The British referendum campaign to decide whether Britain should leave or remain within the European Union has been in some ways a strange and rather depressing experience, not helped by our weather during June: monsoon-style rainfall and flash flooding in many places. Opinion polls in the weeks leading up to the vote on 23rd June wavered between a slight lead for Remain to a slight lead for Leave. There was then a truly tragic event: the murder of Jo Cox, the member of parliament for Batley & Spen in West Yorkshire. She was shot and stabbed by a man who reportedly called out “Britain First”, the name of an extremist right wing party. Jo Cox had been an MP for only one year but she had already made a mark across party lines with her humanitarian campaign for Syria. She was 41 years old, married, with two young children. By all accounts, she was a kind of secular saint, the kind of politician that any country should cherish in an age when so many people regard their elected representatives with contempt and cynicism. Jo Cox had been a fervent advocate for Remain and her death seems to have coincided with opinion polling showing increasing support for Remain and the tide turning against Leave. It was distasteful to see some of the leaders of the Remain campaign try to suggest that her death was in some way the fault of those who want to leave the EU.
It was also depressing to see both sides trying to scare voters with increasingly apocalyptic pictures of the disasters that would occur if we didn’t vote their way. As an advocate for ending our membership of the EU, I particularly disliked the way in which, instead of making the principled and reasoned case for leaving the EU, many of those politicians campaigning on the Leave side stoked up fears about immigration. The nadir was reached with a poster from the UK Independence Party, which showed a snaking queue of refugees from Syria together with the slogan “Breaking Point”.
Yet there is also something very stirring about what has just happened. I’m writing this on the day that the referendum results have shown, against all the expectations of the London-based commentariat, that Britain has voted to leave the EU. We have listened to the warnings of experts, the pleas of the vast majority of MPs, the threats of the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Governor of the Bank of England and the President of the USA; and still a majority of British people have said No to the EU. We’ve done the thing almost everyone with power and influence said that we shouldn’t and have taken a leap into the dark, trusting in our own judgement that the EU was not right for us. We have expressed a vote of no confidence in the establishment. Such independence of spirit, such freedom of thought, is the essence of democracy and it is very stirring.
This is one of the very few ballots I’ve experienced in which my vote has counted for anything; in Britain’s “first past the post” electoral system, my votes over many elections are usually wasted. But in a referendum, every vote has an equal weight, and it is a pleasant change to experience a ballot which is truly democratic. One result of all this will surely be a demand in the future for reforms to Britain’s current electoral system.
The outcome of the referendum has revealed a divided Britain, in which many young people voted Remain and many older people voted Leave; London was pitched against the rest of England and Wales; Scotland was in opposition to England; the prosperous were versus the poor; and the political parties were out of step with their supporters. Does Britain, as a homogeneous society, still exist?
This result will be a salutary shock to London, which voted overwhelmingly for Remain. It is revealed as an arrogant and centralising city state, out of touch with the rest of England. London has for years been like a kind of black hole, sucking in capital and resources that should have been spread much more widely. Brexit will begin to redress the balance.
This result is also a profound shock to the mainstream political parties. Prime Minister David Cameron, who had pledged to call the referendum as a device to unite his Conservative Party against the UK Independence Party just ahead of the 2015 general election, an election which he had not expected to win, was then forced after his party’s surprise victory to implement his pledge. By nailing his colours so firmly to the Remain mast, he has now ensured his own political demise and has announced that he will step down by October this year. The Parliamentary Labour Party too, is showing poor judgment: instead of examining how the party has become so divorced from its core voters, some of its MPs are now planning a coup against their leader, Jeremy Corbyn, for being insufficiently enthusiastic about staying in the EU.
There are other questions which will come to the fore in the weeks and months ahead. What will this result mean for Northern Ireland, which voted to Remain, and which has a land border with another EU country, Ireland? It has already led to renewed calls from Sinn Fein for a United Ireland. What will it mean for Gibraltar, which also voted to Remain, and is now likely to come under an increasingly aggressive campaign of harassment and non-co-operation from Spain? Above all, will the Scottish National Party now seek to hold a second referendum on Scottish independence?
But there are perhaps even bigger questions for the European Union itself. When David Cameron came back from the EU after his failed negotiations for meaningful reform, I thought at the time that European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and his colleagues had made a serious misjudgment by treating Cameron with contempt – and so it has proved. The EU has been judged by this referendum and found wanting. Other member-states will now be lining up to tell it so. Fundamentally, this is about the right of people across Europe to elect the people who make key decisions in their lives. Polls have shown between a quarter and third of people across Europe are now deeply hostile to the European project. The economies of southern Europe are immobilised by a straitjacket strapped on to them by Brussels and Frau Merkel.
As I said in my previous post about the EU, it was set up not only to be deliberately anti-democratic but also to be a vehicle for the banks and big multi-national corporations. It is also extremely difficult to reform the EU, because this would require changes to the treaties, which in turn require unanimous agreement from all member-countries. Britain was taken by its leaders into the EU in 1973 on the basis of a deliberate deception and as a result our governing elites are now reaping in the referendum result what Rudolf Steiner called “the karma of untruthfulness”.
I do not want what now follows after Brexit to be business as usual. We need to reassure Europe that we’ll be good neighbours, reassure migrants here that they are welcome, and reassure the 48 per cent who voted for Remain that they are not strangers in their own country. Both Conservative and Labour parties have failed in their own ways and we now need to find new ways and a new story. Future British governments need to be true one-nation governments, working towards a situation in which towns like Sunderland and Swansea no longer feel cut off from the politics of a metropolitan elite.
Internationally, Brexit has given an opportunity to Britain (whether it survives as the United Kingdom or whether it splits into its constituent nations), to start a debate about forming a new organisation of nation states that can offer a more hopeful vision of the future than that provided by the corporate plutocrats of the EU. There is an alternative to corporate domination and the environmental destruction and massive inequality it brings. Real social change begins, like Brexit, with non-cooperation with the existing system. Once we make the choice to stop co-operating with a system we find immoral, we can begin to build an alternative. By discussing these ideas with other countries around the world, we can start to build a new global economy in which every community has food and water security and locally produced renewable energy. This then creates the foundations for a more peaceful world.
Just over a week ago, my wife and I paid a visit to Lewes Castle, a Norman castle which stands at the highest point of Lewes, the county town of East Sussex. It was built in around 1069 by William de Warenne, the son-in-law of William the Conqueror. While I was there, it struck me that the Norman domination and ruthless suppression of the Anglo Saxon inhabitants of England and the Celts of Wales has cast a kind of shadow over the British Isles for nearly 1,000 years. In one of the castle rooms, I came across this quotation about the Normans in an exhibition display:
“…and they filled the land full of castles. They cruelly oppressed the wretched men of the land with castle works. And when the castles were made they filled them with devils and evil men.”
(Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 1137)
This energy of domination, cruelty and adversarial politics has shaped the British nation in the centuries since then and echoes of it still survive today in Westminster. What is Brexit really about, I wonder? Is it possible that it marks the beginning of something that will lead to the decline and fall of this Norman model of dealing with other people and other countries? Could we be about to find our way towards a new and more heart-centred approach to what it means to be British and European citizens of the world? I feel that it really could be so.
anthropopper 
As an American, a liberal and an anthropop, I am trying to look at this as karma. The Brits dominated the 3rd world for so long ( as did others) that I think this is karmic debt. The Germans are paying one as well, it seems. Dark times are ahead but I hold to what Steiner and Tomberg and others say…Christ is in charge.
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Hello Mary Lou,
I do agree with your assessment, but, as usual, Christ is now being given a “run for his money,” as it were, by Allah (Ahriman). Are we not on the verge of a new Crusades, with its center no longer Jerusalem, but rather London, or as it’s known by its new Islamic name: Londonistan?
Now Jeremy, I just got finished expressing my solidarity with you as a Brother Revolutionist, reaching back to 1776, but now, my mouth stands agape as it looks like Civil War 1860 style, brewing in your country between the forces allied with Christ (The Leavers) and the forces allied with Allah (The Remainers.)
What if Sadiq Khan is the reincarnation of Saladin? And previous mayor Boris Johnson the reincarnation of Richard the Lionheart?
https://news.fastcompany.com/after-brexit-london-mayor-sadiq-khan-tells-immigrants-you-are-very-welcome-here-4011767
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My goodness, what an extraordinary statement! Is everyone like you here? Allah is Ahriman? London is the centre of a new crusade? I hope this is meant to be a joke, or this is just racism by any other name and bears no relationship to the BRexit vote, or, for that matter, Anthroposophy.
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Hello Dan,
As an Irish-American Anthroposophist for the last 40 years now (I’m 67), I do abide by the adage: “Many a truth is told in jest.” So yes, I was jesting about the new Islamic mayor of Londonistan being the new Saladin and Boris Johnson being the new Richard the Lionheart.
However, let me cut right to the quick of truth about my jesting, by quoting to you Rudolf Steiner’s quite definitive statement about Allah being Ahrimanic.
On Wednesday June 9, 1920, between 4 and 7 PM, Rudolf Steiner made this statement about Allah and Ahriman during a Q & A session with the college of teachers at the Waldorf school in Stuttgart. You can find the quote on pp. 75-76 of the book Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner, Volume 1, GA 300a.
———————
A Waldorf teacher asked about Allah. Rudolf Steiner’s response was:
“It is difficult to describe that supersensible being. Mohammedism [Islam] is the first manifestation of Ahriman, the first Ahrimanic revelation following the Mystery of Golgotha. Mohammed’s god, Allah, Eloha, is an Ahrimanic imitation or pale reflection of the Elohim, but comprehended monotheistically. Mohammed always refers to them as a unity. The Mohammedan [Muslim] culture is Ahrimanic, but the Islamic attitude is Luciferic.”
————————–
Do you still think I’m joking, Dan? (Don’t worry, no one here is like me. Just ask them!)
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Tom,
Clever weaving of ideas, with truth behind them, but I believe Allah is Sorat, the Sun demon. “If asked, the apocalyptist would have called the representatives of Arabism in Europe ‘human beings who have surrendered to the Sun Demon’ in their soul nature. It was clear to him that from this Arabism everything arises that brings the human being close to animal nature, first of all in his views but gradually also in his will impulses.” (Steiner, The Book of Revelation).
It is curious how Mr Skinner confuses this reality with “racism.” Islamic ideas that lead to the oppression of women, homosexuals, and basic human rights have nothing to do with race. Islam is not founded on race, but ideology. In this case Sorat is at the core of the ideology. This does not make all Muslims followers of a demon, but that does not negate the fact that Sorat stands behind Allah. It is rather obvious if you simply read the Hadith and Surah, the basis for Sharia law.
The other confusion that arises is that a vote for freedom is a vote for nationalism. Just as noting what is ill in Islamic texts is not racist, so a vote for freedom is not nationalism. It is hard for the politically correct to hear it, but facts are stubborn things.
Who stands with those who throw acid in the faces of little girls on their way to school? No doubt the apologist will say that this is not “main stream” Islam. But everything that is given in Sharia law, including the value of a woman as 1/4 of a man, is directly stated in the texts. At what point do you first come to an understanding of what those texts contain? “The punishment for men or women who are unwilling to give up homosexuality and therefore are rejecting the guidance of Allah Most High is in fact death according to Islam.” (2014 mainstream fatwa).
