Tomberg and Anthroposophy

[AshvinP]

Here's a related thread I posted in another forum which relates this topic back to Philosophy of Freedom. I'm not sure if it adds much to what has already been discussed here, but maybe it does. Ashvin provided a few comments in the other forum, so perhaps he'd be interested in transferring those here as well (although no worries if not). I ended the original post with a few quotes from a great work by St. Maximus the Confessor which seemed resonant.

Thanks for sharing it here, Rodriel, I will transfer my response with a few additional considerations.

What you are saying in its broad outlines rings true to me. In fact, I would expand it out to encompass, not just the Peter thinking of the Church, but all sense-derived conceptual expressions of humanity over the preceding centuries. We have to, in some sense, also 'submit to the authority' of the great philosophies, arts, and natural sciences, such that our intellectual faculties are refined and given proper orientation when steering into the supersensible domain. That is indeed a key facet of moral creativity, a skill that we need to learn and optimize on our journey. Yet we need to also be very clear on what we mean, concretely, by 'submit to the authority' and by doing that 'before attempting to deepen into the domain of supersensible perception'?

This topic has basically come up on the 'attaining spiritual sight' thread on the forum as well, among other places, in terms of the 'horizontal' and the 'vertical' vectors of development (and it's interesting to contemplate how this same theme emerges in the most varied forms, which can help sensitize us to shared soul curvatures that shape imaginative content at the surface). I think there is a great temptation in our time to treat these as separate vectors, as if we need to dabble around in sense-based thinking for a long time and establish the spiritual based on various intellectual arguments, before we ascend into the spheres of higher cognition. Yet, as Cleric and I have tried to point toward in many essays and posts (and which is expressed in PoF as well), the vectors have spiraled together through the Christ impulse and now the sense-based thinking only truly serves that Impulse when it becomes simultaneously a means of deepening into the supersensible.

Otherwise, if we don't perceive this overlap between the vectors, there is a great danger of veering off the strait and narrow way, instead 'submitting to authority' as an excuse to indefinitely avoid the supersensible. We shouldn't underestimate the momentum and force of these tempting tendencies within the soul. It is critical to notice that 'submitting to authority' in this way is the default state of the modern human soul. It is what the average person does on a daily basis through their peers, bosses, scientists, celebrities, social media influences, and so on. Even when we start on a spiritual path, we are first inclined to rely heavily on the statements of a priest, guru, initiate, etc. That is how the soul must start its seeking, but it would be a grave mistake to imagine this will propel its momentum into the future. The old functions of such authoritative institutions, which were proper in their respective times, will only grow more decadent in the upcoming years as inner circumstances evolve.

That's why I think we need to become as precise as possible about the true relationship between Peter and John thinking, about what it will practically look like going forward. And it's hard to see that relationship expressed in what normally passes for theological thinking within the Church these days, just as little as we can see it in what comes from natural scientific thinking within the standard institutions. It seems that a major transformation is needed in that respect. The Church teachings should be experienced more consciously as anchor points for exploring the supersensible depths. If they only remain unconscious anchor points, then souls will remain confined to a flattened plane of abstract tokens which are less and less capable of inspiring the moral life. But as you have often mentioned, such a transformation will be highly resisted by the institutions. I was looking for a place to mention this discussion between Pageau and Levin, and it seems to fit quite well here:





On the one hand, it is refreshing to hear someone like Pageau sound a bit of an alarm over the direction of Levin's project, while many others like Vervaeke, Kastrup, Hoffman, and so on, don't push back at all. Yet, on the other hand, we can sense how Pageau has absolutely no convincing way to address what Levin responds about these ethical questions. If we think about it, the only possible way to address these questions is through intimate knowledge of reincarnation and what happens between death and rebirth. When Levin expresses the sorry state of the World today and the extensive suffering, and when he mentions how he hopes future people will look back in astonishment of how we simply accepted the 'random bodies' we were allotted with deformities caused by 'cosmic rays', we can sense how anyone sensible will nod along in agreement unless they have a wider supersensible context into which such facts can be placed. Not just a theoretical framework of reincarnation and karma, which actually may cause even more suspicion of occult science, but a more intuitive feeling for these inner dynamics which can be artistically painted with precise concepts.

Yet that is exactly what we agree the Church will be highly resistant to. So when a modern intellectual soul confronts the astonishing scientific advances of Levin's research, on the one hand, and the uncertain promises of a nebulous afterlife in Heaven, on the other, how exactly will it be inspired to remain faithful to the Spirit and address the pain, suffering, illness, traumas, etc. from within? Will such promises still serve the same function in the modern soul that it did for souls many centuries ago, allowing it to weather the storms of materialistic life? I think the answer is clearly, no. So it seems to me that the Church can only hold open the portal to the supersensible for the intellectual soul if its finds a way to integrate such deeper knowledge, rather than to fiercely resist it as it does now. I am definitely curious to hear any further thoughts you have on this topic.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

Yet that is exactly what we agree the Church will be highly resistant to. So when a modern intellectual soul confronts the astonishing scientific advances of Levin's research, on the one hand, and the uncertain promises of a nebulous afterlife in Heaven, on the other, how exactly will it be inspired to remain faithful to the Spirit and address the pain, suffering, illness, traumas, etc. from within? Will such promises still serve the same function in the modern soul that it did for souls many centuries ago, allowing it to weather the storms of materialistic life? I think the answer is clearly, no. So it seems to me that the Church can only hold open the portal to the supersensible for the intellectual soul if its finds a way to integrate such deeper knowledge, rather than to fiercely resist it as it does now. I am definitely curious to hear any further thoughts you have on this topic.

