Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Great poets are able to encapsulate the truth of their times in poetic images. W.B.Yeats in his poem, The Second Coming, has done this for the 20th and 21st centuries. Written during the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, Yeats might just as well have been writing today, since he describes our time and our appalling dilemma as we await the incarnation of the “rough beast, its hour come round at last.” Instead of the second coming of Christ, Yeats discerns something far worse heading towards us. (An analysis of the poem can be found here.)
Anthroposophists will of course have their own understanding of what Yeats may have sensed was on its way. According to Rudolf Steiner, during our time huge efforts will be made “to lead people away from the Christ who has passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, and to assign to another being dominion over the earth. This is a very real battle, not an affair of abstract concepts; a real battle which is concerned with setting another being in place of the Christ-Being for the rest of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, for the sixth epoch and for the seventh. (…) And it will be essential for people to learn to distinguish between the true Christ, who will not this time appear in the flesh, and this other being who is marked off by the fact that he has never been embodied on the earth.”
It seems clear that, if humanity is to escape the fate which has been so carefully planned for it, then many more of us must develop an awareness that we are spiritual beings currently living in physical bodies. Traditionally, it has been the role of the churches to remind us of our spiritual origins. But as we all know, churchgoing is less and less a part of the culture of our times and most people regard Christianity as irrelevant or mere unscientific superstition.
In this connection, I was startled but not surprised to read that, according to the 2011 UK Census, between 2001 and 2011 the number of Christians born in Britain fell by 5.3 million – about 10,000 a week. (Lord knows what the recent 2021 Census will reveal.) With a continued rate of decline at this level, the number of UK-born Christians would reduce to zero by 2067.
The British Social Attitudes Survey (BSAS) indicates that Anglicanism is declining faster than any other major denomination. With the current rate of decline, it would be set to disappear from Britain by 2033 – just twelve years away.
So it would seem that Christianity in the UK is in a kind of terminal death spiral. I’ve no reason to think that the situation is any different in other Western countries. Why has this decline happened? And why does it matter so much?
To understand how we got to this state of affairs, we need to go back to the early centuries of the Christian religion. As the Christian teaching spread through Europe and Asia Minor in the centuries after the crucifixion, it became mixed up with many local religions and cults and took over many of their rites and festivals and some of their beliefs. The greatest confusion was over what people believed concerning Jesus – who he was, how far he was human being and how far he was God.
Eventually so many diverse doctrines were held by so many different groups all over the Roman Empire that the leaders of the Church called a series of councils to standardise Christian belief. In 325 CE at the First Council of Nicaea, the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus was established – extraordinary as it may seem, this was determined by majority vote. This decision had the effect of separating the Church from the teaching of the Ancient Wisdom concerning the Cosmic Christ and also led to much distortion and misunderstanding of the teaching of Jesus and the apostles.
We could add that this process was continued by the 8th Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in the year 869 which, as Rudolf Steiner has pointed out, abolished the idea of the “trichotomy” of the human being (ie the reality that each of us consists of body, soul and spirit) and reduced us to beings of body and soul only, thus introducing a further very serious distortion into the teachings of the churches and laying the foundation for our present predicament.
There is a fascinating passage in the final chapter of St John’s gospel, after the occurrence of the miraculous draught of fishes, when St Peter asked Jesus what was to be the future work of St John the beloved, the author of the Book of Revelation. Jesus replied: “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me.” My sense of this is that here Jesus was in effect telling Peter to get on with his task of building the Church and not to bother about John, whose work would continue sub rosa until the Second Coming, when it would start to assume more and more importance.
The role of Peter was to “feed my sheep”, to shepherd the people by presenting to them a version of Christianity that would meet their needs but would not be beyond their capacity to understand at that stage of their development. This was to be the purpose of the Church of St Peter – to bring the message of loving one’s brother as oneself and to set humanity on course for the next stage of its journey.
John’s role, by contrast, was to maintain the idea of the Christ as a cosmic Being, the Christ who experienced for three years what it was to be a human in the physical body prepared for him by the master initiate, Jesus. This was to be done through small, secret communities until the second coming of Christ. According to Rudolf Steiner, this second coming was not to be expected as a physical incarnation but was due to happen from 1933 onwards, in the etheric body of the Earth. Before anthroposophy, which brought these teachings much more into public consciousness, the few people who were able to understand such concepts remained in small and hidden Rosicrucian groups under the guidance of St John.
But even today the churches have not felt able to acknowledge, let alone share and communicate the perspective of St John, which is surely the only one which nowadays can reach out to the unspoken spiritual needs of so many people. In Matthew 7:9, Christ Jesus says: “Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?”
Yet by denying the people the knowledge of the Cosmic Christ, the churches are in effect giving us stones rather than the spiritual bread we crave – the times are crying out for the message of St John rather than the simplicities of St Peter. We are living at a time when even the Archbishop of Canterbury – an intelligent and humane man who is also the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion – does not, for example, understand why Easter has to be a moveable feast.
This is significant, because if the head of the worldwide Anglican communion does not have a sense of the spiritual realities behind Christianity, then he has no access to the true wisdom which could revitalise his Church and regenerate our culture.
There are some priests, such as the late Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who have a greater instinct for cosmic Christianity and who have tried to reconcile science with spirituality; but unfortunately for Teilhard and the church, Rome banned his books, ordered him not to attend international congresses and forbade him to write or teach on philosophical subjects.
The failure of the churches to bring us spiritual nourishment for our times has meant the absolute triumph of the power of money, which now rules the world. Our gods today are people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, who recognising that they and their kind have trashed our home planet, are now doing all they can to set up Mars as the future location for human beings.
But human beings need to believe in a transcendent reality, in a truth greater than themselves. It doesn’t have to be Christian, it could be Buddhist or Hindu or Muslim or something else. If there is no higher meaning to human life, then the famous phrase of Nietszche: “Nothing is true and everything is permitted” comes into common consciousness, with the results we see all around us. G. K. Chesterton put it slightly differently: “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”
Paul Kingsnorth expressed our situation like this: “When a culture kills its sovereign, the throne will not remain empty for long. Dethrone Christ if you like – dethrone any representative of any sacred order on Earth. But when you do, you will understand that the sovereign, however imperfect his rule, may have been the only thing standing between you and the barbarians massing outside – and inside – your gates.”
Is there an antidote to this poisonous mix of consumer capitalism, nihilism and money worship that is destroying us, our planet and our culture? The old Christendom is not coming back – and nor should it. But as Joan Hodgson in her book Why on Earth has written: “As the influence of the Aquarian Age grows stronger, the mystical Christianity of St John will gradually replace the outworn orthodoxy of the church of Peter. It will lead humanity to ‘an upper room’ – a higher state of consciousness or comprehension – where true communion with the Cosmic Christ will come to all who earnestly seek. It will lead the seeker to the Holy Grail which brings healing for all sorrow and pain. As understanding of this true communion becomes universal, the light of the Cosmic Christ shining through men’s hearts and lives will glorify the earth itself. This is the promised second coming of Christ, foreshadowed in the gospels.”
During this pandemic we have seen how easy it is for populations to be ruled by fear and group-think imposed from above. It seems to me that this has been a rehearsal for, and a demonstration of what is likely to happen when the false Christ, the Anti-Christ, appears in the guise of the great deliverer who will save us from all our troubles. Most people will be taken in by the impostor and, what is more, they will turn on those of us who have a different view.
What is to be done in such dire circumstances? Perhaps the climate crisis can be a blessing in disguise, which is forcing us to look after Earth, our home. It might also encourage us to practice kindness and compassion towards all beings and things. If you have a garden, however small, or even a window box and some pots, try to care for a patch of earth and living, growing things. The temple of nature helps us to reconnect with a greater intelligence which is holding everything in a coherence beyond our understanding. It is there you will be able to commune with the Cosmic Christ, who is within the etheric body of the earth and is waiting for human beings to find their way to him.
In Yeats’ poem, I take the falcon to be a symbol of humanity, going further and further away from home until we can no longer hear Christ the falconer, who despite our waywardness is waiting patiently for us here on Earth.
anthropopper 
Excellent article, Jeremy! I would like to respond with a poem of my own that fits the theme. It belongs to a small folio of Elizabethan-style sonnets I wrote in 1987. Still online at my old Steiner98 site. Let’s see how it plays one year after its 33-year fulfillment cycle has “come round at last.”
https://steiner98.tripod.com/Sonnets/index.html
==========================
ON BEING NAKED UNDER THE APOCALYPSE
The cauldron boils with the blood of hope.
The smoke of sacrifice begins to rise.
The plumes are white! They have elected Pope!
The heartbeat of my Church is always wise.
When Jesus Christ was not yet saved—
when Judas kissed Him in Gethsemane—
when Pontius Pilate and that Herod raved—
the stars were still in harmony.
What makes you think it’s any different now?
as you re-read the Revelation of Saint John?
The beast from the abyss will not know how
the world is held together till it’s gone!
As if I know exactly who I am,
I wish I never had a soul to damn.
================================
from “Post-Existential Sonnets,” Folio I
by Tom Mellett, Austin, Texas, 1987
LikeLiked by 1 person
I do not think a reduction in church attendance is lamentable. Rather, it seems to me a fitting thing that church attendance is diminishing. It may even point to a reduction in overall hypocrisy. Christianity began to decline when the Roman Church ousted small groups of persons worshiping together in individual homes and decided, for those persons, what scriptures/spiritual teachings they were allowed to read. It went on to choke itself with money and power, conduct crusades and slaughter innocents in deadly inquisitions. The Protestant Reformation retained the power-hungry underpinnings of Catholicism. Christians failed to re-think and re-incorporate original teachings – even after the cave in Nag Hammhadi was unearthed – and we knew what we had. In all, though Mammon and the Antichrist may be two variations of the same boogie man, the fact is that organized churches have failed to support the central importance of developing the Consciousness Soul, and have joined the ranks of CORPORATIONS in promoting dependency and decadence.
