Tomberg and Anthroposophy

[Federica]

I would like to take advantage of my lower position here to ask you a question, Rodriel, which would otherwise get unasked. You have previously called yourself "no great seer", and stated that much of Steiner's results of spiritual-scientific inquiry is "still unverified content" for you. You have also said:

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.

Could you please make that effort for us now as well, with referece to your statements above? Are your drawing this understanding of the forces of corruption and nonbeing and this interpretation of how they were subtly negotiated by Tomberg in veiled but pedagogic key, from your own personal research and certainty, or are you adhering to, and elaborating on, the conceptions and contents of some other spiritual inquirer? Certainly, it can't be aswered that these conceptions are drawn from Tomberg's work, because ascertaining what Tomberg thought and meant is the very inquiry whose disputable results you are presenting us with in this thread.

You would like to know by what authority I have attained the perspective expressed. As has been remarked previously in this thread, spiritual scientific discussions can't be conducted that way if the participants wish to avoid getting endlessly caught up in disputes about either "who is the greater seer" or who has most correctly paraphrased the master. This speaks again to Tomberg's insights (in MoT and elsewhere) into the 5th major arcanum, The Pope. Cleric has provided a good example of the spiritual scientific approach, asking not for the cosigning authority of my assessment but instead saying that he "cannot agree" with it. His ensuing explanation then provides me an opportunity to enter into dialogue, using his insights as a means of first clarifying what I did and did not mean and then of building toward a shared understanding.

I don't see that a possible answer to my question would lead to endless debates about who is the greater seer. My intention with the question was to somewhat understand the mysterious stance you have been speaking from in this thread. From Cleric's writings, for example, it's always immediately clear that he relies on his own research. The same can be said of Tomberg and Steiner, among other seers. In your case, however, the situation seems much more mysterious, at least from my perspective.

I naturally respect the fact that you prefer not to answer. Nevertheless, I would now ask your a subsequent question: what motivates you to always clarify the origin of your esoteric communications when you speak to Anthroposophists, and what makes this particular context here on this forum different, to the point that those motives cease to guide your behavior here?

[AshvinP]

Greetings, all. This is my first post on the forum, and I just want to share how grateful I am to have discovered your conversations and to be able to follow this discussion in particular from my inbox. Thank you. I have only made it through the posts from mid-October so I apologize if what I am about to share covers themes that have already been discussed. This biographical sketch of Valentin Tomberg, however, may shed light upon some of the immediate post-war phenomenological realities permeating VT at the time he chose to join the Church. The outline is written by Pedro-José Martinez, an anthroposophist whom Judith von Halle described as "one of the few people I know and whom I trust to make a spiritual assessment of the current [coronavirus] situation" in her book The Coronavirus Pandemic II: Further Anthroposophical Perspectives. The original essay in Spanish can be found here: http://www.revistabiosofia.com/valentin ... ograficos/. A subsequent essay on Tomberg's The Four Sacrifices of Christ can be found here: http://www.revistabiosofia.com/v-tomber ... de-cristo/. Reading this outline I was reminded of Goethe's thinking: "We labor in vain to describe a person's character, but when we draw together his actions, his deeds, a picture of his character will emerge." We could also substitute "character" for "project" to understand what one is really striving towards with their whole life. I have asked ClaudeAI to translate the essay and bold the sentences that were originally in all capitals.

Greetings, Michael. Thank you for your contribution to this discussion. We had not previously explored PJM on the forum, so it's nice that you have brought attention to his articles.

VT's lectures on The Four Sacrifices of Christ immediately struck me as profound, truly Inspired work. It's difficult to find any other thinker, apart from Steiner, who could paint these lofty intuitions and ideas with such artistry and precision. Through these artistic images, the soul starts to feel how the sacrificial Christic process permeates its stream of becoming, as individuals and collectives, in the metamorphoses of single incarnations and those of epochal history alike. It is an absolute gem of modern spiritual science!

