by Hans van Willenswaard
Before I had to travel, here in South East Asia, I thought the exchanges on the Bodhisattva Question had come to an end and I intended to contribute a concluding post. On my return I found a new wave of contributions and it is not easy to catch up.
We are dealing with evaluations of the past; what the mission of the Bodhisattva of the 20thcentury might mean today in terms of evolution of humanity and our active role in it; how personal experience plays its part; how we make judgments on the viability of our own and others’ statements; and lately what our dynamic position is in the concrete socio-political constellation of today. I’ll try to react to these issues in this concluding post and then look forwards to a new Anthropopper thread to be opened by Jeremy.
One of the questions – triggered by our exchanges – that started haunting me is: Based on which experience did Rudolf Steiner initiate this vision that the Christ would re-appear in the etheric realm? How and from where did this insight arise? I found this quote:
What Paul experienced (near Damascus) as the presence of Christ in the atmosphere of the earth is what modern man may train himself to experience clairvoyantly through an esoteric schooling; this is also what single persons here and there will be able to experience through a natural clairvoyance, as I have already characterized it, beginning with the years 1930 to 1940. Then it will continue through long periods of time as something that has become entirely natural to humanity.
The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric; Lecture I – The Event of Appearance of Christ in the Etheric World, 25 January 1910, Karlsruhe (GA 118 ).
However, is this 1910 reference to the “Damascus experience” the whole story? I started searching and found new information about the past. Recent revelations by Richard Cloud in consultation with the last remaining so called Pansophists – and confirmed by Claude Philalethes in French language – point at the possibility that Steiner learned seeing the vision of the reappearance of the Christ in the 20th century from his esoteric teacher “Master M”. Steiner identified “M” in his famous Barr Document but never revealed his identity, probably as he was bound to secrecy. Is this a secret Ottmar was curious about? The intriguing Barr document written by Steiner played a role in an earlier Anthropopper post where Jeremy Smith recalled his life-changing meeting with Sir George Trevelyan at Findhorn.
In addition to professor Karl Julius Schroer, brought to our attention by Steve Hale, and the herbalist Felix Kogutzki, who, in my understanding, guided Steiner respectively to Goethe and to the perception of life forces in Nature, it may have been, according to the, for me, unknown Richard Cloud, “Master M” who guided Steiner to the phenomenon of the reappearance of the Christ, not in a physical body but in the etheric world. Who was “Master M”?
Remarkably, first Cloud – with consent conveyed to him because 100 years have passed and thus the secret can safely be revealed – identifies “Master M” as an occult teacher with the name Alois Mailander (1844 – 1905). Mailander, according to the research of Cloud, was known in esoteric circles as “M” or brother Johannes/John. He was an illiterate mystic who lived in southern Germany and had gathered around him students. Rudolf Steiner may have been one of these students.
Later Richard Cloud even postulates, to my astonishment – in an article 24 August 2018 – that Alois Mailander may have been the incarnated Christian Rosenkreutz …
http://pansophers.com/dem-m-revealed/
http://pansophers.com/alois-mailander/
Leaving this revelation without passing on a judgment for the time being (maybe Jeremy can open a post on this) the question still arises what is “Pansophy”? Where does it originate from?
Here is what Rudolf Steiner says:
Very few people today know that Amos Comenius was the actual founder of the modern pedagogy (…). A book by Friedrich Eckstein entitled Comenius and the Bohemian Brothers was recently published. Friedrich Eckstein is one of those people who was united with me in a small theosophical group in Vienna at the end of the 1880’s. [Eckstein was a known student of Mailander – addition Hans]. Then he went his own way and I had not heard of him until this book about Amos Comenius appeared. These 150 wood cuts from the original edition are given with German and Latin texts. Here you have wood cuts beginning with God, the world, heaven, the elementals, the elements, plants, fruits, animals, the human body and its members, etc., all of which was put in such a way as to appeal to the heart. This sort of presentation still appeals very much to people. Herder and Goethe loved all this in their childhood. The whole way of writing children’s books rests upon Amos Comenius. He was connected with many secret brotherhoods all over Europe and he wanted to establish what he called his “Pan Sophia”. In the beginning of our period, in the 16th, 17th century, we have in Amos Comenius a human being who knew that now is the time for a sudden change, that one must transmute all the knowledge from earlier times into the form of external intellect. You do not simply continue it in the form of the ancient tradition. This tradition rests upon that which was the Temple architecture. Amos Comenius had as his task translating (this) in his “Pan Sophia” (…). (…). And so we want to establish a school of wisdom, a universal wisdom, a “Pan Sophia” wisdom so that one can say that that which is in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, which was represented in the Wander Years, is a continuation of what Amos Comenius wanted.
Things in Past and Present in the Spirit of Man, Lecture V: Comenius and the Temple of PanSofia, Dornach, 11 April 1916, GA 167
This quote not only is most intriguing in terms of giving possible credibility to the above mentioned revelations – to be checked – from the source of the remaining Pansophists; the reference to Comenius provides, in my opinion, a welcome opportunity for positioning the Waldorf school impulse of Rudolf Steiner in both an inspiring historic as well as a universalist (albeit within the Christian tradition) perspective, beyond the often repeated framework of “German idealism”.
It’s also remarkable that Comenius (1592 – 1670), a wandering Czech free-thinker and bishop of the Bohemian brotherhood, lived for many years in the Amsterdam canal house, Keizersgracht, where more recently one of the probably most important libraries of Rosicrucian and other esoteric literature is based, the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica,now under the name of “Embassy of the Free Mind”. This library was built up piece by piece by businessman Joost Ritman and his family. One of the sons is chairman of the umbrella organization of Dutch Buddhist organisations, and active in the European Buddhist Union (EBU).
Also interesting from my personal perspective is that, as a coordinator I worked at the youth centre cum jazz club in the 70s exactly opposite, across the canal from the present building. In that time the library was not yet accessible by the public but I had been told about it by my meditation teacher and in a dream visited the attics of the library when it was still based at a much smaller house nearby.
Recently I bought in Amsterdam a copy of the Dutch translation of Via Lucis, the way of the Light, which Comenius wrote in London.
More information about Johann Amos Comenius and his “College of Light” can be found in an article of Rachel Ritman through this link:
https://www.ritmanlibrary.com/the-ritman-library-team/the-college-of-light/
From this point about resonances with the past, I would like to come back to Gauren’s very helpful critical observation, where I made the realization of the reappearance of the Christ in the etheric world conditional to humanity’s awareness of it. Here are some interesting quotes from Steiner to clarify the issue:
Christ will exist in the earthly sphere as an etheric being. It depends upon the human being how he establishes a relationship to Him. On the appearance of Christ Himself, therefore, no one, no initiate however mighty, has any influence. It will come. I beg that you hold firmly to this. Arrangements can be made, however, for receiving this Christ event in this way or that, for making it effective.
When we speak in this way, we feel what anthroposophy should and can mean to us, how it should prepare us to fulfill our task by seeing to it that a sublime event such as this not pass humanity by, leaving no trace behind. If it were to pass without leaving a trace, humanity would forfeit its most important possibility for evolution and would sink into darkness and gradual death. This event can bring light to human beings only if they awaken to this new perception and thereby open themselves also to the new Christ event.
Humanity will be granted a period of about 2,500 years in which to develop these faculties; 2,500 years will be at his disposal to attain etheric vision as a natural, universal human faculty, until human beings advance again to another faculty in another time of transition. During these 2,500 years, more and more human souls will be able to develop these faculties in themselves. (At other instances he speaks about 3000 years counted from 600 before Christ).
Humanity is called upon to develop ever-higher faculties, however, so that the course of evolution may be able, again and again, to make new leaps.
Christ will be there in order that He can be experienced also on these higher stages of knowledge. Christianity is in this connection not at the end but at the beginning of its influence. Humanity will continue to advance from stage to stage, and Christianity will also be there at every stage in order that it may satisfy the deepest requirements of the human soul throughout all future ages of the earth.
These and later quotes, if not mentioned otherwise, are from the first three lectures of GA 118: The Reappearance of Christ in the Etheric
Lecture I – The Event of Appearance of Christ in the Etheric World, 25 January 1910, Karlsruhe
Lecture II – Spiritual Science as Preparation for a New Etheric Vision, 27 January 1910, Karlsruhe
Lecture III – Buddhism and Pauline Christianity, 27 February, Cologne
Whereas Steiner himself taught about it for less than two decades, he said this vision would be further announced later in the 20thcentury. Now, how culturally specific is the prediction that the Maitreya Buddha would incarnate as a ‘Bodhisattva of the 20thcentury’ announcing ‘the re-appearance of the Christ in the etheric’?
This question may lead us to exploring the possibility of an evolution in the understanding of what bodhisattvas are, in particular how the bodhisattva principle increasingly is being socialized. Can we speak of a nucleus of bodhisattvas and can it include every ones’ efforts, small and big. It would release us from the obsession to find THE Bodhisattva, without becoming uncritical. What unites us is more important than what divides us. We may, in the search to find an answer, also explore acceptance of pluriformity in our assumptions of how reincarnation actually works. Does it happen with intervals of 300 years? In a 100 years rhythm – does each century has its Maitreya Bodhisattva – ? Or can re-birth be realized a few years after death, as is the case with Tibetan lamas?
For reflections on these issues it may be helpful to identify some milestones in human evolution in the 20thcentury and relevant for our dialogue.
Ultimately we will have to settle a meaningful consensus on how to share the universality of the Christ impulse – and impulses coming from other spiritual manifestations like the Buddha – in the context of a global multi-cultural, inter-religious civil society, based on free inquiry. Is the striving for “sustainability” our common goal?
Rudolf Steiner speaks of an initial consciousness leap to take place around 1930 – 1940 with a period of 2500 years to bring it to fruition. Steiner mentioned these years were not to be taken exactly. He may not have foreseen the enormous disaster of World War II which delayed the course of events. While searching for anchor points in time I come to a possible timeframe for further research. Of course the evolution of consciousness plays out at various fronts. One of the possible areas for finding such demarcation points, in a threefold worldview (which I will address later in this concluding post), is that of governance and law.