This is not a light topic, but I appreciate your having the courage to address it. What will never cease to amaze me is the way compassionate individuals fight for what they think is religious freedom, yet they give away basic human rights in the process. What they do not realize is that religious freedom must be accompanied by reciprocal notions of political freedom. In the absence of such a social construct, what remains is suicide.
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Daniel Perez.
This is not a light topic. Far from it. But it is a topic that will challenge the individual to their core. So, when you say, and it is the truth:
When a person thinks this way, they think they are right. Furthermore, they know they are right and will tell you that you are wrong. They know they are so right that they are willing to harm other humans in order to prove how right they are.
My point is this: this is Ahriman. However, this is more than idle chit-chat where terms are bandied about as though one were a member of the Vorstand. The reality of Ahriman is very different from the mere word, and that reality is one that affects us all.
There is no way we can see Ahriman in our own lives. If one imagines this to be possible, one has made a serious, nay, grave error. That is as maybe, anybody who suggests that they can see him within themselves cannot deal with their Ahriman.
So: the person throwing acid at a pretty young girl will think they are right.
Because they cannot see their wrong.
Their wrongdoing is shrouded by their Ahriman. Put the other way, that which leads to their wrongdoing lies in their subconscious. If you can grasp the utterly inconceivable nature of the subconscious, you will begin to see how difficult it is to deal with Ahriman*.
When all the acid-thrower can see is their own rightness – and this is perhaps the key to understanding when someone is oppressed by their Ahriman – all that acid-thrower is able to see is how right they are. They just cannot see how wrong they are.
Which is the second stage of dealing with one’s inner Ahriman: one’s wrongdoing is portrayed for you across all of humanity, your wrongdoing is seen in the horror expressed in their faces. That is the second step, and it is where those who can grasp the concept will be so repelled by what they see that they will go no further with their own self-development.
That is the tragedy of our modern age. That is the tragedy of anthroposophy.
(*Not that dealing with Ahriman is actually that hard; it is the initial conceptual step that most people cannot grasp. The number of excuses here on this thread bears testament to this – but you’ll have to have understood the nature of that conceptual step if you are to witness them).
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Okay, so hopefully this will slip in where it belongs because Jeremy’s ‘reply buttons’ are few and wasted on the few.
Steiner gives a nice review of this so-called “allah ahriman” modern-day view here with the 10th lecture of volume 1 of the KR; 16 March 1924,
and it not only refers to Mr. Francis Bacon as the savant of scientific materialism, it also refers to Woodrow Wilson, POTUS at the time of his decision to enter WWI in 1917, as being former savants of the Arabic cultural influence. Maybe that is why the west rules today with its twisted hand.
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA235/English/RSP1972/19240316p01.html
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Yes Mary Lou, confidence in Christ. Watching carefully how he works in many surprising ways. What we think is bad can often be good.
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Oh dear.. I think my comment about racism above must have been in connection with the fact that the context of the original discussion was Brexit, which has given rise to a rise in racist attacks, and to start to refer to a new crusade, even as a joke, probably aligns the speaker with that mentality.
What is the task of Anthroposophy in the context of the current imminent, or already present ‘war of all against all?’
Its strange how often Arabism and Islam is confused, but my understanding is that they are not by any means identical. When I took my class from a Waldorf School to the Regents Park Mosque recently the children were very open about asking why the women had to cover their heads, and of course it was a difficult question fro the Imam to answer. However the children in my class (6) were open enough to understand that these men who we could see praying in front of us, side by side, and in all humility, were no more of the fundamentalist, Ahriman -inspired, acid-throwing type than their own family members (mostly white, middle-class). The children’s interest in Geometry, Astronomy and other aspects of genius inherited from Arabism -even Algebra! is, I hope, something they can take with them into the world. And meet anti-ISlamic rhetoric with wisdom.
AS to the points raised above about the suppression of homosexuality, and all the insane cruelties and excess of current fundamentalism, daily horrors from the frontline, I am quite certain that neither Sorat nor Ahriman are explicit in their choice of fanatic to influence. Does Putin favour homosexuality? Does the far right wing emerging in every country in Europe, including our own?
My travels to Iraq and Afghanistan in the 1970’s and recent readings of Rumi for example taught me that a fervent homosexuality is just below the surface throughout the Arab world. Please help them to come out instead of accusing anyone else to be Ahrimanic, or worshipping the wrong sort of Elohim. Go and reread Rumi as well as Steiner, its very liberating!
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Greetings Dan Skinner (hereinafter DS),
How wonderful that you burnish your Waldorf Teacher credentials because both Daniel Perez (DP) and myself have our own to burnish in return! I’ll let Daniel speak for himself, but suffice it to say that Daniel is a “Waldorf Lifer” (attending K-12 at a WS in NY) and I myself have 3+ years of teaching in 3 Waldorf high schools in the subjects of maths and physics, not to mention 2 years as a Waldorf parent.
So, DS, before your latest comment arrived, I was ready to post my own in response to DP concerning the last sentence in the Steiner quote I supplied. I was curious what German word Steiner used that got translated as “attitude” in the last sentence.
Here I copy the English and the German:
The Mohammedan culture is Ahrimanic, but the Islamic attitude is Luciferic.
Die mohammedanische Kultur ist ahrimanisch, aber die Gemütsverfassung der Islamiten ist luziferisch.
Now “attitude” is an adequate one-word translation, but it does not capture the nuance of the compound word Steiner used which binds Gemüt + Verfassung.
Verfassung means “constitution, state, condition” and Gemüt can be “mind, soul, heart, character, temper, humour, disposition.”
Gemütsverfassung usually becomes “state of mind” or “frame of mind”
but I would translate it here as “soul-disposition” So here is my rendering of Steiner’s sentence:
The Islamic culture is Ahrimanic, but the soul-disposition of Muslims is Luciferic.
Now DS, this excursus into linguistics is important because it resoundingly confirms your citing of the poet Rumi as possibly the finest expression of the Luciferic “soul-disposition” of Muslims. You’ll get no argument from me there.
However, in my original comment to Mary Lou, I was not referring to the splendiferous Luciferic nature of the Muslim soul-disposition, but rather to the Ahrimanic nature of Islamic culture. Then DP arrives to augment and enhance what I wrote, reminding me of just why Steiner said that Islam and its culture is the first manifestation of Ahriman. Of course he meant the cultural center at Gondishapur in that fateful year of 666 AD.
The 2nd manifestation occurs in 666 x 2 = 1332 AD (just 59 years after Rumi’s death) — which I want to skip at the moment and go to the 3rd revelation of ahrimanic Islamic culture in 1998 AD = 666 x 3 , the year Rudolf Steiner predicted that the destructive fallen Archai-being Soradt or Sorath would make its presence felt in the world.
(Wow! Forget Steiner the seer! How about Steiner the prophet? However you may believe the Twin Towers and Building 7 came down in 2001, it sure does look like the 3rd manifestation of Islamic culture in its most destructive Sorathian form. I might start calling Steiner Cassandra now!)
And so, DS, let me conclude with a chart of the angelic beings to help summarize the spiritual beings that DP and I have been referring to. (H stands for Hierarchy)
————-
Lucifer is a fallen Angel of rank H-9 (family,tribal soul-dispositionl = inspires poet Rumi)
————–
Ahriman is a fallen Archangel of rank H-8 (national folk-soul = Islamic culture)
————–
Soradt/Sorath is a fallen Archai of rank H-7 (global Time Spirit = murderous terrorism since 1998)
————–
Tom
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A point of order.
————-
Lucifer is a fallen Seraph whose counterparts – mirrored across the expanse of the hierarchies – are the angels (of whom we each have one).
————–
Ahriman is a fallen Cherub whose counterparts are the Archangels, the guardian beings of families and small groups.
————–
Soradt/Sorath is a fallen Throne whose counterparts are the Archai, the guardian beings of nations.
————–
Naturally all these beings have work within nature that is broader than this brief sketch. Their work with humanity, is however, the most important.
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Hello Jeremy,
Even long before Brexit, I always thought there was an uncanny resemblance between Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. Now I understand why. Both are leading the same Revolution!
Look, we Yanks declared our independence from you in 1776. Now you’ve declared independence from Central Europe in 2016. We are now a “Band of Brothers” united by equally important revolutions, mutatis mutandis, of course.
What a boost to Trump’s campaign!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3657782/Brexit-proof-Donald-Trump-president.html
Of course in a more understated way from the BBC
http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36564808
Can you imagine Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s first state visit to the USA meeting in the Oval Office with the new President Trump? I can!
And you know what Rudolf Steiner says about Imagination!
Tom
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The EU, the goal of a United States of Europe has for 66 years now been an essential part of the “World State” that Anglo-American elitists have been labouring to construct since they first conceived it over a century ago.
Terry Boardman (Britains Year of descision)
This line of Mr. Boarman and his bunch of history boys like Icke and so on who try to hint to some bad guys freemasons, illuminatis and reptiloid peoples you name the whole fantasy park of these history boys is an insult to the people on the continent who created the EU with the help of “the american elites”
Stop reflecting wake up Britain you are now in the hand of some arsonists who are not trained to be firemen. Thats what we need. Anthroposophy is not a hiding hole for extreme far right self made historians.
Yours sincerely
herrmann Finkelsteen
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In any case, it’s not a done deal yet – the vote is non-binding, so expect dire events orchestrated by the Banking-Financial markets [the real arsonists] during the coming two years of ‘negotiations’. I find Paul Craig Roberts’ reading of the situation very acceptable:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/06/24/the-brexit-vote-paul-craig-roberts/
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So Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage are the Firemen, who offer political solutions to the problems the UK will face?
I doubt it.
HF
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Mr. Finkelsteen, lets not get too simplistic. I attached the link to the comments by Paul Craig Roberts (who, among other things, served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under the Reagan administration and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal – not exactly a hard-line leftist) because he pretty much sums up my thoughts on the situation. But I would go further than he did.
The fact that anti-EU parties are rising in the polls in many EU countries and a goodly number of people want out, must be making those who want to glue it together even tighter very nervous. The situation they (these worriers) produced in Greece was evidently not scary enough to ward off the rebellious – after all, the truth in the accusation that the Greeks were maintaining an over-blown bureaucracy they couldn’t afford was evident to all – and forcing them to cut social benefits, including the equivalent of the NHS, in order to feed the banks was no-one’s business but their own. They had swindled their way into the EU with the connivance of Goldman Sachs and now they were paying the price. Et alors!
People in the rest of Europe were pretty much unaffected emotionally by the Greek quandary. Their disaffection is with the laws laid down by the European Commission (not by the EU parliament, which has practically no powers and is simply a 5-star establishment where the members are paid extremely well to not rock the boat and pretend they are doing something besides parler) which are causing serious economic pain and ticking people off mightily.
The migrant problem comes second in importance for people who have lost their jobs thanks to the absurd micro-management of the Commission. But in this case, the interventionist Commission has elected not to intervene and has offered nada in way of solution or even an attempt to organize the influx (who is the power behind the Commission anyway?)
So something more frightening was required in order to calm the rebellious spirits in the rest of the EU. And my guess is that Brexit was just what was needed. If I remember correctly, Cameron had said a while back that he would hold the referendum in or by 2018 – so what made him suddenly rush into it?
My Italian Machiavellian mind has come up with a scenario : whether the vote really went for Brexit could be irrelevant – they (the worriers) needed an exit vote because during the next two years they need to show the rest of the EU countries what will happen to them if they dare attempt an exit.