I do not think we have to wait for the Anti-Christ’s advent. We have already been successfully seduced into believing all our problems will be solved by worshiping/following Mister X. Corporate entities have been influencing man into destroying himself and the planet for over a century. They have successfully groomed us into being faithful consumers, militants, narcissists, materialists, and addicts of all kinds.
I do not think that the Second Coming is “at hand”. As I read Steiner, it began in the 40’s with increased incarnations of persons with atavistic clairvoyance who, in my experience, are more open to the possibilities of the spiritual worlds. I know I am not the only person who feels he/she has been in the presence of the living Christ – and it has changed/directed their lives.
I’m afraid this post is a litany of “I don’t thinks”. I’m afraid to admit I also don’t think we will pull it together quickly enough to avoid further emergence of those four horsemen – plagues, famine, war and death. Did Steiner address the horsemen? And Armageddan(sp)? Ha – I’m still worried about spelling errors – there will be a tomorrow!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Excellent article that I fully subscribe to. All Anthroposophy is based on a prediction or rather a prophecy: according to Rudolf Steiner, starting from 1933 individuals capable of perceiving the spiritual worlds would gradually appear in the world, an avant-garde destined to counterbalance the inevitable rise of Ahrimanism. Unfortunately, this has not come true.
LikeLike
The church in the UK started to decline in the late 1840s, when people moved from he countryside into towns and cities. Just to be clear, also, nobody is born a Christian. They may have Christian parents, but their own faith is a personal matter.
LikeLike
Gian Paolo, I, too, think that Steiner’s prediction looks as though it’s failed. But I also think the avant-garde has been counterbalancing Ahrimanism for a long time – most specifically through taming/redeeming their individual Ahrimanic Doubles. One biblical prediction I am especially drawn to is that there will be a a new heaven and a new earth: two will be in the field and one will disappear – two will be in the bed and one will disappear. I don’t know if Steiner specifically spoke to this, but he did speak of a core that will move on to the next epoch/age whose existence (and even their countenance, or appearance) will be so highly differentiated from those who have failed to grow spiritually that they will literally look different. He also says that with each successive epoch/age fewer and fewer will make the cut. I hated that when I first read it and I hate it now. All I am sure of is that as long as we are alive and conscious it is possible to make new inroads into the next stage.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Faith in a better future and a better humanity seems to be tested in a way that is far too severe. It is written that only those who persevere to the end will be worthy of access to a new world that everyone is waiting for. I sincerely hope that the “new world” is not the one prophesied by Huxley rather than the one prophesied by Steiner.
LikeLike
I think Huxley understood the inevitably and I am grateful for that.
Don’t forget he came after Steiner and probably was very familiar with Steiner
The end of Huxley life was very hopeful
LikeLike
Not quite sure I understand your comments here, Ursula! By Huxley, I guess you mean Aldous? As far as I know, he never mentioned or wrote about Steiner, unless someone else can cite any examples.
LikeLike
I don’t think someone else can and you obviously know that I meant Aldous Huxley
LikeLike
I like Silver Moon’s and your pieces here, Kathy.
From somewhere I have the thought that Christ will stay with us all until all have been transformed/redeemed.
I don’t believe in this ‘condemned for all eternity’ and ‘only the few will make the cut’. It seems to me like the shadow side of Catholicism creeping in again.
‘The bad guys (and gals) will get their just desserts’. It is impossible for me to imagine Christ would speak these words.
As I get older, ( I am 74 now) I don’t find Steiner’s predictions arouse much interest in me. It is when he starts predicting and prophecying that he really departs from the practice of science. Yet he wants to claim scientific validity for what he says – he calls it ‘Spiritual Science’.
His descriptions of the living spiritual world do interest me.
The mantrams of the School of Spiritual Science are food for my soul. ( Not so much the lessons, which I feel are more coloured by Steiner’s personality ).
Every time I speak the Lord’s prayer it evokes for me the 9 ranks of the Angelic Hierarchies and the Trinity. And when I then add the ‘Hail Mary’, I feel the living soul of humanity close to me.
I am sure that it is through living with Steiner’s insights that these prayers have become meaningful for me.
The prophets of doom get a lot of media attention (including on this blog). I love Yeats, but there is no affirmation of the living Christ in his work.
If I were asked to choose a poem which speaks to the existential reality we live in today I would choose Mary Oliver’s ‘Wild Geese’.
“….Meanwhile, the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
And from ‘When Death Comes’
“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement,
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.”
LikeLike
Dear Jeremy, your words ensure this:
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
Dear Jeremy, whose fault is it the triumph of the infernal passion of the wicked?
His poem is an exercise in abstract censorship. Whose fault is it?
Society and the sleeping Initiates of this world who want help to awaken, are not getting the support of the best really. Those who call themselves “better” are immensely credulous. They have weak concerns, they run after childish interests, they cry over the disintegration of their beloved Government while forgetting the human being whose soul dwells above the false security of a vaccine full of deception: but they can be calm, when the body is finally disconnected from all spiritual concern thanks to the effects of the vaccine, everything will return to the normality of esoteric poetry. The “best” demand the care and unjustified reconstruction of false education while they settle for cloaking the impending disaster in emotional bandages.
Whose fault is it?
The “best” are also great at defending an artificial problem cleverly planned by the enemies of human conscience. All the “best” behave like puppets and obey the puppeteers behind the theater in order to solve questions that do not have feet or head. The previous publications, although interesting within their own realm, are a redundancy akin to ineffectiveness exhibited by the naive acolytes of manipulation that, apparently, no longer has a point of return.
I cannot find the roots or serious grounds to support your complaint.
What is making the situation much more memorable, dear Jeremy, is that the “best” persist in traumatizing the closeness of the Christ and the importance of Him, impeding his understanding with those intellectual figures that render him inoperative for the understanding of humanity. This is what the anthroposophic Christ has become thanks to newspaper materialism of the anthroposophists.
Still wondering whose fault it is?
LikeLike
I once read, “Save yourself, and you will save thousands.”
Maybe fewer and fewer will make the cut as the epochs pass, but if we do not work on ourselves, then we are at fault for our own failure. We have not saved ourselves for lack of faith in our ability to develop and we have then not saved our thousands by not calling of the LORD. As we must take constant heed of our own thoughts, emotions, and efforts to serve the Christ and become transformed, we become aware always, it can be only our own fault to have not entered into the suffering of the evolution that is necessary for the freedom to become Love.
We must suffer the idiocy of humanity without murmuring or complaining, as Christ demonstrated as He was being flogged and the skin torn from His back. He could do this because the joy of what He was accomplishing for His billions, far surpassed His torment. The joy of our own transformation and of those we can influence is worth the struggle.
There is no one to blame for the way the world is, but we can blame ourselves for what we are becoming.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I recall my introduction to Anthroposophy and for me to personally be interested, it required that the Christ be in the center. To learn beyond the words in the ‘bible’ was my prayer and it came in the form of Anthroposophy. My very German ‘teacher’ used to say “Christianity is in it’s baby shoes”. Some will ask how do you know that Christ existed? My only answer is, I just know and it cannot be explained any other way. It was born in me. Church was ok when I was young, raised Episcopalian, I enjoyed the old church atmosphere. However in my older years, I find it empty.
It seems Christianity will go through a pralaya only to emerge more stronger after the appearance of Ahriman or perhaps before. Uriel will put us the test and when there is no where else to look, the eyes and hearts of many humans will open. So I have hope for our future even though there will be many rough rides ahead for us. Michael has never lost……….. Christ certainly will not lose even though materialism crucifies this loving being again and again and again.
Steiner mentions that some will be ‘saved’ during the War of All Against All. He would not say how or where the small number will be saved. Just an idea, but could it be a space colony? As I understand it the world will be uninhabitable after this War and when we return we will also have face structures to tell good from evil. My point is perhaps, this beginning of new space exploration, does have a point for the future…..?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh my, Rose! Do you mean Humanity may have to line up for “BUNK WITH MUSK” T-shirts???
LikeLike
Kathy, ha ha ha that is funny! You just might have started a trend! Humor we should never be without it.
LikeLike
reply to self, do not mix up the Archangels, Oriphiel is who I meant, the Angry Archangel. Certainly we are giving this great being a lot to be angry about.
LikeLike
Steiner may also be talking about the internal struggle in a humans mind and human evolution . For example , once you go inner and start looking into yourself you become aware of external demons and supersensible intelligences and your mind becomes a battlefield 😉
LikeLike
Dear Upspince,
Once again I must confess my stupid ignorance and limited understanding. So I would be grateful for your help in clarifying my failing faculties.
‘His poem is an exercise in abstract censorship’. There are 2 poems , Yeats and Mellet. Which one do you mean? And could you expand what you are mean by the sentence?
Whose fault is it? Do you have a suggestion? If so 1. who do you blame and 2. for what?
‘They have weak concerns, they run after childish interests, they cry over the disintegration of their beloved Government while forgetting the human being whose soul dwells above the false security of a vaccine full of deception: but they can be calm, when the body is finally disconnected from all spiritual concern thanks to the effects of the vaccine, everything will return to the normality of esoteric poetry’
1. Who are ‘They’. One name would be helpful or perhaps 2 because ‘they’ is plural.
2. First 3 sub sentences are clear description of criticism of ‘They’. OK so far.
3. ‘forgetting “The human being” Who is this precisely? Once again no Name.
4. ‘whose soul dwells above the false security of a vaccine full of deception:’ Pardon? What is this supposed to mean?
5. “the normality of esoteric poetry” – Could you describe this ‘Normality’ to which ‘ everything will return’.
Thanking you in advance for your help and guidance
John
LikeLike
Christ is no falconer. Christ is not Christ because he would have us behave like Ahrimanic puppets any more than he would coax us to believe in Him by tempting us with the things we desire most. Christ had his followers, and they were not the Sanhedrin or the Priesthood, the bearers of first century group-think. The followers of Christ were ordinary people, fishermen like Peter and others who were seen to be wrongdoers like Matthew the tax gatherer – or worse, prostitutes. Christ had no time for the conventions of the time, He only had time for those who might tarry a little and learn.
It is incumbent on us to meet Christ in full freedom: no coercion, no censure. Those are the demands of the Fifth Epoch, the epoch of the Consciousness Soul. Consciousness, conscience are immediate, personal and uniquely individual to each person. Which has serious implications for those who would gather together, in that a member of a congregation will begin to find that as awareness dawns, the words spoken by their fellow congregationalists will not mean the same things as they themselves think. That is when they leave the congregation. But it has to be asked if the Anglican church ceases to exist by 2033, what difference will it make to the worlds of the spirit? Will it make any difference at all? My point is that such churches had priests that blessed cannons and other sorts of madness during wars – and all because they believed the current round of fear and group-think. Just recently all the churches were closed because of the fears of dying from a virus – yet a church is the very place where such fears should be put to rest.
What good is a church if all it can do is respond to the latest round of un-spiritual thought? What if all the members of that church wanted those un-spiritual thoughts because that was easier for them than the challenge of being a unique spiritual being? My point is this: there are as many ‘churches’ as there are people on this planet. And there should be, because we each have our own point of view and thus our own personal and individual experience of what the Christ Being is.
But that has implications that lead the individual back to the fold of their congregation! They are infused by the group-think and are comforted by the fact that their fellows in the congregation think as they do. Should a member speak of something different, expressing their own view, that is not part of the group-think of their congregation and thus they are seen as a danger. In finding themselves at odds with the prevailing view of their friends, they are seen as ‘odd’ or worse. Better to keep their mouth shut and be a happy member of the congregation! They would rather remain in the Fourth Epoch, and thus remain behind.
With the demands of the consciousness soul, there can be no corner where mere words are shared and accepted at face value: everything has to be understood, heart to heart, so to speak. It can only develop if everyone has the courage to question the motives and the meaning of the words that are used by their closest friends, and if those friends be truly a friend, they will accept that challenge. It is what the consciousness soul demands: that we learn from each other, and if we are to do that, it implies asking stupid questions like ‘what do you mean?’ Herewith is the birth of the Consciousness Soul, which, given the state of our modern age, comes with a good measure of pain, given that most people will prefer not to upset their friends and thus remain behind. There are those who would ‘protect’ others because they can feel proud about how nice and good they are being to those around them – but what consequences will this bring, given that they are protecting others from the very demands of the Fifth Epoch? I am conscious of what I do and will willingly bear the consequences of my actions so that I can find as many as want to have a future. I owe it to those who had the guts to challenge me – and thus bring me to an awareness of my true self.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Silver Moon, thank you for your post. You have voiced the “demands of the Fifth Epoch” so clearly. You raised the practice of “group think” and abstract thinking as ways in which churches – among so much else in our world – conduct themselves. I see a masked desperation in this behavior that leads to madness and violence when given free reign. I think our Ahrimanic Doubles are on a rampage as we transition from one era to the next.
I believe that whatever I, personally, struggle with in the moment is the result of failure to recognize my own Ahrimanic Double in action. When I face it, tame it – “redeem” it (in Steiner’s words), I am creating (fashioning) my Lesser Guardian of the threshold of the Spiritual World – my personal conscience and pathway to higher consciousness. I think it is important for us to develop the sense of what the AD within us really is, so we don’t fall into abstract, either-or, black-or-white, thinking. I understand the AD as the unconditioned, reflex fear of falling – the only reflex that each human brings into the world at birth. Its purpose is to protect this physical container so that the spirit within can survive within it long enough to find the courage to develop the consciousness soul. But when we fail to act as free individuals, the Double – driven by fear – acts as the motivating force behind a seemingly protective narcissism and greed. It survives by going to any lengths to reduce its fear and to protect its material shell – both psychologically and physically – from gossip, to schoolyard bully, to misogynist, to dictator, sadist, mass murderer.
I agree with you, Silver Moon. I, too, am grateful to those who have “the guts to challenge me”. When we can bear it, it may be the major path to waking up to the manipulation of our own Doubles.
LikeLiked by 3 people
@Jeremy – a very good article
Those enigmatic words at the end of St John’s Gospel now call out to all – and yet are still largely ignored.
Valentin Tomberg once described the Church of Peter as the length and breadth of Christianity and the Church of John as the depth. That this dimension is still missing can surely explain much that is wrong with organised Christianity at present. One has a feeling that even the most easily grasped of the teachings of Rudolf Steiner would leave some of the Church’s high ranking members uncomprehendingly shaking their heads. Equally one feels that there are many in powerful positions who are well versed in such matters, but who have deliberately chosen to keep such things hidden from the flock.
As a side note, many Anthroposophists take umbrage at Tomberg’s joining the Church of Peter. But perhaps we can see this as a rare attempt to actually bring something Johannine to that institution, by someone eminently capable of doing so. In that sense he was acting in the true spirit of the times.
But perhaps events have caught up with us anyway – the world situation suggest that we have been overtaken by beings and personalities wholly evil in nature. It now comes down to the individual not the institution to hearken to the deeper cosmic truths of Christianity.
LikeLike
Reading the comments of the “Anthroposophists”, I can only think that each of them lives in an abstract world of colorful opinions in a personal way. In other words, no one can be called Anthroposophus in the true sense of the word. I’ll explain. We all know an obstacle to overcome. This obstacle is the false (I repeat false) vaccination theory. It is well known that Steiner said about this: “When it rains water accumulates and the frogs reproduce, but let’s not say that the frogs caused the rain. To say that the virus causes the condition is to make the same mistake. This was Rudolf Steiner’s opinion. Regarding vaccines, the opinion was of the same tenor. So an Anthroposophist should first of all stand up and say aloud: “The vaccine theory is a scientific fake that has no scientific nothing, and vaccines are a criminal practice”. I have done this and am doing this, but I have yet to see a self-styled Anthroposophus who has the courage to do the same by starting to criticize the false science of a materialistic nature. I see many beautiful souls showing off deep thoughts and delicate ones that leave the time they find. Being Anthroposophical means adhering to a system of ideas and behaving coherently with it. So far I haven’t seen anyone do it yet.
LikeLike
You might want to check out the work of Dr Tom Cowan, an anthroposophical doctor who is confronting the worldwide medical community on the subject of viruses and vaccines and taking a lot of flak in the process.
LikeLike
I know Tom Cowan, Andrew Kaufman and Stefan Lanka well. These three people are doing a fantastic job of making people notice the gigantic deception to which they are subjected. I hadn’t seen the video you linked to me. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to watch it. For me these things are known, but it would be wonderful if the truth were known by everyone, even if this is for now only a distant utopia.
LikeLike
In Steiner’s time, the physical appearance of Ahriman/Sorat (in 1998, before the beginning of the third millennium, in the West, in a citizen in comfortable circumstances like any other) was expected after the Second Coming (from 1933 onwards, in the etheric body of the earth).
In our days – in a context of materialism, but also of dulled consciousness, intellectual culture, abstract thinking and rationalistic discussions – the two appearances run confusingly parallel: “These are the attempts from Sorat’s side to at least temporarily penetrate human consciousnesses and to wreak havoc and confusion.”
https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA/GA0346/19240912v02.html
LikeLike
For an out in the front description and visual material view of a ‘dimmed consciousness’ just look at Biden. He knows not what he does….. along with many other ‘leaders’ today.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I like this comment … The inner battle often externalizes into the material world ..
LikeLike
Gian Paolo, I am a “self-styled Anthroposophist who has the courage to criticize the false science of a materialistic nature”. I strive to engage in the drama unfolding around me without resorting to abstract thinking. Reading your post, I try to envision how you encounter COVID on a daily ,”lived”, basis. Regardless of what you think about “false vaccination theory” (and the rain) I would like to hear what you DO about Covid. Has it impacted your life? I am a consultant in hospitals and nursing facilities. Whatever Covid (abstractly) is or isn’t, there is a tidal wave of sick and dying people who are desperate – along with their emotionally drained family members and health care providers. The question for me isn’t what should I – we – THINK about them, but what should we DO? My personal physician is from India. Half of his extended family have been wiped out by the Delta variant. What should I DO about the grief he confides in me? What do you DO when you open your heart to the pain, Gian Carlo?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well that’s it then – any questions we may have are rendered invalid at a stroke. You have an uncontestable position.
Let us keep our thoughts and concerns to ourself.
LikeLike
If you are going to make a public comment that there is ‘a tidal wave of sick and dying people’ you need to support this with evidence, especially if you are implying a Covid variant is responsible. Which hospitals and nursing facilities are you specifically talking about so we can check for ourselves what is being stated on their websites.
LikeLike
@lazure painter – Yes, in full agreement.
My previous comment to kathyfinnegan was somewhat veiled in its meaning – which is another symptom of these times. So I will try again.
On the one hand, we have an obvious medical dictatorship, steadily stripping away our basic human rights across the globe. In the UK, our prime minister is flanked by two individuals who seem to exercise supreme power over him. Behind the scenes, armies of behavioural psychologists use their dark arts to cajole, to coerce, to control our minds.
On the other hand we have medical professionals who can close down any questions by saying – look, people are dying – the wards are full. That is a trump card and has enormous power.
Meanwhile, there is disturbing evidence that all is not what it seems.
I am lucky, I have escaped to an impoverished country far away in the so-called “global south”. But my remaining family, who have medical professionals amongst them – are completely blind to what is happening.
LikeLike
‘let’s not say that the frogs caused the rain’. Micro-organisms are not a primary cause of disease (etiology) in Steiner’s view (1919 and 1920), but secondarily, bacilli ‘in considerable numbers’ do cause ‘a devastation in us’ and ‘all manner of inflammations’, they croak:
“The important thing is to keep our bodily constitution in such a condition that it is not an agreeable hostelry for all vegetable pests; if we do this, these gentlemen will not be able to bring about too great a devastation in us.” GA0293/19190903
“Suppose that in the course of an illness, bacteria appear in considerable numbers in some bodily area. It is only natural that they should cause symptoms such as are the result of any foreign body in the organism, and that from the presence of these bacteria all manner of inflammations arise.” GA0312/19200407
LikeLike
I cannot dwell on it and I cannot explain everything in a few lines. There is no delta variant just as there is no virus infection. There are vaccine deaths. Even taking the false viral theory at face value, no cold virus can cause the thromboembolism that underlies deaths. Thromboembolism has other causes. It has been scientifically proven in the time of the “Spanish” that the infection does not exist. Even crediting the false viral theory as partially true, one is trapped in a vicious circle. The so-called “viruses” are nothing more than the output and not the input of a pathological state. Historically the “influences” as shown by Athur Firstenberg are due to the introduction of ever new states of electrification of the earth, and our body functions electrically. In all this, 5G is having and will play a decisive role. I conclude by saying with Steiner that just as the diseases of the glandular system originate in the etheric body, as the diseases of nervous origin originate in the astral body, and the diseases of the blood originate in the ego, the so-called “epidemic” diseases which are nothing else. that collective intoxication states, have Karmic origin and are certainly not originating from dead cellular debris floating in the air called “viruses”. I repeat: the viral theory is a gigantic fraud. https://t.me/gpf1949/2441
LikeLike
Let us not forget our Doppleganger and its desires which “is far more cleverer than us”.
LikeLike
Gian Paolo, I see you. too, endorse a contemporary “gigantic fraud”: that the deaths in India are caused by taking vaccines. India’s leader thinks as you do and has not sanctioned vaccination. I see a veneer of abstract certainty behind your claims. Which leaves us with questions: what about the deaths? – And what do you DO when you open your heart to what is unfolding around us? I agree with you that Steiner said epidemic diseases are karmic in origin. He also said that so is just about everything else humanity is facing – especially at this time, in this epoch, at this turning point. Much of what we are thinking, and imagining ourselves to be experiencing, is related to karma – and challenges us to develop our Consciousness Soul. Our globally looming challenge is to our karmic presumption that we are finite physical beings, rather than spiritual beings in physical bodies. The only way to meet this turning point in time, honorably, is to find the courage to defy/tame/”redeem” our Ahrimanic Double: FEAR.
LikeLike
Dear Cathy. I am perfectly aware that my views may seem paradoxical, unscientific, fanciful “ultra-conspiracy” or just plain stupid. I am aware of the fact that I can be considered arrogant opinionated … put all the adjectives you can think of, but the fact is that the viral theory is a fraud carried out by a scammer named Pasteur and credited as dogma to sound of money, but it is only a ridiculous theory that contradicts the wise laws of nature. In nature, no one can exchange their state of health or disease with anyone else, this should be clear to everyone. The deaths are there, but they are targeted killers, and this has all been a long-established plan. I have blogs, a youtube channel and various social networks. I try to make certain things understood, but … “only the little secrets must be kept, for the big ones popular disbelief will always suffice”. (cit.). I’m sorry, but no one will ever come out of this perverse tunnel crediting even partially a lie passed off as science. No one is willing to break free and unfortunately no one will get out …
LikeLike
Dude I like your profile pic
Have you thought about prep 508,
Bathing, since this is the official Anthropop hub.
Oh and don’t forget to stir…
Yummy , the
Martini s are ….too.
LikeLike
Preparation 508 is used to control mushrooms, but that’s not my case. Maybe my statements sound hallucinogenic to you, but they are not at all. As for the Martini, I have long since stopped alcoholic drinks and I am keeping myself sober. Take care.
LikeLike
control mushrooms? I have never heard of that. I ve been doing some biodynamic gardening and I was trying to reduce some unknown fungus on a grape vine. Someone mentioned some kind of copper formula. I am just trying it out. Why do you assume I am hallucinating? That is very interesting to me because I believe i was involuntarily drugged by a certain meditation classes that I had been attending., many years ago, And I was veered off my life path which in fact was teaching Eurythmy in the U.K. I still feel that the traces of these substances are still affecting me. But I have no other choice than to carry on with my injury.
It was all very ubiquitous, as I also may have had a vaccine injury around the same time.
I would never teach again, because i had enough esteem to know I could do terrible damage to Eurythmy and the children. I just was not myself up to that point anymore.
I do not do Eurythmy anymore because I experienced that it was not properly developed , however in my recovery I have met someone who has worked very diligently to put it back on course.
However she is up against opposition often .
I am trying not to drink alcohol but it alleviates my despair.
As far as bathing in Equisetum, my skin recently feels like it’s burning, very itchy with eczema, and I read people’s posts and the feeling forms are very much with me on these electronic blogs however I recently began wondering if the magnetism in these devices that we are all communicating thru are hurting us more and more, why do we have them in the first place? All of this has to have been by design and people like Harald Kurtz Vella and Elana Freeland have made some very helpful in roads in helping to understand what is going on.
There are many other excellent contemporaries , perhaps you are one as well.
As far as I am concerned they are addressing what is going on
I think there are absolutely people who wish to be free and then there are those who will do everything possible to make sure that does not happen.
We can look at it from every which way till Sunday.
No one person can figure this out, meaning in Anthropop terms making it to the next junction, whatever that really means in terms of human evolution. The 9 th hierarchy sounds strange to me , I ve heard others call it Ascension, .
My brain can not be so specific
Both imply we are more than just our physical bodies, marvellous but there is the lie there too because it seems very sleight of hand to claim that
If something wants to or has the desire to harm , it needs to be put to rest, does it not?
In other words the jig is up the game is on,
And here I turn to Psalm 23
Which fir me Is the allegory of the alchemy of life and death thru the Christ.
LikeLike
Yes Kathy it is implicit that this technology is designed to do things Steiner obviously did or did not have a clue about , or maybe he did or didn’t
He must have suffered from a personalit disorder. Anthroposophy was not his baby and yet all I have ever heard Is ‘steiner says’ , I haven’t read much of him but I have met other human beings who have and I fear for them
LikeLike
Ursula, STEINER SAYS humor is a time-honored weapon in the struggle with fear – go for it…OOPS! – or maybe it was contrition?…OOPS!.
LikeLike
Rudolf Steiner quotes – Lectures 1917
From Lecture 4 –
Modern people do, of course, believe that all this — the telegraph, telephones, the use of steam Power, etc. — happens without the participation of spiritual entities. This is not the case, however. The development of human civilization involves the participation of elemental spirits, even if people do not know about it. Modern materialists imagine that the telephone and telegraph, and the steam engines driven long distances and also used by farmers, have been constructed merely on the basis of what people produce by the sweat of their brow. Everything people do in this respect is under the influence of elemental spirits. They are always involved and helping us in this. People are not taking the initiative on their own in this field — they are guided. In laboratories, workshops, really everywhere where the spirit of invention is active, elemental spirits are providing the inspiration.
The elemental spirits who have given impulses to our civilization from the eighteenth century onwards are of the same kind as those used by the gods to bring about birth and death. This is one of the mysteries which human beings have to discover today. And the law of world history of which I have spoken is that as evolution proceeds, the gods always rule for a time within a particular sphere of elemental spirits and then human beings enter into this same sphere and use the elemental spirits. In earlier times, the elemental spirits of birth and death essentially served the divine spirits who guided the world; since our day — and this has been going on for some time now — the elemental spirits of birth and death are serving technology, industry and human commerce. It is important to let this disturbing truth enter into our souls with all its power and intensity.
https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/Dates/19171006p01.html
Lecture 5 –
The time will come — and it may not be far off — when quite different tendencies will come up at a congress like the one held in 1912 and people will say: It is pathological for people to even think in terms of spirit and soul. ‘Sound’ people will speak of nothing but the body. It will be considered a sign of illness for anyone to arrive at the idea of any such thing as a spirit or a soul. People who think like that will be considered to be sick and — you can be quite sure of it — a medicine will be found for this. At Constantinople the spirit was made non-existent. The soul will be made non-existent with the aid of a drug. Taking a ‘sound point of view’, people will invent a vaccine to influence the organism as early as possible, preferably as soon as it is born, so that this human body never even gets the idea that there is a soul and a spirit.
The two philosophies of life will be in complete opposition. One movement will need to reflect how concepts and ideas may be developed to meet the reality of soul and spirit. The others, the heirs of modern materialism, will look for the vaccine to make the body ‘healthy’, that is, makes its constitution such that this body no longer talks of such rubbish as soul and spirit, but takes a ‘sound’ view of the forces which live in engines and in chemistry and let planets and suns arise from nebulae in the cosmos. Materialistic physicians will be asked to drive the souls out of humanity.
Fall/Darkness: Lecture 5: Changes in Humanity’s Spiritual Make-up
Lecture 13 –
It will be the main concern of these spirits of darkness to bring confusion into the rightful elements which are now spreading on earth, and need to spread in such a way that the spirits of light can continue to be active in them. They will seek to push these in the wrong direction. I have already spoken of one such wrong direction, which is about as paradoxical as is possible. [ Note 1 ] I have pointed out that while human bodies will develop in such a way that certain spiritualities can find room in them, the materialistic bent, which will spread more and more under the guidance of the spirits of darkness, will work against this and combat it by physical means. I have told you that the spirits of darkness are going to inspire their human hosts, in whom they will be dwelling, to find a vaccine that will drive all inclination towards spirituality out of people’s souls when they are still very young, and this will happen in a roundabout way through the living body. Today, bodies are vaccinated against one thing and another; in future, children will be vaccinated with a substance which it will certainly be possible to produce, and this will make them immune, so that they do not develop foolish inclinations connected with spiritual life — ‘foolish’ here, of course, in the eyes of materialists.
Fall/Darkness: Lecture 13: The Fallen Spirits’ Influence in the World
LikeLike
It is a good thing to highlight the point of view of Dr. Steiner on the issue of vaccines, on which he has expressed himself several times in no uncertain terms, speaking decisively and unequivocally. Similarly, he spoke out against the vaccine theory, equating it with a medieval superstition, and this is precisely what it is. I will never tire of repeating that the viral theory from which the criminal vaccination practice is then derived is a pseudoscientific scam that has been proved unequivocally and rigorously scientifically false by the experiments conducted by Dr. Milton Rosenau in Gallops island in 1918 at the time of the “Spagnola”. Unfortunately, all the circumstances combine to make this ridiculous theory seem true, as it is wrongly deduced that if there are universally widespread diseases (the “influences”), these must necessarily be triggered by infectious pathogens which, on the other hand, have absolutely nothing to do with it. , being the cause to be found in the different states of electrification of the earth as demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt by the work of Arthur Firstenberg.
LikeLike
Here is Dr Tom Cowan explaining why virus theory is fallacious
LikeLike
Tom Cowan is a true Anthroposophist and thinks as such. He and Andy Kaufman are working hard to debunk this false theory, but they are little understood and even less heard. The result is that the whole world remains under this lie, and no one should think they can get out of it without completely rejecting it. Staying inside is tantamount to voluntarily locking yourself in a prison without bars while serving as prisoners and guards.
LikeLike
Since we are back on the subject of the ‘vaccine’ this just arrived in my inbox regarding the ingredients
https://www.naturalnews.com/2021-07-20-science-paper-documents-self-assembled-magnetic-nanosystems-for-cybernetic-biocircuitry-interface.html
LikeLike
And here is Clif High making some educated predictions as to what the likely effects of the ‘vaccine’ will be on society
https://rumble.com/vjt2it-hyperinflation-will-collapse-biden-administration-clif-high.html
LikeLike
Do you believe this man, Martin? He’s an impressive sounding guy who knows a lot of stuff but it strikes me as utterly paranoid. I’m not at all convinced.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Jeremy,
Here’s the thing. I certainly hope Clif High is being overly paranoid and that the dire scenarios he foresees to not happen. However given the preponderance of recently emerging information concerning the ingredients
of the ‘vaccines’ being pushed onto the worldwide population by the most egregious and dishonest psy op campaign, it has me wondering if he is maybe not being so paranoid after all.
Time will tell of course, but I do think it is a good idea to consider the various possibilities regarding different future scenarios both in the short and long term.
Thank you for another thoughtful and well-expressed article.
regards
Martin
LikeLike
Thanks for the contributions, these are all things I am aware of, because I am well aware of the extremely dangerous level we are approaching. Transhumanism is progressing by gigantic strides and the transformation of human genetics is just around the corner. Unfortunately, there is no time to keep up with everything, but the essential thing would be that those who are still asleep wake up as soon as possible. Time plays a fundamental role in all this, that’s why I never get tired of repeating my message ad nauseam which is very simple but which remains completely unheard: “Viral theory is a scam and vaccines are a criminal practice” . Obviously, no vaccine has ever eradicated any disease, but it has introduced new ones and strengthened the old ones. Any substance injected by syringe that bypasses the normal protective barrier of the intestine acts as a poison, and today they are injecting everything from graphene to nanobots and so on and so forth. All of these substances including morgellons are also present in tampons and masks. Thanks again for the contributions. Good day.
LikeLike
Thank you – this is a very important and significant contribution, that might explain part of the real agenda behind these vaccines. Scary stuff!
LikeLike
I’ve been thinking exactly this for quite a while …
And I recall Steiner talking about some scientists ambitions to create a sexless human being ..
LikeLike
Thank You ininsoi. Have not seen a report from the Anthroposophy side. Read Judith’s book and read Steiner lectures on ‘pandemics’. One cannot learn enough about the evils of today.
LikeLike
Thank you again for a fascinating post, dear Jeremy. There are still several comments that can be made on Steiner’s prediction of the Second Coming of the Christ in 1933. Was it wise to make this precise prediction, and other predictions including the one forseeing a vaccine that would kill our soul. Or Ahriman reincarnating in 1998; or Steiner himself in 2002? Was it wise to keep positioning Anthroposophy as a branch of Theosophy, even while facing the need not to lose members at a moment that the construction of the First Goetheanum came to a start? Could not Anthroposophy better have made a radical new beginning, a fresh start of a true spiritual science from clear thinking and sensing only, unfettered by 19th century humbug? Was it wise to spill so much precious energy, right after the fire in the First Goetheanum, on narrating so many detailed interactions and dependencies in the realm of reincarnations? If the Second Coming of the Christ in the etheric body of the Earth (and thus in our bodies and constitutions as a whole) took place and is manifesting as the realisation of Mother Earth, as a young bride, does that not imply that reincarnation can take so many forms. Why do we hang on so much to “old school” reincarnation when the experience of Christ/Mother Earth rather can be sensed as the unity of all life. Horizontal universality of continuity of life from ancestors to future generations. And a vertical dimension of universality as “community of life” (Earth Charter, 2000) from micro-organisms in the dark places of the Earth to the highest realms of the Angels. (There may be a third dimension). All these predictions, of doom or happiness, will become real as far as we make them true. The choices are ours.
So, is there not a danger that Anthroposophy, still only 100 years young, at the end will follow the same pattern as the Church of England at present? Are we really renewing Anthroposophy every day in authentic experience? Does not our time require that we realise universality, however fully based on our diversity? Can we come together and overcome small disparities about taking a vaccine or not? In order to usher into our lives the young bride Earth who suffers so deeply under our cruel conflicts of intersts and siloed spirituality?
LikeLike
Thank you, Hans.
Probably I didn’t make my points clearly enough but I’ve been a little disappointed in the majority of comments on this post, given that they have ignored what I feel were the most significant issues for discussion. These are:
1. The Second Coming has happened and is with us right now, within the etheric body of the Earth. It is not and will not be a physical incarnation of Christ – that was done once and for all time and will not be repeated.
2. There is a false second coming approaching us, which will be the only physical incarnation of the being called by Steiner, ‘Ahriman’. (This is the intuition picked up by W.B. Yeats in his poem.) The false Christ will utterly seduce most people into believing in him.
3. Our culture, which in the West was based on Christian belief, is now broken. We have dethroned Christ – who or what will replace him on the throne, and what values will prevail?
4. I regard Rudolf Steiner as a truly great initiate whose work is without parallel in our times. Among many other things, he has set out for us what human beings can expect from the forthcoming incarnation – 100 years later, it is now up to us to look at what is happening all around us and to identify all the indications that are leading up to this incarnation. Who amongst us is aware of this necessary task and who is doing the work? How can we help to wake up as many people as possible to what is coming towards us?
I shall be grateful if commenters might want to address some of these points!
Best wishes, Jeremy
LikeLike
A timely intervention Jeremy.
Unfortunately I detect very little reverence for Rudolf Steiner on these comments. There is knowledge of his teachings certainly – but precious little respect for this towering individuality.
If we combined the comments of several contributors, we could piece together a comprehensive denouncement of his life’s work.
LikeLike
Yes, I agree with you – I’m disappointed by the apparently negative attitudes behind some of these comments.
LikeLike
If you both feel like that it may be better to open dialogue directly and straightforwardly. That will certainly provide the positive swing you are missing and others also probably expect.
LikeLike
Fair point – I hope that others will want to engage with these issues!
LikeLike
Thank you Jeremy,
Considering life, indeed the whole of Earth evolution in the context of an initiation, during which challenges are placed before us to overcome in order to progress, the force of Rudolf Steiner’s work, which derives from the highest spiritual beings, can help us to understand and respond to the needs of our times, the needs of humanity and the needs of the Earth.
As we experience, at whatever level, the apocalyptic pictures which accompany our present initiation which leads from a sense-bound consciousness to include one through which we begin to experience, in living picture form, the formative forces of the cosmic ether, we must first encounter and overcome the obstacle of darkness before we consciously encounter the greatest light, which is the Christ.
The apocalyptic pictures or, better put, the symptoms of the apocalyptic pictures we can experience now on the Earth, can help us on our path through these challenging times. Objectively, the four horsemen (that Kathy drew attention to) do not appear until the opening of the first four Seals after the ‘War of All against All’. As far as they are relevant to our current times, they have both a helpful and destructive aspect. Helpful in the sense of understanding their connection to the first four cultural ages of our post-Atlantean epoch, and destructive in the sense of what can be unleashed in our being, and in the world, should we fail to overcome them. In answer to Kathy’s question as to references in Rudolf Steiner’s work, a good starting point would be ‘The Apocalypse of St John’ GA104 – lecture of 21st June 1908. Also, ‘Reading the Pictures of the Apocalypse’ GA104a and ‘The Apocalypse and the Work of the Priest’ GA346.
There are those with the ability and depth of insight to be able to draw together different threads from Rudolf Steiner’s work and present them as a coherent whole. One such individual was the late Nick Thomas, whose article ‘Anthroposophy and the Four Ethers’ can be a great help in understanding the path our consciousness is taking across the threshold, the obstacles it meets and the relationship to the horsemen. Positive steps are indicated that can guide our inner work and research. It can be downloaded here (enter into URL/address bar):
https://dldocs.com/download/anthroposophy-and-the-four-ethers-vod46z0xq7o6?hash=b71a53b0992530aadf393b6330e3e7fb
In the lies, deception, control and coercion that we experience today can be seen the attempts of Ahriman to rigidify the etheric body, to make life dead, to transform human beings into mechanized beings which could only function in a sub-life existence dominated by electro-magnetism.
As the Christ Being descends through the nine sub-natural layers of the Earth (3 x Luciferic; 3 x Ahrimanic; 3 x Asuric;) the processes of the Earth’s ether body begin to be transformed.
As Michael Warden explains:
“Much of what will happen in the immediate future must be considered in the context of this ongoing second-coming process, and its interaction with the 9 inner layers of the earth. These inner layers were described by Steiner. Each one is associated with specific types of demonic force it harbours, one of the nine members of the human being (physical body, ether body, consciousness soul, astral body etc), and one of the Beatitudes (blessed are the meek, the peacemakers etc.) representing the attitude needed to overcome it.”
and
“The effects of these layers being penetrated one by one by the etheric body of Christ is essentially that their dark forces are released into the world to be confronted by humanity. Such release of dark forces will culminate in the incarnation of the anti-Christ. At the same time new levels of Christic forces become available to support and sustain humanity and enable the transformation of dark energies released.”
The work that we are able to accomplish and offer to the spiritual world helps to ensure that these transformative Christ-forces prevail, whilst also enabling new cultural impulses to arise on the Earth.
Richard
LikeLike
“How can we help to wake up as many people as possible to what is coming towards us?”
In a very simple way: The weapon that Ahriman uses is always the same or the lie. With a simple lie (the false viral theory) Ahrimane is subduing the whole world. We must dispel the Ahrimanic lies “tout court” but an entire world is not capable of subverting this patent lie. In these conditions Ahriman is and remains victorious and humanity is and remains unsuccessful.
LikeLike
I listened to an interview by Thomas Meyer on the Solari Report. He mentions that we humans may not have the strength to fight and the Powers will put us in place with a cosmic catastrophe. Would not be the first time.
LikeLike
I am reading, again, The Electronic Doppleganger, with the introduction by Andreas Neider, which is spot on in his explanations of our ‘free forces’. If you have not read it, consider doing so. Well thought out compilation of lectures. Just want to bring into the discussion of the Second Coming, knowledge of the Western and Eastern Brotherhoods of the Left. Western brotherhoods want to insert another being whom they will call Christ. “This is a being who only extends into an etheric incarnation, and whom the brotherhoods intend to instate in place of Christ, who is pass by unnoticed”. (page 75 of my English book) My question is, Ahriman is to incarnate in the physical, then who is this other being? Or am missing something in the translation? Have been studying many years, but not sure of this point. What say you?
LikeLike
I don’t know the work of Andreas Neider, so can’t comment on this idea of a false Christ who is not physically but only ethically present – but thank you for the recommendation. I consider Steiner to be our safest guide in these matters and he is clear that Lucifer, Christ and Ahriman will each have one physical incarnation. The first two have happened already and the third is currently awaited.
LikeLike
Andreas Neider did the introduction and a summary. The original book was in German and is a compilation of several lectures. Guess I did not make that clear.
LikeLike
Steiner (1924) discerned three apocalyptic falls. The second fall (see Revelation 13 and 19) is the double fall of the ahrimanic beast and the false prophet (Sorat). That would be an etheric appearance and a physical incarnation of Ahriman: the ‘beast from the sea’ and the ‘beast from the earth’. The ‘beast from the abyss’ in Tom’s poem would be involved in the third fall (Rev. 9 and 20). https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA/GA0346/19240915v02.html
Cf. Steiner (1909): “The luciferic dragon appears in heaven because he comes from higher worlds; the second beast arises from the sea — this consists of the souls of animalistic human beings who have remained behind. … the black magicians … provide a bodily incarnation for Sorat [the beast from the earth, the false prophet]. That will be the incarnation in flesh of the demon of the sun.” GA0104a/19090520
LikeLike
Thank You Ton, It is hard to recall all that I have read in 40 years!
LikeLike
Thank you, Jeremy for bringing us (me) back to the central questions of this post. I have some thoughts to offer and welcome feedback to challenge me. Regarding #2: the false second coming approaching us. I tend to regard the incarnation of Ahriman not in a human body of flesh, but in an Ahrimanic body of electricity, computer chips, smart phones. etc. “He” is here, now, and we are submitting to his seduction and control. He has inhibited the development and practice of empathy and the Consciousness Soul by bypassing insightful thinking and making communications instantaneous. We do not have to be present to one another. We do not have to be exposed to the soul-body responses of the recipients of to our words/ideas. The speed of communications, alone, inhibits the development of insight and traps us in a morass of conflicting “realities”. I recall Steiner writing that man would be seduced into believing we could have access to all the information/truth in the universe at our fingertips and this would prevent/inhibit cultivation of the spiritual powers within us. As a result, mankind would become utterly confounded – each one of us convinced we have the “truth” – but we would all be believing in different things. This describes what I see happening today where millions of humans are enthralled with conflicting certainties, suspicions, accusations – fueling foreign and domestic mass killings and war.
Regarding the 4th question: how can we help to wake up as many people as possible to what is coming towards us? I can offer one window on this task. It begins with learning to redeem/tame my own my Ahrimanic Double and helping others to tame theirs. Conceptually, this effort underlies the work I have been doing for 50+ years. Sometimes I am as shaky in its execution as I was on day one. It consists in taking responsibility for what our fears prompt us to engage in. It relates to Steiner’s teachings on how important it is to refuse to identify ourselves with either our sympathies or our antipathies. I understand the Double as the unconditioned reflex fear of falling – the only reflex the individual brings into this world at birth and whose purpose is to protect the physical body. The problem is that this reflex can be – often is – triggered in the face of any perceived threat – regardless of whether the threat is physical, psychological or spiritual. If the individual does not learn to differentiate among real or imagined threats to his body, he assumes the “startle posture” indiscriminately, buries the awareness of his thoughts/feelings/fears in his subconscious mind and can develop a wide range of medical and psychological (and spiritual) conditions.
The treatment goal consists of becoming aware of the fear and making deliberate, conscious, efforts to relax the body/mind while experiencing it. I understand this process as learning to relate to the world. not as the fearful Double, but as the developing Consciousness Soul. Steiner writes that mankind once saw into the spiritual world but lost this ability during the course of our development. Now, in this time, we are regaining that awareness. One version of how we have been regaining spiritual sight is described by what Abraham Maslow called “peak experiences”. He wrote that having such experiences are key to our future development and increasing numbers of persons are having them. The problem is that in our materialistic world these experiences are not validated: our parents tell us we’re just dreaming; our world says we are just “imagining” – and if we persist in calling these experiences, “real”, there must be something wrong with us. So we learn to become unconscious to our awakening spiritual vision – and the effort to remain unconscious makes us sick and confused and vulnerable. In regard to the 4th question, Maslow’s approach to waking people up to what’s happening is to speak to them with metaphors and images, rather than abstractions and explanations and concrete answers. This process awakens the person’s access to what he has confined to his subconscious mind. It can work and people can “suddenly remember” details of forgotten experiences – but sometimes it is very hard because ones own fears and fancies have to be put aside – and because people vary in their resistance to the subtle changes occurring in their consciousness.
I am very eager to hear how other Anthroposophists are dealing with the 4th question.
LikeLike
sigh, how do we awaken others? I call it inoculation in small amounts. My husband is about as far away from anthroposophy as you can get. However when the time presents itself and there may be an ‘opening’ I mention a truth. At night when we finish the Lord’s prayer we end it with, Not I but Christ in me. There is a ‘prepper’ blog I follow. On occasion there is an opening, say for instance, gardening, I will mention Bio Dynamic gardening. Awhile back evil was brought into a discussion. So my reply was, lets call evil by their names and thus gave a brief, VERY brief description of Lucifer and Ahriman. Around 4000 people read the blog. If just one can be reached or become curious it will be great. So on my small island at the moment this is what I am able to do.
“With a view to his incarnation on the earth, Ahriman guides certain forces in evolution in such a way that they may be of the greatest possible advantage to him. And evil would result were people to live on in a state of drowsy unawareness unable to recognize certain phenomena in life as preparations for Ahriman’s incarnation in the flesh”. (Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman, Lecture 1, Dornach, November 1, 1919)
My pondering on the flesh incarnation is a possible entry into a person who has ‘died’ and been brought back so to speak, but who knows. I still do not feel certain as to when this occurs. 3rd millennium elapsed, first part or last part? However Steiner mentions we cannot escape it. I will happen in the flesh. Perhaps part flesh and part machine.
LikeLike
“This is what might still happen if, before the beginning of the third millennium, men were to refuse to turn to the spiritual life. The third millennium begins with the year 2000, so it is only a short time ahead of us. It might still happen that the aim of the Angels in their work would have to be achieved by means of the sleeping bodies of men — instead of through men wideawake.” GA0182/19181009
“… before only a part of the third millennium of the post-Christian era has elapsed, there will be, in the West, an actual incarnation of Ahriman …” (GA0191/19191101), the incarnation taking place at birth or with an initiation.
LikeLike
To the third and fourth point Manichaeism and Scythianos are relevant. Steiner once told Rittelmeyer that one master wanders among six other masters: he mediates between them. Rittelmeyer took Scythianos for this seventh master (google tFF4DwAAQBAJ). According to legend, Scythianos was the Aristotelian predecessor of Mani living in Alexandria in the third century AD (wiki/Scythianus).
Thirty years ago Prokofieff elaborated on the mystery around Scythianos (google s39LDAAAQBAJ). Prokofieff seemed to suggest that the Manichaean teacher Scythianos appeared in the initiate Steiner as the mediating seventh master.
“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 …” https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310106.htm
LikeLike
I hope Jeremy is more happy with our homework by now. I will try to contribute some comments to question 3 “Our culture, which in the West was based on Christian belief, is now broken. We have dethroned Christ – who or what will replace him on the throne, and what values will prevail?” as Jeremy formulates it. Within the limitations of the blog, I can only take shortcuts. Speaking in a metaphor I would say let’s decide to keep the throne empty. Let’s see the empty throne as a symbol of universalty which exists beyond any narrative. Around the infinite emptiness of the throne, a multi-polar community of spiritual leaders and ordinary people all manifest in their respective unique presences with opportunities for critical as well as empathic exchanges and joyful collaboration. The situation is similar to the dynamics around the Bodhisattva question: instead of recognizing postumessly Rudolf Steiner as the successor of the throne vacated by Krishnamurti, the throne of the Bodhisattva of the 20st century -who was supposed to pronounce the Second Coming of the Christ in the etheric – (or keeping Krishnamurti who quit in 1929 there against his will) it was resolved, with the help of Elisabeth Vreede, that the throne could better be left open. Symbolizing, in my understanding, that we all are (potential) Bodhisattvas. |His Holiness the Dalai Lama being a Bodhisattva anyhow – not needing anthroposophists to tell him – but always pointing out that he is but “a simple monk”. |
The advise you mention somewhere, Jeremy, that it is needed to keep a sovereign on the throne to prevent the barbarians to overrule us, is exactly the argument which would enable a false Christ to take the position. There is no “we -they (the barbarians)” anymore. We are all one. Oneness is not the same as collectivism, as Vandana Shiva points out in her book “Oneness versus the 1%” but a platform for dynamic (individual- and group-) diversity and flourishing.
So Ahriman and his likes is not an entity out their but part of cosmic humanity. Which may make it even more challenging to counter him. I don’t know the exact wording, but if Ahriman is to incarnate “in the flesh” that does not imply, in my undersanding, as one “person”. And an incarnation of Ahriman is not Ahriman as a whole. Instead of getting obsessed by his carnal “old school” incarnation, it may be better to determine his overall qualities, as many contributors of posts here have done.
Soo it may be more conducive for the impulse of the Cosmic Christ not to be put on “the throne”, but indeed in the small groups of the Church of St. John. Equally it may be better to see the great initiate Rudolf Steiner as “one among” the brother- and sisterhood of teachers. Sorry if I was a bit rude in exemplifying that.
Although Steiner as a extraordinary person will still cast his presence into the future, we more and more experience communion with him by means of our artworks, philosophical efforts, meditation exercises and gardening. In a similar sense the Cosmic Christ would remain present in the initimate, personal, transsubstantiated sharing of bread and wine, while he/she might be recognised simultaneously by “the masses” as Mother Earth who needs and can give care (love) and who will require fair collaboration/justice among her children as the core values of the future.
What to do? In the way Gian Paulo explores possible serious mistakes in defining our paradigms (yes, he may be right or wrong) in this case in medical science, we have to get grip on the many paradigms that may misguide us. One of these paradigms is that nation-states and corporations (while respecting the right of private property for our own needs and protection/continuity) can own/buy/sell Mother Earth! The Earth is our commons!!
“Every global citizens is an equal trustee of the Earth” for the wellbeing of future generations and the community of life.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Hans
Your post brings to mind a central question of our age – Cosmopolitanism vs Globalism. It is my view that true Christianity leads to the former and the Buddhistic path – to the the latter.
Cosmopolitanism acts on the individual consciousness – Globalism upon the group (sub)consciousness. The plans of Globalists are developed in secret, in darkness. By contrast, Cosmopolitanism operates in the light of the words and deeds of the individual who seeks to change him/herself – not the world around them.
One could ask what is missing within Buddhism, which leads to an interest in Anthroposophy? And how it is that such interest is so often couched in terms which serve to denigrate, to deprecate the teachings and status of Rudolf Steiner.
I note that you unquestioningly accord the Dalai Lama with the rank of Bodhisattva. But, of course, he doesn’t need “anthroposophists to tell him”. Indeed not.
LikeLike
John 14 described the first and foremost replacement of the throne in Christianity as the sending of the Spirit, the Paraclete:
“… another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. … will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”
Steiner (1913) in the Fifth Gospel: “The event to which clairvoyant consciousness points is that of Pentecost, the sending of the Holy Spirit. Etc.” GA0148/19131001
(cf. the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Sophia, GA0103/19080531)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hello Moonsphere,
Thank you, there are some interesting issues for dialogue in your reaction. But, yes the sensitive point is that of cultural appropriation. How come that suddenly in the early 20st century Westerners claim authority over recognizing the Bodhisattva of the century – without proper dialogue with living Buddhists? It is like China claiming authority over the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. I do have questions about the Dalai Lama but among Buddhists there is clear consensus that he is a Bodhisattva (among others and in potetial all of us).
Indeed my group mind unconsciously assumed there was also consensus about better leaving the throne of this Western concept of “the Bodhisattva of the 20st century” empty. As a symbol of universality we all can equally share. But Sergej Prokofiev follows Aaronson and confirms it was Rudolf Steiner. Elisabeth Vreede, following Steiner’s own indications earlier said he was not. For that and other reasons she (with Ita Wegman as well as the Dutch and English societies) was expelled in 1935 from the Vorstand Steiner had appointed. (The societies were re-united in the 60ies and Elisabeth and Ita Wegman were recently rehabilitated).
So, the point of cultural appropriation is sensitive from the point of Buddhism. I think both Anthroposophy and Buddhism have strengths and weaknesses and dialogue, collaboration, can be extremely fruitful. As you yourself, I understood, we live in the “global South”. I live in Thailand, a supposed “Buddhist country” and I am married to a Thai wife. I landed in Thailand because of my interest in Buddhism, an interest I had even before I went to Emerson College where I could happily lesson my earlier thirst for being educated in Anthroposophy in addition to Buddhism. I am still grateful for that. Later I learned a lot from my friend Ha Vinh Tho who is a son of Vietnamese and French parents. He studied eurythmy at early age in Dornach. His engagement with Buddhism was more or less forcefully suppressed by peer pressure in Dornach. He surrendered until he could visit Vietnam and stood eye in eye with his ancestors …
The point for hopefully constructive dialogue I propose is this thesis. There is an authentic middle way between individualism (“West”) and collectivism (“East”). Co-creating this authentic middle path is a challenge for both sides, and we can have unique contributions from both sides. This Middle Path is the positive scenario for the future. It is “community”, “brother- and sistehood” in the conext of threefolding as well as “the spirit of Sangha”, all articulated more and more as “the commons movement”. This is not exactly the same as cosmopolitanism (while I do not understand how you can equate Buddhism with globalism, especially when that means dark, secret world hegemony).
Finally, there is the issue of (karma and) reincarnation. These are said to be typical Buddhist phenomena, as Steiner initially attributed. He even adopted reincarnation as an important element of a new Christianity, in my understanding. Now here is the irony, at the moment I would postulate that Buddhism should “reclaim” reincarnation as at heart of its culture, modern Buddhists bring to the surface that reincarnation may not have been part of the original teachings of the Buddha. Not only a contemporary Western Buddhist practitioner and scholar like Steven Batchelor says this, also Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, a 20st century Thai spiritual leader (who pioneered “socially engaged buddhism” and supported, together with Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai lama the foundation of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB) by my Thai teacher Sulak Sivaraksa) said that reincarnation was a way of seeing the mystery of life of the past. There is continuity of life, but any desire to be reborn in person is not helpful, although it may happen and even can be willfuly realised.
What we have in common, I propose, is “engaged spirituality”. and we can work extremely well together for the wellbeing of future generations and the community of life. If nobody claims the throne and we leave it empty by consensus.
LikeLike
@Hans – thank you for your reply.
The sense that Western Buddhists harbour some kind of resentment towards Anthroposophy has been with me for a while now and you have given an plausible explanation. So it not just the perceived cultural appropriation of the doctrine of reincarnation, but more specifically the westerners laying claim to knowledge of the Maitreya Bodhisattva’s 20th century incarnation.
Amidst all this, there is also the uncertainty amongst Western Buddhists that the doctrine of reincarnation actually formed part of Buddha’s teachings. As an aside, you say that Steiner “adopted” reincarnation as part of his teachings. Unfortunately there are many detractors of Anthroposophy who use precisely that kind of phraseology, inferring a pick-and-mix construction. These are the types of subtleties that cause my reaction to your posts.
There is no question that Anthroposophists can find much to treasure within Buddhism – we can even be inspired by Steiner to do so. But the question of what Buddhists can learn from Anthroposophy remains unanswered. The success of your thesis depends on an answer being found.
LikeLike
Moonsphere, before I react, what is the correct word if “adopting” is not? Hans
LikeLike
Hi Hans
what is the correct word if “adopting” is not?
I’ll try to explain by using Steiner’s awakening event in 1899 where he experienced his “festival of knowledge”. Would it fair to say that he “adopted” Christianity at that point? Or would it be much better to say that he had a profound revelatory experience which set the path for the rest of his life.
One does not “adopt” beliefs, unless we are speaking of charlatans. In my view Tony Blair “adopted” Christianity/Catholicism.
Just while I’m here, I didn’t equate Buddhism with Globalism, Lord knows there are plenty of Christians who have fallen into that trap. But Buddhism is currently smiled favourably upon by the planetary leaders in a way that Christianity is not. In that way, its followers are less able to see and question the evil direction of travel that is being taken.
Let me also say that I’m not singling you out here! It was your collection of “Was Steiner wise to…” sayings that occasioned Jeremy’s intervention – doubtless primed by other posts by different contributors.
LikeLike
Dear Moonsphere,
you questioned what I learned from Rudolf Steiner. As if you feel I didn’t learn enough. I agree. In the thread following Jeremy’s new article I already said that the most important element I learned from his living example is his incredible resilience demonstrated in the design and realisation of the second Goetheanum. I visited it for the first time around 1980 in the same period I made my first journey to the East. The building was nearly empty and nothing withheld me from walking the stairs until the higher levels. What I discovered was that it was not yet ready … I took that as an invitation to join the work. I am not that happy with the later over decoration of the big hall … Exploring the building was the start of a kind of inner research into the incredible beauty, mathematical precision and spiritual warmth Steiner opens our eyes to. In never ending dimensions, and leading to attentive observation of natural phenomena, the human constitution and the cosmic infinity. With the promise that for what you cannot see or catch with the senses, that you can develop new inner senses for the precise knowledge and empathy on worlds unknown. Including structures shaping world history and human evolution as well as individual lives. Culminating in the for me really illuminating dynamics of social threefolding. But so (if this is enough for the moment) there are also elements I appreciate less, or I disagree with. I see it as a gesture of protecting Steiner’s heritage from mystification and dogmatism, even sectarianism, to (different from the time where he asked Esotheric School members to shield him from attacks) approach him as a very special and noble person but also as a normal human being who was not always right or beyond mundane influence. Therefor I welcome the various academic commenttaries underway on his work and the dialogue undertaken by people like Jost Schieren, which Jeremy promised us to highlight in one of the posts I am looking forward to. And I did not say that Steiner “adopted” Christianity, but that he adopted reincarnation. If ever I showed “resentment” as you frame, I apologize for that. I just want to mirror from time to time how some claims are perceived by those who consider it their cultural heritage, which they are happy to share. But sometimes are more than “adopted” and rather “appropriated”.
LikeLike
Thank you Hans, I share your admiration for the building at Dornach, which I visited about 36 years after you first did! Oddly enough it seemed somewhat empty to me also, we wandered around, up the stairs, exploring the various rooms – hardly anyone was there! It was a wonderful experience. I suppose I will always wish that the original was still standing there – but it seems that was not in its destiny.
Regarding our discussion about Buddhism and Anthroposophy, at somewhere along the line it seemed to veer from the general to the personal. That was my fault. You owe me no explanations as to what you find of value, either regarding the person of Rudolf Steiner, nor regarding his teachings.
We are each of us blessed by our aquaintance with his legacy and no-one will have the same encounter as another.
All best wishes to you
LikeLike
Hans, your focus on Buddhism reminds me of something that captivated me when I first learned it years ago. The production of high-beta brain activity is associated with high levels of anxiety and anxiety attacks. Relaxation techniques are designed to reduce beta brain wave production. Experimenters were surprised to learn, when they conducted tests on Buddhist monks in meditation, that their desired state was INCREASED production of high-beta. This opened a new frontier for me in understanding spiritual activity and why we tend to shun it, distrust it, flee from it. Do you have any thoughts or experiences regarding this? This may appear to take us off topic, but I think it relates directly to the 4th question – how do we wake up? What sends us running away from the spiritual and into the arms of fantasies and violence?
LikeLike
Dear Kathy,
I don’t consider myself an expert in meditation and even less in neuroscience. Approved teachers are Arthur Zajonc, former President Mind and Life Institute (Dharamsala dialogues), and Ha Vinh Tho who is a recognised teacher in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. So my comments are common sense. Fear in terms of neuro formation can indicate a higher state of alertness and that is certainly part of the meditation experience, as far as I know. But what is the next step? Confronting danger (usually including agression, without necessarily bad intent). Or fleeing from danger with longing for refuge, a safe place away from it. This can be real action of a mental process only. However, as usual there is a creative middle path: confronting danger, or evil, with love. That is the core of meditation effort. The middle path does not eliminate the two contrasting reactions of agression (or courage) and hiding into safety. Otherwise love becomes naive. Vigilant love to confront, for example, Ahriman, may be the ultimate solution and we can prepare ourselves mentally for it. Together with augmenting our courage and our sense of safety (in ourselves and/or in community; or in Nature).
LikeLike
“Vigilant love”…That’s beautiful, Hans!
LikeLike
You observe that Christianity in the UK is in a ‘terminal death spiral’ but I wonder if it will not morph into other forms, less structured and dogmatic. For instance I find it interesting that there is a growing movement whose slogan is ‘bring your own beliefs’ to revive the ancient pilgrimage routes to the great cathedrals spearheaded by Rupert Sheldrake. See minute 1:13
of
LikeLike
Thanks ininsoi. Yes, let us all bring our own beliefs and celebrate diversity around the empty throne …
LikeLike
Bring our own beliefs? Ahriman would approve of the division and confusion between Anthroposophist. Or did this ole Platonist not understand the conversation.
LikeLike
I heartily support the diversity that is so important to us all. also however there is this passage from The Mystery of the Trinity part 2 IV THE OTHER SIDE OF HUMAN EXISTENCE https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA214/English/AP1991/19220830p03.html
which tells me that the Second coming of Christ as a whole of humanity experience is a long way off and the consequences of not actively seeking Christ has profound consequences.
“My dear friends, I believe you could have visited the most important regions of the earth as a world traveler and still you would not have had the sum of experiences that your sun-eye gathers for you from a single constellation of the zodiac.. Today, a person’s sun-eye can hardly come to any kind of clarity — and we must come to clarity even if we forget it in the day. We can hardly come to any kind of clarity concerning what we experience in twelve-fold complexity during the night unless we take into our hearts and minds what Christ wanted to become for the earth through the Mystery of Golgotha. Simply having felt what it means for the life of the earth that Christ went through the mystery of Golgotha, simply thinking about Christ in our ordinary life on earth brings such a tinge, such a hue, into our astral body, by the indirect path through the physical and etheric bodies, that Christ can become our leader through the zodiac from falling asleep to waking.
Once again the human being wonders: Will I be lost in the multitude of stars and their activities? But if we can look back to thoughts, feelings, and will impulses turned toward Christ during our daytime waking state, then Christ becomes a leader who helps us to bring order into the complex and confusing events of this sphere.
Only when we observe the other side of life do we realize the full significance of Christ for the earth life of humanity since the Mystery of Golgotha. In the present, ordinary civilization, there is actually no one else who understands what Christ must still become for the life of earth. All these things, which have not yet been experienced by many people, are wrongly explained. Only when you know what I have just explained can you understand the various ways in which people who have not yet been touched by the Christ event bring their nightly experiences while asleep into waking day consciousness. When we have gone through the misty existence in the sleep state and entered the second sphere we stand before a complicated and confusing world. Only when Christ steps forward as a spiritual sun and becomes our leader is complex confusion resolved into a kind of harmonious understanding.
This point is important because our karma appears, actually appears to our sun-eye, the moment we step into this sphere of whirling confusion, this sphere of planetary movement and of the fixed star constellations of the zodiac. All human beings perceive their karma, but only in the sleeping state. The afterimage or afterglow of this perception slips into our waking state through our feelings.
Much of the condition of soul that we can find in ourselves — if, to some extent, we strive for self-knowledge — is a very dim echo of this zodiacal experience. People can receive strength for their daily lives because Christ appeared as the leader and led them from Aries through Taurus, Gemini, and so forth, and explained the world to them in the night. What we experience in this sphere is nothing less significant than this: Christ becomes our leader through the complex and confusing events in the zodiac; he stands there as the being who leads us, who leads us from constellation to constellation, in order for us to take into ourselves, in an orderly fashion, the spiritual forces that we once again need — and they are, indeed, ordered — for our waking life.”
LikeLike
For Steiner (1910), exoteric Christianity (eternal life) and exoteric Buddhism (reincarnation) could ‘flow together in the spiritual’, as a developing individuality within the community (Whitsun):
“… a great deal of what has been said recently in our Movement can come before us to-day with new meaning. We see the fusion of East and West, of the two mighty revelations of Christianity and Buddhism; we see them flow together in the spiritual. And through the right understanding of the Christian Whitsun thought we can justify the flowing together of these two greatest religions of the earth to-day. Etc.”
GA0118/19100515, Whitsun, the Festival of the free Individuality.
LikeLike
Thank you, Ton! Wonderful.
LikeLike
Surprisingly in Steiner’s apocalyptic view (1924), the cultural war in our third Christian millennium was seminally preceded by the Bolshevist revolution in Russia, and even before by Russia’s 19th century imperialism (‘Russianism’): “One will see that what is concentrated in a small region in present-day Russian communism will be inserted into the whole earth evolution of humanity. … What is striven for by the Soratic [Ahrimanic] spirits who are pressing into the soul of humanity is not the world war, but what followed it; this is terrible and will become ever more terrible, for instance, look at the present condition of Russia.” GA0346/19240912
Ever since the start of the third millennium, Russian autocratic ruler Vladimir Putin waged a hybrid war against ‘the West’. And now, in his new ‘national security strategy’ and in his pseudo-historical essays on WW2 and Ukraine, Putin is falling back on Russia’s 19th century imperialism. Conquering Europe with gas pipe lines, military occupations, hypersonic weapons, information wars, poisonings, cyber attacks and orthodox-Christian propaganda is his ultimate goal. Czar Putin not only seeks to establish the ‘Russian World’ (‘Great Russia’) against the Anglo-American ‘West’ (‘anti-Russia’), but also to controll and subject democratic Europe. Putin with his inner circle from St.Petersburg, set up an apocalyptic time plan of three times 6 years (2018-2036) to reach this malicious goal, which was already set out in the beginning of the 19th century in the fourteen points of the so-called ‘Testament of Peter the Great’: “Thus can Europe be subjugated.”.
http://www.antipas.org/commentaries/articles/will_of_peter_the_great.html
cf. Steiner (1916), Karma of Untruthfulness, CW 173 (google BSq5byop0rwC, p.37) and CW 337.
LikeLike
This is the reason why it is happening. Sad to say, the only thing we can say is “well done” – they have executed the plan almost flawlessly.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/WWqrq7TSIJzs/
Dr Day in 1969: “We have everything in place. No one can stop us now”
Dr. Dunegan attended a speech given by Dr. Day on March 20, 1969 at the Pittsburgh Pediatric Society to health professionals. At that time Dr. Day was Professor of Pediatrics at Mount Sinai Medical School in New York. He was previously the Medical Director of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Dr Day forbade not taking or recording, and gave the impression that his life would be in danger if it were known that he gave the talk. By 1988, Dr Dunegan was alarmed at the accurate advances of the stated agenda and did the interview. Dr Day died in 1989.
LikeLike