[Federica]

Greetings, all. This is my first post on the forum, and I just want to share how grateful I am to have discovered your conversations and to be able to follow this discussion in particular from my inbox. Thank you. I have only made it through the posts from mid-October so I apologize if what I am about to share covers themes that have already been discussed. This biographical sketch of Valentin Tomberg, however, may shed light upon some of the immediate post-war phenomenological realities permeating VT at the time he chose to join the Church. The outline is written by Pedro-José Martinez, an anthroposophist whom Judith von Halle described as "one of the few people I know and whom I trust to make a spiritual assessment of the current [coronavirus] situation" in her book The Coronavirus Pandemic II: Further Anthroposophical Perspectives. The original essay in Spanish can be found here: http://www.revistabiosofia.com/valentin ... ograficos/. A subsequent essay on Tomberg's The Four Sacrifices of Christ can be found here: http://www.revistabiosofia.com/v-tomber ... de-cristo/. Reading this outline I was reminded of Goethe's thinking: "We labor in vain to describe a person's character, but when we draw together his actions, his deeds, a picture of his character will emerge." We could also substitute "character" for "project" to understand what one is really striving towards with their whole life. I have asked ClaudeAI to translate the essay and bold the sentences that were originally in all capitals.

Valentin Tomberg: Biographical Notes
...
**Pedro-José Martinez**

Hello Michael,

Welcome to the forum and thank you for bringing new elements to the understanding of Tomberg’s figure. It is stunning to contemplate the troubled, painful destiny of a man whose life-long attempts to converge towards a spiritual, psychic, and physical home have been incessantly pushed off-center.

The linked article, developing on Tomberg’s 1938-39 lecture cycle “The four sacrifices of Christ”, illustrates research conducted before his Catholic conversion. If I understand it correctly, Tomberg’s presentation of the Archangel Jesus and other extensions of Steiner’s accounts are in full harmony with the latter. In this thread, however, the most debated questions have revolved around Tomberg’s relationship to the ‘spiritual-scientific project’ after his conversion, and, even more crucially, around the idea that the human pursuit of the consciousness soul should be nested within the body of the Roman Catholic Church. This idea, here dubbed the 'Catholic project', has been expressed by Rodriel in this post and subsequent ones.

I am wondering how you see that Martinez’s ideas, and/or your own, can shed light on our discussions. Do you understand that Tomberg’s legacy points to the crucial role of the Roman Catholic Church in the future of human evolution?

[Rodriel Gabrez]

I don't see that a possible answer to my question would lead to endless debates about who is the greater seer. My intention with the question was to somewhat understand the mysterious stance you have been speaking from in this thread. From Cleric's writings, for example, it's always immediately clear that he relies on his own research. The same can be said of Tomberg and Steiner, among other seers. In your case, however, the situation seems much more mysterious, at least from my perspective.

I naturally respect the fact that you prefer not to answer. Nevertheless, I would now ask your a subsequent question: what motivates you to always clarify the origin of your esoteric communications when you speak to Anthroposophists, and what makes this particular context here on this forum different, to the point that those motives cease to guide your behavior here?

In clarifying the origin of of my esoteric communications, as you put it, the emphasis is really around clarifying when I am merely re-expressing something Steiner has said, which should never carry the weight of final authority but serves its proper function as a stimulus for personal and collective exploration. Many Anthroposophists present Steiner's spiritual scientific research (and occasionally the research of others) as granted fact. This is really quite a problematic practice, for reasons which have been discussed here. I have for instance been present for lengthy discussions amongst Anthroposophists about the reincarnations of particular individualities, after which it was revealed that not only had none of the participants conducted the research themselves, but that nobody actually knew where the claims even came from. Upon this discovery, someone will usually then go and find the reference in some Anthroposophical book, at which point the claim is then considered verified. When I issued the disclaimer you quoted from many pages ago in this discussion, it was this type of thing I had in mind. It was a table-setting measure for what seemed would develop into a more in-depth discussion. Having entered fully into that discussion, we haven't really needed to return to the disclaimer.