If Niccolo’ is right in his inspiration, then the British people are in for a 2-year stint in purgatory while the ‘negotiations’ for exit are conducted, and if the majority of the people in the EU fall for all the scary stuff, then they will pay dearly for their sleepy cowardice because things will get even worse than they are now.
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Liliana, when you say
The anti-EU parties can rise in the polls – and in the houses of representation – because of the democratic nature of the polling systems in europe. Nigel Farage, with 12% of the vote has but one seat. Geert Wilders with some 23% of the vote has that proportion of representation.
The important issue to note here is that he is present and can be seen for what he is in the reality of the parliament. Those who vote for Nigel Farage have little idea how his party would deal with real problems that a real country would face.
Half of the Conservative party in the UK is deeply Euroscheptic. The vote was, in part, to keep the peace in his own ranks, rather than to ask the public what they thought of the matter.
And here we see the dark hand moving into the daylight, the dark hand that pulls the strings in Brussels. The dark hand of the undemocratic American government, the government that paid for the setting up of the EU on behalf of those who pull the strings in Washington. A government who has no compunction for people or countries who do not toe the line. Anybody who moves will be punished, or if consistent, invaded and bombed. Yet their media speak of democracy. Ahriman must be laughing heartily.
Compare such actions with those of Germany, the country often villified in the press, whose car producers are singled out for punishment…
… and then imagine what would happen if America had to suffer the consequences of its actions and accept a million and more refugees in the space of several years.
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“And here we see the dark hand moving into the daylight, the dark hand that pulls the strings in Brussels. The dark hand of the undemocratic American government, the government that paid for the setting up of the EU on behalf of those who pull the strings in Washington.” Gemma
Could you go into more detail and tell us all who`s the owner of the ” dark Hands* you seem to know the secretest things on this planet.
Probably you knew already the guity ones before google was invented. The postwar generation of 1. Worldwar on the Europe blamed for their own mistakes already some ” dark hands* in Wallstreet.
I am curious who those people are Gemma?
With love Herrmann
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/06/24/the-british-are-frantically-googling-what-the-eu-is-hours-after-voting-to-leave-it/
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Herrmann Finkelsteen,
you ask the following: “Could you go into more detail and tell us all who`s the owner of the ” dark Hands* you seem to know the secretest things on this planet.”
These things are not secret, but they are not spoken of. The people we are talking about act in broad daylight; the decisions they make are, however, taken in places where the likes of you and me are not admitted.
My methodology follows that of Rudolf Steiner, in that any decision requires the following series of steps: thinking, feeling and willing. That is to say, the idea is conceived, it is considered worth undertaking and it is undertaken. The point here is to recognize the character of the final actions.
It is essential to have a thorough understanding of the paradoxical nature of the subconscious if one is to be able to unravel the things one sees written in the newspapers – the ones that purport to be one thing but in fact veil something quite different. I will add that such an unravelling requires one ot have mastered one’s inner Ahriman; indeed the one is the result of the other.
I want to emphasize that the issues are subtle, and cannot be pinned down with evidence in the way a biologist cuts up their specimens to seek the seat of life. We are dealing with real life here, not dead facts. Real life often does things that one is not expecting: for the biologist this is an annoyance, to the likes of me, it is the equivalent of the sound of a champagne cork popping.
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If I get you right the real problems are ” the black hands” and you can identify those hands by applying the Steiner Method.
but even so;
“the ones that purport to be one thing but in fact veil something quite different”
So thiese people of the ” dark hands* who obviously have the vigour of acting in bright daylight are belonging to a ethnic gtoup or are they exterrestrials as David Icke a confighter of Terry Boardman suggests?
HF
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HF
That, of course, is the burning question!
My take is that there’s a little karma involved, where someone who should have been a desk clerk has gotten themselves voted in as a director – but can’t really handle the job for all their relishing the power. What was it Abraham Lincoln said? “Most men can deal with adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
But they want to do the right thing.
When you understand your own Ahriman, HF, you will understand why people do the wrong thing. For the right reasons. That’ll tell you that they failed Lincoln’s ‘power test’.
But then, it’s always possible to imagine them being extra-terrestrials. After all, we can imagine anything, can’t we? The problem is determining whether what we imagine is real or not…
… that’s where Steiner’s method comes in.
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So checking my Inner Ahriman( I skipped Lucifer ) I see through the veils of your vision of the world with ” black hands” and I still see nothing but black. Is this the beginning of understanding you, the spirit of the anthropopper and Steiners method?
Gemma I`d really like an answer to the questions I made above. Hinting towards possibilities, fantasies or facts is not enough.
Who is it you are talking about, when you talk about “dark hands”?
Looking forward to family names etc.
Yours sincerely
HF
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HF,
when you say “So checking my Inner Ahriman” all that tells me is that you do not know how to deal with your Ahriman. It took me several weeks to get Steve Hale to concede this point, albeit reluctantly and without any true understanding of what he had said.
But that’s Ahriman for you.
As to names, how about Cecil? The Family name, that is. Should do you for a start, don’t you think? Not that you’ll find any trace of their hands pulling any strings in the EU of course. These people are rather too clever for that, and anyway, the newspapers know better than to mention their names. Which is something of a problem for most people when they’re looking for facts and the newspapers are only telling you about the people they’ve singled out as paedophiles.
You see, this really is where Rudolf Steiner’s method is required. But that needs one to know one’s Ahriman… which, as mentioned, cannot be done by looking inside you. All you’ll find is your Lucifer… and you skipped him, didn’t you?
Not that you’d be able to do anything about him until you know how to deal with your Ahriman. He’s far more sly than Ahriman. As you found out!
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Thank you Gemma for your answer. Cecil you said? I wish you all the best And beware of the dark hands, you said Cecils hand okay!
Nice day
And thank you for putting up with my questions.
HF
P.S. You said I was talkimg with Luci Fair and not with Ari Mann., But it is actually Cecil…..mmh I dig that and Hitler was funded also by Cecil who pretended to be Ari Mann who has a fling with Luci Fair….very complicated I think I am not up to the 6th postatlantian change of conciousness. Good luck!
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My dearest Hermann Finkelsteen,
Please do not leave the Anthropopper realm because your initiation is nigh and your hierophant is Gemma.
When she revealed the one-named answer, Cecil, she was dropping a clear hint for you. Apparently, you don’t take hints very well, Mr. Finkelsteen.
Therefore, I will intervene in your rather haphazard karma here and guide your destiny toward a tad more self-knowledge.
You see, Gemma was referring to the one and only Cecil Rhodes, a man you should have known about Hermann, because you yourself made reference here recently to Terry Boardman, who has this to say about Gemma’s Cecil:
http://threeman.org/?p=1945
In 1891 Rhodes and the radical editor and occultist William Thomas Stead, set up a secret society dedicated to world domination by the English-speaking peoples.
Hollywood Tomfortas
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i.e. Lord Salisbury:
His time as Prime Minister coincided with a great expansion of the British Empire. Lord Salisbury is also remembered as an adherent of the policy of “splendid isolation”, the desire to keep Great Britain out of European affairs and alliances. wiki/Marquess_of_Salisbury
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HF
Well at least that’s one thing we can agree on.
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Gemma’s idea of arresting the so-called “inner ahriman” and making it a matter of consciousness literally means making it an outer force, and then proclaiming it with various astute, clever and captious analyzes of what affronts the world situation today.
My only admission has been that Ahriman/Satan, as the ruler of the world, still has the power to make even the lowliest and humble of us his slaves in the quest to be good householders in spite of our higher calling for spirit perception. Thus, I submit the following as being hardly proof that I conceded anything until proven:
“when you say “So checking my Inner Ahriman” all that tells me is that you do not know how to deal with your Ahriman. It took me several weeks to get Steve Hale to concede this point, albeit reluctantly and without any true understanding of what he had said. But that’s Ahriman for you.”
Personally, I never conceded anything for the simple fact that Satan is an inner necessity which dwells in the etheric body/Intellectual Soul, and thus makes us the basis for our own higher evolution. Whatever concession that Gemma deludes out of her own personal soliloquy would be good to review here, as it likely misses the key factor of Michael Who wields the sword of meteoric iron, and in which Rudolf Steiner invoked for a special purpose on September 1, 1914, ref. GA 157. It marked the advent of the first world war, and wherein Steiner saw the need to invoke the third phase of the anthroposophical movement, wherein the so-called “battle for the cosmic intelligence” became the standard-bearer for further progress.
By this time, of course, Michael had risen to the rank of Time-Spirit of our age. This is worth noting for confidence.
Steve Hale
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Tom Mellet,
I do wish people would read my comments with the care with which they were written! “As to names, how about Cecil? The Family name, that is.”
Ton Majoor is closer to the truth, albeit that poor Lord Salisbury – yes, he of whom Rhodes’ capital was named after – was a public figure because he wasn’t one of the gifted Cecils. They keep their counsel closer than Cecil Rhodes’ so-called secret society.
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Steve Hale,
as mentioned, it was a reluctant agreement, and
There is a problem here, and it is a fundmental one: we have a material life that we may learn – indeed, those who do learn from it are those who come to realize the gift that Ahriman has so carefully wrought for us through his work in bringing about our karma. We have not incarnated that we might wallow in the misery that we brought ourselves from a previous life; we incarnted to meet those challenges. Challenges we set up for ourselves, knowing all too well the difficulties they will face us with in our next life. Or should.
This is what the good doctor said on the issue:
Which is to say that we must accept our material lives, our need to be good householders and still work in the higher worlds. Indeed, in my latest blog post, entitled “A Cerebral Flowering” goes into more detail on the nature of free thinking and the necessity of our daily lives. This isn’t Ahriman! That is an excuse. It must be remembered that our challenges owe their existence to that which we ourselves brought about in our last lives – we cannot go blaming Ahriman for doing his job.
A forthcoming post* will compare the thoughts we have as a seed for our next incarnation. It was interesting for me to read lines written in my previous incarnation and thinking, “I could have written that!”.
I guess I must have…
(*Given that this will be more esoteric in nature, it will be published privately).
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Lord Salisbury was mentioned by Steiner (GA 64_01) in relation to the Congress of Berlin (1878), Rhodes in 337a.258 (both not translated).
For Steiner (1916) on Russianism and the Slav Black Hand organizations, see also GA 173_03 (google BSq5byop0rwC , p.64).
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“During this period, however, the elites of the West had access to a form of occult knowledge that they did not share with anyone outside their occult brotherhoods.” Terry Boardman
Thank you Mr. Tomfortas, I^ve had enough of his points. This honourably man could write about a toiletpaper and would end up that american elite and some brotherhoods try to put some substances into the paper so that all humans have after a period of application been growing hairy tails out of their anuses. and his teachings and lecturing seems to have been pretty sucessful as I `ve seen here to the answers to my questions on anthropopper. Anthropopper sounds like a refreshing beverage with stevia ( no sugar) but it is glass of water which hasn`t been touched since worldwar 1.
Thank you Mr. Tomfortas for being now more strenghtened (as Blake put it) that ” i will not cease from mental fight” against those who are trying to cover up their own racist, nationalistic and antisemitic dark mills in the name of Anthroposophy and St. Micael. No thank you folks your hamsterwheels are not incredible funny but also dangerous as the Brexit shows very clearly.
Yours Herrmann Finkelsteen,
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Thank you Jeremy, I haven’t known what to think about this event. You have given me much to think about.
As Mary Lou points out, Christ is in charge. His activity will surprise us, he is no ‘gentle Jesus meek and mild,’ but says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Mt 10:34
If our inner relationship with Christ is strong we will be of great assistance to him. Our main task is to actually be aware of what is happening.