Peter thinking, the spiritually-open intellectual soul, is precisely the stage at which crucifixion occurs. Other pre-given forces that one submits to as outer authorities - those coming from peers, social media, etc. - are actually regressions to something approximating the sentient soul. If we remember that the 5th cultural age is the transformed recapitulation of the 3rd (Egyptian/Chaldean/Hebrew), we understand that failure to attain to the consciousness soul is most immediately a regression back to the level of the 3rd cultural age, not the 4th. So the baseline achieved in the 4th cultural age must continue as a steady bulwark against the increasingly rapid degradation of soul organization. It must also be noted that this degradation back to the sentient soul isn't actually quite as simple as rolling the progress back. It's a reversion back to a previous faculty but in the context of an overall organization which has been sculpted increasingly by the 'I' - in essence, a kind of evil twin of the sentient soul.

While I definitely take your point that the tendency to submit generally and by default to everything that comes to us externally is a byproduct of the intellectual soul's influence, I think one must be careful to distinguish which externally originating forces are actually in accord with the intellectual soul itself (of which there are indeed many) and which are below that level. In Steiner's day, the [intellectual soul in accordance with its own forces] was a much more pervasive phenomenon; scientific, logical thinking encompassed a majority of cultural life (or at least a larger majority than today). Since that time, the 'I' has begun descending much more quickly, and the lazy/misguided/ignorant response to this has begun to erode the forces of the intellectual soul per se, such that public life is increasingly illogical and of the character of the "egotized" sentient soul.

So I guess what I'd argue here is that it is specifically the Petrine institution itself one should submit to. This is the institution that has brought the spiritually-opened intellectual soul to its pinnacle and which both maintains this level as a necessary protection against the regression of soul forces and is the very locus of crucifixion itself. One can't crucify the flesh of the senses if the world of the senses itself has become blurred by the undoing of the intellectual soul.

[Federica]

Here's where I still think Tomberg contributed something that followers of this path simply can't ignore. Now one might think that arriving at such a position of moral freedom and responsibility means resisting or attempting to do away with the sense-bound approach imposed by others. However, acts of moral creativity very often entail submitting to the authority of those under the sway of the sense-bound approach. Such selfless acts, when imbued subtly but powerfully with the forces of resurrection, can themselves be crucifixions showing the way to the Gospel to Law-hardened souls. It is for this reason that rejecting the Roman Catholic Church is a grave error on the part of esotericists within the John stream. All arrows point toward the Law (sense-bound authority) being the necessary vessel for the Gospel (moral creativity). The resurrection of the body means one does not abandon the body; rather, one infuses it with the spirit.

The dogma of the Church is the upper limit of sense-derived conceptual expression applied to the domain of the spiritual. It is the pinnacle of "Peter thinking," thinking which derives from the senses (Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu) but is open to the spirit (intuitively recognizes Christ as the "son of the living God"). Furthermore, it is salutary and in a sense even necessary for the esotericist to rise to the upper heights of this disciplined, Peter thinking - in other words to bring to mastery one's faculties of faith-allied logic, before attempting to deepen into the domain of supersensible perception. One must allow Peter to enter the tomb first within one's own soul, and this activity is channeled through the strictures of dogma, the tenets of which are absolutely true within the domain of sense-derived thinking.

Are you essentially saying that by predeterminately choosing not to choose (what you are doing here in your recommendation) the esotericist should teach less advanced souls how to make choices? If not, it would perhaps help to bring a concrete example of an act of moral creativity that submits to the authority of the Law.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

Are you essentially saying that by predeterminately choosing not to choose (what you are doing here in your recommendation) the esotericist should teach less advanced souls how to make choices? If not, it would perhaps help to bring a concrete example of an act of moral creativity that submits to the authority of the Law.

Well I of course wouldn't put it that way. I see what you mean, but it's a bit of a mischaracterization. When one deliberately restricts one's speech or action for the benefit of another person, "choosing not to choose" isn't quite what is going on. To be clear, what I'm specifically talking about is restricting the way one speaks publicly about the facts of esotericism. In willingly submitting to the Law, one hasn't eliminated one's own choice to rise to supersensible cognition but simply restricted how what is gained there is communicated. A perfect example of this is Meditations on the Tarot (and other of Tomberg's works, but I reference this one as the most widely known). This is a wholly Anthroposophical work communicated in terms that are at the limit of what is acceptable from the perspective of Catholic dogmatics. A Catholic with a propensity toward the supersensible can pick it up and gain quite a bit from it without worrying about it causing much if any scandal. It is a beautifully crafted veil which conceals and reveals simultaneously, just in the right proportion.