[Federica]

In clarifying the origin of of my esoteric communications, as you put it, the emphasis is really around clarifying when I am merely re-expressing something Steiner has said, which should never carry the weight of final authority but serves its proper function as a stimulus for personal and collective exploration. Many Anthroposophists present Steiner's spiritual scientific research (and occasionally the research of others) as granted fact. This is really quite a problematic practice, for reasons which have been discussed here. I have for instance been present for lengthy discussions amongst Anthroposophists about the reincarnations of particular individualities, after which it was revealed that not only had none of the participants conducted the research themselves, but that nobody actually knew where the claims even came from. Upon this discovery, someone will usually then go and find the reference in some Anthroposophical book, at which point the claim is then considered verified. When I issued the disclaimer you quoted from many pages ago in this discussion, it was this type of thing I had in mind. It was a table-setting measure for what seemed would develop into a more in-depth discussion. Having entered fully into that discussion, we haven't really needed to return to the disclaimer.

All right Rodriel, thank you for your reply. We agree that Steiner's communications should serve as stimulus for exploration, and yet there's "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", as you put it.
("my communication of the esoteric" is also how you put it)

[Federica]

I would like to add a comment about the off-topic of gender introduced above. Not sure whether this needs to be split off from this thread. As an aside pointing to a possible connection between the two topics - gender and the Catholic project - it could be said that the impulse to preserve, maintain and consolidate the forms is generally an expression of the feminine principle, while the impulse to dissolve or differentiate form expresses a masculine principle. Not that I see this as a key in the Catholic project discussion though, and I will leave it at that here. My intention is rather to add a few notes on gender and gender dysphoria, as I understand them.

First, I would note that we are all transgender in our soul and higher self, in the sense that we overcome 'gender' in our soul-spiritual nature. While sleeping, we leave our gendered bodies behind - the physical and etheric sheaths. Our higher sheaths have no gender. Not that gender does not reflect a higher reality. It definitely does. But that higher reality is a unitary supersensible reality: one side of it can’t be grasped in separation from the other, while gender is a precipitation, or reflection, of that indissociable unity in polar form on the physical-etheric plane.

The origin of gender on the higher planes is the dynamic interplay of the forces of growth with the forces of form. In the earthly sphere, these forces become the cycle of life and death. Gushing life grows and swells up from the center, while form-giving forces come in to meet it and shape it from the periphery. The formative forces (feminine) give shape to the growth forces (masculine). On the one hand, as life gushes forth, it dissolves, it becomes dissolving if not met by form-giving forces. On the other hand, as the formative forces come into manifestation, they tend to rigidify and build up, if not balanced by fluidifying, dissolving life.

Form is needed, if life has to grow as a consistent unity, but the act of shaping and holding together is also a hardening, a move towards death. Therefore form-giving is both constructive (anabolic) and destructive (catabolic). Specularly, growing life is needed for formed earthly existence. But the act of growth that brings life to the form and fuels it also tends to deform it and dissolve it, or differentiate it. Thus it is both constructive and destructive, as well.

It is impossible to analytically separate these dynamics in their becoming: growth and form, anabolism and catabolism, dissolving and condensing, deforming and forming, masculine and feminine. As soon as we get a sense of the feminine forces bringing about form and eventually death, we have to integrate the dissolving character of the masculine forces, and wonder: “But wasn’t it the opposite? Aren’t the masculine forces creative?” Yes and no, they are both, just as the feminine forces are both constructive and destructive. They don’t only follow one another in succession, but they continually melt into each other like in a rotating wheel, and just when we think we have conceptualized and ‘isolated’ one tendency as an anchor for orientation - as the intellectual soul likes to do - the impulse has already been taken over by its opposite: it has melted into the character of the opposite (for me it’s been helpful to contemplate the alchemical mandala of the four elements and their phases, between gravity and levity, to understand that in a living way).

On the physical plane, the thing is that the dynamic unity of the spiritual principles of growth and form had to be brought down into space-time by alternation/polarization, so that gender arose. Growth and reproductive forces were partially sacrificed for the emergence of powers of thought, and so the single human being had to be deprived of half of the forces in both their physical and etheric body, to become gendered in both. In a sense, our physical-etheric nature taken as a whole is also 'transgender', since it comprises both genders but, as we know, only one is sense-perceptible (usually) while the other is etheric.

