Tomberg and Anthroposophy

[AshvinP]

I'll tell you what doesn't square in this analysis. As said before, we agree that right judgement, patience, discernment, humility, and empathy are all needed in order to decide when it's appropriate to spread spiritual scientific ideas and when it's not, in every specific circumstance. Steiner had this in mind continually: Sometimes, he mentioned that. He waited years before addressing certain subjects, or applications. Cleric's got a new essay series in mind and is also waiting for the right conditions before publishing it. No question, all this is appropriate. However, the point is, the conservative mood in VT's quote, and in general, goes well beyond right judgement. And this excessive conservatism - as I want to call it - is precisely what makes it non-complementary to Spiritual Science. How does Tombergs mood overshoot the mark of reasonable right judgment, phenomenologically?

Let's imagine we apply the recommended restraint to our own activity. We wait "for years" before sharing insights, awaiting confirmation from the side of the "eternal dogmas", and all else that needs to align. So imagine, you have an essay ready, and now you wait for years, because your most important requirement is to avoid every least chance that your ideas may be the slightest counterproductive, in some way. This is, my friend, a detrimental mood, in my phenomenology. This forces you to betray the essence of the fundamental capacities cultivated in the fourth and fifth of Steiners 6 exercises: positivity, and trust. You are asked to abdicate initiative, in the name of a vague conservatism, under the justification that someone, somewhere could find the spreading counterproductive.

Just to focus on this point for a moment, consider what we are actually doing in all of our essays. For how long has Cleric been generating essays that all explore the phenomenological foundations from various angles, the basic inner structure, and guiding principles of our imaginative dynamics, with only vague references to any deeper esoteric facts and relationships? This is the epitome of the conservative approach expressed in those quotes! We can see it being lived out right here on this forum. And we can also see why it is worth its weight in gold if we have diligently lived through the phenomenological explorations as well. Because when we eventually do encounter the deeper esoteric facts and relationships and attempt to orient toward them, we will find this orienting process much more harmonious by virtue of our conservative phenomenological explorations. Many spiritualistic souls lose interest in such explorations precisely because they are too conservative, not delving straight into the deepest Cosmic mysteries of hierarchies, spheres, elementals, spiritual healing practices, etc. Little do they realize that such mysteries remain veiled to their intellectual understanding until they patiently, humbly, and diligently orient toward the dynamics of their daily imaginative life.

[AshvinP]

Surely, VT never put himself in the condition of making any such mistakes that RS made. But who, even through the mistakes, has given us the example, the rich context, and the inexhaustible fuel to step into action and transform human consciousness here and now? The deeper scale of these attitudes to the spreading of previously occult knowledge, is that they can't be fully reconciled in our inmost activity - when considered phenomenologically. Spiritual Science requires that we join an ideal of becoming doers - inwardly and outwardly - but VT has unfortunately not been in a mood for that, in his trajectory.

It has become clear to me that a part of the confusion in this discussion surrounding VT has simply been a lack of familiarity with his work, not as isolated snippets, but as a holistic and organic set of ideal movements. Or as Cleric put it, "To be honest, I’m not familiar enough with VT’s work to say to what extent this was explicated by him, and to what extent it is Rodriel’s understanding..."

The second-order exploration is realized when we pause pronouncing definite judgments on VT and his lack of "drive, the feeling, and the positive intent", and instead contemplate our drive, our feeling, and our positive intent to become familiar with his work before pronouncing such judgments. It's easy to speak about those qualities hypothetically, i.e. as first-order content that the 'proper occultist' should adopt, but our development goes to a new second-order level when we embody and emulate them in the very act of speaking. Then we may finally recognize in VT a kindred soul that was engaged in very similar inner movements to what we experience ourselves doing in that process.

For example, when we contemplate the quote below without prejudice, which kind of summarizes in "Hermetic philosophy" the organic movements of his work as a whole, can we really fail to discern the foundational principles of PoF and 'ethical individualism', and the need for individuals to directly become acquainted with the spiritual worlds without excessive dependence on external proxies?

Hermetic philosophy is not a particular philosophy amongst particular existing philosophies. It is not so already for the sole reason that it does not operate with univocal concepts and their verbal definitions, as do philosophies, but rather with arcana and their symbolic expressions. Compare the Emerald Table with The Critique of Pure Reason by Kant and you will see the difference. The Emerald Table states the fundamental arcana of mystical-gnostic-magical-philosophical work; The Critique of Pure Reason elaborates an edifice composed of univocal concepts (such as the categories of quantity, quality, relation and modality) which, all together, portray the transcendental method of Kant, i.e. the method of “thinking about the act of thought” or “reflection about reflection”. This method, however, is an aspect of the eighteenth Arcanum of the Tarot (The Moon), as we shall see, and this Arcanum, expressed by the symbol of the Card “The Moon”, teaches in the Hermetic way the essence of what Kant taught in the philosophical way about the transcendental method.