This isn't a completely unprecedented view that I'm expressing. Withholding certain communications is something well known to esotericists. There were certain facts that Steiner gained by supersensible investigation that he would not share with others, for their benefit. Certain supersensible facts, such as those relating to matters of personal karma, for example, must be gained personally in order not to be a severe hindrance to the person involved. Ultimately all supersensible knowledge is this like this, in that one must discover it for oneself. The danger for it to become an external imposition or a temptation is great, as we have discussed previously. However, Steiner received a particular mission at a particular spiritually ordained time to make a certain sliver of this knowledge publicly available. The enzyme has taken hold and begun to do its work, but what I am now suggesting (following Tomberg) is that this work be continued in a more restricted form.

[AshvinP]

Yet that is exactly what we agree the Church will be highly resistant to. So when a modern intellectual soul confronts the astonishing scientific advances of Levin's research, on the one hand, and the uncertain promises of a nebulous afterlife in Heaven, on the other, how exactly will it be inspired to remain faithful to the Spirit and address the pain, suffering, illness, traumas, etc. from within? Will such promises still serve the same function in the modern soul that it did for souls many centuries ago, allowing it to weather the storms of materialistic life? I think the answer is clearly, no. So it seems to me that the Church can only hold open the portal to the supersensible for the intellectual soul if its finds a way to integrate such deeper knowledge, rather than to fiercely resist it as it does now. I am definitely curious to hear any further thoughts you have on this topic.

Peter thinking, the spiritually-open intellectual soul, is precisely the stage at which crucifixion occurs. Other pre-given forces that one submits to as outer authorities - those coming from peers, social media, etc. - are actually regressions to something approximating the sentient soul. If we remember that the 5th cultural age is the transformed recapitulation of the 3rd (Egyptian/Chaldean/Hebrew), we understand that failure to attain to the consciousness soul is most immediately a regression back to the level of the 3rd cultural age, not the 4th. So the baseline achieved in the 4th cultural age must continue as a steady bulwark against the increasingly rapid degradation of soul organization. It must also be noted that this degradation back to the sentient soul isn't actually quite as simple as rolling the progress back. It's a reversion back to a previous faculty but in the context of an overall organization which has been sculpted increasingly by the 'I' - in essence, a kind of evil twin of the sentient soul.

While I definitely take your point that the tendency to submit generally and by default to everything that comes to us externally is a byproduct of the intellectual soul's influence, I think one must be careful to distinguish which externally originating forces are actually in accord with the intellectual soul itself (of which there are indeed many) and which are below that level. In Steiner's day, the [intellectual soul in accordance with its own forces] was a much more pervasive phenomenon; scientific, logical thinking encompassed a majority of cultural life (or at least a larger majority than today). Since that time, the 'I' has begun descending much more quickly, and the lazy/misguided/ignorant response to this has begun to erode the forces of the intellectual soul per se, such that public life is increasingly illogical and of the character of the "egotized" sentient soul.

So I guess what I'd argue here is that it is specifically the Petrine institution itself one should submit to. This is the institution that has brought the spiritually-opened intellectual soul to its pinnacle and which both maintains this level as a necessary protection against the regression of soul forces and is the very locus of crucifixion itself. One can't crucify the flesh of the senses if the world of the senses itself has become blurred by the undoing of the intellectual soul.

I suppose my main concern is when we make this delineation in the imaginative domain, i.e., between Peter thinking and John thinking. In the deeper domain of feeling, what you are saying makes a lot more sense to me, insofar as the Church may still functionally safeguard the devotional feelings of the pious faithful. Even such feelings are still mediated by our mental pictures, and thus this safeguarding function is also on the decline. But at least the average soul may find the Petrine institution as a place of quiet solitude where devotional feelings can still be cultivated to some extent, apart from the materialistic storms of daily life.

In the domain of thinking, however, I am always suspicious when a dualized spectrum is introduced into the picture, just like it was in modern metaphysics (for example, Locke's primary and secondary qualities) and epistemology (Kant). The act of meditative concentration is really the archetypal image for how the "I" can continue advancing from the intellectual to spiritual soul rather than regressing into the sentient soul. In the concentrated state, our laser-like inner activity becomes 'phase-locked' with the content that we are focused on and our imaginative space expands to become something monolithic. You may remember this exercise from the recent essay:

A quick exercise to become more sensitive to this constraint is to first think of the alphabet. In the concept ‘alphabet’, we experience the intuition of the auditory, visual, and gestural ‘palette’ that can be used to clothe our ideas in linguistic symbols and reflect on or communicate their meaning. If we try to concentrate on this concept, we can feel the whole alphabet as a holistic ‘wavefunction’, as if all the letters and their potential meaningful combinations are superimposed. Now we can take our hand or our foot and try to trace out the letters of the alphabet and feel the meaningful intuition of the gestures. The task is to perform these gestures and live in their meaning without voicing them in our mind, not even as a subtle whisper. We should feel like our concentrated activity is fully present in the experience of tracing the letters and is resisting ‘standing back’ from that experience to comment on it.

The meditative state would be when we concentrate the "I" activity into a single letter-gesture and that gesture is experienced as continually testifying to the holistic alphabetic intuition. There is no longer any gap between what we are doing with our inner activity and what we are thinking about at the surface of our imaginative life, rather, the latter is continually supporting and refining our feeling for the former. On the other hand, when we stand back from the experience and begin commenting on the exercise (which is quite inevitable at the initial attempts), that is almost exactly analogous to what we have been discussing on these threads as the dual vectors of thinking in the domains of science, religion, etc. where souls pursue the deeper questions. As soon as we flow with that default tendency, the phase-gap is reintroduced and it's like we have diffused and scattered the meditative impulse in all directions.