We know (more or less directly) that when the physical body manifests as male, the etheric body is female, and comprises an etheric uterus, for example. When the physical body manifests as female instead, it’s because the formative forces (feminine) active on the embryo from the periphery have collapsed beforehand, that is before reaching the vortex of the heart, thus condensing the form of an early heart organ, or a 'mini heart' (uterus) in the physical.

Now, when it comes to what is referred to as gender dysphoria, my understanding is that it’s rather a consequence of the evolution of the I-organization and the growing sense of self-determination. When associated with certain discomfort and a materialistic outlook that flattens the conscious sphere of action to the physical body, the consequence may be the decision to reject the “assigned gender”. However, I don't think that the spiritual foundations described above have an impact, since they are gender-neutral, so to say, and I don’t think their unconscious perception may trigger gender dysphoria and transgenderism. On the other hand, I believe that perception of etheric gender has been present since a very long time. But it’s only recently that such perception has been allowed to feed back into psychological and then cultural roles, in case the perception is preponderant, and can’t be harmonized with the physical one within the personality, and in connection to social life. As a consequence under default materialistic outlook, the psychologically and socially permitted degree of freedom to release the perceived dissonance is to attempt an unfortunate external rewiring of the physical body.

[AshvinP]

Now, when it comes to what is referred to as gender dysphoria, my understanding is that it’s rather a consequence of the evolution of the I-organization and the growing sense of self-determination. When associated with certain discomfort and a materialistic outlook that flattens the conscious sphere of action to the physical body, the consequence may be the decision to reject the “assigned gender”. However, I don't think that the spiritual foundations described above have an impact, since they are gender-neutral, so to say, and I don’t think their unconscious perception may trigger gender dysphoria and transgenderism. On the other hand, I believe that perception of etheric gender has been present since a very long time. But it’s only recently that such perception has been allowed to feed back into psychological and then cultural roles, in case the perception is preponderant, and can’t be harmonized with the physical one within the personality, and in connection to social life. As a consequence under default materialistic outlook, the psychologically and socially permitted degree of freedom to release the perceived dissonance is to attempt an unfortunate external rewiring of the physical body.

This question does seem to relate quite directly to what Rodriel and Cleric had discussed before. In this post, for example, Rodriel pointed toward the way in which the modern intellectual soul can degenerate into an 'evil twin' of the sentient soul. In the ancient Egyptian epoch, there was indeed still a greater perception of the etheric-astral foundations of the physical body. We find many mythic images of beings (including humans) in which male and female characteristics are interwoven. Yet we know that this perception faded as "I" consciousness developed and grew much more tightly attuned to the physical neurosensory organism. All such perceptions were flattened to the lowest common denominator of rigid sensory qualities, the contents of which are polarized across many domains of perception. Now, we are in the process of recapitulating the 3rd epoch, and many of those instinctive perceptual capacities are resurfacing. Or, to put it in Cleric's language from this post, consciousness is becoming more attuned to flow-centric qualities of existence, where the personality starts to feel its identity is more malleable and fluid, not confined to any particular stable form.

Yet, as long as this whole process remains unconscious, the expanding flow-centric perceptions can only be squeezed back into old form-centric ways of thinking and being (old wineskins). That is why many people start to wear 'gender fluidity' like a badge, an emblem of what sort of 'enlightened' grouping they belong to. As Rodriel indicated in that post, when the intellectual bulwark of the soul is eroded, things become increasingly illogical. Even from a standard intellectually rigorous perspective, it makes no sense that young children are entrusted by parents to evaluate these fluid perceptions and use their hardly formed powers of judgment to determine their physical 'destiny', even to the extent of irreversible medical procedures. I doubt such a cultural manifestation would ever take root in Steiner's time, since it would be dismissed from the beginning as highly illogical. These are images of erosion of the intellectual soul over the last century and regression to the sentient soul, except now the latter expresses itself within the context of a completely physicalized relationship to 'what reality is'. It uses clever intellect to devise ways of manipulating the physical spectrum to follow its sympathies and pleasures.

