Tomberg and Anthroposophy

[AshvinP]

Another thing I do notice is the refrain from interferring with the karma of another person in Hermeticism. It is the act of helping and guiding another person, but without judging or swaying them away from their path. It's an interesting perspective, but even moreso in regards to spiritual inner activity, but I think it is and should be our duty to intervene in some way, actually. Not in a way that deviates them from their path, but instead opens up the possibility for them to get a more enliving, conscious experience of their own path and what it entails. And then it is the decision of that person whether they will now change trajectory after recognizing consciously what's possible, what's not, what it entails and what it does not, etc. So, not persuading them into another path or label, but giving them the instruments in order to make their own fully, conscious free decision.

Thanks for the input, Kaje.

Another thing to note here is that, practically speaking, when we encounter another soul at Church (or wherever) who is interested in deeper questions, for example, it will be highly dependent on the circumstances on how to approach them with higher knowledge. There are circumstances in which we may contribute to shutting down their spirit-openness to higher knowledge if we approach prematurely with pneumatosophy. Even on this forum, that seems to be the case. That's why we generally point toward PoF (or something similar, like the essays here) or, maybe, KHW, as a starting resource which invites the soul to deeper experience without them feeling unduly swayed from their current path, as you put it. We can easily go astray if we imagine others will feel the same way we do when working with more involved spiritual scientific content and training. The fear of the spiritual worlds runs deep, and the soul may subconsciously sense that their whole identity is threatened with transformation, thus they easily rationalize ways to avoid any serious consideration of what is presented.

MoT, from my perspective, is another such helpful starting or secondary resource (after PoF and KHW), which definitely raises the bar but, as you say, doesn't make the soul feel like they are being ripped out from their current path and identity too forcefully. It is filled with emotionally charged and devotional images, not too much unlike BD, except also including a healthy dose of philosophical-scientific concepts and reasoning. As you are probably aware, the more we pursue the inner work, the more we realize how many subconscious constraints are subtly whispering in our ear and trying to compel us to feel that we are safer and better off remaining as we are. The only thing that protects us against these whispers is our conscious awareness that this is, in fact, what is happening. For those who have no phenomenological-meditative basis for such awareness, there is simply no chance to resist. That is why 'psychosophy' may be warranted in certain circumstances, mainly for souls already enmeshed in a conservative religious tradition.

The previous owner of this domain, Simon, was such a soul, and we had a difficult time stimulating him to seriously consider Steiner's esoteric science. I imagine that it felt like too forceful a deviation from his current religious path, too threatening to established Church dogma. I wonder how he would have reacted to something like MoT, which at that time, we weren't discussing here. Of course, the point is not to simply stimulate others to dabble in esoteric scientific facts or symbolic images, but to begin the work of transforming thinking, feeling, and willing, naturally finding the way to pneumatosophy. A soul who feels this transformation happening and prays for help in taking the next steps on the path of spiritual knowledge, will never lack that help from the higher worlds.

[Federica]

You may see it that way, but I think that Cleric's criticism applies equally (if not more) to your current version of Anthroposophy as it does to the Catholic project. Your interpretation of Steiner's words has become the unquestionable ambassador of the 'Living Christ'. That is what I tried to point out in my post before, but it will be difficult to see that if everything I write is axiomatically deemed irrelevant. This is a huge danger and obstacle for those who truly seek the Living Christ. It is certainly problematic to unconditionally submit one's soul life and spiritual seeking to the trellis of the Church and remain comfortable with that, but it is even more problematic to do the same thing with "Steiner's words" unconsciously and imagine that we are 'free spirits', as is so common now.

Likewise, we would never hear the words "we don't even need to talk about what the Church is or is not" exiting Steiner's lips, in terms of understanding higher realities. Instead, we find lecture upon lecture exploring the spiritual foundations of the Church cult and dogma, how they all point to the concrete course of life across the threshold. These are not optional, secondary details that we can brush by or ignore if we want to have any living orientation to the Christ being in recent history, including what he is still doing in the here and now. I'm not sure if there is even any point adding more quotes, but here is an interesting one:

As long as you taboo the bare core of the question, the elephant in the room, the unneededness of the Church; as long as you weave a thin net of speculations and dreams of forcing the RCC upon the future of humanity; as long as you love the 'Unknown stance' in all its unassuming pretentiousness; and as long as you keep hiding behind your usual superior attitude, to show how my simple soul is monolithic and unconscious of its every movement, that long you will remain ignorant of the wasteful quality in which all the above attitudes are united, and will hold yourself and others back.

