Bernardo's latest essay

[AshvinP]

Let's consider a simple man, a savage.

Let's not con, I don't like the taste of that cider.

I called a formulation of an animistic theory 'The Savage Theory' because it's much more simple than your projection of "a simple savage", which is a very complex and not very healthy layering of cultural narratives. There's no empirical foundation for the narrative except the self-reflection of an European as a degenerate imbecille.

I knew that word was going to draw a response from you as soon as I read it

Clearly he is just using a word to stand in for "a simple man" with only instinctive consciousness so he does need to type such things out every time he refers to the simple man's consciousness.

[SanteriSatama]

Let's consider a simple man, a savage.

Let's not con, I don't like the taste of that cider.

I called a formulation of an animistic theory 'The Savage Theory' because it's much more simple than your projection of "a simple savage", which is a very complex and not very healthy layering of cultural narratives. There's no empirical foundation for the narrative except the self-reflection of an European as a degenerate imbecille.

I knew that word was going to draw a response from you as soon as I read it

And just as predictably, you jump in with the escape route of "individual person", which is a total micomprehension of the actual issue and argument. Of course this has nothing to do with ad hominem in any direction. The myth of "individual person" and his disassociated alienation is not so much using language, it is much more created and used by language.

I wellcome and cherish personifications here standing for the collective European Spirit and it's "ideal content". There is much holy on such level of discussion. I believe it is a shared goal of the dialogue to help European Spirit, as well as others, to become better self-aware and keep on learning to become better gods and trees etc. with better fruits. I feel that I would be betraying our holy level of dialogue, beloved European Spirit, as you speak through your representatives in this forum, if I would not continue to address You directly, your layers of language and history, our shared layers of language and beaty and spiritual experience as well as our hurtful relations in the Shadow.

Let's make clear again, beloved Europe, that the self-projective imagination of an degenerate imbecille aka "savage" is comes for your layers of class society, how you view your subjects in your aspect of the ruling class and its "rational administrating" fearing and loathing the ruled, the European peoples in their savage slavery from generation to generation, from millennia to millennia. And of course that superiority-inferiority complex is not the whole of you, your rebirth and regrowth and Will to learn and to become a better god in a community of gods, as well as an indigenous child of Mother Earth.

[Eugene I]

Yes, this way of using the word 'idea' can be confusing, but I think it serves a pedagogical purpose. That is, to move one's thinking in Cleric's direction of seeing ourselves as idea-beings, and as surrounded by more advanced idea-beings.

But, if I want to avoid confusion, I use the term 'conscious act' instead of 'idea', even though for me these are one and the same. And with that change, all your questions are answered. What experiences ideal content? Conscious activity. What knows (-1 and -2)? Conscious activity. What wills? Conscious activity.

Yes, exactly, "Conscious activity" is the closest linguistic label I can think of. So, we finally arrived at the formula:

formlessness--------Conscious activity-----------ideal content (forms)

The key thing is that Conscious activity is the union of formless and ideal content. When knowing-1 ignores either the former of the latter, the knowledge of the reality (self-knowledge of the Conscious activity) becomes incomplete. It's the knowledge of both aspects of the formula that makes such knowledge complete.

I don't think I can make things more explicit than this. Western esoterism builds on the heritage of the East. Nothing has been thrown away (I'm not speaking about the external history of the West exemplified by the church, science and abstract philosophy).

I would be glad to agree with you, but I studied and practiced Western traditions, and found only one clear reference to formless (its knowing-2 aspect), which is

The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love.
Meister Eckhart

But if you can give me more quotes referring to the formless aspects of Conscious activity, I will be glad to agree with you.
So I would rather put aside any superiority claims and admit the fact both traditions has been equally lacking: the Western traditions were skewed towards the ideal content neglecting the formless, and the Eastern ones did exactly the opposite - skewed towards the formless neglecting the ideal content. What is needed is a balanced integration of both.

[AshvinP]

Let's not con, I don't like the taste of that cider.