So the soul then feels trapped within an unsuitable physical instrument for its unconscious higher nature, with constrained degrees of freedom, but has no basis to recognize this is what is happening or how to truly discover its deeper flow-centric degrees of freedom through introspective-meditative practice. These would bring it into a harmonious relationship with the flow-centric spectrum that it is otherwise unconsciously probing. It then becomes conscious of why the mismatch exists between the etheric-astral and physical spectrums and learns to work with sculpting the latter more patiently, more selflessly, out of inspiration to work out the Ideal resurrected form of humanity. Steiner has also given us very helpful ways of orienting to this growing cultural expression of discomfort 'within one's own skin'. He speaks about how much suffering and even illnesses are born from the mismatch between what lives in the soul-spirit from prior incarnations and its ability to bring those inner capacities to proper expression through the physical instrument. In our time, due to the profound lack of consciousness of the spiritual foundations, the psycho-physical consequences of the mismatch have become most pronounced.

[Federica]

This question does seem to relate quite directly to what Rodriel and Cleric had discussed before. In this post, for example, Rodriel pointed toward the way in which the modern intellectual soul can degenerate into an 'evil twin' of the sentient soul. In the ancient Egyptian epoch, there was indeed still a greater perception of the etheric-astral foundations of the physical body. We find many mythic images of beings (including humans) in which male and female characteristics are interwoven. Yet we know that this perception faded as "I" consciousness developed and grew much more tightly attuned to the physical neurosensory organism. All such perceptions were flattened to the lowest common denominator of rigid sensory qualities, the contents of which are polarized across many domains of perception. Now, we are in the process of recapitulating the 3rd epoch, and many of those instinctive perceptual capacities are resurfacing. Or, to put it in Cleric's language from this post, consciousness is becoming more attuned to flow-centric qualities of existence, where the personality starts to feel its identity is more malleable and fluid, not confined to any particular stable form.

Yet, as long as this whole process remains unconscious, the expanding flow-centric perceptions can only be squeezed back into old form-centric ways of thinking and being (old wineskins). That is why many people start to wear 'gender fluidity' like a badge, an emblem of what sort of 'enlightened' grouping they belong to. As Rodriel indicated in that post, when the intellectual bulwark of the soul is eroded, things become increasingly illogical. Even from a standard intellectually rigorous perspective, it makes no sense that young children are entrusted by parents to evaluate these fluid perceptions and use their hardly formed powers of judgment to determine their physical 'destiny', even to the extent of irreversible medical procedures. I doubt such a cultural manifestation would ever take root in Steiner's time, since it would be dismissed from the beginning as highly illogical. These are images of erosion of the intellectual soul over the last century and regression to the sentient soul, except now the latter expresses itself within the context of a completely physicalized relationship to 'what reality is'. It uses clever intellect to devise ways of manipulating the physical spectrum to follow its sympathies and pleasures.

So the soul then feels trapped within an unsuitable physical instrument for its unconscious higher nature, with constrained degrees of freedom, but has no basis to recognize this is what is happening or how to truly discover its deeper flow-centric degrees of freedom through introspective-meditative practice. These would bring it into a harmonious relationship with the flow-centric spectrum that it is otherwise unconsciously probing. It then becomes conscious of why the mismatch exists between the etheric-astral and physical spectrums and learns to work with sculpting the latter more patiently, more selflessly, out of inspiration to work out the Ideal resurrected form of humanity. Steiner has also given us very helpful ways of orienting to this growing cultural expression of discomfort 'within one's own skin'. He speaks about how much suffering and even illnesses are born from the mismatch between what lives in the soul-spirit from prior incarnations and its ability to bring those inner capacities to proper expression through the physical instrument. In our time, due to the profound lack of consciousness of the spiritual foundations, the psycho-physical consequences of the mismatch have become most pronounced.

Yes, the expanding perceptions can only be squeezed back into old form-centric ways of thinking and being, if consciousness is not there.

But this applies in general. Not only to gender fluidity, but especially to profession, nationality, faith, even to a societal cause. It applies to all cultural forms. I easily recognize this pattern in my own life path: while I’ve added no gender-related things to my ‘mix’, I did add a few geographical and cultural-linguistic identities including a citizenship, and just as many work reinventions, in what looks like a fourfold pattern. We can notice from biographical notes that in fact Tomberg did the same, in his time, to an even larger extent, with the various languages, countries of residence, jobs, and churches in his life. This is not a discomfort or mismatch traceable to the scale of the physical skin, but rather a (more or less conscious) impulse to expand the soul geometry beyond the forms pressing on it, so as to reclaim more influence on the flow of destiny. In this sense, yes, consciousness or unconsciousness of the larger spiritual foundations is relevant, since outer fluidity across various cultural forms is not a measure of freedom in the stream of destiny.

I need to investigate these things more, but I think that the gender-related questions do not exactly fall nicely in this soul impulse. Moreover, we need to distinguish between a gender-related pain, or dysphoria - that’s a psychic ailment - and the act of following up with permanent bodily transformations. This latter orientation specifically seems to be part of the beginning of a split leading to, as you say, the “evil twin”: a retarding human stream, heading below the level of the intellectual soul. To allow children to decide permanent bodily modification is a manifestation of that, but even the adult decision to do the same for oneself or others points in that direction, I would say. It is very similar to transhumanism, or freedom of embodiment. The ideal of “healing” borrowed by Levin’s "freedom of embodiment" from diffuse moral generalities, is instantly betrayed by his superimposed “longevity” motives, for example. The seemingly moral guideline is only a very thin mask on what for all intents and purposes comes down to “manipulating the physical spectrum to follow sympathies and pleasures”, as in the execution of gender-affirming surgery. And, as yourself expressed somewhere in this thread, it is very dubious how the RCC could become a bulwark against these retarding impulses. It's actually easier to conceive how it could support them instead, beginning with its already visibly operating intention to open up to transgenderism.

[AshvinP]

The ideal of “healing” borrowed by Levin’s "freedom of embodiment" from diffuse moral generalities, is instantly betrayed by his superimposed “longevity” motives, for example. The seemingly moral guideline is only a very thin mask on what for all intents and purposes comes down to “manipulating the physical spectrum to follow sympathies and pleasures”, as in the execution of gender-affirming surgery. And, as yourself expressed somewhere in this thread, it is very dubious how the RCC could become a bulwark against these retarding impulses. It's actually easier to conceive how it could support them instead, beginning with its already visibly operating intention to open up to transgenderism.

The comparison to Levin is good, because he is also a clear representative of the ongoing etheric attunement to flow-centric perceptions. He has even developed a solid empirical and conceptual base for tracing these expanded perceptions to spiritual foundations, i.e., the Platonic space. Yet he is also a prime representative of how remaining only semi-conscious of these spiritual foundations, dreaming through them with the intellect which is reliant on physical experiments, can lead in the same degenerative direction of the 'evil twin', as you point out.

I certainly lack confidence that the RCC in its present form could be a sufficient bulwark, by itself and untransformed through MoT, against the wave of these regressive impulses. At the same time, Rodriel has helped me see how it may still be a necessary bulwark for large swaths of humanity, precisely because we see how pervasive the soul degeneration has become and how the line between healthy and unhealthy orientation to expanding perceptions of the spiritual foundations is razor-thin. The rigorous intellectual discipline of Thomism, for example, has remained a core pillar of the Church teaching and points toward the spiritual foundations of the 'universally dignified' human person in a way that still hearkens back to genuine intuitive understanding. As an exercise in thinking, such teachings can shore up the religiously-inclined intellectual soul in exactly the way that it needs when threatened by being engulfed by the illogical waves of the sentient soul. Again, shoring up in this way is not sufficient to bring forth the Impulse for pushing through the amniotic sac to a second birth within the spiritual soul, which is desperately needed in our time, but it may still be necessary for wide swaths of humanity who will not directly engage with the deeper esoteric exercises and teachings.

Steiner lectured on this aspect as well - the Church still offers souls a 'quiet place' to live alone with their thoughts and experience the process of logical thinking.

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA074/En ... 23p01.html
"Ladies and gentlemen, one can quarrel as one will about this or that party-standpoint on the question of Scholasticism—all this quarrelling is as a rule grounded on very little real understanding of the matter. For whoever has a sense of the manner quite apart from the subjective content in which the accuracy of the thought is revealed in the course of a scientific explanation—or anything else; whoever has a sense of appreciating how things that hang together are thought out together, which must be thought out together if life is to have any meaning; whoever has a sense of all this, and of several other things, realizes that thought was never so exact, so logically scientific, either before or afterwards as in the age of high Scholasticism. This is just the important thing, that pure thought so runs with mathematical certainty from idea to idea, from judgment to judgment, from conclusion to conclusion, that these thinkers account to themselves for the smallest, even the tiniest, step. We have only to remember in what surroundings this thinking took place. It was not a thinking that took place as it now takes place in the noisy world; rather its place was in the quiet cloister cell or otherwise far from the busy world. It was a thinking that absorbed a thought-life, and which could also, through other circumstances, formulate a pure thought-technique. It is to-day as a matter of fact difficult to do this; for scarcely do we seek to give publicity to such a thought-activity which has no other object than to array thought upon thought according to their content, than the stupid people come, and the illogical people raise all sorts of questions, interject their violent partisanship, and, seeing that one is after all a human being among human beings, we have to make the best of these things which are, in fact, no other than brutal interruptions, which often have nothing whatever to do with the subject in question. In these circumstances that inner quiet is very soon lost to which the thinkers of the twelfth or thirteenth centuries could devote themselves, who did not have to yield so much to the opposition of the uneducated in their social life.

This and other things called forth in this epoch that wonderfully plastic but also finely-outlined thought-activity which distinguishes Scholasticism and for which people like Augustine and Thomas consciously strove."

I'm not sure about the 'visibly operating intention to open up to transgenderism' by the RCC. I think such developments would indeed be concerning (which is not to say showing compassion and opening the doors for such souls would be concerning, but seeking to justify the underlying soul impulse on intellectual grounds would be concerning). Can you point toward what you have in mind here?

[Federica]

The ideal of “healing” borrowed by Levin’s "freedom of embodiment" from diffuse moral generalities, is instantly betrayed by his superimposed “longevity” motives, for example. The seemingly moral guideline is only a very thin mask on what for all intents and purposes comes down to “manipulating the physical spectrum to follow sympathies and pleasures”, as in the execution of gender-affirming surgery. And, as yourself expressed somewhere in this thread, it is very dubious how the RCC could become a bulwark against these retarding impulses. It's actually easier to conceive how it could support them instead, beginning with its already visibly operating intention to open up to transgenderism.

The comparison to Levin is good, because he is also a clear representative of the ongoing etheric attunement to flow-centric perceptions. He has even developed a solid empirical and conceptual base for tracing these expanded perceptions to spiritual foundations, i.e., the Platonic space. Yet he is also a prime representative of how remaining only semi-conscious of these spiritual foundations, dreaming through them with the intellect which is reliant on physical experiments, can lead in the same degenerative direction of the 'evil twin', as you point out.

I certainly lack confidence that the RCC in its present form could be a sufficient bulwark, by itself and untransformed through MoT, against the wave of these regressive impulses. At the same time, Rodriel has helped me see how it may still be a necessary bulwark for large swaths of humanity, precisely because we see how pervasive the soul degeneration has become and how the line between healthy and unhealthy orientation to expanding perceptions of the spiritual foundations is razor-thin. The rigorous intellectual discipline of Thomism, for example, has remained a core pillar of the Church teaching and points toward the spiritual foundations of the 'universally dignified' human person in a way that still hearkens back to genuine intuitive understanding. As an exercise in thinking, such teachings can shore up the religiously-inclined intellectual soul in exactly the way that it needs when threatened by being engulfed by the illogical waves of the sentient soul. Again, shoring up in this way is not sufficient to bring forth the Impulse for pushing through the amniotic sac to a second birth within the spiritual soul, which is desperately needed in our time, but it may still be necessary for wide swaths of humanity who will not directly engage with the deeper esoteric exercises and teachings.

Steiner lectured on this aspect as well - the Church still offers souls a 'quiet place' to live alone with their thoughts and experience the process of logical thinking.

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA074/En ... 23p01.html
"Ladies and gentlemen, one can quarrel as one will about this or that party-standpoint on the question of Scholasticism—all this quarrelling is as a rule grounded on very little real understanding of the matter. For whoever has a sense of the manner quite apart from the subjective content in which the accuracy of the thought is revealed in the course of a scientific explanation—or anything else; whoever has a sense of appreciating how things that hang together are thought out together, which must be thought out together if life is to have any meaning; whoever has a sense of all this, and of several other things, realizes that thought was never so exact, so logically scientific, either before or afterwards as in the age of high Scholasticism. This is just the important thing, that pure thought so runs with mathematical certainty from idea to idea, from judgment to judgment, from conclusion to conclusion, that these thinkers account to themselves for the smallest, even the tiniest, step. We have only to remember in what surroundings this thinking took place. It was not a thinking that took place as it now takes place in the noisy world; rather its place was in the quiet cloister cell or otherwise far from the busy world. It was a thinking that absorbed a thought-life, and which could also, through other circumstances, formulate a pure thought-technique. It is to-day as a matter of fact difficult to do this; for scarcely do we seek to give publicity to such a thought-activity which has no other object than to array thought upon thought according to their content, than the stupid people come, and the illogical people raise all sorts of questions, interject their violent partisanship, and, seeing that one is after all a human being among human beings, we have to make the best of these things which are, in fact, no other than brutal interruptions, which often have nothing whatever to do with the subject in question. In these circumstances that inner quiet is very soon lost to which the thinkers of the twelfth or thirteenth centuries could devote themselves, who did not have to yield so much to the opposition of the uneducated in their social life.

This and other things called forth in this epoch that wonderfully plastic but also finely-outlined thought-activity which distinguishes Scholasticism and for which people like Augustine and Thomas consciously strove."

I'm not sure about the 'visibly operating intention to open up to transgenderism' by the RCC. I think such developments would indeed be concerning (which is not to say showing compassion and opening the doors for such souls would be concerning, but seeking to justify the underlying soul impulse on intellectual grounds would be concerning). Can you point toward what you have in mind here?

Well the quote is about the value of Scholastic thought and its quality of precision developed in the quiet surroundings of the monastery. It does not suggest that because they developed thought in those propitious conditions in the 1200s, then today we should rediscover the RCC as a host for productive thought. That's quite a big stretch of interpretation. This is what I call twisting Steiner's throat to make him say what he never intended let alone said.

Regarding the relationship between Church and transgenderism, we see that on the one hand various denominations have not only encouraged compassion for the suffering involved in gender dysphoria, but also explicitly recognized gender transition. On the other hand, the RCC is opening towards the other denominations. Examples of this expansive strategy are, as previously mentioned, the rejection of the quality of Co-Redeemer for Maria, the subtle opening to same-sex relations - as Cleric noted - and the recent canonization of an ordinary boy, whose hobby was website building (with Catholic content). This one is also a technology-friendly move, that naturally expands the 'radius of sympathy' for the RCC in advantageous directions, of course. But even more directly, it's been this year when Cardinal Fernandez (the same who last week concluded the new appropriate stance with regards to Maria) began to soften the doctrinal RCC position on gender-affirming surgery, speaking at a theological conference. As reported:

"Vatican modifies position on “gender affirming” surgery. The Vatican appears to have modified its previous position against “gender-affirming” surgery and “gender theory” raising the possibility of “exceptional situations.” In early March, the Vatican published a speech by doctrine chief Cardinal Victor Fernández where he said, “there are cases outside the norm, such as strong dysphorias that can lead to an unbearable existence or even suicide. These exceptional situations must be evaluated with great care.”

We also know that the antipope Francis has made it possible for transgenders to be godparents. I notice that in the RCC, a godparent is "someone who bears witness to a child's baptism (christening) and later is willing to help in their catechesis, as well as their lifelong spiritual formation." Not insignificant that the RCC now deems such an educational role appropriate for a person who has undergone gender transition. I am not an expert in RCC matters and there are probably other relevant cases, but even only these ones mentioned here signal an intention to open to transgenderism, in my opinion.