[Federica]

And thus, again, the peculiar nature of the Catholic project. One cannot help but have the sense that what we accomplish with our right hand in leading souls to the depths of truth, we hinder with our left hand by affirming the dogma in place. It's almost like a physician who, with one hand heals, but with the other, willingly or unwillingly, ensures that there's a steady flow of patients.

Cleric, seems like you keep ignoring that the Unknown’s work contains the user manual for how to master the insights in dogma. Rodriel has provided us with the user manual for that user manual, so as to optimize coordination between right and left hand. Dogma only looks bad. Its function is to be used as a cross for human thinking, and it is indeed very good at crossing it. Thus, all the problems with dogma are only apparent. If you don’t understand that, it’s because a deep mystery is encapsulated in it, and you may not have reached deep enough along the depth axis. Dogma is true in the highest sense. Simply follow the instructions in MoT, and you will know how to lead people from a world with Santa to a world without Santa, but gently, so they may realize that they have not been lied to.

[AshvinP]

Let's be clear that MoT, in particular, can be read quite independently of the Catholic context. Even though VT hints that Christian Hermeticism ultimately leads to and confirms the Church, I think everyone will agree that this is a quite small aspect of the whole book. And as I have said before, as an Imaginative guide, this book does a really excellent job. The reason I'm not as enthusiastic about it as, for example, Ashvin, is simply because of my scientifically oriented past (seeking the Theory of Everything).

I'd like to add another comment here because I see it somewhat differently, and perhaps it will be instructive for the bigger picture of this topic as well. Although my past wasn't very scientifically oriented, I was certainly most interested in attaining a panoramic picture of reality and its dynamics. I think I mentioned before my interest in Nassim Haramein, for example, who tries to develop such a 'new age' TOE. From my perspective, I'm so enthusiastic about VT's work because it addresses and cultivates something that I normally lack and find hard to develop, which we could call the deeply devotional and ritualistic element. For example, I have a hard time summoning such a devotional mood in my meditative and prayer practice, which remains sporadic at best and never settles into a solid rhythmic endeavor. Likewise, I have a hard time approaching BD's work because it feels drenched in such a profound devotional element that I feel almost unworthy and unprepared to engage with it directly and in a sustained manner.

On the other hand, Tomberg feels to me like a happy middle ground which invites the soul into the deeper devotional element through an also intellectually satisfying panoramic consideration of the archetypal soul transformations. Perhaps you are not so enthusiastic because, given your prior experience with BD's stream, the devotional element of VT's work doesn't seem like such a big deal. It's something you have already cultivated through BD. For me, VT provided the near-perfect marriage of that element with occult science. Like Steiner, he provides a deep treatment of every major thinker, mystic, and saint over the last 2k years, but he also weaves that treatment into an underlying devotional narrative centered around Christ. Of course, many people often criticize Steiner's lectures for lacking that element, which is unfair if we consider his whole corpus, but it is certainly an understandable feeling when considering particular books and lectures. VT seems to seamlessly merge that element into a depth discussion of science, history, art, religion, and so on, inspiring the individual to be of service to others, and I am aware of no other individual who could do so quite like him.

Which also brings to me another great Steiner quote from GA 342:

"But the conceptual has something inherently contradictory about the whole human nature. Here we enter a realm where today's science proves powerless from the outset to understand things. If you say something like that: the conceptual has something contradictory about the full nature of man, then you will meet with no understanding at all in today's scientific world view. And yet it is so. The conceptual tends to be absorbed once and then retained by the memory. You will easily see that this does not correspond to human nature.

If you look at the other extreme in man, at the purely physical processes, you cannot say: I have eaten or drunk today, so it remains in my organism, so I do not need to eat and drink again tomorrow - but food and drink must be repeated in a rhythmic sequence. What a person does must occur in a rhythmic sequence. And this is basically the actual human nature, to be incorporated into the rhythm in a certain way, while it is already a deviation from human nature when a person absorbs something once and then retains it, when it becomes permanent for him. And this permanence is the character of the conceptual. In the extreme, the conceptual becomes boring when it is repeated too often; and there is a fundamental sin against human nature associated with this theoretical-conceptual, namely not wanting to have repetitions anymore. You can follow this purely externally. Read good translations of the Buddha's discourses; you will find that these discourses have countless repetitions, you progress through nothing but repetitions. In the West, the foolish mistake was made of taking only the content of the Buddha-speeches and omitting the repetitions, because it was not known that Buddha had taken human nature into account.

There we come upon the point where, out of human nature itself, the mere content must of necessity pass over into something to be rhythmically assimilated. Of course, in the past this was done quite instinctively, by inserting prayer as the rhythmic element into the teaching, inserting prayer as the repeatedly recurring content of faith, even though the individual prayer has exactly the same content. The conceptual element merges with the volitional element when repetition occurs. In another way, one does not get a [volitional] content at all. Thus we already have the necessary flow of the doctrinal element into the cultic element. We have to bring the doctrinal content into such forms that we can present pictorial representations to the community members in a certain way. We have to let what we teach gradually become established in pictorial representations and to set the main points in a certain monumental way, so that they can be repeated again and again as a formula. Without this, we will not be able to bring the teaching content beyond the theoretical-conceptual into the practical-volitional, and this is what we must do. The more we stick to merely handing down the teaching content, the less we get to the practical religious exercise."

We can also place that side by side with this passage from MoT:

"The principle of rhythm and that of technique (or maximum effect with minimum effort) differ as biology differs from mechanics, or as a living organism from a machine. The repetition of ages and generations, festivals, the rituals of religious cult, breathing, the beating of the heart, prayer—with respect to the rosary prayer and the practice of the prayer of the heart, and also with respect to the daily recital of the Psalms — are manifestations and applications of the principle of rhythm, whilst, for example, the prayer wheel of the Tibetans, turning in the wind, is the application of a mechanical principle, i.e. the fundamental principle of the technique of minimum effort in order to obtain maximum effect.

Rhythm in prayer makes it pass from the psychological domain to that of life, from the domain of personal tendencies and moods to that of the fundamental and universal impulses of life itself. Speaking in occult terms, here it is a matter of carrying prayer over from the "astral body" (or "soul body") to the "etheric body" (or "vital body"), i.e. of making prayer employ the language of life instead of the language of personal feelings and desires. And just as life is like a river which flows unceasingly, so does the rosary prayer, for example, flow without stopping and without fatigue, because that which lives is at the same time vivifying. Calm and rhythmic prayer ("prayer-life") does not take forces — it does not tire — but gives forces to the person praying."

[Cleric]

In that sense, each individuality took upon themselves the task, sometimes seemingly impossible, to become a bridge from within these already established arenas of souls, finding creative ways for souls to penetrate to deeper spiritual foundations through the images rooted in sensory-conditioned intuitions. The fact is that billions of souls already live with the misleading dogma pictures, and new souls incarnating into Catholic (or other religious) families will absorb them as well., just as those living with and absorbing misleading scientific pictures of reality by default. Some initiative must be taken to help transform the perspective on these images of reality, and it's clear that many souls will not even consider listening to BD about the second coming. For the same reason, most of these souls probably won't consider contemplating Tomberg, either. But that shouldn't stop us from trying to introduce them to BD, Tomberg, Steiner, and whoever else has done genuinely spiritualizing work in this domain.

What is interesting, however, is that one of these individualities converted to Catholicism. Imagine Steiner or BD, at same later point in their lives, converting to whatever Church, and continuing to give their Teachings in a more toned-down form, on the edge of being compatible with the Church. The first reaction of the students will be like, "What just happened?"

We've already looked at some of the variants. For example, the students may say, "The Teacher is taking an insider job. He'll work from within." The Teacher will share this neither publicly nor privately, because it will eventually reach the ears of the host, and the game will be busted. Another possibility is that the Teacher has realized that ultimately, there's something that his Teaching will always miss and only the Church can provide. Then the students will be like, "So should we convert too? Are the prior Teachings of any value now?"