In Context Compare
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I think, (“Could we be about to find our way towards a new and more heart-centred approach to what it means to be British and European citizens of the world? I feel that it really could be so.”) Scotland, Ireland and even Gibraltar will stay in the long and difficult European process. Young, well educated citizens will be welcome in Berlin, Paris, Dublin. International companies will leave Britain because off regulations against European “Freizügigkeit”. The Empire will be even more isolated. Without its voice in the process there will be lack of political influence. Tumbling back into the 19th century is stupid.
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This man is expressing how I feel about the opportunities now before us after Brexit:
http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/postbrexit-imagine-a-new-european-community/
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I quote:
I addressed this issue in my comment below, in that Britain itself has borrowed unwisely, just as Portugal, Spain and Greece did. I said “The Peripherals could have invested the money from the EU wisely, they did not. The result is that they have had massive bolstering of their debts by the likes of Germany.”
Greece entered the Eurozone by means of defrauding the EU, and did so by means of the bank Goldman Sachs (who naturally enough, profited from the deal). At the time of the formation of the Eurozone, politicians in Germany and the other ‘NordEurozone’ countries were very much set against the so-called ‘peripherals’. Their wisdom was ignored by the Brussels bureaucrats.
The NordEurozone has profited from the Euro, but not through its misuse. It is in their nature to be prudent in investing. The Greeks were anything but, and when the Americans pulled the plug* the whole scheme unravelled, much to the delight of the banks and hedge funds – all of whom are devouring the cadaver of Greece’s economy. Oh, and slurping up the blood that Germany has to pour into Greece to fund the debts they so unwisely ran up.
(*Today, we call it the Crash of 2007, the reality is that the American Banks committed the biggest fraud in Banking history. You know what the Germans did, and did responsibly as is their way: it is called the “Stadtsanierung” a detailed explanation of which is on my blog but cannot be linked to).
Britain’s recent actions in the European Parliament speak of a government quite as foolish as the Greek one. That Britain still has the pretence of an orderly and efficient economy is something that the markets will undermine….
…. when it profiteth them.
Be thankful that right now, the markets can make more money by supporting Britaint. These people have no more interest in democracy than Hitler did.
May God help you when they turn their backs on you.
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Yes, imagine! Imaginations can become realities, they are possibly the only way to create new realities. But first the sclerotic present abomination will have to disintegrate and chaos will ensue for a time.
Steiner said that Ahriman will choose to appear when the world is in chaos. He could be close to making his entrance. Look at the disturbing ceremony at the opening of the Gotthard tunnel on 1 June 2016:
To call it weird does not cut it. And it was attended by Merkel, Holland, Renzi et al. Reminded me of King Crimson’s ‘Epitaph’:
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools.
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/k/king+crimson/epitaph_20078588.html
And close by is the Cern particle collider whose logo is 666, and Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction is the corporate mascot:
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/313922-cern-collider-hadron-higgs/
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Jeremy,
The referendum to vote ‘out’ of the EU is an extraordinary validation of overcoming fear in favor of courage, and yet it still remains that 48% of the vote was for ‘in’, and this was largely from the young voters, and also from Scotland, North Ireland, and the London town-center itself.
The article you cite is a utopian appeal of extravagant proportion, but is anyone really prepared to really communalize as the author suggests?
I know your unique situation as an anthroposophist, three-folder, and advocate of biodynamic gardening in your district. As well, your age appeals to the “vote out” audience, which has nothing to lose, in deference to these younger voters, who still see some kind of future with the larger European combine.
Steiner gave a very pertinent lecture on 12 December 1918, in which he foresaw how anti-social forces of individualism would take hold and rule over the proper social forces needed for progress. This has become an extraordinary fact in our time:
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/SocFor_index.html
Thus, we live in an age where the communalist ideal is utterly lacking, and yet this ideal is hoped for out of the Brexit win. Of course, it can occur, and was even theorized and modeled as possible with the work of Murray Bookchin, and his so-called “liberal municipalism” which also carried a social ecology aspect. Coming out of the United States in the 1970’s, it carries most heartedly the present British ideal to escape the suppressive EU doctrine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_municipalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_ecology
One of the very most present-day initiatives is taking place right now in Viroqua, Wisconsin, which is a kind of communal/collective town, in which both a Waldorf school exists, as well as the beginning of the Thoreau College, in which the ideal of “simplify, simplify” becomes the curriculum to meet the standards of completion.
http://www.thoreaucollege.org/
http://pleasantridgewaldorf.org/
Steve
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Compare Steiner (1920) on the Russian village communities (‘mir’):
“On the one hand, the threefold social organism must incorporate the individual members of the Eastern village communities. On the other hand, it must save from ruin the crumbling Western organisms that are becoming individualized and which, as aggregates, are splitting up into their separate components.”
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA199/English/AP1986/19200807p01.html
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Liliana,
Unless those imaginations are founded on the reality of the planet we live on, and depend on, those imaginations will bring more instability and more unhappiness.
Rudolf Steiner was very clear when he said that if humans continue to think as they do, there will be a calamity. The likes of CERN – and I speak as a trained physicist who has walked the tunnels – will solve no problems that are worth solving.
That, sadly, cannot be allowed to happen. If chaos ensues for any length of time, Ahriman has made sure that there is a penalty: nuclear power stations are dependent on the culture we have established. Without that culture, we will have more Fukushimas.
The controlling powers know this, and using institutions such as the EU, see their will enforced.
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Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (third part, Ethical Life par.153)
“The right of individuals to be subjectively destined to freedom is fulfilled when they belong to an actual ethical order, because their conviction of their freedom finds its truth in such an objective order, and it is in an ethical order that they are actually in possession of their own essence of their inner universality.”
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This is how Steiner expressed it in “Social Impulses for the Healing of Modern Civilization – Cosmogony, Freedom, Altruism’:
“Ethical individualism is nothing but the personal realisation of freedom.”
Rudolf Steiner 10-10-1919
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Dear Lilliana,
I love that name. I also love your present willingness to take on those here. Guido Preparata’s book, “Conjuring Hitler”, was addressed on the Waldorf_Critics list back in 2014, when the anniversary of WWI was the main topic of discussion. Of course, Staudenmaier rebuked the evidence that Hitler was a kind of “Manchurian candidate” for the western powers, and yet it is so. How else could their ‘golden boy’ get the backing of Wall Street in order to build the Nazi war machine in a time of the great depression?
Glad to hear that someone read the book. Preparata was denounced by his own collegiate faculty for writing it, and eventually left the faculty of the University of Washington.
Regards,
Steve Hale
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Gemma, you say:
“If one has an understanding of the subconscious, one can see how people move to do what they think is right – but Ahriman guides them in ways that turn their good purposes to ill. Should someone be as nasty as to do wrong deliberately – as with the installation of a person like Hitler – what are they smoking???”
Everything in our subconscious does not aim to doing what is right- we also bear forces that aim to do evil – we are free to choose, that’s what makes us human.
Steiner often spoke of the racial selfishness of the secret Brotherhoods in England who knew what he knew about the duration of the current 5th post-Atlantean age of the consciousness soul of which they are the bearers; and they also know that it is eventually destined to be supplanted by the 6th stage where the Russo-Slav populations will lead the way to humanity’s next step in evolution: the preparation for the Spirit Self. He also said that Germany was to help Russia in achieving this.
From reading “Conjuring Hitler” it became clear to me that the aim of these brotherhoods at that time was to pit Germany against Russia in an attempt to nullify the next step in evolution and thus continue their Empire indefinitely. In fact this is still going on: the US-sponsored coup in the Ukraine, the embargo against Russia for taking back Crimea, (the only outlet it has into the Mediterranean and which Khrushchev had gifted to Ukrainians just 60 or so years ago, to thank them for their support in his election to head the USSR) and now the build-up of NATO troops all around Russia’s borders, not to speak of the continual propaganda against Putin, who is showing admirable restraint throughout all this. Imagine the reaction of the USA if Russia deployed it’s troops along the Canadian or Mexican border!
At the end of WW2 Churchill, after having bankrupted the Empire, handed the ‘baton’ to Roosevelt and the USA have been running with it ever since.
Yes, there is such a thing as planned, willed evil – it is the sin of the Ego consciousness.
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You raise some interesting points, Liliana.
Firstly you say:
Yes, we are free to choose! But there’s a problem with the subconscious, and that is we cannot perceive it within ourselves in any manner whatsoever. This implies that any act undertaken for reasons that flow from the subconscious cannot be free.. Rudolf Steiner’s work “The Riddles of Philosophy” focus on this kind of paradox.
My point here is that people like the brotherhoods you speak of think they are doing the right thing. Indeed, much of the wrongdoing in our world today – and the USA is a prime example of this – is done “for the right reasons”. My point here is that one cannot know what lies in one’s own subconscious* and therefore to the unenquiring mind, do not and cannot exist. The reasoning being that there is no evidence for them.
(*There are ways to determine this, but do not lie within us).
The Americans have set up the European Union to bring their style of economics – seen by the Americans as being successful – to Europe. The problem here is that certain European countries manage their economic affairs with an alacrity that makes the American economy look like it’s still banging the rocks together.
Which brings me to Russia. Who, given the provocation from the Americans, have been astonishingly patient with them. I say this because the Russian military have equipment – the S500 missile in particular – that eclipses all US equipment and does so by what is considered to be five generations of improvement. However, the Russians are not stupid, and realize that the US might actually have developed something that approaches the capacity of the Russians. There is always a possibility that the Americans have realized that they need to play catch-up.
And you are right: imagine what the USA would think if Russia was as aggressive as the USA has been in the last few years. Militarily and economically.
The Russians have been very patient, very tolerant and what’s more, true to type. They are not the bearers of the Sixth Epoch for nothing. They know they’re right; they know the Americans think they’re right, but couldn’t be more wrong.
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I would say there is the Russian and Slav populations, and there is the decisions of the Russian leadership/elite.
E.g. in July 2014, the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade only needed a single S-11 missile to shoot down a civilian Boeing 777 airplane from Amsterdam, killing all 283 passengers and 15 crew on board (see wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17).
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Ton Majoor,
“They only needed a single S-11 missile.”
Actually, the facts were that the Americans needed only one SU-25* from the Ukrainian air force. Various reports suggest there were two. Because there are various holes in the statements issued from Washington. (*Eye witnesses vary, it might have been two.)
(1) That the flight controller who tweeted that MH17 had been diverted from its usual course had his twitter account deleted within an hour of the aircraft being shot down.
(2) There has never been any mention of why the flight was away from its proper course. It had been singled out by the pilot(s) of the SU25(s). This could not have happened using ground controlled missiles.
(3) The photographic evidence from the scene of the crash presented by Peter Haisenko show that the cockpit of the aircraft had been riddled with 30mm cannon shot. A missile usually takes out the engines. Furthermore, from specialists, the debris from a missile would have caused the aircraft to have caught fire before hitting the ground. As it was, the scene of the crash showed a few isolated fires.
(4) The final proof for me was the photograph showing the track of a bullet on a wing surface. A guided missile could not have made such a mark.
(5) If you look at the Wikipedia article on the SU25, it states that: “Service ceiling: 7,000 m (23,000 ft) clean, 5,000 m (16,000 ft) with max weapons.” This is inaccurate as the service ceiling is 10,000m. The most interesting thing to note here is that (a) it was changed three weeks before the incident with MH17 and (b) the Wikipedia article was ‘locked down’ so that it could not be revised back to the truth. Somebody was planning something, and it wasn’t an attack on innocent civilians flying to Kuala Lumpur.
Finally, the most important issue here is that the aircraft shot down had the livery of white, red and blue. The colours of the Russian flag. Putin’s aircraft has the same livery and at the time of the downing of MH17, was within 200 nautical miles of the engagement. 200 nautical miles for a jet fighter is little more than 15 minutes flying time. This would show why an article in Wikipedia needed changing in the run up to the planned attack.
The boys in Washington must have had some brown trousers when they realized the jumpy idiots in Kiev had downed a passenger aircraft…
PS I did the original translation of Haisenko’s article, and it was my first experience of a post going viral. It was an experience to meet an American in a bakery in Weimar who spoke of it and then be told that he was speaking to the person who had done the translation! (The following was a translation done a week after mine).
http://www.anderweltonline.com/wissenschaft-und-technik/luftfahrt-2014/shocking-analysis-of-the-shooting-down-of-malaysian-mh17/
[Note to Jeremy: WordPress has automated software that might not publish my comment with this link. I have experienced this kind of problem before with US software. It’s called ‘Freedom’ in America, and censorship in the democratic world. We are talking Ahriman, here!
I have a copy should you need to re-publish my comment without the link].
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I wouldn’t base my view upon varying eye witness accounts, holes in statements, arguments from silence or photographic evidence. E.g. images show signs of editing by the Russian army, according to the analysis by Bellingcat.
Creating confusion by presenting a few different, but very exact versions of an incident is a strategic Russian method.
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So it was the Russians who suppressed the Spanish air-traffic controller? I wondered who was to blame.
After all, photographic evidence is just about all that wasn’t suppressed by the air accident commission at Farnborough… and who was it telling them to?
It all comes down to who you accept as an authority. Because if a person isn’t willing to think things through for themselves, it’s up to their authority to do it for them.
The clever ones know what their listeners want to hear… and that is the key to propaganda. Whether it’s the truth is another matter.
Just remember how close Russia put its country to those US military bases. http://thesaker.is/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Russia_wants_war_look_how_closely_they_put_country_to_our_military_bases.jpg
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Gemma,
the Wiki MH17-article is based upon the reports of the investigative collectives Bellingcat and Correct!v, not upon authorities. ‘The Russians’ is, of course, the Russian elite (brotherhood) in Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
But probably, Ahrimanic world-domination paranoia is incorrigable by reasonable judgement (estimatio), the first step of Rosicrucian schooling.
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Ton Majoor.
“is based upon the reports of the investigative collectives Bellingcat and Correct!v, not upon authorities” – if that is what you wish to believe, I cannot stop you.
All I ask is this: how would you know if they are telling the truth?
Did they, for example, find fragments of the missile, examine the metallurgy to state clearly that it was a missile? And how would you know if they had just looked up the technical details and added the information as though it were a fact, so that people would believe them?
At least the reports I read had photographic evidence from the scene. That is far harder to concoct.
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We’re now rather a long way away from the topic, which is why I won’t be accepting any more posts going in this direction.
Best wishes,
Jeremy
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Well, it may well have been a deliberate deception to get the UK into the EU, however, the real issue was made very clear in Jeremy’s post:
Can a country where votes are “wasted” be called a democracy? It was one of the primary reasons for my choosing to live in Europe rather than the UK.
Watching the unfolding of the referendum vote and the outcome on German TV was very interesting; for all the Germans being good Europeans, they are certainly not keen on the EU. In a poll for ARD, 65% voted that Britain should vote “out”. This can be taken as a veiled poll of German sentiment in itself.
The most important issue one can now take from the referendum is that Britain wants to be seen as an international player in its own right. The problem here is that Britain is not Germany. I was discussing the problem this morning with a gentleman who stated that Germany has too much debt. But then, Germany has a fiscal surplus.
Britain has not only massive debts but a massive fiscal deficit.
Britain has had the time to sort out these issues in precisely the manner in which the Eurozone ‘Peripherals’ had in the run up to the US banking crash of 2007 when the Eurozone problems flared up. The Peripherals could have invested the money from the EU wisely, they did not. The result is that they have had massive bolstering of their debts by the likes of Germany.
Britain has a remarkably high deficit and having spent its powder whilst the going was good – that is to say, the last few years – they have nothing left should things go truly bad for Britain’s need for external financing* in the near future. (*Britain’s veto of the EU tariffs on cheap Chinese steel was a direct result of Britain trying to woo Chinese investment in the UK: money it cannot raise elsewhere).
The Brexit vote only affects Britain’s dealings with Europe. The real problems remain unaddressed, just as they have been left unaddressed over the last few years.
Is this another case of the leadership deliberately deceiving the electorate?
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Germany’s political sphere still needs to address Hitler’s relationship with the Catholic church in the name of Christianity.
http://www.spirituallysmart.com/nazi.html
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Germany’s political sphere of today are formed from democrats, people who believe in democracy and the representation of those who voted for them.
Hitler did not share any such ideal. He undermined the German state and its democratic system in actions that were the very opposite of what Germany’s democrats wished for at the time as well as today.
That the Catholic church supported Hitler only shows that the stance of Martin Luther in wishing the Catholic Church to turn away from materialism was correct.
It must be known that Hitler was funded by the corporations and banks, including those in America. Forces Rudolf Steiner spoke of as working against the forces of freedom – and the forces of the future. The very forces that have overtaken both the British and American governments would happily destroy any freedoms that remain in Europe, so long as they can profit from them materially.
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Gemma, your last paragraph reminded me of a book by Guido Preparata entitled “Conjuring Hitler” which really opened up for me a whole new vista on the situation that led up to WW2 – he said he wrote it for the German people – to expose the behind-the-scenes manipulations.
The book is available in PDF format at: http://www.solargeneral.org/wp-content/uploads/library/conjuring-hitler.pdf
Guido Preparata has read Steiner and has lectured on Steiner’s views on various financial matters. Here is his bio:
http://guidopreparata.com/
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America did conjour Hitler, and to gain power in Germany, he had to break the law. Such details do not worry the powerful: the European Union breaks its own laws in that its accounts have not been audited since its inception.
The powerful can overstep the law.
The main point, however, is this: why would a country spend so much money supporting someone like Hitler when that same country could invest that money wisely and see a generous return on its investment?
If one has an understanding of the subconscious, one can see how people move to do what they think is right – but Ahriman guides them in ways that turn their good purposes to ill. Should someone be as nasty as to do wrong deliberately – as with the installation of a person like Hitler – what are they smoking???
If you turn to my blog, you will find another expression of this phenomenon, entitled “The Austerity Craze” which tells of why people would rather save money and sack people than invest wisely and see those self same people prosper. It might give you an insight as to why the likes of Goldman-Sachs were so keen to get Greece into the Eurozone.
I will add that in Europe, the two world wars are called “the second thirty-years war”. Both wars saw Germany devastated through war.
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Back in 1987, I wrote several sonnets in the classic Elizabethan form. Since the Brexit referendum took place on Saint John’s Eve, June 23, I dug out my sonnet dedicated to St. John’s Day, June 24. Now re-reading it in the context of the Brexit vote and the present travails of the world as summer 2016 begins, I find myself reading a lot more into it than I ever did or could in 1987.
================
SAINT JOHN’S DAY
The earth breathes out its summer truth in leaves —-
umbrellas over tattered planet skin —-
revealing memories of winter fears. Earth grieves
for negligence, the purely mortal sin. . . .
On Saint John’s Eve, the children shout
and leap across the fiery abyss
of twigs that symbolize the burning out
of last year’s sins —- they do believe in this. . . .
He leapt for joy inside his mother’s womb,
when news of cousin Jesus’ coming filled
the universe —- two sisters in one room
possessing every hope that gods had willed. . . .
The turning point of human history:
the pregnant earth is still a mystery.
============================
from “Post-Existential Sonnets,” Folio I
by Tom Mellett, Austin, Texas, 1987
_________________________________
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Tom, I’m so pleased that this blog is bringing out the better side of your nature – a lovely poem, thank you!
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“..the better side of your nature”. How annoying are these kind of judgements. Who do you think you are? And Gemma, thats really pure right- wing propaganda und “ahrimanic” arguing as if anthroposophy would be a cult. Again: Disgusting.
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How very droll of you, Michael, to reinforce the stereotype of the German who entirely lacks a sense of humour! Of course, I should have used an emoticon after my comment to indicate that I was in fact making a joke; but thinking that it would have been obvious to all was clearly a mistake.
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Michael Eggert,
could you be a little more concise when you say “thats really pure right- wing propaganda”?
I thought Germans were supposed to be exacting. But I suppose that doesn’t cover conciseness…
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Beauty-full. Thank you.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuman_Declaration
For those who think the american elite was behind all the EU Superstate in the first place (dark hands)
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Which only goes to prove that they know what they’re doing when it comes to influencing people through the published media.
After all, stating something that somebody else has written hardly counts as your own reasoning, does it? And it’s precisely that kind of ‘reasoning’ that they like, because they know it’ll be believed by most people who read their statements.
Even Ton Majoor didn’t believe the business about MH17, even with photographs from the scene of the crash. Because he knew – knows – that the truth comes from articles issuing from important institutions. Yet such articles lack any kind of evidence save the words written down by the government officials.
It all comes down to who you believe is right…
… when the entire point of anthroposophy is that you think things through, weigh things up and come to a reasoned opinion that is independent of evidence.
Wikipedia included.
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I know the dark side of wikipedia ……
What about this. This declaration gave millions of Europeans the hope and stability of peace on the continent. Maybe your little imagnary fiends the THEYS like it or even THEY wrote it.
http://europa.eu/about-eu/basic-information/symbols/europe-day/schuman-declaration/index_en.htm
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HF
are you now trying to establish the veracity of your comment
??
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I dont want to. . All the best for your transformation and you ever deepening insights what the real truth is.
Good night!
HF
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It’s up to you if you want a future.
Or not.
I bid you good night and wish you sweet dreams.
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Interesting article Mr. Smith. I refer to it in my blog (Dutch language) Macht van markten en staatscontrole (Cahier, 1 june 2016).
Thank you for writing and publishing and have a nice day.
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Dear John:
Jeremy has indeed written a wonderful piece in which the vote to ‘out’ from the EU in the vote of June 23, 2016, has profound implications of a future without the EU ‘strings of attachment’. What seems most pronounced is the need to act quickly with a plan of action for the future. Yet, the British vote was close by all means, i..e, 48 % in vs. 52 % out, and with Scotland and Northern Ireland voting to remain in. As well, the young votership saw remaining ‘in’ as the obvious basis for their future, while the old voters, now on pension, are the one’s most fed up with the regime that they see as destroying the possible real freedom of a European continent that clearly has been taken over by the western powers, which by now has excluded England as a partner, and exists entirely out of the dictates of the United States of America. Does anyone disagree?
I offered this as my fundamental input on this thread, which truly wonders what actions will take place next. Waiting two years for all the approvals of prior EU participation to dissolve will only allow another initiative to gain advantage to enter, So, I say “carpe diem’, or “Seize the Day” in this profoundly important move to gain liberation. Whether it starts on a large or small scale makes no difference. Either way, the momentum will begin and grow.
https://anthropopper.wordpress.com/2016/06/24/reflections-on-the-british-referendum/#comment-1444
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Only, don’t overlook the strategic ‘eastern’ interests (CNN, July 1):
In a Facebook post Friday, Kremlin official Boris Titov outlined how, claiming that the vote would “tear Europe from the Anglo-Saxons, that is, from the United States,” and predicting the coming of a “united Eurasia” in “about 10 years.”