From this governance perspective, a milestone in the evolution of humanity’s consciousness certainly is the post-War formulation and adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the year 1948. And one can say that this human achievement to end and prevent disaster was preceded half a century earlier by the First Hague Peace conference of 1899 (the approximate year that, according to Steiner, the ‘Dark Age’ of Kali Yuga ended): a first step towards building global governance and law materialized in the construction of the Peace Palace.
A decade after 1948 – in 1957 – another milestone occurred. The Buddhist world celebrated the “2500 commemoration of the Enlightenment of the Buddha”. It was not only the year that my wife was born in Thailand (where we live now in the year 2561), it was the first time that the Dalai Lama travelled to India to join, as a 22 year old lama, the festive commemorations in New Delhi. Two years later he had to take refuge in India. Tibet had been occupied and the revolt against China failed. The Dalai Lama remained in exile in India for the rest of his life. The year 1957 marked the unique turning point from the influence of the Gautema Buddha to that of the Maitreya Buddha to be incarnated 2500 years later. The realization of (genuine) sustainability – the reappearance of the Christ in the etheric world – may need this 2500 years’ time span to come to full fruition, if I understand Steiner well.
From the 1957 celebrations in the huge Buddha Jayanti Park that was especially laid out in New Delhi for this occasion and where the still largely unknown Dalai Lama met, as a refugee, with the enormous diversity of Buddhist dignitaries he may have silently started preparing for a role as spiritual world leader. Only in 1967, at the age of 32 years, he began travelling all over the world to spread the message of Universal Responsibility – including responsibility for Nature – complementing the freshly adopted Universal Declaration of Human Rights in two ways: emphasizing responsibilities over rights and transcending anthropocentrism.
[In October 1993 the Dalai Lama inaugurated a huge Buddha statue in the park, where I was present.]
The search for universal values inevitably evokes a sharp paradox: the realisation of universality, unity, requires free, independent, individuals. Universalization does not mean (forced) surrender to one central truth. Dynamic agreement-building based on diversity and free personal consciousness goes hand in hand with simultaneous appreciation of the (spiritual) fact of absolute inter-dependence.
Can Christ be appreciated as one (for those closely connected to him: central) spiritual entity among a diversity of entities with a common mission to constitute universal responsibility? It may require collective effort of individual human beings who cultivate freedom, in order to co-create a responsible political order and a community-driven economy. The evolution of humanity towards due care for the Earth – the foundation for the community of life – is “a sacred trust”. That is how it is stipulated in the Earth Charter launched in The Hague – another milestone – 100 years after the First Hague Peace conference, and 50 years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
http://earthcharter.org/discover/the-earth-charter/
The period of these 2500 years in the evolution of consciousness starts from the initial experiencing of “the etheric”:
A conception will arise that will see the earth not in terms of purely mineral forces but in terms of plant, or what could be called etheric, forces. The plant directs its root toward the earth’s center, and its upper part stands in relation to the sun. These are the forces that make the earth what it is; gravity is only secondary. The plants preceded minerals just as coal was once plant life; this will soon be discovered. Plants give the planet its form, and they then give off the substance from which its mineral foundation originates. The beginnings of this idea were given through Goethe in his plant morphology, but he was not understood. One will gradually begin to see the etheric, because it is that which is characteristic of the plant realm.
They will behold the etheric earth from which the plant world springs up. (…). He who possesses this science in the highest degree is the Maitreya Buddha, who will come in approximately 3,000 years (if counted from what is now identified as the beginning of the anthropocene; addition Hans). (…) This will all lead human beings to know in which direction they must go. You must undertake to transform abstract ideas into concrete ideals in order to contribute to an evolution that moves forward.
Lecture III – Buddhism and Pauline Christianity, 27 February, Cologne
Experience is essential for this conception. I am grateful to Steve and Kathy that they hinted at personal accounts of how in their life they experienced the highest etheric presence, a “bodhisattva momentum” or a Damascus event. These experiences, by the way, could be less rare than we may think. Sir Alister Hardy (1896 – 1985) made a public appeal to volunteer participation in research on spontaneous “religious” experiences and was overwhelmed by the response.
So, I owe Steve and Kathy that I try to tell something of my own experiences. I have two experiences I can try to share and they come together in what I try to advocate: “engaged Buddhism”; and “engaged spirituality” where anthroposophy leads the way. One experience is about meditation. I admitted earlier to Tom Hart Shea that I am not comfortable with the First Class mantrams or other anthroposophical exercises. They are so “Rudolf Steiner”. I love the uniqueness and personality of Steiner and feel deeply inspired to act upon the second part of The philosophy of freedom. But although I find confirmation of meditative insight in the first part of the book, for the actual meditation I resort to the more “de-personalized” approach of Vipassana Bhavana.
Around my 33rd year I did my first ten-days Vipassana retreat at a small attic of what later would become the Thai temple in a bigger building. It is hard to communicate the core meditative experiences that resulted, and it is also recommended not to do so. But I found a beautiful reference in a, to my eyes, very important article to which Steve Hale linked us in his post, 22 June 2018, for which I am very grateful. I reproduce the reference here with the comment that my insights in no way did match this level of sophistication.
In “The scientific credibility of anthroposophy” Jost Schieren summarizes parts of the work of Herbert Witzenmann (1905 – 1988), an early (often criticized) leader of the Social Sciences Section.
(…) the ontological sphere of the world has to nullify itself in the human organisation. Witzenmann describes the human neuro-sensory system as an organ for the nullification of the spirit brought about by ontological evolution. It places the human being before the nothingness of sensory perception, so that in the free act of knowing he can undertake a re-constitution of reality. It is a kind of null-pointand as such a point from which human cognition can proceed unconditionally. There are – as Rudolf Steiner points out in The philosophy of freedom – two different ways of doing this: on the one hand, through the perceptsdelivered by the sensory organization; and on the other, through autonomously generated thinking. By using meditation to practice inner observation and thus developing his ability to work with these two poles of human cognition – perceptionand thinking– the human being takes hold of a new freedom-based mode of constituting both self and world.
The scientific credibility of anthroposophy, Jost Schieren, RoSE – Research on Steiner Education, Vol. 2, 2011.
Inner observation as described here, is a required exercise to lay the foundation for scientific research that in the same time can do justice to anthroposophy as well as satisfy mainstream science, according to Schieren. Sunyata, nothingness,is also a concrete, intimate – and at my age then, life defining – meditation experience in a person’s biography.
I feel that it is scientific rigour, maybe derived from the point Witzenmann describes, which distinguishes the mathematician Elisabeth Vreede from Adolf Arenson, a merchant and composer, and makes them arrive at different conclusions on the possible shared identity of the earmarked Bodhisattva and Rudolf Steiner. Later Sergei Prokofieff fortifies Arenson’s vision in a context of modern conservative anthroposophy.
My second personal experience related to the subject came at the age of 39. Location: CREAR at Rio Limpio, Dominican Republic where I did my Emerson College rural development internship. I learned more than ever in my life in that period. I did not have a good relationship with founder and leader of CREAR Mark Feedman and working in the garden (with passionate “double digging”) in the tropical climate was hardship. One day I observed from a distance how Mark, he liked to do things on his own, sprayed the land by hand with the 503 cow manure preparation. Suddenly a strong golden glance arose from the soil and I “heard”: “this is my body” … I experienced something happening which earlier had fascinated me and had explored as transubstantiation…
Given the reference Rudolf Steiner makes to the etheric, revealing itself in the “Damascus experience” of Paul in the first quote of this contribution, it is interesting to learn that modern researchers question whether the Last Supper ritual was initiated as such by Christ or later inserted by Paul.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_the_Eucharist
Christianity evokes the narrative of God the Father becoming a human being, his Son the Christ. While in our era the Christ is reappearing as body of the Earth. This is an evolutionary need to counter extreme materialism, industrialization/digitalisation and commercialisation. In its realization the transformation loses earlier gender implications, unifies with the nearly forgotten but especially in Latin American very strong “buen vivir” movement around the vivid reality of Mother Earth. Evolving into what the Earth Charter determines as “community of life” and how it can be co-created.
Rudolf Steiner gave a series of 10 lectures, March 1913, in The Hague. Later in the same year the Peace Palace would be opened. Steiner must have walked around the nearly finished building. In May he traveled to Dornach and suddenly decided to start the construction of the First Goetheanum.
In conclusion some comments on Buddhism and Anthroposophy.
A study group was initiated on this theme by Dharmacharya (authorized teacher in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh) Ha Vinh Tho who studied eurythmy in Dornach for many years. The first meeting was attended by 11 persons, among whom my wife Wallapa and I, in the old emperor’s city of Hué, Vietnam, March 2001. Later we introduced Tho to our friends in Bhutan where he became a well-known teacher and programme director of the Gross National Happiness center.
The Bodhisattva is a Being who passes through all civilisations, who can manifest Himself to mankind in various ways. Such is the Spirit of the Bodhisattvas.
Now the mysteries always make appropriate preparation for the corresponding duty of mankind. Every age has its special task; and every age has to receive the truth in the particular form needed by that epoch.
The East in the Light of the West, 31st August 1909, Munich
Anthroposophy derived, with its assimilations, the concepts of Karma and Reincarnation from Buddhism. Contemporary understandings of Karma and Reincarnation guide “engaged Buddhism” in similar ways as in anthroposophy.
A man who has assimilated these ideas knows: According to what I was in life, I shall have an effect upon everything that takes place in the future, upon the whole civilisation of the future! Something that up to now has been present in a limited degree only — the feeling of responsibility — is extended beyond the bounds of birth and death by knowledge of reincarnation and karma. The feeling of responsibility is intensified, imbued with the deep moral consequences of these ideas.