Whenever some framework proposes to introduce such a dualized spectrum into the otherwise phase-locked meditative impulse, it is a good sign that we are veering off the narrow path, not because this is some absolute rule given by the initiates, but because we have intimately experienced how this takes shape in our attempts at the intensely concentrated life. Whenever the intellect tries to overcomplicate this simple meditative principle in the imaginative domain, it is generally finding reasons to justify a diffusion of the meditative impulse. It is like we are drawing our intuitions on the canvas of our imagination with the right hand and then erasing what we have just drawn with the left hand. We may not even realize that this erasing is taking place, just as we may not realize we have stopped doing the exercise but have started commenting on it, but we suddenly find it more and more difficult, frustrating, annoying, "one-sided", etc. to pursue the meditative impulse.

That is the real risk with delineating Petrine and John thinking, just as 'horizontal natural science' and 'vertical spiritual science', if we are not vigilant to establish their concrete relationship. With that said, I feel like you brushed right by the Levin example (or perhaps you were going to comment on it later). If we are going to be concrete about this relationship, it would help to hear what the Petrine thinker, out of his lucid ideal life, would say to the pious soul who is wondering about the possibilities of Levin's biological research and his observation that it is arbitrary to say 10 years is too short a physical lifetime, but 80 yrs seems just right, and 5,000 years would be way too much. If the technology is available, why not extend our lifetimes by centuries to accumulate vast experience and wisdom and shape the Earthly spectrum for better? What within the Church's arsenal of lucid teachings can help address such an ethical issue in a deep and sustainable way?

[Rodriel Gabrez]

I suppose my main concern is when we make this delineation in the imaginative domain, i.e., between Peter thinking and John thinking. In the deeper domain of feeling, what you are saying makes a lot more sense to me, insofar as the Church may still functionally safeguard the devotional feelings of the pious faithful. Even such feelings are still mediated by our mental pictures, and thus this safeguarding function is also on the decline. But at least the average soul may find the Petrine institution as a place of quiet solitude where devotional feelings can still be cultivated to some extent, apart from the materialistic storms of daily life.

In the domain of thinking, however, I am always suspicious when a dualized spectrum is introduced into the picture, just like it was in modern metaphysics (for example, Locke's primary and secondary qualities) and epistemology (Kant). The act of meditative concentration is really the archetypal image for how the "I" can continue advancing from the intellectual to spiritual soul rather than regressing into the sentient soul. In the concentrated state, our laser-like inner activity becomes 'phase-locked' with the content that we are focused on and our imaginative space expands to become something monolithic. You may remember this exercise from the recent essay:

A quick exercise to become more sensitive to this constraint is to first think of the alphabet. In the concept ‘alphabet’, we experience the intuition of the auditory, visual, and gestural ‘palette’ that can be used to clothe our ideas in linguistic symbols and reflect on or communicate their meaning. If we try to concentrate on this concept, we can feel the whole alphabet as a holistic ‘wavefunction’, as if all the letters and their potential meaningful combinations are superimposed. Now we can take our hand or our foot and try to trace out the letters of the alphabet and feel the meaningful intuition of the gestures. The task is to perform these gestures and live in their meaning without voicing them in our mind, not even as a subtle whisper. We should feel like our concentrated activity is fully present in the experience of tracing the letters and is resisting ‘standing back’ from that experience to comment on it.

The meditative state would be when we concentrate the "I" activity into a single letter-gesture and that gesture is experienced as continually testifying to the holistic alphabetic intuition. There is no longer any gap between what we are doing with our inner activity and what we are thinking about at the surface of our imaginative life, rather, the latter is continually supporting and refining our feeling for the former. On the other hand, when we stand back from the experience and begin commenting on the exercise (which is quite inevitable at the initial attempts), that is almost exactly analogous to what we have been discussing on these threads as the dual vectors of thinking in the domains of science, religion, etc. where souls pursue the deeper questions. As soon as we flow with that default tendency, the phase-gap is reintroduced and it's like we have diffused and scattered the meditative impulse in all directions.

Whenever some framework proposes to introduce such a dualized spectrum into the otherwise phase-locked meditative impulse, it is a good sign that we are veering off the narrow path, not because this is some absolute rule given by the initiates, but because we have intimately experienced how this takes shape in our attempts at the intensely concentrated life. Whenever the intellect tries to overcomplicate this simple meditative principle in the imaginative domain, it is generally finding reasons to justify a diffusion of the meditative impulse. It is like we are drawing our intuitions on the canvas of our imagination with the right hand and then erasing what we have just drawn with the left hand. We may not even realize that this erasing is taking place, just as we may not realize we have stopped doing the exercise but have started commenting on it, but we suddenly find it more and more difficult, frustrating, annoying, "one-sided", etc. to pursue the meditative impulse.

That is the real risk with delineating Petrine and John thinking, just as 'horizontal natural science' and 'vertical spiritual science', if we are not vigilant to establish their concrete relationship. With that said, I feel like you brushed right by the Levin example (or perhaps you were going to comment on it later). If we are going to be concrete about this relationship, it would help to hear what the Petrine thinker, out of his lucid ideal life, would say to the pious soul who is wondering about the possibilities of Levin's biological research and his observation that it is arbitrary to say 10 years is too short a physical lifetime, but 80 yrs seems just right, and 5,000 years would be way too much. If the technology is available, why not extend our lifetimes by centuries to accumulate vast experience and wisdom and shape the Earthly spectrum for better? What within the Church's arsenal of lucid teachings can help address such an ethical issue in a deep and sustainable way?