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What Britain needs is political decisions.
The kind of thing the British are quite unused to: after all, had the British government acted sooner, the deficit might be under 4% (roughly in line with the NordEurozone). At present it is well over 5%, by some estimates closer to 8%.
Add to this many of the debts that Britain has with overseas investors need renewing this year. A colossal 755% of the country’s external receipts.
And those external receipts are now being hammered by the pressure on sterling – and with the realization that Britain is in such a poor financial state, the pressure on sterling can only grow.
Article 50 will be brought into action in the next few months, after Cameron resigns. That is a decision that Cameron need not take, but his successor must.
However the problem of Britain’s debts is one that, to tell the truth, is vastly more important. If for the only fact that nobody has dealt with it whilst we were in the EU… will a country averse to “grasping nettles*” learn how to if outside the EU? We are going to find out.
(*The need to roll over 755% of debt can only be attributed to people who would rather not deal with problems, grasp nettles.)
I would like to add – and I will be adding a comment on your blog to this effect in a moment – that “Het lijkt mij dat hier het kleinburgerlijk nationalisme (d.w.z. groepsegoïsme) het gewonnen heeft van de eenheid en solidariteit en broederlijkheid tussen de volkeren.” I visited Alkmaar recently, on the Fifth of May – no Dutchman will need reminding of what this means – and I met a man who confronted me and stated quite clearly that Alkmaar was for the burghers of Alkmaar and not of Utrecht. I did mention that my uncle had lost his life fighting for the liberation of his country, to no effect. “Kleinburgerlijk stadisme” has certainly won here. Having said that, I meet many who have hearts far more open than those I ever met in the UK. They are our future.
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Gemma, it is very touching your concern about the UK deficit, but really you dont need to worry about it. If you really want to worry about deficits look at the US.
Economic contagion problems are much more likely to come from Euroland, Italy is in a good position to kick this off with its banking sector threatening to collapse.
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Truth Seeker,
I am heartened by your knowledge of the US debt. The problem as far as Britain is concerned is that when compared to GDP, the percentage of debt is rather larger than that of the US.
There is another side to Britain’s problems – and it is one that if one is not in the inner financial circles, is all but impossible to find online. If one looks for somethinga about Britain, one always finds Greek debt, Italian banks and the derivatives held by Deutsche Bank (with no reference to the fact that they are held in London).
Thus my information comes from a few dropped stones. Even the Bank of England is cautious about giving exact figures, but then, if one is a materialist thinker, the last thing one will do is to take a risk by publishing evidence of this kind!
Click to access debt_management_report_2016-2017_final.pdf
The problem Britain faces is that it has a large amount of external debt that is maturing this year. According to AEP of the Telegraph, it is a “whopping 755% of external receipts” – but just try tracking down these external receipts to get a real grip on the figures…
… that might put the
pigeonsmarkets to flight. After all, they believe the Mainstream Media… it’s where they get their information these days, now that insider trading is frowned upon. Anyway, there are clear signals in the press as to the direction the market is about to take, so at least they can turn a penny that way.As to the Italian banks, yes, they do have a problem, but it isn’t remotely linked to the topic of Jeremy’s post, and I have strayed far enough from it already. Suffice it to say that when the US media (of which the British media is a part) mentions Greece or Italy, look for the data they are trying to hide.
British data.
It’s always harder to find.
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Truth Seeker.
Two days after your comment “Economic contagion problems are much more likely to come from Euroland, Italy is in a good position to kick this off with its banking sector threatening to collapse.”
We have six (seven) British property funds suspending redemptions from their property funds. These funds, by the way, act largely in the embattled commercial sector.
Whilst not as exciting as Monte dei Paschi, these funds are both closer to home and oversee the very same areas that the Italian banks have problems with. For much the same reason as Britain: loose regulation.
Please remember that it was misdeeds associated with the US housing sector that started the last crash. Again, the problem stemmed from poor regulation.
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Gemma, suspending redemption on the property funds is obviously not positive, but it is unlikely to cause a melt-down of the financial system nor put the tax payer on the hook if they go down. Also the investors in the property funds clearly knew/know what they were buying unlike the situation with the US sub-prime disaster.
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Truth Seeker,
you say it all when you say “Also the investors in the property funds clearly knew/know what they were buying unlike the situation with the US sub-prime disaster” – after all, had the American banks been honest… that’s why I didn’t call it a disaster, I called it straight: I said it was fraud.
As to “it is unlikely to cause a melt-down of the financial system nor put the tax payer on the hook if they go down.” – How many times have we heard this kind of thing? The point isn’t that it is ‘unlikely’ – after all, we are dealing with Ahriman here. As they say, the devil is in the detail, and it is in such statements that the details are overlooked.
But of course, there can be no problem for the British economy, no issue of a melt-down: Britain controls its own finances! Which is why the real problem isn’t with property, albeit that commercial property is being hammered right now and margins on rentals at an all time low…
… the problem is that a very large tranche of Britain’s debts mature this year. The bigger problem is this: the Bank of England cannot print money to buy them. This is where Britain’s “ability to control its own finances” runs out of road. I know that yields on gilts have been slashed (ten year gilts are currently at 0.731%) – the problem comes when there are too many that need renewing… that’s when the kettle starts to boil.
This isn’t a problem that is going to go away just because everybody says “it’s unlikely”. That’s like the man walking up and down Sunningdale station shouting loudly. When someone asked him what he was doing, he responded by telling them that he was scaring the elephants away. The other said that there weren’t any elephants there… and the shouter remarked at how effective he’d been.
You can drive away an illusion with illusory measures, but reality needs a little more thought.
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Gemma, The American sub-prime disaster principally wasn’t about fraud, it was about ignorance. Buyers (including many German financial institutions) didnt want to appear stupid in front of the slick American investment bank salesman by asking the most basic question “what the hell is this you are selling” so they pretended they knew and understood the product and the market.
If investors were unduly concerned about the UK’s ability to finance itself, gilt yields would be going up, not down and we would be seeing serious capital flight.
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Truth Seeker.
I think it needs to be understood that the people selling the securities in question knew as much about their provenance as the buyers. These securities had been ‘processed’ in a way that resulted in an investment that actually appeared to have a value. After all, they did come with an ‘AAA’ stamp of approval from the credit-ratings agencies.
They would not have given this approval had they known that it was based on US housing stock.
The slick salesmen were true enough, but given that they were selling the perfect “Golden Egg” that was both secure AND high yielding… it was hard for buyers to say “no”. This isn’t surprising when everybody “pretended they knew and understood the product and the market”. American salesmen and German buyers alike.
My final point is one that I have made before: these were contracts that needed signing by both parties. I will repeat: had the American banks stood by their side of the deal, there would have been no problem.
Ergo: it was not innocence. It was criminal fraud.
If you understood the process the American banks employed, you might have a chance of understanding how the German government got the banks to pay them money via the Stadtsanierung.
Now, as to gilts, yes the yields are falling right now. We will have to see if the trend continues. After all, investors are not so keen on gilts to want to pay for the priviledge of owning them… as they do with German or Swiss ones.
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“They would not have given this approval had they known that it was based on US housing stock.”
They did know it was based on US housing stock.
Caveat emptor
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Truth Seeker.
You make my point nicely:
Which is why I stated the following:
This is a little more than “Caveat emptor”. When you understand Ahriman, you will realize why people seek to deceive, rather than tell the truth. After all, Caveat Emptor implies that the buyer knew what they were buying into.
It would have been Caveat Emptor, had the Americans told the truth.
One day, you may accidentally unveil the truth. I assure you, you won’t enjoy the experience.
Because nobody does.
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Thank you Mr. Smith for this article as an example how conspiracy theories and esoteric nationalism is shaping (incl. a little bit of racism) the future of the ” right” anthroposophy when the second coming is about.
Thank you for writing and revealing your political mission and your history buddies in the background.
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The question of the Brexit goes far deeper than notions of nationalism or even superficial notions of political freedom. We know historically that what Steiner calls, “Arabism” is a form of Islam. But Steiner is capturing the entire cultural stream with this term; the spiritual as well as the political. The warfare of the Arab culture does not stand separate from the spiritual stream.
My grandparents came to America from northern Spain and southern France. Historically in an even earlier time, this was the front lines of where the outward warfare of Arabism came to a halt in Europe. Islam had been intent on conquering Europe prior to the 17th century, but northern Spain was as far as they could carry it.
From this we understand the statement, “The aim of the Arabians in their campaigns was most certainly not that of mere slaughter; no, their aim was really the spread of Arabism.” There was a great culture promoted by Arabism. In the Anthroposophical tradition we attribute the first impulse of the Archai on the earth as streaming through the Middle East, into northern Africa, then Spain and into Europe. We also have Steiner’s indications regarding Darwin, Laplace and Bacon as all being reincarnated Muslims. Even Spinoza was affected by the Arab culture. Thus the study of the impulse of the Arab culture and Islam is no simple discussion.
Above all the mono-theistic understanding of the Elohim expresses the being of Allah. The determinism represented by this being led to fatalism which directly inspired modern science in the West. As Tom and others point out, this carries with it an Ahrimanic impulse in Islam and Sorat lives in the deeds of the Arabic culture. He certainly lives in many Russian impulses and many Western impulses as well. It is not a matter of declaring that evil lives in Islam: Lucifer, Ahriman and Sorat live in all mankind.
The problem the UK faces, and to the same degree all of the West, is how to meet Islam in the modern age? The West looks to influence the East. The East looks to influence the West as does the Middle East. We can no longer afford to remain ignorant or superficial regarding the impulses of Islam moving into the West.
I spent over a month in eastern Turkey just after college. I hitchhiked alone through Turkey as an American and my fate was in the hands of the good Turkish Muslims. I remember standing on the side of a blistering hot road waiting for a truck to come by, and how a Muslim woman gave her child a bottle of water to bring to me.
Even within this gesture I had the experience at that time that a clash of cultures was brewing. In the mechanical morning call to prayers from loud speakers across the towns, from being spit on in Ankara when I wore shorts outside on a 100 degree day, it was clear to me that subjugation to a fatalistic view of the universe was not my path. There were many caring and warm human beings I met on that trip, but it was in spite of the determinism and fatalism of political Islam.
So the Brexit is exceedingly complicated. It is the result of a failure of the Threefold Social Order described by Steiner. It is also a reaction to the next modern wave of Islam looking to further influence Europe. Just as I toured Mosques in Turkey you may tour Mosques in England. This will not bring a revelation into the deeper forces behind Islam without taking into account the entire history.
In the West we like to talk about the Crusades, but warfare is at the heart of the Islamic stream. It is written into the basic texts to a much more profound degree than anything ever contemplated in the Bible. Yes, there is humility and piety in Islam. And if Islam remained a personal inner practice there would be no issue. – If Jihad was truly an “inner struggle” peace would exist in all the lands touched by Islam. But Islam carried from the religious into the political. This is where Ahriman and Sorat gained their hold. This is not “fundamentalism” but another aspect of Islam that is as real as the religious impulse.
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On the topic of determinism, which Daniel stresses, Muslims are probably as all over the map as Christians. The “predestination in Islam” wikipedia article is a start on what is clearly a really complicated topic, with sharp divisions between Shiites and Sunnis. The Wikipedia article on jihad, which Daniel also stresses, suggests a similar division.