Reincarnation and Karma, GA135, 5thMarch 1912, Berlin
In addition to Karma and Reincarnation, anthroposophists, like the former chair of the Anthroposophical Society in the Netherlands, Joop van Dam, have studied, practiced and published on the Eightfold Path. What has been less researched is the perceived resonance between the Tri Ratna or Three Jewels in Buddhism and the principle of threefolding as developed by Rudolf Steiner. (See my book The Wellbeing Society. A Radical Middle Path to Global Transformation.) The Tri Ratna is the most central, essential, spiritual entity in all streams of Buddhism. Buddhists take (everyday) refuge to the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha.
Since my first visit to the Goetheanum in 1976 I have been intrigued by possible similarities between threefolding and the Buddhist Tri Ratna. Only by exchanges in the context of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB) with leaders of the Ambedkar movement in India, I got some external confirmation of possible resonance. Who was Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (1891 – 1956)? Born a dalit, an untouchable, low-cast, in a family with 14 children, he was given opportunities to study in India and abroad, and became a prominent law expert and political rival of M. K. Gandhi.
Ambedkar was of the opinion that Gandhi did not go far enough in the emancipation of the untouchables. After independence Ambedkar was given the task to draft the constitution of democratic India. Ultimately he found that becoming a Buddhist was the only way to positively liberate himself from the caste system. In 1956, just before he died, he took refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha and triggered a mass conversion movement among untouchables.
Upon the question how it could be that in his draft for the preamble of the constitution the three values of the French Revolution were so clearly recognizable, he replied that these were not the values of the French Revolution but it was purely Buddhism that had guided him.
I think here is a key to fresh collaboration between Anthroposophy and Buddhism. The Buddha symbolizes personal liberation and responsible freedom; the Dhamma stands for the laws of Nature and Karma to whom we all are equal; and the Sangha, in its narrow sense, the monastic order of monks and nuns, harbours in a broader sense the value of true brother- and sisterhood, the spirit of community.
A concrete affirmative response to the growing recognition of life-forces and the etheric in Nature, as an urgently needed expression of resilience vis-à-vis materialistic destruction, can be jointly shaped – in a universal context – with the help of modern insights on threefolding.
More concretely threefolding addresses: the challenges of freedom as well as responsibility of citizens; sovereignty of nation-states; and property rights in the economic sphere. All three have to be reframed.
Christopher Weeramantry, Sri Lanka (1926 – 2017), Vice President of the International Court of Justice, The Hague, himself a Christian, said about property:
(…) concepts such as ownership are often taught and conceived in Western jurisprudence as being of absolutist nature, which is the very antithesis of the Buddhist approach to these concepts. Their stress on rights overshadows the accompanying concept of duties, and the latter is what Buddhist teaching tends to emphasize. This elevated concept of duties lies at the heart of the notion of trusteeship.
C.G. WeeramantryTread Lightly on the Earth. Religion, the Environment and the Human Nature, Stanford Lake, 2014 (second print)
And the Constitution of Bhutan (2008), the last Buddhist kingdom in the Himalayas, stipulates:
Every Bhutanese is a trustee of the Kingdom’s natural resources and environment for the benefit of the present and future generations.
Earth Trusteeship implies that all global citizens are equal trustees of the Earth. A new threefold world order will be based on Earth Trusteeship.
Regressive trends of our time, like Brexit (sorry Steve), are based on the old paradigm of sovereignty of the nation-state and accompanying nationalism.
We need to turn to the new paradigm of Earth Trusteeship.
Martin Large formulates, more concretely:
Social threefolding can also help answer the question of the conditions for organisational success. For example, community land trusts (CLT) are well grounded on threefolding principles. They secure the land as a commons or right into the trusteeship of a civil society, non-profit body, whilst leasing the right to use the land to a homeowner, who owns the actual ‘house structure’ standing on the land. The homeowner is able to sell or buy the house, but not the land, to qualified buyers. CLT thinking sees the house as a commodity and the land as a commons held in trust, so that land ‘value’ is captured for community, rather than for private benefit.
Rudolf Steiner’s Vision for our Social Future: Openings for Social Threefolding by Martin Large, New View magazine, issue 81, Autumn 2016.
Jeremy may have news about the Emerson College gathering in 2020.*
* Not yet – but I hope to have some preliminary information by Spring 2019. J.
anthropopper 
Dear Hans,
This second entry in your guest posting on the Jeremy blog is a wonderful display of discernment, and yet, in order to give it an adequate treatment from a spiritual-scientific standpoint we would need to honor it as a pie, and then cut it into 12 pieces in order to relish all that it contains. It says a great deal, and I myself over the last few years have addressed some of the content that you address. The identity of the so-called “master” in Rudolf Steiner’s life was gone over in the “Operation Redemption” essay from May 2016, and thanks for looking back at that. Yet, it can be shown that Steiner never entered Germany until 1890, when he went to Weimar for seven years, and then to Berlin in 1898. So, it is highly doubtful that he ever met Alois Mailander (1843-1905).
Yet, the mysterious M, or “Master”, from the Barr document is worth a piece of the pie that you so graciously give us. Now, if you look at the second entry in this three-part biographical sketch given to Edouard Schure in 1907, this is the one that characterizes CRC’s mission to make public the esoteric knowledge that had been kept secret for some 1500 years in the Rosicrucian schools. The pretext for this revelation was the materialism of the 19th century. And, we know that only Rudolf Steiner conducted this public dissemination in the first quarter of the 20th century, c. 1900-1925.
So, we have our candidate for Christian Rosenkreutz in the very being of Rudolf Steiner himself. And, of course, this would mean a lot if we were to trace the past lives of CRC to where he first was an individual at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. Steiner reveals this in the lecture of 27 September 1911, GA130, when the Christian Rosenkreutz branch was established at Neuchatel. Thus, CRC was first a disciple of Christ, Who walked the earth in that little district of Palestine for three years in the body of Jesus of Nazareth.
This is my initial contribution to this second guest post, Hans, and consider it a piece of the pie, which has eleven more pieces to slice.
As an aside, let me say that I am only a fan of Brexit because of Jeremy’s affiliation of what it means to him. And that says a lot. Yet, anything that takes three years to put into effect, and still requires the approval of the EU in Belgium, is already a lost cause. It was the idea of “mindful markets” vs. the ‘Chequers Plan’ that made me ask that question.
Steve
LikeLike
Hans, you mentioned that “a study group was initiated on this theme by Dharmacharya (authorized teacher in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh) Ha Vinh Tho who studied eurythmy in Dornach for many years.”
This is important because Thich Nhat Hanh was recognized by both Martin Luther King, who nominated him for the Nobel Prize in 1967, as well as Thomas Merton, who met with him also in order to establish the idea of an engaged spirituality.
“Thomas Merton and Thich Nhat Hanh : engaged spirituality in an age of globalization”. Robert King, 2001.
Yet, it can be shown that this very effort of “engaged spirituality” on the part of Thomas Merton would lead to his tragic, sudden, and accidental death on 10 December 1968 near Bangkok, Thailand. His goal was to either bring a kind of engaged Buddhism back to America, in order to achieve a kind of bridge between east and west, or simply absorb himself into the eastern tradition. Since his avowed faith in Catholicism was his anchor in this endeavor, he died rather than making it complete. Yet, in many letters and other correspondence over the years from 1941 to 1968, Thomas Merton sought this very kind of communion between east and west. Then, he died suddenly on 10 December 1968.
LikeLike
Hans, you also mentioned something that seems to be of real importance. The year 1957. You wrote:
“The year 1957 marked the unique turning point from the influence of the Gautama Buddha to that of the Maitreya Buddha to be incarnated 2500 years later. The realization of (genuine) sustainability – the reappearance of the Christ in the etheric world – may need this 2500 years’ time span to come to full fruition, if I understand Steiner well.”
Well, no, you don’t understand Steiner well, Hans. What Steiner said was that when Siddhartha Gautama rose to the rank of Buddha in 531 BC, at the age of 29 years, that the ‘Tiara’ was passed immediately to his successor, who would begin the advent of the Maitreya lineage. Thus, we have had some 24 incarnations of the Maitreya Bodhisattva from then until 1957. So, indeed, 1957 represents the midpoint in the incarnations of the Maitreya Bodhisattva.
So, when Steiner predicted that the Maitreya Bodhisattva would incarnate in a human body in the 20th century, ref. “From Jesus to Christ, lecture X, he knew only that it was unknown at the time, and that it would be unknown in its being when it occurred. And yet, he said that the Bodhisattva makes itself known by its word and deed, and this is very evident, even to vacant eyes and unhearing ears.
Now, please consider this to be the third piece of the pie of your second magisterial post, and yet I only write with fire and enthusiasm. The other nine pieces might also have to come forth out of the same, and it is hoped for.
LikeLike
Steve, your argument of the years that Steiner was in Germany is not strong. He knew already in Vienna from Eckstein about Mailander. And if Rudolf Steiner was the incarnated CRC (!) (did anybody postulate that before?), we still don’t know who was “Master M”?
LikeLike
Steve, thank you for what you wrote on Thich Nhat Hanh, Thomas Merton and Martin Luther King. Thich Nhat Hanh stays in Thailand now as the climate is better for him in his condition and at his age. And he is closer to Vietnam.
LikeLike
Hans, you had said that Alois Mailander lived in Southern Germany, and died in 1905. Rudolf Steiner’s first visit to Germany was in 1888, when he went to Weimar (central Germany) in regard to the Goethe-Schiller archives. He would relocate there in 1890. Now, according to his autobiography, Mein Lebensgang, he first met Friedrich Eckstein in Vienna in 1888, ref. Ch. IX. Eckstein was part of the circle of Marie Lang, and Steiner would further elaborate his relationship to Eckstein in Ch. XXIX, wherein the issue of secrecy vs. public dissemination of esoteric knowledge is the focal point, and why they had no future after those early days in 1888. Eckstein believed in strict withholding of esoteric knowledge from the public, while Steiner clearly conveys his mission to make it a matter of public disclosure.