I completely agree with you that there should be a spiraling-together of the intellectual and consciousness souls, but for those who are prepared. Maintaining the separation, the "dualized spectrum," is simply a mechanism or scaffolding for the development of souls through the proper series of unfolding stages. I argued above that the intellectual soul is actually experiencing a kind of atrophy in many people today. If the intellectual soul is like the sepal of a flowering plant, with the consciousness soul partaking in the blossoming above, what is happening at the moment is that there is defect in the sepals which is thwarting the proper growth above. The flower-sculpting forces are still at work, pulling the plant upward toward a culminating stage. But instead of producing a flower, the "blossoming" force is recapitulating the forms of leaves, and in a manner that caricatures the flower. The plants with this defect need to be pruned back to the sepal and have the sepal treated and repaired so that the flowers can resume their proper development. In those who plants which have properly unfolded their flowers, all the forces of the entire plant are spiraled together in a seamless whole. For them there is no disconnection between the sepal and flower activity. The Church is this garden, where the Gardener's explicit purview stops at the level of maintaining sepal health.

Regarding the Levin stuff, I assume you are already familiar with the manner in which Thomistic theology would address these transhumanist objectives. The arguments would mostly mirror those used against modern inventions like IVF, appealing to keeping societal initiatives in line with human nature and dignity. I can go more deeply into it if you like. Suffice it to say that such arguments are quite paltry in comparison with those that might arise from spiritual science. But they are strong arguments from the standpoint of the intellectual soul, which is enough, in my opinion, given what I'm claiming about the function of the Church.

[Federica]

Are you essentially saying that by predeterminately choosing not to choose (what you are doing here in your recommendation) the esotericist should teach less advanced souls how to make choices? If not, it would perhaps help to bring a concrete example of an act of moral creativity that submits to the authority of the Law.

Well I of course wouldn't put it that way. I see what you mean, but it's a bit of a mischaracterization. When one deliberately restricts one's speech or action for the benefit of another person, "choosing not to choose" isn't quite what is going on. To be clear, what I'm specifically talking about is restricting the way one speaks publicly about the facts of esotericism. In willingly submitting to the Law, one hasn't eliminated one's own choice to rise to supersensible cognition but simply restricted how what is gained there is communicated. A perfect example of this is Meditations on the Tarot (and other of Tomberg's works, but I reference this one as the most widely known). This is a wholly Anthroposophical work communicated in terms that are at the limit of what is acceptable from the perspective of Catholic dogmatics. A Catholic with a propensity toward the supersensible can pick it up and gain quite a bit from it without worrying about it causing much if any scandal. It is a beautifully crafted veil which conceals and reveals simultaneously, just in the right proportion.

This isn't a completely unprecedented view that I'm expressing. Withholding certain communications is something well known to esotericists. There were certain facts that Steiner gained by supersensible investigation that he would not share with others, for their benefit. Certain supersensible facts, such as those relating to matters of personal karma, for example, must be gained personally in order not to be a severe hindrance to the person involved. Ultimately all supersensible knowledge is this like this, in that one must discover it for oneself. The danger for it to become an external imposition or a temptation is great, as we have discussed previously. However, Steiner received a particular mission at a particular spiritually ordained time to make a certain sliver of this knowledge publicly available. The enzyme has taken hold and begun to do its work, but what I am now suggesting (following Tomberg) is that this work be continued in a more restricted form.

I'm glad I asked, I had not well understood that from the rest of the discussion. Do you have in mind thoughts such as this, when you speak of withholding certain communications?

It is worth a hundred times more to know nothing of the fact of reincarnation, and to deny the doctrine of reincarnation, than to turn thoughts and desires towards the future terrestrial life and thus to be tempted to resort to the means offered through the promise of immortality made by the serpent. This is why, I repeat, the Church was, from the beginning, hostile to the idea of reincarnation and did all that it could so that this idea would not take root in consciousness—and above all in the human will.
I confess that it is only after hesitation, due to objections of a very serious moral order, that I have decided to write of the danger that the doctrine of reincarnation entails, and above all of that abuse that can be—and is, in fact— made of it. It is the faith that you, dear Unknown Friend, understand the weight of responsibility that weighs on each person who sees himself treating reincarnation not as belonging to the domain of esoteric (i.e. intimate) experience, but as an exoteric teaching to popularise—called to convince everyone—which has determined me to speak of the practical abuse of the fact of reincarnation. I implore you therefore, dear Unknown Friend, to have the good will to examine, in the light of moral conscience, the question whether the way of treating reincarnation in exoteric teaching that has been adopted and is practised in general both by representatives of the French occult movement of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and by Theosophists, Anthroposophists, Rosicrucians, etc., is justified and desirable.

From Meditations on the Tarot, p. as retreived form the Internet Archive.

Because of this critique of Steiner's choice to speak publicly about reincarnation as a necessary and event urgent endeavor for the evolution of humanity, I would say it's not so straightforward that MoT is a wholly Anthroposophical work. That choice is not a minor thing in the foundation of Anthroposophy. One could almost say, it's its raison d'être. And there is another, more profound reason. As it seems, Tomberg thought that the spiritual intuitive path inevitably leads and must lead to the RCC. Conversely, Steiner thought that the Church, and religion in general, inevitably leads and must lead to the spiritual intuitive path:

The way of Hermeticism, solitary and intimate as it is, comprises authentic experiences from which it follows that the Roman Catholic Church is, in fact, a depository of Christian spiritual truth, and the more one advances on the way of free research for this truth, the more one approaches the Church. Sooner or later one inevitably experiences that spiritual reality corresponds—with an astonishing exactitude—to what the Church teaches: that there are guardian Angels; that there are saints who participate actively in our lives; that the Blessed Virgin is real, and that she is almost precisely such as she is understood, worshipped and portrayed by the Church; that the sacraments are effective, and that there are seven of them—and not two, or three, or even eight; that the three sacred vows—of obedience, chastity and poverty—constitute in fact the very essence of all authentic spirituality; that prayer is a powerful means of charity, for beyond as well as here below; that the ecclesiastical hierarchy reflects the celestial hierarchical order; that the Holy See and the papacy represent a mystery of divine magic; that hell, purgatory and heaven are realities; that, lastly, the Master himself—although he loves everyone, Christians of all confession as well as all non-Christians— abides with his Church, since he is always present there, since he visits the faithful there and instructs his disciples there. The Master is always findable and meetable there.

From Meditations on the Tarot, p. 306 as retreived form the Internet Archive.

In times when men will have long since ceased to need the teachings of religion to tell them of the ancient gods, because they will again be living among gods, they will find in Christ that source of strength which enables them to find their own firm centre among the gods. Men will no longer require religion in order to believe in gods whom they will once again behold, any more than they required religion in former times when they lived and moved among gods. Themselves spiritualised, men will live consciously among spiritual Beings, fulfilling their tasks in communion with these Beings. In a future by no means far distant, man will find that the physical world is losing its importance for him, that physical things are becoming evanescent. Their reality will have already paled long before man's existence on the earth has drawn to its close.1 But when the things of the physical world of sense cease to be all-important and fade into shadow, man will either find that the physical is losing its importance while he is still incapable of believing in the spiritual realities before him, or he will be able to believe and preserve for himself the consciousness of these spiritual realities—and then for such a man there will be no spiritual death.

To confront a reality that is unrecognisable, means to be shattered in the spirit. And men would come to this pass if, with the loosening of the etheric body, the spiritual worlds were to appear before them without being recognised and known as such. Many a man to-day could have consciousness of the spiritual worlds but has it not. Therefore these worlds take vengeance, and this shows itself in man's restlessness, his neurasthenic condition, his pathological fears, which are nothing else than the consequences of failure to unfold consciousness of the spiritual worlds. Those who realise the significance of these things feel the necessity of a spiritual Movement which, for those who are outgrowing the substance of ordinary religion, preserves belief in man, in the whole man, including, therefore, the spiritual man.

From The Festivals and their Meaning II: Easter - GA 102 - VI. The Mystery of the Future retrieved from the Rudolf Steiner Archive

As said, my knowledge is limited and I could be wrong, but even if the spiritual context is one, and shared, it seems like a stretch to seek the full convergence of these two visions of the future. What is the reason to seek full convergence dispite these major discrepancies?

[AshvinP]

I completely agree with you that there should be a spiraling-together of the intellectual and consciousness souls, but for those who are prepared. Maintaining the separation, the "dualized spectrum," is simply a mechanism or scaffolding for the development of souls through the proper series of unfolding stages. I argued above that the intellectual soul is actually experiencing a kind of atrophy in many people today. If the intellectual soul is like the sepal of a flowering plant, with the consciousness soul partaking in the blossoming above, what is happening at the moment is that there is defect in the sepals which is thwarting the proper growth above. The flower-sculpting forces are still at work, pulling the plant upward toward a culminating stage. But instead of producing a flower, the "blossoming" force is recapitulating the forms of leaves, and in a manner that caricatures the flower. The plants with this defect need to be pruned back to the sepal and have the sepal treated and repaired so that the flowers can resume their proper development. In those who plants which have properly unfolded their flowers, all the forces of the entire plant are spiraled together in a seamless whole. For them there is no disconnection between the sepal and flower activity. The Church is this garden, where the Gardener's explicit purview stops at the level of maintaining sepal health.

Regarding the Levin stuff, I assume you are already familiar with the manner in which Thomistic theology would address these transhumanist objectives. The arguments would mostly mirror those used against modern inventions like IVF, appealing to keeping societal initiatives in line with human nature and dignity. I can go more deeply into it if you like. Suffice it to say that such arguments are quite paltry in comparison with those that might arise from spiritual science. But they are strong arguments from the standpoint of the intellectual soul, which is enough, in my opinion, given what I'm claiming about the function of the Church.

Right, so I suppose that we agree when it comes to souls like us, i.e., who are prepared for spiraling together, the Petrine thinking shouldn't be pursued as something parallel to John thinking. Instead, any teachings we glean from the Church should only serve as symbolic anchor points for our independent intuitive process that steps into the unfamiliar supersensible.