So, is Hermetic philosophy only symbolism pure and simple, and has it nothing to do with the methods of philosophical and scientific reasoning?

Yes and no. Yes, in so far as Hermetic philosophy is of an esoteric nature, i.e. it consists of arcana orientated towards the mystery and expressed in symbols. No, in so far as it exercises a stimulating effect on the philosophical and scientific reasoning of its adherents. It is wrapped, so to say, in a philosophical and scientific intellectual penumbra, which is due to the activity of its adherents pursuing the aim of translating, in so far as it is possible to do so, the arcana and the symbols of Hermetic philosophy into univocal concepts and verbal definitions. It is a process of crystallisation, because the translation of multivocal concepts or arcana into univocal concepts is comparable to the transition from the state of organic life to the mineral state. It is thus that the occult sciences—such as the Cabbala, astrology and alchemy—are derived from Hermetic philosophy. These sciences are able to have their own secrets, but the arcana which are reflected in them belong to the domain of Hermetic philosophy. In so far as the intellectualisation of Hermetic philosophy is of the nature of commentary and corollary, it is legitimate and even indispensable. For then one will translate each arcanum into many univocal concepts—three for example—and, by this very fact, one will help the intellect to habituate itself to think Hermetically, i.e. in multi-vocal concepts or arcana. But when the intellectualisation of Hermetic philosophy pursues the aim of creating an autonomous system of univocal concepts without formal contradiction between them, it commits an abuse. For instead of helping human reason to raise itself above itself, it would set up a greater obstacle for it. It would captivate it instead of freeing it.
...
The aim of spiritual exercises is depth. It is necessary to become deep in order to be able to attain experience and knowledge of profound things. And it is symbolism which is the language of depth—thus arcana, expressed by symbols, are both the means and the aim of the spiritual exercises of which the living tradition of Hermetic philosophy is composed.

Spiritual exercises in common form the common link that unites Hermeticists. It is not knowledge in common which unites them, but rather the spiritual exercises and the experience which goes hand in hand with them. If three people from different countries were to meet each other, having made the book of Genesis by Moses, the Gospel of St. John, and the vision of Ezekiel, the subject of spiritual exercises for many years, they would do so in brotherhood, although the one would know the history of humanity, the other would have the science of healing and the third would make a profound Cabbalist. That which one knows is the result of personal experience and orientation, whilst depth, the niveau to which one attains—disregarding the aspect and extent of knowledge that one has gained—is what one has in common. Hermeticism, the Hermetic tradition, is in the first place and above all a certain degree of depth, a certain niveau of consciousness. And it is the practice of spiritual exercises which safeguards this.

Anonymous . Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into Christian Hermeticism (pp. 91-92). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[Federica]

Ashvin, you have said today that you agree with Cleric and “fail to see the 'Catholic project' as a helpful way forward for most souls”. But by what acrobatic stunt do you then manage to maintain that such a Catholic project is not what Tomberg envisioned? Didn’t VT say that: “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..”

If you consider this quote only an isolated snippet which does not exemplify Tomberg’s Catholic project, please provide substantiation for that - and please don’t say this is not phenomenological. I have fully got onboard on your phenomenological invitation, only to see you let most of it fall through the cracks. Besides, have you ever, ever read in Steiner that the sacraments are important, that all of them should be honored, that Confession is an important and effective sacrament, or anything similar? Please indicate any such attitude from Steiner, if you are able. For my part, I don't think this will happen, since what Steiner thought is this:

Spiritual science does not need any organization similar to that of the old churches, for it appeals to each single individual; and each single individual, out of his own inner conscience, through his own healthy understanding, can substantiate the results of spiritual-scientific investigation, and can in this sense become a follower of spiritual science. It puts forward something which makes a direct appeal to every single individuality just in this search for truth. It is the true fulfillment of what men were seeking in the time now past, in the last third of the Nineteenth Century—true freedom—freedom in their conception of the world, in their research and even in their opinions. That is just the task of spiritual science—to provide for the genuine justifiable claims made by the conscience of modern humanity. Hence for spiritual science there are no such things as closed dogmas, but only unrestricted research which does not draw back in fear at the frontiers either of the spiritual world or of the world of nature, but which makes use of those human powers of cognition which have first to be drawn from the depths of human feeling, just as it also uses those powers which come to us through ordinary heredity and ordinary education. This basic tendency of spiritual science is very naturally a thorn in the flesh to those who are forced to teach in accordance with a fixed, dogmatic, circumscribed aim.