In the 2nd biographical sketch given to Edouard Schure in September 1907, ref. Barr Document, Steiner clearly indicates that “The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, anno 1459” is meant to undergo a metamorphosis from east to west in order to prepare for the time in which certain indicators of the materialism of the 19th century would necessitate that the Rosicrucian wisdom, kept secret for some 1500 years, be made available to the public. Thus, Anthroposophical Spiritual Science is this transformed ‘chymical wedding’, and, as Steiner clarifies in the 29th chapter of his autobiography, this was to be his life’s mission.
Steiner made his transition into the esoteric milieu of the theosophical circle there in Berlin (northern Germany) in 1900, prior to which he had been the editor of a literary magazine, and adult educator since moving there in 1898. His earliest exposure to southern Germany could have only occurred around the time of the death of Alois Mailander in 1905.
As to the identity of the “Master”, there has been much discussion of this over recent years, and most of it very private on an intimate level of consideration. Steiner reveals three very important occurrences in his life in the lecture given on 4 February 1913 in Berlin: “Self-Education, Autobiographical Recollections From Youth to Weimar.” Herein, he tells of what first occurred when he was just a little boy living in Pottschach, Hungary. His family didn’t move to Austria until 1879. Thus, he recounts three incidents in his life, all very influential in leading him to the so-called “Master”. Only the third, which involves the meeting with the herb-gatherer on the train into Vienna, c. 1879, is well known. The later collaboration with Karl Julius Schroer can also be added to this “list of emissaries” relative to the “Master”.
Yet, this so-called “Master” has been shown to be much more than just another relevant esoteric student with the last name beginning with ‘M’. Now, isn’t that what motivates Richard Cloud on a very superficial level? Yet, what if it can be shown that when Rudolf Steiner was first able to reveal that there were two Jesus children needed to prepare for the entry of Christ into Earth evolution, that one of these two would become the Master Jesus?
His description of this being for the further development of Christianity is given in lecture VII of “The Gospel of St, Luke, GA114. Nowhere else did he ever define its meaning and intent since then. Yet, Steiner would often refer to himself as a kind of “open secret” throughout his career,
LikeLike
Dear Steve and all,
Thank you for seeing a cake in my contribution and let’s celebrate by critical exchanges and further inquiry. Thank you for that!
I made two mistakes (and more smaller typos). One is that I introduced the Dalai Lama in 1957 as a refugee. That was true in 1959 but not yet before that.
Second is: please ignore the reference to the “anthropocene” (in brackets) somewhere. That is an approach that would need a better introduction and has a different timeframe than how I tried to insert it.
I am happy that you tackle the cake piece by piece, Steve, and everybody please join the party.
LikeLike
I will come back to the “mindful markets” movement later.
LikeLike
Hans, thank you so much for Part two. I do agree the experience we are trying to grasp is “less rare than we think”. In fact I’ve come to think it is happening all the time. The problem is we so often stuff it into our “Shadow” before we become conscious of it. I learned this through applying a psychotherapeutic technique suggested by Abraham Maslow. He taught that people can be helped to remember these experiences if what they are expressing in therapy is reflected back to them in images.
I’d like to describe what happened the first time I used the technique (it’s more graphic and stunning than most of the subsequent attempts). 19 year-old Marie came to me for treatment for depression and anxiety following being raped on campus in her freshman year. After verbally using images to reflect to her what she was telling me, suddenly she looked up, wide-eyed (an “ah ha” moment) and told me an experience she had completely forgotten: several years ago when she was a junior in high school she broke her foot playing soccer and her grandmother, with whom she was living, took her home from the emergency room. Because her foot was so swollen they could not yet put a cast on it. Grandma helped her hop up stairs to her bedroom and went back down to make her supper. Marie heard her grandmother fall down the stairs. She went downstairs and found her unconscious and called 911. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital the EMT asked Marie many questions and Marie answered them all. Wide-eyed, Marie told me – “but I didn’t know those things! – I didn’t know her birth date, or maiden name or what medicines she took and how much – I didn’t know – but I knew! – and I told them. And she said she was so calm it was as though “someone else” came out in her when she most needed it. And, she said (the last thing she had forgotten) – when it was over and Grandma was OK – Marie’s ankle wasn’t broken anymore.
After reclaiming these impossible memories, Marie’s anxiety and depression were gone. After what she knew was possible – was real – how could a rape destroy her? I think this is the living Christ working etherically in us and through us.
LikeLike
Kathy, thank you so much for this moving and miraculous story.
At another level, let’s celebrate the Nobel Peace Prize for Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege. Interestingly, Denis received the Right Livelihood Award some years ago, which he shares with our “heros” (“bodisattavas”?) Vandana Shiva, Nicanor Perlas, Frances Moore Lappe, BioVision/Hans Herren, Sulak Sivaraksa and the late SEKEM/Ibrahim Abouleish and Sir George Trevelyan.
LikeLike
And Petra Kelly of course.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Concerning Alois Mailander, and his supposed relation to the ‘Master’ that Rudolf Steiner had indicated, ref. blog comment: https://anthropopper.wordpress.com/2018/10/06/guest-post-the-bodhisattva-question-part-2-some-conclusions-and-further-thoughts/#comment-5569
I thought it would be pertinent to look over exactly what Steiner said in the first installment of the biographical sketch written for Edouard Schure in September 1907. Herein, he names the ‘M’ [Master] twice, and how it related to his early school development:
“My attention was drawn to Kant at an early stage. At fifteen and sixteen I studied Kant intensively, and before going on to college in Vienna I had an intense interest in Kant’s early nineteenth century orthodox followers, who have been completely forgotten by official historians of thought in Germany and are rarely mentioned. In addition, I immersed myself in Fichte and Schelling. During this period and this is already due to external spiritual influences I gained complete understanding of the concept of time. This knowledge was in no way connected with my studies and was guided totally by the spiritual life. I understood that there is regressing evolution, the occult-astral, which interferes with the progressing one. This knowledge is the precondition of spiritual clairvoyance. Then came acquaintance with the agent of the M. [the Master]. Then intensive study of Hegel. Then the study of modern philosophy as it developed from the 1850’s onward in Germany, particularly the so-called Theory of Knowledge with all its various branches. My boyhood passed in such a way that, although no one consciously planned it, I never met anyone who was superstitious. If I did hear anyone speak of superstitious things, the emphasis was always strongly on their rejection. Although I became familiar with church worship, in that I took part in it as a so-called altar-boy, nowhere did I meet true piety and religiosity, not even among the priests whom I knew. On the contrary, I continuously saw certain negative traits of the Catholic clergy. I did not meet the M. [the Master] immediately, but first an emissary who was completely initiated into the secrets of the plants and their effects, and into their connection with the cosmos and human nature. Contact with the spirits of nature was something self-evident for him, about which he talked without enthusiasm, but he aroused enthusiasm all the more.”
Now, my only point (at this point) is to merely say that nothing here indicated in any way seems to be even remotely hinting at a person with the last name beginning with the letter ‘M’, e.g. Mailander. Rather, it seems that Steiner is referring more to a kind of supersensible being as the ‘Master’. This is the impression that I have always gotten in considering this biographical extract.
As well, more esoteric indications place Rudolf Steiner in the middle between Master Jesus, considered as the ‘red thread’ throughout evolutionary history, and CRC [Christian Rosenkreutz] as the ‘blue thread’.
Now, since it has been revealed that CRC was formerly Lazarus at the time of Christ, ref. GA265, and prior to that incarnation, Hiram Abiff, who built the interior design of Solomon’s Temple, c. 967 BC, we can begin to see why Rudolf Steiner felt the need to further reveal his “open secret” not long after the Goetheanum was burnt to the ground on the morning of 1 January 1923. This is when his etheric body began to withdraw and go up with the flames, and yet, he would fight with an extraordinary will to curb the withdrawal in order to remain on earth in order to complete his mission.
Yet, a year later, on 1 January 1924, he would suffer a very serious physical attack, often attributed to being poisoned, that would cause his etheric body to withdraw without his own ability to keep it intact. Thus, he became incapacitated by late September 1924, and could only stand up briefly on 28 September 1924 in order to give his last address on Elijah, John, Rafael, Novalis. Now, herein, with this lecture, Steiner reveals finally and for the last time, what the mystery of Lazarus-John really means.
Now, isn’t that extraordinary that he would have waited so long to reveal its true meaning?
LikeLike
Dear Steve, Jeremy and all,
Steve’s reference to the last lecture Rudolf Steiner ever held is the right point to definitely conclude my posts. Steiner remains an infinite enigma for me. That is maybe why I love him so much. The more I study his teachings, the more question I have. As long as explanations are “conceivable but not verifiable” (Jost Schieren) we better leave all options open for further contemplation.
One comment I still owe you both. I went to Jeremy’s post May 7, 2017 on Brexit and I read it with great respect and admiration. The description you give, Jeremy, of the European summit in The Hague in 1948 (in the same year that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted elsewhere) shows England’s participation in Europe was never an easy marriage. But in terms of the media narrative of a “divorce”, the step that has been missing is that the British people never asked their counterparts in Europe whether they wanted to split up with England. No, Europe did desperately not want that. Europe needs the invincible, authentic, British spirit so much!
This should not have been decided by a simple majority vote, but by 2/3, as close as possible to consensus, as it is a constitutional question.
The description you give of the devastating agriculture policy of Europe (let’s hope it is changing, like in France, more and more towards “agro-ecology”) hits hard. One of the bizarre twists and turns of history is that Petra Kelly had a relationship with Sicco Mansholt, the Dutch architect of the European “Green Revolution”.
Sure, no nationalism at your side, but unfortunately Brexit may indeed induce nationalism more than we like. We may fall back to defense of our fatherland instead of care for Mother Earth. Is the growing consciousness and experiencing of the etheric body of the Earth a badly needed gesture of resilience? A last resort?
So, let’s connect across borders as “Earth trustees” and with common intent to empower anthroposophy as a service to the common good. Threefolding (and in our language “mindful markets”) is something we can offer if we develop it more systematically. Exchanges between Europe, England (to be wed newly with the USA?) and contemporary wisdom of the East can generate new perspectives.
Thank you for generously allowing me to use your precious space and the good reputation of your blog.
LikeLike
Dear Hans,
I am very grateful to you for your two guest posts, as well as for your attention and replies to comments received. To quote from someone who wrote to me today: “It is such an inspiring piece… Universal Responsibility and the plurality of the Bodhisattva are covered so beautifully.”
I agree completely with you that nationalism is very unhelpful and I view with despair the current mood across the world which is resulting in the election of odious people to positions of leadership in several nation-states. As I mentioned in a comment on an earlier post, I’ve been surprised by how easy it is for people to misunderstand my position on Brexit, although I recognise that the case I make for Brexit is not the one made by most Leavers. I do not have the slightest interest in Brexit for nationalistic reasons. My view is that the EU has made a fundamental mistake in not only trying to establish a superstate but also in trying to do this without the consent of the peoples.
As an anthroposophist, I’ve tried to work out what Rudolf Steiner would have been aiming for, and I set that out in the penultimate paragraph of my post of 7th May 2017. My advocacy of Brexit is both a recognition of the anti-democratic unreasonableness of the EU’s current set-up and also a faint hope that the shock caused by Britain leaving the EU will encourage some far-seeing European leaders to reform the EU along the lines set out in that paragraph – and if that happens, as mentioned, I will be a fervent advocate for Britain to re-join the union.
Very best wishes,
Jeremy
LikeLike
Jeremy, I would like to draw attention to this comment, which comes after hearing that Hans has [apparently] accomplished all that he intended in discoursing with the folks on the Anthropopper blog. This saddens me because I saw it as a kind of new initiative in which those of the active Buddhist persuasion could meet their equal counterpart in the active anthroposophist. As such, it was my prime interest to show that anthroposophy fully accords with Buddhism in understanding why Siddhartha Gautama rose as the last Bodhisattva in order to receive enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree in respect of the Eightfold Path.
Hans further drew attention to your blog post of 7 May 2017, in which the Brexit issue had reached its high-water mark. PM Theresa May had decided then to conduct a general election vote of the people when she was under no compulsion to do so. Yet, she did, and it proved to be a disaster in that she lost her own conservative party majority because of two carefully crafted terrorist attacks coming in the days prior to the election in early June.
Now, we should look at your own penultimate paragraph in the essay of 7 May 2017, and then proceed with something that Rudolf Steiner said in 1917:
“Were Rudolf Steiner alive today, he would not be giving his backing to the European Union as it has evolved. Why so many anthroposophists are unable to see this escapes me, because Steiner was quite clear about what should happen. He hoped for a threefold association of European nations that would themselves be threefold societies in which the cultural, legal-political and economic spheres would be clearly separated yet inter-related, his diagnosis being that Europe’s ills were caused by the interference of the three spheres with one another: business seeking to dominate the political state and the state seeking to dominate the cultural life (e.g. education). For the European level, Steiner looked forward to a common European economic life (which the EEC had started to provide), a common supranational European cultural life (which over the last fifty years has started to emerge in many ways) but to the maintenance of national values and traditions in the sphere of rights and law. It is this last point that the European Union, in its inept attempts to become a superstate, has completely failed to understand, and this is why Brexit became a necessity.”
“We may certainly say that some individuals had a notion that this war [WWI] was coming and they may have had it for many years. Generally speaking, it can be said, however, that with the exception of certain groups in the Anglo-American world, the war was completely unexpected. With those who had an idea of its coming, the idea sometimes took a very odd form. One idea, which could be found again and again, came from economists and politicians who were deep thinkers — I assure you, I am not being ironical, I am completely serious about this — and was based on careful deductions made with reference to certain events. These people proceeded in a very scientific way, combining, abstracting and making all kinds of syntheses, and finally arrived at an idea which one really did come across for a long time, even at the time when war broke out. It was that in the light of the present world situation, of economic factors and the trade situation, this war could not possibly go on for more than four or six months. This was a truth fully supported by factual evidence. And the reasons given were far from stupid; they were perfectly good reasons.” GA177, lecture VIII, 13 October 1917.
Then, we come to my own assessment of the situation in which Theresa May met with the newly elected President of the United States, Donald Trump, in January of 2017. Did he maker her an offer that she couldn’t refuse?
https://anthropopper.wordpress.com/2017/05/07/the-uks-brexit-and-anti-globalisation-general-election/#comment-3148
LikeLike
‘Sicco Mansholt, the Dutch architect of the European “Green Revolution” ‘.
Here the word ‘green’ does not mean what it later came to mean after Petra Kelly and ‘die Grünen’ came to prominence.
Whilst holding a senior post in the EC Mansholt was instrumental in promoting the use of chemical fertilisers to increase productivity. This is the ‘European Green Revolution’ referred to in Hans’s comment.
In 1975 Mansholt wrote a letter to the Chairman of the EU recognising his mistake.
“We are currently in a very severe crisis situation. What will our children and grandchildren think about the way we are now exhausting nature in all sorts of ways.” (Sicco Mansholt, 1975)
Mansholt was an exceptional leader. How many people in public life will admit that policies they had pursued previously were in fact destructive and mistaken?
http://www.ejolt.org/2014/03/growth-below-zero-in-memory-of-sicco-mansholt/
LikeLike
Steve wrote “Jeremy, I would like to draw attention to this comment, which comes after hearing that Hans has [apparently] accomplished all that he intended in discoursing with the folks on the Anthropopper blog. This saddens me because I saw it as a kind of new initiative in which those of the active Buddhist persuasion could meet their equal counterpart in the active anthroposophist.”
Steve, I certainly don’t feel that I accomplished my initiative in any way or gave up on it. But I feel we need Jeremy’s leadership in taking further steps. Indeed our challenge is to overcome the, by Tom rightly indicated as, false “Green Revolution”, still alive in all parts of the world. Our individual and collective consciousness of the reappearance in the ether body (rediscovering “life forces”) of the Earth, as well as the call for Universal Responsibility can grow and an intercultural development of the threefold social order is what we, as a movement, can cultivate and implement.
I don’t think England and Europe will re-unify within the next 20 years. So we are challenged to build new alliances including Europe and England with Asia (where I am) – in a global perspective – and I feel both the young Emerson College together with Old Plaw Hatch farm, and its cooperation with China, as well as the old Emerson with its future community of wise elders can be a “think tank” and training centre in this perspective.
And I hope Elisabeth Vreede centre in the Netherlands can become a sisterly “co-design” platform in particular on “Earth Trusteeship”.
An encouraging sign of new life is the emergence of the World Goetheanum Association.
LikeLike
I think the call for “Brexit” was a mistake, and it was a mistake precisely for the reason that it came from the conservative party itself, which would have been against any such idea in the first place. So, apparently Cameron was goaded into offering this special referendum vote, and then when it won by a very slim majority, he resigned quickly and his home secretary, Theresa May, was appointed as his successor as PM. Now, all she had to do is say that she didn’t agree with this bit of business, and take another vote, and yet she has tried for over two years now to achieve a kind of plan for leaving the EU when she doesn’t even want it in the first place. So, why can’t leaders be honest in the first place?
Tom mentioned Mansholt as an exceptional leader here:
“Mansholt was an exceptional leader. How many people in public life will admit that policies they had pursued previously were in fact destructive and mistaken?”
To me, what makes an exceptional leader is to have the vision for what will make for a perfect world, albeit knowing at the same time that it will not be achieved because of the human condition. Simply admitting one’s mistakes does not make for an exceptional leader, but only an honest man who admits having failed the vision.
In other words, any idea of a kind of watered-down version of Brexit, which is contained in May’s ‘Chequers Plan’, is tantamount to saying that a half-truth or quarter-truth is better than no truth at all. It isn’t, and it would have been better if the issue of Brexit had not been started at all.
LikeLike
I think it is important to draw attention to two very significant occurrences within recent earth evolution, and they both have to do with the human factor. The first has to do with what Rudolf Steiner reveals in his lectures on the destructive forces that came to prominence with World War I; ref. GA177, and wherein he speaks of the elementary beings and forces of the world that sits just adjacent to our everyday physical world. Within this world of the elemental spirits, it became possible to conjure the destructive powers of nature in order to produce a world war. Of course, it would also require the fallen spirits of darkness, or ahrimanic spirits, having been cast out of Heaven due to Michael’s victory in 1879. Thus, by Michael’s victory in Heaven, the earth receives those spirits which are preeminently disposed to furthering the materialistic inclinations of the earth and humanity.
These powers have only aggravated over the years, and made possible those officially sanctioned initiatives of natural scientific progression in which the elementals have been tapped via deep-earth physics, as well as the high atmospheric elementals seen with the weather modification capabilities of the HAARP project.
The other occurrence, which demands a kind of real sympathy on the part of the European nations, concerns Steiner’s very sincere statement and belief that what plagues Europe as its karma, and why all the destructive forces were imposed for the sake of the European karma in the 20th century, has to do with the fact that modern-day Europe and its people are the rather quick reincarnation of the original native Americans who were overcome and made the victims of the colonization of the western Europeans in the early 17th century into the so-called “New World” across the pond.
https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/PasInc_index.html
Thus, what Steiner seems to be saying here is that “what goes around comes around”. In other words, the present-day situation with the various European nations is the same as when the original colonizers went westward and found these people already having divided themselves into territorial boundaries of their own making; enemies of their own original kindred.
And so, the Europeans tried to resolve this by putting these competing tribes on reservations, and within strict territorial boundaries. Yet, it was the wrong decision, and has caused the present European crisis.
LikeLike
The June 22-24 gathering at Elisabeth Vreede huis, The Hague, will get a big next step. A commemorative event will be organised “70 Years Universal Declaration of Human Rights” at the Peace Palace, The Hague, and the principles for Earth Trusteeship will be launched within that perspective, 10 December 2018. While reinforcing Human Rights, we now have to equally frame our Responsibilities, as well as Rights of Nature. Our common future lies in re-awakening life-forces and the integrity of eco-systems by means of Earth Trusteeship put in practice.
https://www.elga.world/the-earth-trusteeship-initiative/
During his visits to The Hague Rudolf Steiner staid at the home of the family of Elisabeth Vreede and could point out from there the place, now at the grounds of the Peace Palace, where the Count of St. Germain had visionary meetings.
LikeLike
I am reminded of the lectures that Rudolf Steiner gave at the Hague when he founded the Holland branch of the Anthroposophical Society in November 1923. Herein is where Ita Wegman is said to have encouraged Rudolf Steiner to not retire from public life, but rather to renew the Anthroposophical Society into a form that would constitute an entity that could proceed into the future. Now, apparently Steiner took heed for doing such a thing, and that is how the Christmas Conference for the founding of the General Anthroposophical Society took place between 24 December 1923 and 1 January 1924.
https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA231/English/APC1961/SupMan_index.html
With these lectures, Rudolf Steiner was intent on giving his last statements on a program that he had begun in 1900. So, herein, he was summing up a program of responsible intention concerning the importance of spiritual science coming into the common intellectual consciousness of mankind. Thus, this was originally intended to be his final denouement, and yet, Ita Wegman convinced him to go further and actually take on the administration of the society on a global dimension.
Of course, this action he easily took on as a matter of responsibility simply because it was asked of him. Please picture someone close to RS pleading him not to retire because he was simply tired out after all those years, but rather, someone who saw the bigger initiative which required a firm administration. This only RS could have visioned in order to achieve.
And yet, after all these years since then, where do we sit today in terms of ‘rights of man’ and ‘rights of nature’? Responsibility sounds forth, and nature blesses the idea that such a thing could come from an entity above herself; i.e., mankind itself.
LikeLike
Dear Hans,
I would like to draw your attention to a three-part guest post given in January 2017 on the principles of Threefolding, and written by Michael Spence. You had mentioned the equivalence of Threefolding with your Idea of Mindful Markets, and this idea gains a great deal with Michael’s detailed explanation herein:
https://anthropopper.wordpress.com/2017/01/
So, the principles involving an earth trusteeship are really already here, and yet, as the commentaries indicate in the Spence discourse, there are forces actively working against earth and man, and wherein the ecological system is being perverted to the aims of the elemental forces. Recent examples of this negative turn were given with the ongoing experiments with weather modification, i.e., HAARP, and also the deep earth work concerning high-energy physics seeking the so-called, ‘god particle’.
Yet, your sentiments will always be acknowledged as a worthy effort, much in the same way that H.D. Thoreau saw the vision of “simplify, simplify”. Many people today live this plan, and even with all the technology. And when, and if, they take on the cultural imperative of spiritual science, it only will get better. This is because the understanding of it all only accrues with the effort; a joyous fire and enthusiasm in the offing.
LikeLike
Dear Steve,
Rather than equivalence I would say resonance. Thanks for the link to Michael Spence’s articles. I fondly remember Michael’s teachings at Emerson College and above all his being a mentor in financial affairs for all of us, on top of being the Bursar.
I am now optimistic about the World Goetheanum Association founded in Dornach. It comes a decade after an earlier initiative of Cornelius Pietzner when time was not ripe yet. The association may evolve in a gesture of ultimate crystallization towards a threefold structure. With the society as its socio-legal wing, the school as platform for spiritual liberalization and the association as its well-grounded business support organism.
Earth Trusteeship is complementary to Rights of Nature, in order to enable regeneration rather than just protect.
The inherent synergy of the enormous diversity of property anchored in the society could flourish better if it was pooled (networked, not dis-owned) in a spirit of Earth Trusteeship: as a responsibility to humanity, Earth and future generations.
LikeLike
Dear Hans,
I have taken the time to look into the World Goetheanum Association, and it appears to me to be a rather reactive display of the earlier AGM of 2018, in which both Ita Wegman and Elizabeth Vreede were rehabilitated, and yet also saw the expulsion of Paul MacKay and Bodo von Plato from the Vorstand.
Thus, it is clearly apparent that with the founding of the World Goetheanum Association on 18 May 2018, that we are looking at the full unleashing of what had always been seen as the potential of spiritual science to appeal to the material market. This goes back to the CC of 1923, in which Steiner first designated the four markets, i.e, institutions, that could become the profit-making agents of anthroposophy. I won’t list them because they can be found herein with the identified individuals seeking to propound a World Goetheanum Association. Please notice that Paul MacKay of Weleda AG is also designated:
http://www.worldgoetheanum.org/en/
Now, Hans, you mention a kind of synergy of spirit herein with this founding of the WGA, and yet you also designate it as property. Well, that is true.
Here is what you said in your final paragraph about the hopes of the World Goetheanum Association:
“The inherent synergy of the enormous diversity of property anchored in the society could flourish better if it was pooled (networked, not dis-owned) in a spirit of Earth Trusteeship: as a responsibility to humanity, Earth and future generations.”
LikeLike
Steve,
Of course the several banks who are founding members of the World Goetheanum Association do this already. However, associating in this spirit can bring collaboration to a next level. In particular ownership of land enabling bio-dynamic and organic farming, including rehabilitation of landscapes, can gain clout and strengthen our negotiation position with authorities and mainstream economic institutes. International networking cross borders and cultures, with anthroposophy in its broadest, creative and inclusive, sense as our common inspiration, can generate “added value” (and help transcending Brexit challenges …).
However, two important issues of concern are that the initial membership of World Goetheanum Association, 18th May 2018, hardly includes English and American organisations, and none from other continents. What do we mean here with “world”? I guess the initiators, Justus Wittch, Gerald Haefner and indeed Paul Mackay are working on this. And where is the female drive in this new initiative?
Whether future “threefolding” among ‘society’, ‘school’ and ‘association’ will get a chance will depend largely on the way the General Assembly will be able to transform the turbulence around rejection of term-renewal for Paul Mackay and Bodo von Plato into an opportunity for development of a truly global governance structure. This may have to include settling the undercurrent dialectics between “Prokosophy” – Sergei Prokofieff taking a position in the Bodhisattva Question in opposition to Elisabeth Vreede – and “Bodosophy”. Let’s hope Anthroposophy will emerge from the process in shining garments (and the light of Pansophy?).
One sign that the influence of non-anthroposophists who support the “World Goetheanum” is growing, can be seen in the recent book of universalist Dan McKanan. Dan is the Emerson Senior Lecturer at Harvard Divinity School. His book is titled “Eco-alchemy: Anthroposophy and the History and Future of Environmentalism”.
https://www.ucpress.edu/blog/32814/expanding-environmental-imagination/
LikeLike
Dear Hans,
In anticipation of your response above, I felt it important to give a kind of further background account into how the World Goetheanum Association, which has recently announced itself publicly, was formerly known as the ‘Association’ General Anthroposophical Society at the very time that Rudolf Steiner was dying. As such, it was this entity that was officially entered into the registry of newly established corporations there in Switzerland on 8 February 1925.
https://anthropopper.wordpress.com/2018/10/06/guest-post-the-bodhisattva-question-part-2-some-conclusions-and-further-thoughts/#comment-5603
This has had the effect over all these years since the death of Rudolf Steiner of placing a corporation over the true aims of the General Anthroposophical Society that Steiner created with the Christmas Conference of 1923. Thus, what was originally intended to be the forming of an esoteric society, with continual spiritual communion from above, was brought down into a rather exoteric configuration, and wherein the extant members of the anthroposophical movement were abandoned for some 20 years, until 1944, when Marie Steiner-von Sivers finally made the Christmas Conference proceedings available, i..e, GA260.
Recent anthroposophical history, c. 2002, demonstrates the outrage. Yes, Prokofieff writes his history, i.e., “May Human Beings Hear It”, but then Bondarev writes his own refutation in 2005, in which he seems to see the fraud behind it all.
So, where does that place us today? Lawsuits blaming this and that mean nothing in reality. Only now and the future mean anything of real value.
Thus, if a World Goetheanum Association can help to create an Earth Trusteeship Conference at the Hague in the Summer of 2018, let us hope it will bear fruit in the true anthroposophical sense.
LikeLike
‘And where is the female drive in this new initiative?’
Yes, indeedy, Hans.
When I saw the list of speakers for the WGA I counted the number of women. There are only 2 out of 9.
When writing a poem for the blog of the animal welfare activist Mary Barton, I was inspired to write about our own parliament. I hope readers wont mind me quoting my own poetry –
“…..there are very few women in that place
– how strange
– as if one lung was missing, one chamber of the heart, one arm, one leg, one ear, one eye, half a brain,…..
…When the Man in the powersuit* spoke, the Ghost of Reason jangled in the air…..”
* Michael Gove
The proportion of men to women on the Vorstand itself has only recently become equal. This happened because 2 men were voted off, not because anyone in power cared about a disparity in the representation of the genders.
LikeLike
Hi Tom,
You motivate a remark about how the female brain is softer than the male brain, and this is how it becomes possible to hear words that soften the normal male response. Herein, we have a good example from lecture 10 of the Gospel of St. Mark lectures:
“At this point I should like to remind you of something I have often pointed out with regard to the difference between male and female, pointing out the fact that to some extent the female element — not the single individual woman but rather “womanhood” — has not entirely descended to the physical plane, whereas the man — again not a single individuality, not man in a particular incarnation but “manhood” — has crossed the line and descended lower. As a result true humanity lies between man and woman; and it is for this reason that a human being also changes sex in different incarnations. But it is already the case that the woman, as such, because of the different formation of her brain and the different way in which she can use it, is able to grasp spiritual ideas with greater facility. By contrast the man because of his external physical corporeality is much better adapted to think himself into materialism, because, if we wish to express the matter crudely, his brain is harder. The female brain is softer, not so stubborn, that is to say in general — I am not referring to individual personalities. In the case of individual personalities there is no need to flatter oneself, for many truly obstinate heads sit on many a female body — to say nothing of the reverse! But on the whole it is true that it is easier to make use of a female brain if one is to understand something exceptional, as long as the will to do so is also present. It is for this reason that the evangelist after the Mystery of Golgotha allows women to appear first.”
“And now, as the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, brought spices, so that they could go and anoint him. (Mark 16:1.)
So, you see, Michael Gove is certainly worth considering as a male member of the House of May. And yet, does he give her any relief in her endeavour to make for a reasonable plan for England to leave the EU domination? Maybe he sees it her way, and acknowledges the ‘Chequers Plan’.
Well, why not, and here we are today in a world that can make anything happen toward the good.
LikeLike
in reviewing the list of partners in the World Goetheanum Association, I counted no less than 20 (maybe more) female executives, and that is a quite impressive representation.
http://www.worldgoetheanum.org/en/
LikeLike
Steve quotes Steiner, ‘As a result true humanity lies between man and woman’.
This is why equal representation is so important.
20 executives out of 100 total is nowhere near equal, Steve.
LikeLike
Okay, Tom, I see what you’re getting at here. But, what I really wanted to say is that the female brain, according to Steiner, is really much more fluid and flexible than the male brain, and that is why we have these several female introductions within the scope of the WGA enterprise.
So, equality is important, as you suggest, and yet within a largely male dominated sphere of materialistic enterprise, don’t you think that 20 female executives means a lot?
Personally, I would hope that people who listen to this blog see that we are dealing with a very fine matter, and wherein even 1/3rd of the total scope of the WGA enterprise is more than worthy of its effort.
Now, after hearing this, I would like to know your own personal stance concerning secular humanism, which seems to be your objectivist position in the world, and that is good and fine. True equality in the world would be fine and good, and yet, there is an opposing force which works to undermine human freedom, and make it a pawn of the adversarial powers who would make mankind into a kind of automaton, or machine.
Yet, we have your stance, Tom, wherein a carefully selected snippet covers your view, i.e., “Steve quotes Steiner, ‘As a result true humanity lies between man and woman’.”
No, I said a lot more than that, Tom
LikeLike
Steve,
At first glance, I thought that raising the issue of whether or not Tom was a secular humanist was sort of a red herring, but then I wondered if what you are getting at is that it seems to you that he is measuring equality in a purely quantitative way. I don’t think that that is what he was saying.
In any case, the ratio of female entrepeneurs to male ones in developed economies is something like one to two, although it is closing. So even by that standard, the WGA is slightly lagging.
In the parts of the Anthroposophical movement I know best, there are more women than men, often strikingly so. The disparity from the societal norm in the other direction in the WGA isn’t what I would have anticipated, and I think that it is worthwhile wondering why it is the case.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wooffles,
Tom is a secular humanist by his own admission, and therefore, equality is one of a number of important ideals within this framework. Yet, what I was trying to draw attention to was how the female brain [according to Steiner’s reference] is very adapted to flexible, fluid and mobile thinking, and wherein a larger creative vision is possible; one more qualitative, as you suggest, in terms of entrepeneurship.
Tom’s rather adamant indication that “20 out of a 100 is nowhere near equal”, is certainly true, and why it reminded me of his position within the framework of secular humanism. Thus, no “red herring”, but just a friendly reminder of how imperfect a potentially perfect world is right now.
I was encouraged that the list of the WGA had at least 20 lady executives, and the total number of partners is well below 100. For me, the overall incentive, both men and women, toward social renewal in this context, is what matters.
LikeLike
Thank you for providing this forum just at the moment I am highly engrossed in studying Elisabeth Vreede.
I think there is good evidence for Mailander being “the M” that Steiner refers to in the Barr document. I think the lightness of Richard Cloud’s touch should not be confused with lightness of understanding. Somewhere I came across a note regarding Max Heindel, that he too sat at the feet of Mailander, that Steiner knew Henidel before this time and thought little of him, but did not see the huge change wrought in him after his “apprenticeship” to Mailander; and that Heindel was commissioned to go to the States with Rosicrucianism to take further what Steiner could not do or had even failed to do. I have yet to follow this up, but it deserves to be noted.
Also I appreciated a reader drawing attention to Peter Deunov as another “candidate” for the Bodhisattva role. Could Yogananda be seen as another?
My personal hunch is that Steiner was instructed from above to put out stuff even if it was partly faulty, rather than “stay silent”, trusting that overall this was the best road to follow. I.o.w. maybe the whole concept of “bodhisattva incarnate” is an approximate way of describing a spiritual reality we have among us, close at hand, ie the huge number of people in the last century who have had direct experiences of Jesus in ways that are totally miraculous and are suggestive of Steiner’s characterization of “etheric”. Doesn’t the Buddhist path have a strongly etheric feel to it anyway – the “mindfulness” that is speaking today so widely? What might challenge people is the fact that most of the Christ-experiences would classify as tending towards the fundamentalist end of Christianity. But heck, so what?
LikeLike
Hi Anne,
You will find that Rudolf Steiner spoke about “the master” in a letter to Marie von Sivers, dated 9 January 1905, which was just sixteen days before the death of Alois Mailander. In this letter, ref. GA262, he acknowledges that it was because of “the master” that he was directed toward the theosophical circle of Count and Countess Brockdorff there in Berlin, Germany in the summer of 1900. Without this incentive, as he indicates to her in the letter, he would have been content to be a minor philosopher, Goethe scholar, and literary reviewer.
It was in the spring of 1907 that Steiner had the occasion of seeing a certain fellow following the entourage in the lecture activity. This was Max Heindel, who had been encouraged to go to Germany from his place in Minnesota, c. 1905, and look into the work of the occultist, Rudolf Steiner. Thus, he followed Steiner’s course in “Theosophy of the Rosicrucian”, and writing copious notes on it, and then disappeared. He went immediately back to the United States in order to plagiarize the work of Rudolf Steiner under his own banner of the so-called “Rosicrucian Fellowship”, Oceanside, California. This is how his own book, “The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception” was able to be published just a few months before Steiner’s book, “The Outline of Occult Science”.
What seems to be important in this thread is who was the Bodhisattva of the 20th Century? Steiner was very definitive in saying that the Maitreya Bodhisattva would incorporate in a human being in the twentieth century. And yet, at the same time, he also acknowledged that this Bodhisattva had inspired him to herald the announcement of the imminent second coming of Christ, beginning in the second third of the 20th century, c. 1933.
So, this seems important. Rudolf Steiner had, by some means, the power to be able to engage in spiritual communion with the Hierarchies, and thereby, even the Maitreya Bodhisattva. Yet, to seek to find the actual incorporation of the Bodhisattva in a human being, like Jesu ben Pandira one hundred years before Christ, could find many likely and worthy candidates today, e.g., Steiner, Gandhi, Aurobindo, Denouv, Yogananda, Mounier, Gebser.
And yet, as Tom Hart Shea would easily identify from a secular humanist standpoint, why can’t it be a woman? Well, why not??
And maybe it did.
LikeLike
Well I’ve got news.
“Oldman” wrote in part I:
Please have a look at this book “The Lodge of the Bodhisattvas and the Question of the 20th Century Bodhisattva” (ISBN 978-1983378119) . . . you will understand . . . that R.S. knew . . . about the person bearing the Bodhisattava . . . Elizabeth Vreede and Ita Wegman also knew . . . Now, 100 years later, the information can be shared.
I sent off for the book, got it promptly and read it. This is an important book. It is the purest Spiritual Science I’ve seen for a long time and accords with a lot more that I’ve personally experienced but been unable to share. It is legitimately taking Spiritual Science WITH STEINER BUT ALSO BEYOND. It not only solves the Bodhisattva identity very precisely and completely, but also shows why solving it is important and had to wait until now.
And this source http://pansophers.com/alois-mailander/ also talks about why the revelations on Mailander had to wait for a century.
We have living sources here.
Jeremy – I believe this book deserves its own post.
LikeLike
I think it will prove to be significant that we consider these remarks, and yet, whenever displays like this take place, those involved need to show their active engagement in it. In other words, Oldman and Anne need to really try to stay contemporary, and write as if they really believe in what they’re saying, Anne pleads for a new post, and yet, hasn’t it already been said?
https://anthropopper.wordpress.com/2018/09/05/guest-post-the-bodhisattva-question/#comment-5469
Steiner would eventually acknowledge that it was the Maitreya Bodhisattva who stood behind his own confession of the imminent reappearance of Christ in the Etheric, c. 1910.
And, even more, if we consider the Catholic confession on this subject, we have the three children that experienced what occurred at Fatima, Portugal. Now, they all held the faith, idn’t they?”
LikeLike
‘The M.’ could even designate ‘the Manu’ (cf. CW 11), if you connect him to the 3rd century Manes/Mani:
Steiner: “There is a fourth individuality named in history behind whom for those who have the proper comprehension, much lies hidden — an individuality still higher and more powerful than Skythianos, than Buddha or than Zarathustra. This individuality is Manes, …. Around Manes was this council, himself in the centre and around him Skythianos, Buddha and Zarathustra. And in that council a plan was agreed upon for causing all the wisdom of the Bodhisattvas of the post-Atlantean time to flow more and more strongly into the future of mankind; and the plan of the future evolution of the civilisations of the earth then decided upon was adhered to and carried over into the European mysteries of the Rosy Cross. These particular mysteries have always been connected with the individualities of Skythianos, of Buddha and of Zarathustra. They were the teachers in the schools of the Rosy Cross; etc.” https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA/GA0113/19090831p01.html
LikeLike
Dear Ton,
Bernard Lievegoed wrote a book in which he cites this passage above, and what is interesting is that rather than stating that Manes conducted a supersensible council involving these participants, he says that it was Parsifal that did it. Now, I find that very telling, in an incarnational sense.
https://books.google.com/books/about/Mystery_Streams_in_Europe_and_the_New_My.html?id=SE49XIL1KcIC
Yet, if we look at the full scope of your extract above, and I won’t reproduce it, what it involves is the simultaneous appearance of four rather exalted Avatars: Manes, Zarathustra, Buddha, Skythianous. And, coming at a very important point in the revelations of Rudolf Steiner, i.e., 31 August 1909, it had the effect of opening the veritable floodgate into the Akashic record, and wherein Steiner saw that the so-called, “erstwhile Zarathustra”, was actually in a physical incarnation at the time, c. 312 BC.
So, you see, Steiner got a huge glimpse from this last lecture of “East In The Light of the West.” It made him wonder why Zarathustra, of all beings, was actually in a human incarnation in the 4th century. Thus, he proffered the question to the authorities, and this is when he first found out that there were actually two Jesus children, and not just one. And this became the veritable thesis of the Gospel of Luke lectures, c. Sept. 1909.
Now, in considering what it means to be an Avatar, we have Manes, Zarathustra, Buddha, and Skythianous, as described with this Supersensible Council held in the 4th century AD. Thus, Manes as the leader refers to the Ego; Zarathustra refers to the Astral body; Buddha refers to the Etheric Body; and Skythianous to the Physical Body.
So, this supersensible council took place because Manes wanted to resurrect what he had personally given in the previous century as the Manichean stream of spiritual science. And this he did for some 30 years under the auspices of Shapur I, of the originating Sassanid Empire, c. 240-270 AD. Then, Shapur I died, and Manes was rather quickly martyred and tortured to death, c. 277 AD, at the site of Gondhishapur.
As such, he resurrected in order to see the importance of creating a kind of undercover renewal of the original Manichean effort, and would make it a kind of secret enterprise, known as the Rosy Cross school. And, for some 1500 years it stood the test of a rather silent and cloistered system of spiritual renewal.
Then, it had to be made public, just as its original endeavor had been made public under the auspices of Manes, who is said to have had a twin.
LikeLike
The book “Oldman” recommends and Anne likes, refers to the ‘brotherhood’ founded by Peter Deunov. Wikipedia says:
“The 1995 and 1999 reports established by the Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France, as well as the 1997 reports issued by the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission in Belgium listed the group as a cult.
The main criticisms by anti-cult associations are the alleged harmful effects of the doctrine on the psyche of some followers, the diet that can lead to nutritional deficiencies, and the authoritarian nature of education.”
I did not read the book and don’t know the ‘brotherhood’ but I think we cannot ignore this signal.
LikeLike
Manes being ‘more powerful than Skythianos, than Buddha or than Zarathustra’, makes Skythianos/Scythianus his pupil.
Cf. Prokofieff, Spiritual Origins, google s39LDAAAQBAJ, Part one
Scythianus was known by Cyril of Jerusalem (Concerning Heresies) as an Aristotelian teacher, like Steiner was.
“There was in Egypt one Scythianus, a Saracen by birth, having nothing in common either with Judaism or with Christianity. This man, who dwelt at Alexandria and imitated the life of Aristotle, composed four books, one called a Gospel which had not the acts of Christ, but the mere name only, and one other called the book of Chapters, and a third of Mysteries, and a fourth, which they circulate now, the Treasure. This man had a disciple, Terebinthus by name. But when Scythianus purposed to come into Judæa, and make havoc of the land, the Lord smote him with a deadly disease, and stayed the pestilence. Etc.“ http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/1819-1893,_Schaff._Philip,_3_Vol_07_Cyril_Of_Jerusalem._Gregory_Nazianzen,_EN.pdf
LikeLike
Steve Hale said “Oldman and Anne need to really try to stay contemporary, and write as if they really believe in what they’re saying, Anne pleads for a new post, and yet, hasn’t it already been said”, etc
Steve, I’m sorry, I really don’t understand what you are saying. Sure I only comment on this blog infrequently, and I know that one can miss things in writing that do not get missed face to face. But I’ve been to many anthroposophical conferences (one where I thoroughly appreciated meeting Jeremy) and commented on other blogs without getting what feels – please excuse me if I’m wrong – snide comments that, to me, have missed what I’m trying to say and feel I have good reason to say. I am genuinely excited over this book. And the reason I suggested to Jeremy to do a post is because to my perception it has so much – far more than I could begin to open up here – it’s hot off the press, 2018, and it is in my humble opinion very relevant.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I appreciate your frank response to Steve, Anne. I too am puzzled about exactly what he intends to say.
LikeLike
Hi, Anne, please understand that I am all for continuing this study, and I apologize that my remark appeared critical, or snide, but I would never do that intentionally. If you could review these two comments, it would help a great deal in clarifying what I feel is the anthroposophical viewpoint today. You see, the issue is really one of making Rosicrucian knowledge public, and not maintaining the secrecy any longer; and, for good reason, as indicated herein:
https://anthropopper.wordpress.com/2018/10/06/guest-post-the-bodhisattva-question-part-2-some-conclusions-and-further-thoughts/#comment-5569
https://anthropopper.wordpress.com/2018/10/06/guest-post-the-bodhisattva-question-part-2-some-conclusions-and-further-thoughts/#comment-5571
LikeLike
I should have added this from the 2nd biographical sketch to Schure. It tells of how and why the Rosicrucian wisdom, kept secret for some 1500 years, since the Council of Manes in the 4th century, had perforce to be made public because of the advent of materialism in the 19th century.
“In the early part of the fifteenth century Christian Rosenkreutz
went to the east to find a balance between the initiations of the
East and West. One consequence of this, following his return, was
the definitive establishment of the Rosicrucian stream in the West.
In this form Rosicrucianism was intended to be a strictly secret
school for the preparation of those things which would become the
public task of esotericism at the turn of the 20th century, when
material science would have found a provisional solution to certain
problems.
These problems were described by Christian Rosenkreutz as:
1) The discovery of spectral analysis, which revealed the
material constitution of the cosmos.
2) The introduction of material evolution into organic science.
3) The recognition of a differing state of consciousness from
our normal one through the acceptance of hypnotism and suggestion.
Only when this material knowledge had reached fruition in science
were certain Rosicrucian principles from esoteric science to be made
public property. Until that time Christian-mystical initiation was given to the Occident in the form in which it passed through its founder,
the `Unknown One from the Oberland’, to St. Victor, Meister Echkart,
Tauler, etc.
Within this whole stream, the initiation of Mani, who also
initiated Christian Rosenkreutz in 1459, is considered to be of
a `higher degree’; it consists of the true understanding of the
nature of evil. This initiation and all that it entails will have
to remain completely hidden from the majority for a long time to
come. For where even only a tiny ray of its light has flowed into
literature it has caused harm, as happened with the irreproachable
Guyau, of whom Friedrich Nietzsche became a pupil.
— Second Biographical Excerpt given to Edouard Schure, September 1907
LikeLike
Prokofieff’s posthumous book on the seven masters (Manes, Zarathustra (Master Jesus), Skythianos, Gautama Buddha, Bodhisattva Maitreya, Novalis and Christian Rosenkreutz) is due to appear this month.
LikeLike
Contents in:
https://www.wynstonespress.com/product.php?productid=18777&cat=264&page=1
LikeLike
Sorry to be so slow in responding. I was unwell. Maybe this needs to be the last post to this thread.
Thank you Steve for your responses. I appreciate very much what you have been saying – including the two posts to which you draw my attention – and I’d like to comment. You say:
“Steiner made his transition into the esoteric milieu of the theosophical circle there in Berlin (northern Germany) in 1900, prior to which he had been the editor of a literary magazine, and adult educator since moving there in 1898. His earliest exposure to southern Germany could have only occurred around the time of the death of Alois Mailander in 1905.”
“… nothing here indicated in any way seems to be even remotely hinting at a person with the last name beginning with the letter ‘M’, e.g. Mailander.”
http://pansophers.com/dem-m-revealed/ – etc. I disagree that Richard Cloud is simply “superficial”. He puts forward a lot of straightforward, clear evidence which I have looked at carefully. And I think I’ve seen evidence elsewhere that Koguzki was Mailander’s student. Travel by train is possible. Kempten has very ancient links, and is not too far from Lake Constance which also has CRC connection.
“Rosicrucianism was intended to be a strictly secret school for the preparation of those things which would become the public task of esotericism at the turn of the 20th century, when material science would have found a provisional solution to certain problems.
These problems were described by Christian Rosenkreutz as:
1) The discovery of spectral analysis, which revealed the material constitution of the cosmos.
2) The introduction of material evolution into organic science.
3) The recognition of a differing state of consciousness from our normal one through the acceptance of hypnotism and suggestion.”
Yes, this feels quite correct. Thank you. And I think there is even more to come forth here.
LikeLike
“Sorry to be so slow in responding. I was unwell. Maybe this needs to be the last post to this thread.”
Anne, I am so happy that you responded in order to give more clarity to your position. It gives me real hope that communications can truly become transpersonal. A couple of years ago you had written here about what you thought would be the nature of Steiner’s “second class”, which never occurred. I found this remarkable, and quickly gave my input into what might have constituted this ‘second class’. I think we both agreed that it concerned a kind of self-creative initiative in which the personal self took an active stance for the furtherance of spiritual science. Steiner coined the term, “Psychosophy”, for this very effort. He had always considered that his indications should be furthered elaborated by his students, and this was his true clarion call.
Now, possibly as a final note to this thread, let us consider the four individuals involved here in chronological order: Felix Koguski, c. 1833-1909, Alois Mailander, c. 1843-1905, Friedrich Eckstein, c. 1861-1939, Rudolf Steiner, c. 1861-1925.
Steiner knew Koguski and Eckstein, and we can read about this from his autobiography, Mein Leibensgang. With regard to Koguski, Steiner seems to indicate that he cherishes this simple man from the same district of his own youth, and wherein he found someone he could relate to on the train into Vienna, c. 1879.
With Eckstein, we are looking at a figure from about ten years later, c. 1889, and this is when Steiner is beginning to see how his own destiny is unfolding. He sees that his destiny is to make public what was previously held to be secret knowledge, and this accords both with Alois Mailander and Friedrich Eckstein, who never left that position until his death in 1939.
LikeLike
Thank you so much Steve.
LikeLike