I got curious about this because of a paywalled article that was an eyeopener for me, and might be for others. Here is an excerpt (but if I’m pushing your tolerance for length, Jeremy, feel free to chuck the whole thing):
In the Islamic world the struggle between reason and dogma is almost as old as the faith itself. . . evoking ancient debates between rival Islamic schools going back to the ninth century CE.
Ranged on one side were scholars known as Maturidis and Mutazilites, who believe that God does not violate His own cosmic laws, that humans possess free will as “creators of their own deeds,” and that reason must be used to interpret the scriptures and establish moral truths. The rationalist theology—comparable to ideas of natural law adopted by Catholic theologians following Saint Thomas Aquinas—is still adhered to by the Shiites. Their opponents, the Sunni Asharites and the even more rigid Hanbalis—precursors of the modern Wahhabis who hold sway in the Saudi kingdom—insist that human agency and natural laws of cause and effect impiously limit God’s omnipotence.
Sunni Islam, in contrast to Shiism, contains a strand of dogma that is irrational because God’s commands are supposed to be accepted without being questioned, while their implementation was based—historically—on a theology of manifest success… The argument from manifest success worked well during periods of triumph, but faced many problems when the vast majority of the world’s Muslims became the subjects of “Christian” nations whose religion was supposed to have been “superseded” by the revelation of Islam . . .
Unlike early Christianity and Shiite Islam (both of whose founding figures suffered martyrdom), the Sunni tradition factors triumph into its historical narrative, making it much more difficult for it to adapt to modern conditions of pluralism than traditions—Jewish, Christian, Shiite—forged under conditions of failure, persecution, or exile. Such traditions, as “losers” with disappointed expectations, learned to make adjustments to a world that rejected them at their very beginnings. Sunnis, by contrast, had the luxury of twelve centuries before they were forced to confront historical failure.
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Daniel,
The Brexit vote to vote ‘out’ of the EU is like the Texit vote to vote ‘out’ of the United States. Yet, the former vote has actually occurred, and wherein England has made its claim on its own sovereignty.
So, what this means is that they have to take their decision and its future in hand, and make it happen; Carpe diem style. I wrote about that here recently with these reference points:
https://anthropopper.wordpress.com/2016/06/24/reflections-on-the-british-referendum/#comment-1495
Now, look at all the reaction against it. Britain’s chronic deficit is declared as a major obstacle, as well as the Eastern European stumbling-block in which Vladamir Putin is now attempting to uphold his own. But none of that has really anything to do with what is really an initiative born out of the quest for freedom. Rudolf Steiner made 10 trips to Britain, in which he declared much of what the threefolding initiative was in accordance with the evolution of consciousness, and I think that this resolve has finally made its mark within the UK, but largely within those places that Steiner actually spoke.
Previously, he had given two private lectures to his Russian audience in Helsinki, Finland, c. April 11, 1912, and June 5, 1913, in which he spoke directly about how much anthroposophy was essential for their future. The same can be said for his English audience, in which the advancing materialism was seen and declared as its own creation, and meant to be offset by his own endeavor to make the science of the spirit known as a means to attempt to ameliorate its consequences.
So, here we are in 2016 with this Brexit vote, successful as long as it meets the individual cause for its possible realization. Just look at all the opposition already said, and see how much the prevailing opinions would like to make it a failed/lost cause. Daniel, even you can’t say anything of meaningful value except to exhort past history.
Yet, we are not dealing with past history, but now. The Brexit vote is a vote for ‘now’, and the reason has to do with the fact that Rudolf Steiner went to England ten times to speak, and this is finally being realized now.
How long it will take to reach the U.S. is worth considering, as we watch and hope for Brexit.
Steve
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I agree with your sentiments Steve. Brexit occurred for many reasons but RS giving some lectures in the country 100yrs ago had nothing to do with it!
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“I agree with your sentiments Steve. Brexit occurred for many reasons but RS giving some lectures in the country 100yrs ago had nothing to do with it!”
Why not? He obviously went to England for a reason that relates to the evolution of consciousness which he felt was important to impart in the English language. Fortunately, George Adams was a simultaneous translator, who could readily convert Steiner’s German into English.
Just as with the Russians, Steiner had a message for the British. It was to wake up and see their cause for the future. Likely, Brexit is that cause because nothing before now even remotely relates to the freedom that is now possible, and Steiner always saw this as his means to convince the west of their larger calling. He warned often about the fact that America cannot be convinced, and so the English effort has to be with the British.
Just because it takes England a hundred more years to realize its calling, when the Russians received theirs in 1915, due to the first world war, doesn’t mean that Rudolf Steiner’s influence isn’t working even today.
Steve
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Why not?
Because we have not won any new freedom, we have (will!) just taken back what we already had 40 odd years ago.
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A letter I wrote on the Threefold Society to Frank Thomas Smith’s Southern Cross Review in reply to an article in edition 106 titled “moral socialism” :
http://southerncrossreview.org/107/letters107.html
Caryn
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The Renewal of the Social Organism
Rudolf Steiner
“The contradiction that has gradually developed between the self-imposed tasks of nation-states and the tendencies of economic life is one of the most significant facts of recent history. The nation-states have sought to draw the regulation of economic life within their boundaries into the sphere of their responsibilities. Persons, or groups of persons, who administer economic life seek support for their activities in the power of the state. One state confronts the other not only as a separate cultural and political realm, but also as a bearer of the economic interests at work within the region. Within the national states, cultural and political interests become entangled with those of the economy.”
Rudolf Steiner, Social Future 2: The International Economy and the Threefold Social Order (GA332a)
A Necessity of the Age
The health of the social organism depends upon its articulation into three independent spheres: a spiritual-cultural sphere, a legal-rights sphere, and an economic sphere.
Liberty – The Golden King
The spiritual-cultural life free to shape itself according to its own spiritual impulses in education, art, science and religion.
Equality – The Silver King
The sphere of rights built up democratically through the interaction (direct or representational) of people on equal terms.
Fraternity – The Brass King
The economic life extended solely to the production, circulation and consumption of commodities.
The Social Organism’s Restoration to Health
The Threefold Social Organism is compared with the total essence of the human organism which exhibits three complementary systems, each of which functions with a certain autonomy.
The head-system through the nerves and senses.
The circulatory and rhythmic system through respiration.
The metabolic system through the organs of nourishment and movement.
When human thinking and feeling learn to sense the vital potentialities in contemplating the natural organism and then to be capable of applying this sensibility to the social organism the restoration to health will begin and if this social organism is to function in a healthy way it must methodically cultivate three constituent members.
Fraternity
Economic life is compared with the head-system through the nerves and senses.
Equality
Civil Rights is compared with the circulatory and rhythmic system through respiration.
Liberty
Spiritual Culture is compared with the metabolic system through the organs of nourishment and movement.
The Brass King: Economy – the head system through the nerves and senses.
The economy will be considered first because it has so evidently been able to dominate human society through modern technology and capitalism on one hand and proletariat socialism on the other. This economic life must constitute an autonomous member within the social organism, as relatively autonomous as is the nervous-sensory system in the human organism. The economy is concerned with all aspects of the production, circulation and consumption of commodities.
The Silver King: Civil Rights – the circulatory rhythmic system.
The second member of the social organism is that of civil rights, of political life as such. What can be designated as the state, in the sense of the old rights-state, pertains to this member. Whereas the economy is concerned with all aspects of man’s natural needs and the production, circulation and consumption of commodities, this second member of the social organism can only concern itself with all aspects of the relations between human beings which derive from purely human sources. It is essential for knowledge about the members of the social organism to be able to differentiate between the legal rights system, which can only concern itself with relations between human beings that derive from human sources, and the economic system, which can only be concerned with the production, circulation and consumption of commodities. It is necessary to sense this difference in life in order that, as a consequence of this sensibility, the economy be separate from the rights member, as in the human natural organism the activity of the lungs in processing the outside air is separate from the processes of the nervous-sensory system.
The Golden King: Spiritual Culture – metabolism.
The third member, standing autonomous alongside the other two, is to be apprehended in the social organism as that which pertains to spiritual life. To be more precise, because the designations ‘spiritual culture’ or ‘everything which pertains to spiritual life’, are perhaps not sufficiently precise, one could say: everything which is based on the natural aptitudes of each human individual; what must enter into the social organism based on the natural aptitudes, spiritual as well as physical, of each individual.
The first system, the economic, is concerned with what must be present in order for man to determine his relation to the outer world. The second system is concerned with what must be present in the social organism in respect to human inter-relationships. The third system is concerned with everything which must blossom forth from each human individuality and be integrated into the social organism.
Rudolf Steiner, Basic Issues of the Social Question, finding real solutions to the problems of our times. (GA023)
Rudolf Steiner, Polarities in the Evolution of Mankind, lecture given in Stuttgart on the 24 June 1920, on the social organism in connection with the Threefold Society
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From the Author’s moderation policy:
“1) are on-topic and in English. Please don’t post messages that are not related to the original post
2) don’t include long screeds of text quoting Steiner (or anyone else) that have nothing to do with the subject of the posting”
Or is Caryn just too nice a person to upset? After all, intellectuals are very easy to upset… especially when they’ve just found the quotation they wanted to share with the world.
I know it’s your blog. But that excuse comes straight out of Goebbel’s handbook. And I’ve heard it too many times before from moderators who find it difficult to abide by their very own rules.
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Well, Gemma, you may be right according to the letter of the moderation policy. But it seemed to me that Caryn’s quotation was of direct relevance to the British referendum and more particularly to my post of May 8th, in which I contrasted what is happening in the EU with what Steiner had indicated would be a healthy direction for the future of Europe. Please note the final sentence of the policy, which trumps all other rules 🙂
Best wishes,
Jeremy
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Well, I did say it was your blog, didn’t I? I did mention its provenance too.
As for her quotations being pertinent, that is up to you; but if it was a response to the May 8 post… perhaps it would have been better posted there? “Within the national states, cultural and political interests become entangled with those of the economy.” – and no more so in the US or the UK. It’s what Britain voted ‘out’ to deal with, irrespective of it having been a problem long before the British people voted to join.
Back to your policy: as for your requirement “then it would be appreciated if some supporting evidence for your assertions could be supplied” – how on earth do you expect them to be able to do this??? The entire point of the spiritual worlds is that they are beyond material proof… and anybody having anything to do with them, on this account alone, is defenceless against this kind of materialist demand.
Knowlege of the Higher Worlds. GA 10
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The expression of the social organism is seen in the trichtomy of the human being:
Body – Thinking
Soul – Feeling
Spirit – Willing
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Caryn Louise,
firstly, I appreciate your expressing yourself in your own words. However, in your scheme, you equate thinking with the body. Can you explain why Rudolf Steiner spoke of thinking as a spiritual quality, after all, this is the opposite of what you have written. The body is usually equated with the will as it is beneath our consciousness.
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When anthroposophy is taken as a faith-based system instead of knowledge-based, paradoxes will appear. E.g. about willing, which can described from opposite points of view or with different methods, say outer and inner (and their synthesis).
Has, likewise, a threefold Brexit not only to deal with a criterion of freedom, but also with equality and brotherhood?
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Ton Majoor,
anthroposophy as it was conceived by Rudolf Steiner was not knowledge based. Anthroposophy is a science, in as much as any person can derive the findings that Rudolf Steiner discerned, and can do so simply by observing human beings.