I called a formulation of an animistic theory 'The Savage Theory' because it's much more simple than your projection of "a simple savage", which is a very complex and not very healthy layering of cultural narratives. There's no empirical foundation for the narrative except the self-reflection of an European as a degenerate imbecille.

I knew that word was going to draw a response from you as soon as I read it

And just as predictably, you jump in with the escape route of "individual person", which is a total micomprehension of the actual issue and argument. Of course this has nothing to do with ad hominem in any direction. The myth of "individual person" and his disassociated alienation is not so much using language, it is much more created and used by language.

I wellcome and cherish personifications here standing for the collective European Spirit and it's "ideal content". There is much holy on such level of discussion. I believe it is a shared goal of the dialogue to help European Spirit, as well as others, to become better self-aware and keep on learning to become better gods and trees etc. with better fruits. I feel that I would be betraying our holy level of dialogue, beloved European Spirit, as you speak through your representatives in this forum, if I would not continue to address You directly, your layers of language and history, our shared layers of language and beaty and spiritual experience as well as our hurtful relations in the Shadow.

Let's make clear again, beloved Europe, that the self-projective imagination of an degenerate imbecille aka "savage" is comes for your layers of class society, how you view your subjects in your aspect of the ruling class and its "rational administrating" fearing and loathing the ruled, the European peoples in their savage slavery from generation to generation, from millennia to millennia. And of course that superiority-inferiority complex is not the whole of you, your rebirth and regrowth and Will to learn and to become a better god in a community of gods, as well as an indigenous child of Mother Earth.

SS - you feel what you are saying above is somehow relevant to what Cleric is saying, and I think you are flat out wrong and therefore the deconstructive psychoanalytic commentary in your original comment and the one above only serves to distract from the concrete import of what he is writing about. But by engaging with you on that, I am also complicit in the distraction, so I will just agree to disagree and leave it at that.

[JustinG]

Let's make clear again, beloved Europe, that the self-projective imagination of an degenerate imbecille aka "savage" is comes for your layers of class society, how you view your subjects in your aspect of the ruling class and its "rational administrating" fearing and loathing the ruled, the European peoples in their savage slavery from generation to generation, from millennia to millennia.

On this topic, and given the frequent adulation of Rudolf Steiner on this forum, his notoriously racist views are something which need to be acknowledged and repudiated IMO. For example, here is some of the 'wisdom' of Steiner (from this site https://sites.google.com/site/waldorfwa ... ers-racism):

Today's red and black races descend from abnormal humans and have not participated in the evolution led by whites: “it was the normal human beings that were...the most capable of evolving. [Abnormal] peoples whose ego impulse was developed too strongly...became...the Red Indians of America. [Likewise, the abnormal] people whose ego-feeling was too little developed...became the subsequent Negro population of Africa ... The human beings who had developed normally lent themselves best to progress.

[AshvinP]

Let's make clear again, beloved Europe, that the self-projective imagination of an degenerate imbecille aka "savage" is comes for your layers of class society, how you view your subjects in your aspect of the ruling class and its "rational administrating" fearing and loathing the ruled, the European peoples in their savage slavery from generation to generation, from millennia to millennia.

On this topic, and given the frequent adulation of Rudolf Steiner on this forum, his notoriously racist views are something which need to be acknowledged and repudiated IMO. For example, here is some of the 'wisdom' of Steiner (from this site https://sites.google.com/site/waldorfwa ... ers-racism):

Today's red and black races descend from abnormal humans and have not participated in the evolution led by whites: “it was the normal human beings that were...the most capable of evolving. [Abnormal] peoples whose ego impulse was developed too strongly...became...the Red Indians of America. [Likewise, the abnormal] people whose ego-feeling was too little developed...became the subsequent Negro population of Africa ... The human beings who had developed normally lent themselves best to progress.