If that's the case, then the other question is, what is our source of confidence that the Petrine institution, in its thinking dimension, will serve as the sepal health system for lagging souls? I think Thomistic theology would have certainly addressed these conundrums of materialistic life for the intellectual soul many centuries ago, perhaps even 200 years ago, but I have little confidence that it can serve the same function now. Again, that lack of confidence stems from an intimate experience of how these mental pictures click together in the imaginative domain and a sense of how deeply they are capable of penetrating into the life of feeling and will. Can you really imagine such theological arguments holding back the wave of transhumanist enthusiasm for the average soul today?

[Rodriel Gabrez]

I'm glad I asked, I had not well understood that from the rest of the discussion. Do you have in mind thoughts such as this, when you speak of withholding certain communications?

It is worth a hundred times more to know nothing of the fact of reincarnation, and to deny the doctrine of reincarnation, than to turn thoughts and desires towards the future terrestrial life and thus to be tempted to resort to the means offered through the promise of immortality made by the serpent. This is why, I repeat, the Church was, from the beginning, hostile to the idea of reincarnation and did all that it could so that this idea would not take root in consciousness—and above all in the human will.
I confess that it is only after hesitation, due to objections of a very serious moral order, that I have decided to write of the danger that the doctrine of reincarnation entails, and above all of that abuse that can be—and is, in fact— made of it. It is the faith that you, dear Unknown Friend, understand the weight of responsibility that weighs on each person who sees himself treating reincarnation not as belonging to the domain of esoteric (i.e. intimate) experience, but as an exoteric teaching to popularise—called to convince everyone—which has determined me to speak of the practical abuse of the fact of reincarnation. I implore you therefore, dear Unknown Friend, to have the good will to examine, in the light of moral conscience, the question whether the way of treating reincarnation in exoteric teaching that has been adopted and is practised in general both by representatives of the French occult movement of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and by Theosophists, Anthroposophists, Rosicrucians, etc., is justified and desirable.

From Meditations on the Tarot, p. as retreived form the Internet Archive.

Because of this critique of Steiner's choice to speak publicly about reincarnation as a necessary and event urgent endeavor for the evolution of humanity, I would say it's not so straightforward that MoT is a wholly Anthroposophical work. That choice is not a minor thing in the foundation of Anthroposophy. One could almost say, it's its raison d'être. And there is another, more profound reason. As it seems, Tomberg thought that the spiritual intuitive path inevitably leads and must lead to the RCC. Conversely, Steiner thought that the Church, and religion in general, inevitably leads and must lead to the spiritual intuitive path:

The way of Hermeticism, solitary and intimate as it is, comprises authentic experiences from which it follows that the Roman Catholic Church is, in fact, a depository of Christian spiritual truth, and the more one advances on the way of free research for this truth, the more one approaches the Church. Sooner or later one inevitably experiences that spiritual reality corresponds—with an astonishing exactitude—to what the Church teaches: that there are guardian Angels; that there are saints who participate actively in our lives; that the Blessed Virgin is real, and that she is almost precisely such as she is understood, worshipped and portrayed by the Church; that the sacraments are effective, and that there are seven of them—and not two, or three, or even eight; that the three sacred vows—of obedience, chastity and poverty—constitute in fact the very essence of all authentic spirituality; that prayer is a powerful means of charity, for beyond as well as here below; that the ecclesiastical hierarchy reflects the celestial hierarchical order; that the Holy See and the papacy represent a mystery of divine magic; that hell, purgatory and heaven are realities; that, lastly, the Master himself—although he loves everyone, Christians of all confession as well as all non-Christians— abides with his Church, since he is always present there, since he visits the faithful there and instructs his disciples there. The Master is always findable and meetable there.

From Meditations on the Tarot, p. 306 as retreived form the Internet Archive.

In times when men will have long since ceased to need the teachings of religion to tell them of the ancient gods, because they will again be living among gods, they will find in Christ that source of strength which enables them to find their own firm centre among the gods. Men will no longer require religion in order to believe in gods whom they will once again behold, any more than they required religion in former times when they lived and moved among gods. Themselves spiritualised, men will live consciously among spiritual Beings, fulfilling their tasks in communion with these Beings. In a future by no means far distant, man will find that the physical world is losing its importance for him, that physical things are becoming evanescent. Their reality will have already paled long before man's existence on the earth has drawn to its close.1 But when the things of the physical world of sense cease to be all-important and fade into shadow, man will either find that the physical is losing its importance while he is still incapable of believing in the spiritual realities before him, or he will be able to believe and preserve for himself the consciousness of these spiritual realities—and then for such a man there will be no spiritual death.

To confront a reality that is unrecognisable, means to be shattered in the spirit. And men would come to this pass if, with the loosening of the etheric body, the spiritual worlds were to appear before them without being recognised and known as such. Many a man to-day could have consciousness of the spiritual worlds but has it not. Therefore these worlds take vengeance, and this shows itself in man's restlessness, his neurasthenic condition, his pathological fears, which are nothing else than the consequences of failure to unfold consciousness of the spiritual worlds. Those who realise the significance of these things feel the necessity of a spiritual Movement which, for those who are outgrowing the substance of ordinary religion, preserves belief in man, in the whole man, including, therefore, the spiritual man.

From The Festivals and their Meaning II: Easter - GA 102 - VI. The Mystery of the Future retrieved from the Rudolf Steiner Archive

As said, my knowledge is limited and I could be wrong, but even if the spiritual context is one, and shared, it seems like a stretch to seek the full convergence of these two visions of the future. What is the reason to seek full convergence dispite these major discrepancies?

Tomberg's writing style in his Catholic-period works is an ingeniously crafted method of speaking two languages at once, as it were. What he explicitly says is aligned with Petrine thinking, while a Johannine message is conveyed for those who know how to see it. Johannine readers are given tools for ordering their own speech and conduct for the benefit of others, while Petrine readers are provided an opportunity to expand into living thinking. This is precisely what Tomberg does time and time again in his various "critiques" of Steiner. You'll notice that he has gone to painstaking lengths of care in MoT to elucidate his views on reincarnation. He holds fast and firm to his personal conviction of reincarnation as a spiritual fact. This conviction, which he clearly feels is important, is however something that he makes equally clear must be personally attained. Nowhere does he directly rebuke Steiner for having made reincarnation public. Rather, he very carefully questions the manner in which this knowledge has been adopted and practiced. Tomberg's highly nuanced, non-dialectical, dual-language view is that Steiner's impulse, in the specific manner in which it was communicated, was necessary for a specific time as a trumpet blast to be heard by certain souls. He does not question this. He is simply providing what he feels are the tools and path for continuing Steiner's work. That he doesn't say this explicitly is integral to his method. He wants the reader to come to see it themselves, for this is the way Anthroposophy will continue. His entire Catholic-period oeuvre is a strategy designed to get people (specifically those in the John stream) to see this and to join him as "unknown friends." I've mentioned it before, but it's worth repeating: "unknown friend" is an extremely important term meant referring to the Lazarus-John mystery and what it means for Christianity.

As I've mentioned before, Steiner had a similar degree of nuance in his messaging. It was different in key ways, though, of course, his being a very specific impulse in which certain elements needed to be strongly amplified so as to have the greatest impact. I know you don't agree, but I find it plainly obvious that Steiner's views on the RCC weren't a simple rejection. Tomberg of course felt the same way and conveys this in MoT in his discussion on the "egregore" of the Church, where he subtly attempts to explain Steiner's stance. It is this egregore - quite present in the Church even today, I admit - that Steiner was so highly critical of. It's important to be able to recognize the sober reality of life, in which good and bad are complexly interwoven in nearly every phenomenon, without taking a critical examination to be a rejection of the essence of the thing examined. The quote you've provided points to a future that from a Tombergian perspective will come about through the Church via the infusion of the John stream.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

Right, so I suppose that we agree when it comes to souls like us, i.e., who are prepared for spiraling together, the Petrine thinking shouldn't be pursued as something parallel to John thinking. Instead, any teachings we glean from the Church should only serve as symbolic anchor points for our independent intuitive process that steps into the unfamiliar supersensible.

Yes, exactly.

If that's the case, then the other question is, what is our source of confidence that the Petrine institution, in its thinking dimension, will serve as the sepal health system for lagging souls? I think Thomistic theology would have certainly addressed these conundrums of materialistic life for the intellectual soul many centuries ago, perhaps even 200 years ago, but I have little confidence that it can serve the same function now. Again, that lack of confidence stems from an intimate experience of how these mental pictures click together in the imaginative domain and a sense of how deeply they are capable of penetrating into the life of feeling and will. Can you really imagine such theological arguments holding back the wave of transhumanist enthusiasm for the average soul today?

As we discussed, the intellectual soul is sculpted by various broadly universal, external influences. So everyone receives this formation basically by default. But conscious personal development of the intellectual soul is carried out by relatively few. This is the case both within and outside the Church. Inside the Church, members go through catechesis, which provides the minimum threshold for apprehending religious life at the level of the intellectual soul. For most people, though, whose soul life is centered mostly in the sentient soul, there is little attempt to go beyond the bear minimum, and the intellectual tradition of the Church remains an external authority to appeal to for rightly ordering their moral lives. These are the people that, like you've mentioned, approach religious life on a more strictly devotional level. They simply accept what is proclaimed institutionally and live into these teachings in their life of feeling. As an institution the Church consistently develops the intellectual tradition, and the Vatican publishes doctrinal and theological updates regularly. These publications, which I have shared with you on occasion (if I remember correctly) are logically airtight and morally sound, insofar as morality can be worked out conceptually. They are remarkably in keeping with insights gained on the same subjects through spiritual scientific means. For instance, the recent doctrinal expansion around the right use of technology, specifically AI. All that said, the RCC is extremely wary of transhumanism in all its forms. Transhumanist objectives don't easily pass through the Thomistic filter. And the laity (the real laity - not those who are Catholic by birth but don't attend Mass) overwhelmingly accepts what is taught. Nonetheless, these intellectually uninclined people, as we've discussed, find themselves bombarded at every turn by soul-degrading forces, just like the rest of humanity. The difference is that they have the anchor of the Church. This is why this anchor must be fructified by the John stream. The Church is the population in which the bulwark against total degradation is being maintained. But they don't speak the language of Anthroposophy, nor should they. "Unknown friends" should approach them (especially the intellectual inclined among them) with gifts wrapped in familiar packaging but bearing living forces which will grow through personal awakening.