While I admit I have not finished reading MoT and don’t know VT well enough, I can say that this by Steiner is not a snippet, but the epitome of a consistently expressed vision. With this in mind, I have a hard time reading the constellation of your statements as something other than the result of a strong desire to reconcile at all costs two distinct approaches. Here is another thing you said, and I wonder: how remotely tenable is this, in the face of Steiner’s view epitomized above? You speak of second-order exploration, except that such exploration then must only go in the direction of your strong desire, and if it doesn't, it's because we are ignorant of Tomberg's work and treat quotes like snippets.

I will also mention that there is nothing you will find in Tomberg, about the dangers of supersensible perception, about the Christ impulse, the virtues and sacraments, about faith and trust in the unknown, and so on, that you won't also find in Steiner in a somewhat different form.

[AshvinP]

Ashvin, you have said today that you agree with Cleric and “fail to see the 'Catholic project' as a helpful way forward for most souls”. But by what acrobatic stunt do you then manage to maintain that such a Catholic project is not what Tomberg envisioned? Didn’t VT say the following? “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..”

If you consider this quote only an isolated snippet which does not exemplify Tomberg’s Catholic project, please provide substantiation for that - and please don’t say this is not phenomenological. I have fully got onboard on your phenomenological invitation, only to see you let most of it fall through the cracks. Besides, have you ever, ever read in Steiner that the sacraments are important, that all of them should be honored, that Confession is an important and effective sacrament, or anything similar? Please indicate any such attitude from Steiner, if you are able. For my part, I don't think this will happen, since what Steiner thought is this:

Spiritual science does not need any organization similar to that of the old churches, for it appeals to each single individual; and each single individual, out of his own inner conscience, through his own healthy understanding, can substantiate the results of spiritual-scientific investigation, and can in this sense become a follower of spiritual science. It puts forward something which makes a direct appeal to every single individuality just in this search for truth. It is the true fulfillment of what men were seeking in the time now past, in the last third of the Nineteenth Century—true freedom—freedom in their conception of the world, in their research and even in their opinions. That is just the task of spiritual science—to provide for the genuine justifiable claims made by the conscience of modern humanity. Hence for spiritual science there are no such things as closed dogmas, but only unrestricted research which does not draw back in fear at the frontiers either of the spiritual world or of the world of nature, but which makes use of those human powers of cognition which have first to be drawn from the depths of human feeling, just as it also uses those powers which come to us through ordinary heredity and ordinary education. This basic tendency of spiritual science is very naturally a thorn in the flesh to those who are forced to teach in accordance with a fixed, dogmatic, circumscribed aim.

While I admit I have not finished reading MoT and don’t know VT well enough, I can say that this by Steiner is not a snippet, but the epitome of a consistently expressed vision. With this in mind, I have a hard time reading the constellation of your statements something other than the result of a strong desire to reconcile at all costs two distinct approaches. Here is another thing you said, and I wonder: how remotely tenable is this, in the face of Steiner’s view epitomized above?

I will also mention that there is nothing you will find in Tomberg, about the dangers of supersensible perception, about the Christ impulse, the virtues and sacraments, about faith and trust in the unknown, and so on, that you won't also find in Steiner in a somewhat different form.

Let's first see what Cleric thinks about that quote from VT and whether it can be reconciled with what we have both been saying about the risks of the 'Catholic project' and also with a phenomenological approach to spiritual reality, and thus Steiner's indications as well. If it comes from me, as it did the last time that quote was brought up, I fear that what I write will simply be brushed off as a "strong desire to reconcile at all costs", no matter how precise the reasoning or how much it is grounded in the higher cognitive foundations. For example, if I quote the following from Steiner, will it be contemplated impartially or rationalized away as something irrelevant to your question?


https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA343/En ... 4614b.html

You do know of course that the Catholic Church acknowledges seven sacraments. This adaptation of seven sacraments—and we can only understand the sacramental when we approach them with such preparations as I would like to do now—these adaptations of the seven sacraments is based on the observation that we look at human life in seven stages. It is however impossible to enter into the essence of the sacraments, if you don't adapt a certain process in yourself, which has today more or less disappeared from current consciousness, a process which, I believe, also connects to that which is otherwise extraordinarily significant regarding our discussion content yesterday, because it relates to what I've only up to now fleetingly characterised as the actual foundation of Luther's soul battle.
...
This is what has always been in Christian esotericism in relation to sacramentalism, in so far as it is to be applied to man, that man enters this world endowed with values partly through evolution, partly through values of involution, and to this must always be added, through the sacraments, the values of evolution to involution, and values of involution to evolution. Man equally speaks out of the foundation of his experience: the human being steps with his incomplete being fully into earthly existence; he or she must first be made into a complete being. He or she expresses their incompleteness at birth, in puberty, in incarnation, in memory and in death. To these things the human being, in order to live as complete physical-bodily-soul-spiritual beings, has to add, through sacramental ways, the baptism, confirmation, sacrament at the altar, repentance and last anointment.

Actually, this whole lecture cycle, GA 343, seems like it would be great to contemplate in connection with this topic and I am glad I found it through a search. In a certain sense, once we imaginatively explore these dynamics enough inwardly, we can predict that we will also find them in Steiner, even if we have never come across the concrete lectures before, since we know he has contemplated the same questions through a similar inner process.

It would also be interesting to hear whether you discern the overlap in what I quoted from VT in the last post and the phenomenological path of spiritual science, as articulated by Steiner, such as in the quote you just shared.

[Federica]

It has become clear to me that a part of the confusion in this discussion surrounding VT has simply been a lack of familiarity with his work, not as isolated snippets, but as a holistic and organic set of ideal movements. Or as Cleric put it, "To be honest, I’m not familiar enough with VT’s work to say to what extent this was explicated by him, and to what extent it is Rodriel’s understanding..."

The second-order exploration is realized when we pause pronouncing definite judgments on VT and his lack of "drive, the feeling, and the positive intent", and instead contemplate our drive, our feeling, and our positive intent to become familiar with his work before pronouncing such judgments. It's easy to speak about those qualities hypothetically, i.e. as first-order content that the 'proper occultist' should adopt, but our development goes to a new second-order level when we embody and emulate them in the very act of speaking. Then we may finally recognize in VT a kindred soul that was engaged in very similar inner movements to what we experience ourselves doing in that process.

As I said above, you speak of second-order exploration, except that such exploration then must only go in the direction of your strong desire, and if it doesn't, it's because we are ignorant of Tomberg's work and treat quotes like snippets. I have fully got onboard on your phenomenological invitation, only to see you let most of it fall through the cracks. You insist on the concept of phenomenology at every single post, but fail to notice that the drive and intent I was speaking of IS INDEED OUR drive and intent. But somehow it's convenient for you to keep complaining about a supposed lack of phenomenology, so you can put all that doesn't suit you on that account.

I repeat the key question: If you agree with Cleric that the Catholic project is detrimental, by what acrobatic stunt do you then manage to maintain that such a Catholic project is not what Tomberg envisioned?


PS: regarding your keyword search for "sacraments" and subsequent hasty quote: I have read that lecture. You will not find what you hope in it.

[AshvinP]

As I said above, you speak of second-order exploration, except that such exploration then must only go in the direction of your strong desire, and if it doesn't, it's because we are ignorant of Tomberg's work and treat quotes like snippets. I have fully got onboard on your phenomenological invitation, only to see you let most of it fall through the cracks. You insist on the concept of phenomenology at every single post, but fail to notice that the drive and intent I was speaking of IS INDEED OUR drive and intent. But somehow it's convenient for you to keep complaining about a supposed lack of phenomenology, so you can put all that doesn't suit you on that account.

I repeat the key question: If you agree with Cleric that the Catholic project is detrimental, by what acrobatic stunt do you then manage to maintain that such a Catholic project is not what Tomberg envisioned?


PS: regarding your keyword search for "sacraments" and subsequent hasty quote: I have read that lecture. You will not find what you hope in it.

I don't know, Federica, this is bordering on the surreal, like a Twilight Zone episode

You seem to have constructed a parallel reality where nothing means what it says, and for what reason? Only to avoid the uncomfortable fact that you may have been incorrect in your bold opinion that Steiner never, ever, ever spoke of the sacraments as something important and effective in spiritual evolution, or "anything similar". Why are you willing to sacrifice learning something new at the altar of defending a hasty opinion? Don't you want to gain a deeper orientation to the essence of the Christian sacraments?

[Federica]

As I said above, you speak of second-order exploration, except that such exploration then must only go in the direction of your strong desire, and if it doesn't, it's because we are ignorant of Tomberg's work and treat quotes like snippets. I have fully got onboard on your phenomenological invitation, only to see you let most of it fall through the cracks. You insist on the concept of phenomenology at every single post, but fail to notice that the drive and intent I was speaking of IS INDEED OUR drive and intent. But somehow it's convenient for you to keep complaining about a supposed lack of phenomenology, so you can put all that doesn't suit you on that account.

I repeat the key question: If you agree with Cleric that the Catholic project is detrimental, by what acrobatic stunt do you then manage to maintain that such a Catholic project is not what Tomberg envisioned?


PS: regarding your keyword search for "sacraments" and subsequent hasty quote: I have read that lecture. You will not find what you hope in it.

I don't know, Federica, this is bordering on the surreal, like a Twilight Zone episode

You seem to have constructed a parallel reality where nothing means what it says, and for what reason? Only to avoid the uncomfortable fact that you may have been incorrect in your bold opinion that Steiner never, ever, ever spoke of the sacraments as something important and effective in spiritual evolution, or "anything similar". Why are you willing to sacrifice learning something new at the altar of defending a hasty opinion? Don't you want to gain a deeper orientation to the essence of the Christian sacraments?

Please don't do as if you don't understand. We are talking about the sacraments of the RCC intended as Tomberg did, as the condition sine qua non for the "Master Himself" to be present and "discoverable" and "meetable" by the "faithful", within the amniotic sac of the Roman Catholic Church. This (as extensively explained in my last post) you will not find in Steiner. Besides, of course, a sacrament as an expression of a ritual has symbolic value and relevance. As Steiner said in the Pastoral Medicine cycle (which I doubt you have read) ALL depends on the individual priest's attitude. So please don't try to make me look foolish. It doesn't make you look good.


By the way, you should contemplate what it means, phenomenologically, that upon seeing a challenging question from me, that involves sacraments, you rush to the archive, search for the keyword "sacrament", click on the first search result, hastily read the paragraph, find it somehow good enough because it speaks in detail of "sacraments" as something of relevance, and hastily post it, without having read the full lecture, but still supposing that I don't know it, and even recommending that I read it. Then follow up with a mocking post. Please, go ahead and read the lecture, so you will see by yourself how this reinterpretation of sacraments is quite different from what VT intends. But first consider: what does this whole behavior mean phenomenologically?

[AshvinP]

Please don't do as if you don't understand. We are talking about the sacraments of the RCC intended as Tomberg did, as the condition sine qua non for the "Master Himself" to be present and "discoverable" and "meetable" by the "faithful", within the amniotic sac of the RCChurch.

What I understand is that you are more interested in placing VT into your caricatured intellectual box, then delving into the inner reality of what he is describing in such quotes about the angels, sacraments, etc., which Steiner was also describing in many places. This is what I mean when I say you have lost interest in phenomenological exploration. Your very understanding of the latter has been flattened into intellectual critiques to defend opinions and score points in arguments. Because of that, you miss out on countless opportunities to deepen your orientation and understanding of these supremely important aspects of our spiritual evolutionary process.

This is why I will wait for Cleric to respond to this topic, if he so chooses. If he does, you will probably tell him that he has misunderstood what you are writing for the millionth time. But at least there is a sliver of a chance that the Light will break through in that scenario.

[Federica]

Yes, wait for Cleric. And have a good daily review tonight.

[Cleric]

This is why I will wait for Cleric to respond to this topic, if he so chooses. If he does, you will probably tell him that he has misunderstood what you are writing for the millionth time. But at least there is a sliver of a chance that the Light will break through in that scenario.

I intend to write a few things, but this will be possible later today or tomorrow. In the meantime, I offer the following experiment. We can use Eugene as a 'yardstick'. We know that he has no problem with Christian Mysticism and gladly delves into Meister Eckhart, Dionysius the Areopagite, and so on. The imaginative experiment we can do is to experience, for example, the MoT through Eugene's eyes, and follow how well it is received. Since you are more familiar with the contents, can you sense a place where the Eugene-you puts the book aside and says, "This goes too far"? IOW, would you be able to read the MoT without this disturbing the vision of Godel's Candyshop Paradise after death (not whether VT speaks of such a candyshop but whether there's something that would negate it as a possibility)?

As an extension to this exercise, we can imagine conversing with VT himself. Is it possible to imagine a scenario where you try to explain something to him that leads to a point of discord? For example, we can take the topic of whether there can be or can be no science of the spirit. IOW is the science of the spirit simply an intellectual breaking down of the arcane experiences?