Just because you call something "racist" does not make it racist. It takes a special level of arrogance and/or ignorance to do so. Of course that is exactly what permeates the Western world today under the guise of "social justice", which is nothing more than a marketing ploy to a terribly captive audience. And with the peculiar and unfortunate result that those who are most likely to bridge the superficial differences between humans through focus on our shared Spirit are cancelled from history and those without any understanding of such things take their place. I can also cancel out just about every Marxist thinker from history by seeking any "prejudiced" out-of-context quote to make them seem like they all supported violent revolutions and the Gulags. Of course, reasonable people seeking true understanding of spiritual matters do not do such things. They do not try to distract from the substantive points made in very thoughtful and effortful posts by linking lazy hit piece from even lazier Google search.

That being said, to address the uninformed hit piece and move on, we can just look at Cleric's comments on this thread which already dealt with all of these non-issues. I generally hate the idea of content moderation, but let's remember the forum rules. If this continues, then I will definitely request that Simon or Dana step in to moderate posts which are not making any philosophical points, or even engaging with any of the philosophical points made, and are solely designed to promote an ideological political view and derail productive discussion.

[JustinG]

I think most contemporary people would think that some of the things Steiner wrote were racist. He indicts himself with his own words. This does not mean that in other respects he had a lot of wisdom, but his wisdom was not so great that he could rise above the prejudices of his day (much like Nietzsche).

The metaphysical relevance of this issue, and why it does not warrant being "cancelled" as you propose, is that of whether Steiner's racism can be extricated from the rest of his philosophy, or is irretrievably baked into his hierarchical view of spiritual development and evolution. Much of post-structuralist philosophy can be seen as a reaction against hierarchical and totalizing kinds of philosophizing.

[SanteriSatama]

we can just look at Cleric's comments on this thread which already dealt with all of these non-issues.

Ok, let's take a look:

We can't just open the doors of our being and let indiscriminately anyone enter and leave, and hope that in this way we are performing higher service. Because the first to enter are thieves and burglars who care not for the house but what they can take from it.

The projection of "thieves and burglars" is so obvious that it deserves no further comment. But that's not the real issue. The real issue is the immensly deep lack of genuine self-confidence and self-love. We do have innate power of transformation, to open the doors to let the dancing demons in and transform them into cudly kittens. Or how ever the power of transformation visualizes (or does not) in each instance of therapeutic transformation in the temples of our bodies.

How weak and afraid you must feel, beloved Europe! Giving so much power to your Fear, the Fear which is just a projection of your Shadow. It's bloody basics, Jung 101. You know that! By giving power to fear you just keep feeding it, the "mind killer". You know the rest of the Bene Gesserit litany, I don't have to repeat it.

I know, I know. All the witch hunts and materialistic "psychiatry" to weed out the power to transform fear back to love from your subject victims and their bodily temples of the Spirit, the first lesson that shamanhood teaches. It's been so hard for You, beloved Europe.

Why then, You may ask, does the Spirit World not transform and heal you in a snap of o finger? Because that is not how healthy self-confidence and self-love can be taught and learned. You don't want to be healed by your Other, which stays mainly a projection of your bottomless superiority-inferiority complex, but much more importantly, "I did it my way" is also Your Song and Will, beloved Europe.

Hey ho, what do I know? By studying your ways, your language, your essence, I have became also You, and so You are also me, beloved Europe. We are just having a nice internal dialogue here, and as I'm Europe, and the power of transformation is in me, the power or transformation is in Europe, in me, you and we.

[Lou Gold]

[Ben Iscatus]

although he says that it must be "in a sense" something other than nothing, that "in a sense" is an important qualifier: it's his admission that it also is nothing. Indeed, he goes so far as to say that M@L is nothing but its experiences.

I find it helpful to think in terms of his usual metaphor: the lake, or the ocean. All forms are merely ripples on the lake, arranged in coherent patterns (shaped by archetypes). Then it is easier to grasp, because a lake is not nothing. I've also heard BK refer to the old 'fish don't know that they're in water' idea.

Right. But it's a metaphor precisely because the "medium of mind" is simply not an actual medium -- even the language of "medium" is metaphorical here. It's not a substantive substrate. Kastrup is pretty clear about that:

You may like to hear Bernardo's view expressed at the 2hr 13 minute mark in his latest interview: