dogma and esoteric scientific research. If we anchor our intuition in this domain with something like the Magic eye metaphor, i.e., the hidden meaningful depth embedded within the flattened pixels that emerges via a relaxed and inverted (meditative) cognitive perspective, then we come closer to the relationship between the two.

From this deeper scale perspective, the content can be reconciled. We can't necessarily say the Church rejects two Jesus children or incarnation at baptism before we say the Church even suspects or understands such esoteric facts. To properly reject something, one must first be acquainted with it and understand the state from which it is communicated to some extent. Such deeper facts elucidate why a naturally born human could serve as the bodily vehicle for the Christ spirit who spirals the poles of existence together, and why the Spirit could complete this task over the course of the historical events, and of course why and how we can participate in realizing the fullness of that redemptive mission.

That is not to say these facts lessen the mystery of the Christ events, on the contrary, they bring infinitely deeper appreciation of such a mystery, compared to crystallized theological doctrines that are tightly held and therefore presume the mystery has been finally solved, once and for all, to be defended against 'heresies'. From the deeper scale perspective, we realize how the theologians are instinctively inspired by facts of the spiritual world that are continually evolving in their depth and richness. It is only because they remain ignorant of the intuitive landscape they are steering through when thinking about their doctrines, that the latter become rigidified and at dialectical odds with genuine spiritual knowledge. These theologians are like painters who have thrown some colors up on the canvas, instinctively inspired to do so in certain ways, but haven't taken the time to stand back and more fully appreciate the holistic image that has been painted and continues to be painted.

[Federica]

Perhaps it doesn't "immediately appear to consciousness", and perhaps you still flow with discursively argumentative and antipathetic modes of thinking and expression on certain topics like these, precisely because you refuse to contemplate the immanent overlap between the "objectivity of the moral order" and the subjective experience of pure thinking. That overlap is what Steiner expresses clearly in many such quotes, as the foundation of PoF and spiritual science, and your note about 'how things stand' is simply turning your current personal limitation on the phenomenological path into some universal rule about what 'man's path to salvation' can or cannot be, a thinking habit which ironically blocks the experience of a moral world order immanently present in pure thinking and thus serves to confirm its own content. In other words, the 'self-education' to resist selfish habits' is the objective moral world order that one is not allowing oneself to experience.

Sure I have antipathetic impulses in my personality, as I emphasized before, even in this thread. But your venom is pretty ironic too - not very anthroposophical! Just think: can you imagine Cleric writing the above? We all know the answer.
Please note: in my replies there is no venom, but opinions and factual arguments. The dissonance you create around yourself when you pour from such inner reservoirs that produce behaviors and thoughts of the kind you are exhibiting, are an interesting testimony, Ashvin, in particular when put side to side with the great writing you are also capable of.

By the way, that the objective moral order is only realized after a while and not upon beginning the exercises and efforts to discipline the soul, is far from being only my experience, and I guess, if you carefully and openly think back to your own path, you will encounter a similar finding. That this is my experience is an additional element to illustrate an opinion based on my understanding of modern man, grounded in Steiner. Self-education is the moral order: sure it is, in the absolute. You don't need to keep stating things as if I had opposed them, we already know you are very good at that.

[AshvinP]

Perhaps it doesn't "immediately appear to consciousness", and perhaps you still flow with discursively argumentative and antipathetic modes of thinking and expression on certain topics like these, precisely because you refuse to contemplate the immanent overlap between the "objectivity of the moral order" and the subjective experience of pure thinking. That overlap is what Steiner expresses clearly in many such quotes, as the foundation of PoF and spiritual science, and your note about 'how things stand' is simply turning your current personal limitation on the phenomenological path into some universal rule about what 'man's path to salvation' can or cannot be, a thinking habit which ironically blocks the experience of a moral world order immanently present in pure thinking and thus serves to confirm its own content. In other words, the 'self-education' to resist selfish habits' is the objective moral world order that one is not allowing oneself to experience.

Sure I have antipathetic impulses in my personality, as I emphasized before, even in this thread. But your venom is pretty ironic too - not very anthroposophical! Just think: can you imagine Cleric writing the above? We all know the answer.
Please note: in my replies there is no venom, but opinions and factual arguments. The dissonance you create around yourself when you pour from such inner reservoirs that produce behaviors and thoughts of the kind you are exhibiting, are an interesting testimony, Ashvin, in particular when put side to side with the great writing you are also capable of.

My ability to refrain from responding in kind is certainly wanting, although the 'venom' is experienced with much more sting when we feel that anything addressing deeper soul factors that steer thinking is some kind of personal attack. Even if I made it less personal, removed the "you", and spoke of it all hypothetically, the substance would remain the same and you would feel insulted that the comment was written to you. We have seen this play out so many times before and not only with my comments. It makes it difficult to even carry on a spiritual scientific discussion above an abstract, discursive level.

I was able to ignore your first attempt to bait me into such an argument, which had almost nothing to do with the point I made, but not your second, which at least seemed a bit more substantive, like you were somewhat interested in exploring the connection fiurther in an open-ended way. Alas, you questioned my assertion, I responded, and simply quoting Steiner was enough excuse for you to launch into curt responses. The 'fuse' seems to be getting shorter and shorter instead of longer. Might this have something to do with your struggle to discover the synonymity of cognitive and moral striving on the intuitive path? That's up to you to explore, of course.

By the way, that the objective moral order is only realized after a while and not upon beginning the exercises and efforts to discipline the soul, is far from being only my experience, and I guess, if you carefully and openly think back to your own path, you will encounter a similar finding. That this is my experience is an additional element to illustrate an opinion based on my understanding of modern man, grounded in Steiner. Self-education is the moral order: sure it is, in the absolute. You don't need to keep stating things as if I had opposed them, we already know you are very good at that.

The point is simple - one cannot neatly delineate cognitive striving from moral striving on the inner path. There is no beginning with one independently of the other, unless one is engaged in completely theoretical philosophizing or completely mindless asceticism. The connection may not be quite conscious at first, without a doubt, but once we gain some distance on what it is we are actually doing, what we are actually involved in, the synonymity should become more and more conscious. Self-education (catharsis, purification, etc.) is not only the congitive-moral order in the absolute, but in the real-time experience of its unfoldment. It is the immanent process of realizing the unity between the poles of existence - cognition and will, natural and moral, etc.

[Cleric]

Thank you for another incredibly thorough and insightful response. I'll need to take some time to ponder it.

Thank you, Rodriel! BTW, even though the posts may sound assertive, I want to emphasize that they are my meditations on the seeds that come from the conversation. As such, I also Thank you for giving me the opportunity to delve in new ways into certain questions. For example, the idea of 'form-centric' and 'flow-centric' is something that has been implied in the most varied ways here on the forum, but these exact wordings came only now, while I was seeking a way to express the way the sense of being differentiates. So, I hope I don't look like someone who merely wants to stamp his preconceived knowledge around. Instead, I discover quite new things in such exchanges.

In the light of the previous post, I wanted to add a few things about the 'eternal truths' that the Church is said to focus on. However, even such eternal truths are rendered through the particular soul constitution. We may speak asymptotically about the direction of evolution, but the more we try to pin down the alpha and the omega, the more we rigidify in our present inner geometry. For example, we know that in the disembodied state, we can no longer deal with nouns in the same way. In a way, we can focus on a 'thing' here on Earth, only because our waking inner life has quite persistent geometry (thanks to its bodily kernel). So when we want to understand the World as made of things, we actually project our own sense of being, and try to understand the Cosmos as relations of such 'thingnesses'. For this reason, if we unknowingly insist on such a way of grasping reality, we practically want to immortalize our embodied sensory-intellectual state.

Thanks to the broader horizon of Initiatic Science, we can realize that Genesis starts not with the Saturn condition but with the recapitulation of the previous aeons within the Earthly aeon. Similarly, it ends more or less open-endedly with Revelation. So, when we say that the Church focuses on the eternal endpoints of the book covers, we can realize that in the greater picture, these book covers are actually inner pages of an even greater book. Just like the separate books of the Bible were indeed individual books with actual book covers, so when concatenated in the monolithic Bible, their book covers become inner pages.

This is not surprising, and I guess most Christians will easily acknowledge this. Things become trickier only when it is insisted that this particular Book can be understood in isolation. It's like saying, "Yes, of course our current Book has been preceded and will be superseded by others, but at present, all our tasks lie between the current Earthly book covers." While the tasks indeed lie here, the solutions to the tasks can be found if we read also the adjacent Books.

The misunderstanding comes when we consider these Books to be sequential elements in linear time. However, they are more like one within another.



The above image has been used before to illustrate this idea. On the left we have the more or less linear conception. After we pass Saturn, it remains 'in the past'. The right represents the fact that even now there are all the spheres nested in creating the complicated interference patterns that are required to witness this complex Earthly world.

If we do not grasp this, when pondering questions like "Why do we have four elements, why do we have rocks, plants, animals, man, and so on," the best answer could only be "Well, because God decided to create the world in this way." We simply cannot find deeper answers to these questions if we see the Earthly aeon only in its flattened state. And we need these answers not only to satisfy our beyond-Earth curiosity, but because they are essential in orienting ourselves and disentangling the Earthly nest.

The tendency of the soul to inflate its present geometry and try to see the eternal truths through its presently shaped prism has been illustrated in an interesting way here.

[AshvinP]

Another thing I try to do, even when speaking to Anthroposophists, is to limit my communication of the esoteric to things I am able to personally corroborate. Though I do sometimes forget to do this, I make an effort to make clear where I am merely paraphrasing Steiner vs where I am speaking from a place of personal certainty. I'm no great seer, so much of what Steiner reports is still unverified content from my personal standpoint. I have great reason to find Steiner a most trustworthy resource, of course, and have found - like he often said - that merely absorbing spiritual science with an unprejudiced attitude yields profound results. I believe, however, that we are a rare breed who are predisposed toward taking this up. So what I have been able to make my own (what I've been able to weave into my organization via the I), I now actively seek ways of communicating that are more likely to get through to people.

Stimulated by Cleric's latest post and the profound lesson he linked, it's interesting to contemplate the question, "why limit the bold, which is surely a wise (if not always attainable) practice, to only the facts of esoteric science? Why not also the facts of Biblical revelation? One could say that the latter is Divinely revealed, but actually we could say the same of the former, and actually of all insights reached through unprejudiced thinking. It is all possible because the Spirit is revealing the higher-order curvatures of potential as images along the scale spectrum. As long as such insights remain abstract, i.e. not tied to concrete experiences we have lived through, perhaps we should try to limit communication of them until we have grown deeper into their inner reality. That is not to say all communication of Biblical truths should cease, of course, but that we should be stimulated to inwardly develop such that we are justified to communicate them. Just something to contemplate. I imagine this would not sit too comfortably with most priests, and perhaps not even the Pope

[Federica]

My ability to refrain from responding in kind is certainly wanting, although the 'venom' is experienced with much more sting when we feel that anything addressing deeper soul factors that steer thinking is some kind of personal attack. Even if I made it less personal, removed the "you", and spoke of it all hypothetically, the substance would remain the same and you would feel insulted that the comment was written to you. We have seen this play out so many times before and not only with my comments. It makes it difficult to even carry on a spiritual scientific discussion above an abstract, discursive level.

I was able to ignore your first attempt to bait me into such an argument, which had almost nothing to do with the point I made, but not your second, which at least seemed a bit more substantive, like you were somewhat interested in exploring the connection fiurther in an open-ended way. Alas, you questioned my assertion, I responded, and simply quoting Steiner was enough excuse for you to launch into curt responses. The 'fuse' seems to be getting shorter and shorter instead of longer. Might this have something to do with your struggle to discover the synonymity of cognitive and moral striving on the intuitive path? That's up to you to explore, of course.

The point is simple - one cannot neatly delineate cognitive striving from moral striving on the inner path. There is no beginning with one independently of the other, unless one is engaged in completely theoretical philosophizing or completely mindless asceticism. The connection may not be quite conscious at first, without a doubt, but once we gain some distance on what it is we are actually doing, what we are actually involved in, the synonymity should become more and more conscious. Self-education (catharsis, purification, etc.) is not only the congitive-moral order in the absolute, but in the real-time experience of its unfoldment. It is the immanent process of realizing the unity between the poles of existence - cognition and will, natural and moral, etc.

Ashvin, as I begged you before, would you please speak of what you think, feel and do, rather than speculating on what I may be feeling? Evidently, you are fond of doing that, we have seen it many times (and not only with me). One feeling you are especially fond of discovering in people is “feeling insulted”, for some reason. Go search for “insulted” here, and you will find 6 pages of posts where you explain to people (me and others) how we are feeling insulted. But would it be imaginable that you refrain from that? Because, the fact is, this type of seership is not yet available to you. And the other thing is, when this seership will be available to you, you will actually not be as fond of posting your perceptions of other people’s feelings, as you currently are.


By the way, I find it somewhat alarming that you call a genuine question I posed on a recent fait of the RCC “an attempt to bait you into an argument". I am sorry, it does not matter in the least that the question didn’t refer directly to the point you were making in that particular sentence. This is the nice thing about the forum form of communication, that everyone can post and pick up on others’ inputs, and my question was fully related to the topic being discussed at that point: the degradation, or non degradation, of the institution of the RCC. Now, that the question is unpleasant, because it gives a concrete example of highly suspicious RCC behavior - while Rodriel was saying that there are now signs of evolution, and you were saying that you have outgrown suspiciousness - is another story….


Ah… thank you! Your last paragraph is pretty close to what I was saying. And the fact that "the connection may not be quite conscious at first, until we gain some distance on what it is we are actually doing", does mean that in our time, as a general rule for whatever esoteric path in the West, we are first attracted to the cognitive side, then we begin the work, and then we gain some distance, and moral consciousness on what we are actually doing. Which is why, in the post in question, I was arguing that Anthroposophy is better suited than the RCC to foster human evolution in the right way, since it suits a man who is drawn to begin with cognition, rather than with morality. That’s it. And I genuinely wonder (refraining from speculations) why both Rodriel and you suddenly became passive aggressive specifically on that point.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

Ah… thank you! Your last paragraph is pretty close to what I was saying. And the fact that "the connection may not be quite conscious at first, until we gain some distance on what it is we are actually doing", does mean that in our time, as a general rule for whatever esoteric path in the West, we are first attracted to the cognitive side, then we begin the work, and then we gain some distance, and moral consciousness on what we are actually doing. Which is why, in the post in question, I was arguing that Anthroposophy is better suited than the RCC to foster human evolution in the right way, since it suits a man who is drawn to begin with cognition, rather than with morality. That’s it. And I genuinely wonder (refraining from speculations) why both Rodriel and you suddenly became passive aggressive specifically on that point.

I'm sorry that I've come across as passive aggressive. I'm new here, and I realize I've entered a longstanding pre-established group with a challenging and possibly contentious topic. I try not to hide the fact that I have certain convictions, and so I state them plainly. But I don't intend at all to be forceful or aggressive. Thanks for letting me know that there's work to do on my part to get that to better come across. And thanks again to the whole group for engaging in this conversation, which is quite possibly the most in-depth one I've ever had on the topic in an online forum.

Perhaps I could speak to the cognitive vs moral development issue. Anthroposophical technique (which Steiner traces back to the Rosicrucians and even beyond) is somewhat unique in the context of initiation methods in that it bypasses the "zone of activity," if you will, that makes other methods incredibly dangerous. This is also the zone which stands between the cognitive and the moral. The cognitive and the moral are like poles which contain each other, whereas what stands in between them is orthogonal. This middle zone is that which is symbolized by the animal as the horizontal beam of the Cross, with the plant and human comprising the ends of the vertical beam. Steiner spoke extensively in his early lectures about the relationship between the plant and the human - how the human is the upturned plant which has lost his chaste innocence and needs to return to the plant again but on a higher level. This is precisely why Steiner's methods begin simultaneously with technique in the domain of etheric development and moral strengthening, which is a-technical. These two poles, being reflections of each other, operate simultaneously bringing together that which proceeds upward from personal effort and that which reaches downward as grace (if you'll allow the traditional term). This is the way of John, which, in contradistinction to the way of Peter, doesn't rely on remaining in a childlike state of innocence waiting for illumination to descend. In the John stream we have a legitimate path to do something much more active, to set an objective etheric current in motion which puts the individual on a path toward receiving objective spiritual content. Once the individual passes over into Imagination and accesses the animal zone of sympathy and antipathy, the danger returns and moral purification becomes paramount. Ostensibly the method itself will have provided a baseline of fortification against this danger.

So the method is at least a safe runway for development. Once one the plane achieves liftoff, however, the individual faces dangerous challenges. This is part of the reason why the way of Peter should spiral together with the way of John. What Tomberg masterfully achieves in MoT is a translation of Anthroposophical method into the language of Catholic tradition, showing the two to be complementary and reciprocally fructifying. Cognitive-moral development is couched in the framework of the purification element within the traditional triad of purification-illumination-union. One is being led into the way of John via the way of Peter (again, reenacting the crucial scene in John's gospel at the tomb).

[AshvinP]

Ah… thank you! Your last paragraph is pretty close to what I was saying. And the fact that "the connection may not be quite conscious at first, until we gain some distance on what it is we are actually doing", does mean that in our time, as a general rule for whatever esoteric path in the West, we are first attracted to the cognitive side, then we begin the work, and then we gain some distance, and moral consciousness on what we are actually doing. Which is why, in the post in question, I was arguing that Anthroposophy is better suited than the RCC to foster human evolution in the right way, since it suits a man who is drawn to begin with cognition, rather than with morality. That’s it. And I genuinely wonder (refraining from speculations) why both Rodriel and you suddenly became passive aggressive specifically on that point.

I think Rodriel helpfully addressed the above in his response. We can also consider why Steiner, via PoF et al., clearly begins with an intimate exploration of cognitive actvity and moral values at the same time. There is no sense in which such works suggest we can set aside the moral dimension of life while we first work on cognition. So as not to be called an automata again, I will simply paraphrase Steiner when saying that PoF was intended to bring a high degree of catharsis (purification of the astral), if oriented to properly (as a virtuoso relates to a conductor). What is catharsis except 'beginning with morality'? What we purify in this way is precisely cognition, so the latter can begin serving its unadultered function of elucidating our subtle supersensible structure and the latter's relation to our ordinary flow of experience. PoF (and thus Anthroposophy) is cognitive and moral striving simultaneously, clear and simple.