There is no knowledge, book learning or anything else necessary.
A science springs from the reality of creation and the beings that live within. Anybody can become a true anthroposophist by striving to discern reality.
As to “about willing, which can described from opposite points of view or with different methods, say outer and inner (and their synthesis)” The will is a very difficult issue for the modern intellectual mind. You cannot play with the sphere of the will as though it were just another psychological term that can be comprehended by looking it up in the dictionary.
Goethe’s concept of the colour blue, darkness lightened, is the reality of sphere of the will. It was this thought that rang through the young Rudolf Steiner’s body as though he were a bell, and inspired the whole of anthroposophy.
To even contemplate anthroposophy merely as ‘knowledge’ is to circumvent the power it derives from the reality of Goethe’s Farbenlehre.
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So, anthroposophy is observational knowledge, not faith? And can be obtained in different ways: outer willing expressed in the (physical) body seems to be the opposite of the inner (spiritual) willing.
Steiner (1925) ‘… the ego builds up its “ego-organization”; it destroys this, in that will-activity becomes active in self-consciousness.’ GA027_c01
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Ton Majoor,
Did I say that? I stated that anthroposophy is a science which implies that it is neither knowledge nor faith.
Seems? Get the basics straight. Then such paradoxes will right themselves. The basics are essential, and as such will reveal anthroposophy as a science.
Without that, you will always be questioning it as a knowledge or a faith or any number of other words that happen to be close to hand. Anthroposophy springs from creation itself, and as such, can be described in words, but in truth, surpasses them. This is the challenge, and it is one that the intellectual meets by stringing words together – rather than by employing them to describe the pictorial reality.
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An EU Press Conference with Nigel Farage this week:
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Just in case you thought that Brexit meant Britain was out of the woods and could control its own destiny…
[Own emphasis].
And with Westminster doing as it’s told, those regulations will go the way of the regulations pertaining to the financial heart of Britain: the City.
But the ever hopeful Guardian opines:
Well we know what that means, don’t we? The only problem is that threefolding is actually something of a challenge for most businessmen in our day and age. It certainly brings results – I know of several businesses who have seen sensible increases in profit even in these recession days. They are far from the usual kind of business, where the boss prefers the business equivalent of Steiner quotations to the reality facing him directly.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/08/ttip-dead-brexit-brussels-free-market
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The physical body in relation to thinking:
“… During the Old Moon stage human beings did not have this mineral inclusion. Human beings living on the present earth have been made in such a way that they need the mineral kingdom, having absorbed the mineral kingdom and its forces into them, as it were. What significance does this have for human nature? In the first place human beings acquired a mineral body for thinking in images the way they did at the earlier stage. As evolution progressed the mineral human body provided the basis for intellectual thinking. This happened at a relatively late state, from the middle of the 15th century onwards, having been a long time in preparation. Modern intellectual thinking is based on the fact that human beings have received a mineral body into them. As human beings we need a mineral body first and foremost to be able to think.
This mineral body is indeed the organ for the earthly way of thinking. It does however bring it predominantly into the sphere of the powers we call ahrimanic. We can of course become aware of the need to base ourselves on the facts, on a real world that will get us out of the habit of being swayed by our subjective emotions. We must not, however, fall prey to the kind of thinking that is nothing but an inner activity arising from the mineral body.” Rudolf Steiner, Polarities in the Evolution of Mankind, Stuttgart, 5 March 1920
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The thinking you describe here has as much to do with the reality of thinking as ‘moving one’s eyes from left to right’ has to do with the reality of the spiritual exercises handed down to us by Rudolf Steiner.
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Gemma, what Caryn is describing concerns the fact that by the gradual descent of the physical body into the mineralized condition of the Earth, that the faculty of thinking replaced the former clairvoyant faculty, which passed over from the “Old Moon” condition to Earth. Thus, the gradual densification of our present Earth creates the necessary faculty of thinking, due to the mineral element being added. In our time, we can differentiate between an Intellectual Soul, which promotes the modern science, which weighs, measures, and calculates in an entirely exterior way, and the Consciousness Soul, which promotes the spiritual science, which looks both “behind and before”, in order to properly assess the reality which stands behind external seeming.
You always refer to “spiritual exercises” as if you know of them; yes indeed, “handed down to us by Rudolf Steiner.” Then, you sink your anchor with your actual expertise, which is Ahriman having been loosed in order to gain a kind of ridiculous authoritarian control, which only serves to undermine those good citizens here who want to indicate how Spiritual Science exists to show that both knowledge and faith are needed in these most trying times.
Personally, my opinion is that anyone who thinks that a kind of “natural anthroposophy” exists, wherein they can make it up as they go along, really undermines the effort of Rudolf Steiner, whose extension of effort amounted to some 360 volumes of work. You say that the “devil is in the details”, while some of us say, “the truth is in the details, and needs to be known”.
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Steve Hale,
This is true, however, this is part of our thinking that lies behind us, in the past. It is something we must become conscious of and develop our thinking further. This is what the spiritual exercises are for, in the initial stages at least.
If you knew them, you would know if I knew them or not. Likewise, you would know if my Ahriman were loosened or not, had you the required understanding to deal with the reality of your own – which as repeatedly stated, cannot be done by looking within you. There are many who think this, there are none who get any meaningful results by doing so.
It is quite clear that you haven’t been listening to the things the good doctor says about anthroposophy as a science. The scientists who invented the theory of phlogiston were proved wrong by reality: that is the nature of a science.
Thus for any true seeker, the reality of anthroposophy, the science, is there, and those who dismiss it are those who lack the courage to discern if the things they thought were right are things that come to pass in the real world that surrounds us.
The truth is in the reality of creation that we all depend on, and this needs to be known.
Most anthroposophists deny this because they would rather base their thinking on the 360 volumes of records of the things their guru Rudolf Steiner uttered, instead of developing their own faculties of discernment. A cultural stream that Rudolf Steiner wrote the Philosophy of Freedom to counter!
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I am absolutely baffled by some of the comments and reply in all above. As far as I am aware the referendum has become a platform. Nothing more or less. There are no true winners…….
in 2016 and for the last 49 years I have had very little tolerance for anybody using (or abusing) another’s persons observation for their own personal gain or quest.
Whatever belief system you subscribe to , it is a belief system, not a omni- ontology. The Universe is, with or without us. Life is. Energy exists, within the fluid boundaries of mother earth we float.
Personally what put things in perspective for me is to stop , reflect, breath in and out. And then take a next step. With Faith.
Pascale
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“With Faith.”
Get the basics straight. The basics are essential, and as such will reveal anthroposophy as a science.
Without that, you will always be questioning it as a knowledge or a faith. That will lead you nowhere.
Goethe’s Farbenlehre is the key. The sun is yellow and the sky is blue – unless the sky is clouded like the mind of an intellectual: that’s when it all goes grey and they start believing things they can’t actually see. Rise above those grey clouds – the grey, intellectual thinking – and one will witness the truth, for the clouds no longer cloud what one sees.
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“If we want to develop inner truthfulness, we must never go further than facts of the outer world speak to us. And we must, strictly speaking, attempt to formulate our words in such a way that we only confirm the facts of the outer sensory world….” R.S.
So maybe you Gemma should consider Jeremys blogrules “then it would be appreciated if some supporting evidence for your assertions could be supplied”
Anthroposophy is definetely taking you higher Gemma than any other earthly airline. Maybe you should read the book of R.S. Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
And Its Attainment and not trying to smoke it. Go for a walk and breath in and out .
Your worried spirit Friend and american elitist Finkelsteen
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Well now!
It always saddens me when a person demands that the spiritual worlds must be shorn of their beauty:
Do the exercises. Do them properly and do them long enough that you might smell the imagery they portray. That is when they will reveal something to you, for each one holds a secret. The kind of secret that actually surrounds you right now
Do the exercises and see what is unveiled for you. Then speak to me.
Otherwise keep your counsel as I will keep mine.
All literary quotes from Knowledge of the Higher Worlds.
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Gemma:
“Get the basics straight. The basics are essential, and as such will reveal anthroposophy as a science. Without that, you will always be questioning it as a knowledge or a faith. That will lead you nowhere.”
Excerpts from the Leading Thoughts:
1. Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the Spiritual in the human being to the Spiritual in the universe. It arises in man as a need of the heart, of the life of feeling; and it can be justified only inasmuch as it can satisfy this inner need. He alone can acknowledge Anthroposophy, who finds in it what he himself in his own inner life feels impelled to seek. Hence only they can be anthroposophists who feel certain questions on the nature of man and the universe as an elemental need of life, just as one feels hunger and thirst.
2. Anthroposophy communicates knowledge that is gained in a spiritual way.
4. For certainty of feeling and for a strong unfolding of his will, man needs a knowledge of the spiritual world. [ ] …. in every human soul that is really awake, the longing for spiritual paths of World-knowledge.
5. For peace in his inner life, man needs Self-knowledge in the Spirit.
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA026/English/RSP1973/GA026_index.html
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Steve Hale,
there is one thing that is true for us all, we must all die.
Yet, for a brief period before we die, we are bequeathed a gift from the heavens. For as you will know, there is medical proof that two or three weeks before death, the rhythms and chemistry of the physical body change.
There is a spiritual reason for this change in the physical rhythms shortly before death, but they cannot be proven to the satisfaction of the anthroposophist in need of tangible evidence.
However, it is at this time that many people review their life, and on looking back, reflect on their activities. For, having the veils lifted from their eyes – scales is the word used in the New Testament – they can see now with more clarity. Many regret the things they did, others speak of things that others ought do – but then, if a person has not worked to lift their veils for themselves, they are hardly going to listen to an old codger on his deathbed, are they?
After all, they are not an authority, are they? Well, they might be, but authority in our modern world is a concept narrowed by the constricting forces of the intellect and means that a person’s authority cannot extend to generalized – or more dangerously, subjective philosophies.
The likes of Mr Hale may well say that I delude myself in speaking of this kind of thing – but as I say, not one of us can escape death. There is and can be no delusion here.
My real point is this: those who accuse others of being deluded need to take the above into account. For one of the preconditions for clarity – that is to say, consciously lifting one’s own veils – is the ability to reflect on and question one’s own deeds before death being imminent. After all, if one has but a few weeks to live, how is one to embark on a study that might take several years (or more, as Ehrenried Pfeiffer discovered).
There are those who happily speak of others being deluded, and do so without the least worry that this very accusation marks them out as someone who has yet to deal with their own.
Do the exercises, Mr Hale. It is quite clear from the words you use that you have yet to embark on anything that will lift a veil.
Because those who have speak a very different language to the anthroposophists alive today.
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According to Steiner (1910) two accessible scientific paths exist:
“The path is absolutely safe upon which the communications of spiritual science lead us to sense-free thinking. There is, however, still another path that is safer and above all more exact, but it is also more difficult for many human beings. This path is presented in my books, A Theory of Knowledge Based on Goethe’s World Conception, and Philosophy of Freedom.” GA013_c05-03 (cf. ‘The Boundaries of Natural Science’ GA 322_07)
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“two accessible scientific paths exist”
Can you describe one of them in your own words?
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I try to clear up your scientific stance compared to Goethe, PoF, KoHW.
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Ah bowakawa pousse pousse is your mantra for the day Gemma greetz from the DARK HANDS and an extraordinary american elitist and former Brit from the other side of the threshold:
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Gemma, what is your blog called? I would like to read it.
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