Thus, while Steiner and BD's missions have been consistent from beginning to end, Tomberg faces us as a more peculiar character. In the course of the last few posts, I think that the question of the Second Coming gives us the most direct way to solve the whole puzzle.

Everything becomes clear if we simply take VT seriously in what he communicates. The difficulties here issue mainly because, in the background, it is assumed that, in the long run, he somehow wants to help Catholic souls to reach an expanded world outlook as that portrayed by spiritual science. And while it is true, he leads them into esoteric experience, we should simply acknowledge that fact that there's no attempt to lead toward the greater picture of SS. VT's goal is to synthesize the exoteric and the esoteric aspects of the Church. Rodriel has already made that very clear. There's no inkling that the outer Church is only temporary. They will both go together until the End. And this End is the key. Tomberg's transformation was indeed that he reached the conviction that the Church's vision of the end times (among other things) is correct: "Sooner or later one inevitably experiences that spiritual reality corresponds—with an astonishing exactitude—to what the Church teaches" Thus, for VT the Omega point of the Second Coming was found to be, in fact, of the nature that the Church teaches. It is a sudden, singular, universal event, marking the end of history and the Lord coming into his Power, transmuting the World, abolishing sin, suffering, and evil. Now I can be opposed that he had a far more nuanced view on the Second Coming, that there was a multi-tiered gradual build-up, and so on. Yet, the fact remains that the end-point of this gradual build-up is in full agreement with the Church's vision. We can depict things in the following way:



Esoterism, the John stream, is like the air support team, while the Peter stream is the ground operations team. They work together until the very end. Only in this way we can understand why exoteric Christianity is sufficient for salvation. Not that the air support is not needed, but in the sense that if a fully intellectual soul with the needed moral development lives the Omega point, it will pass Judgment. In a way, it doesn't matter if we meet the Second Coming as a John or a Peter as long as we are morally sound. Everyone will take part in the reign of God, all the same.

I encourage everyone to immerse themselves in such a vision of the Second Coming and really feel what it means. What it means to our expectations, our goals. Then, even on a completely logical level, we'll see that everything falls into place. It is clear why Tomberg preserved of esoterism practically only that which is relevant to the converging cone, and the other parts of spiritual science were clipped off. It is clear why he turned away from his earlier studies of Time as SS pictures it. Maybe he still considered them plausible pictures, worthy of personal concern, but they certainly were irrelevant to the Earthly drama at hand. It is clear why one can be perfectly supportive of the exoteric Church and not be bothered by the dogma, not being worried that they may be obstacles for further development. It is clear why one-life dogma is fine (for example, the Second Coming can come at any time, so we should always live as this life is the only one). It is fully comprehensible why one would gladly be a member of the Church in such a vision. The whole Catholic project makes sense! He is really helping in preparing the airborne units.

Now, one may say that this is too simple an explanation, that there needs to be something more subtle. But why? Only because we secretly wish that his vision is not at odds with the evolutionary rhythms as known from SS? But again, we do not even have to guess. We simply need to take it that he meant what he has said and written. Then the picture becomes completely clear of itself.

[Cleric]

On the other hand, Tomberg feels to me like a happy middle ground which invites the soul into the deeper devotional element through an also intellectually satisfying panoramic consideration of the archetypal soul transformations. Perhaps you are not so enthusiastic because, given your prior experience with BD's stream, the devotional element of VT's work doesn't seem like such a big deal. It's something you have already cultivated through BD. For me, VT provided the near-perfect marriage of that element with occult science. Like Steiner, he provides a deep treatment of every major thinker, mystic, and saint over the last 2k years, but he also weaves that treatment into an underlying devotional narrative centered around Christ. Of course, many people often criticize Steiner's lectures for lacking that element, which is unfair if we consider his whole corpus, but it is certainly an understandable feeling when considering particular books and lectures. VT seems to seamlessly merge that element into a depth discussion of science, history, art, religion, and so on, inspiring the individual to be of service to others, and I am aware of no other individual who could do so quite like him.

This is a good point. Indeed, BD and OMA have played a great role in my journey. Prayer, most importantly. My morning and evening routines, excluding the free meditation, are thanks to BD. To be fair, I'm not sure how things would have played out if I knew only spiritual science. As you say, it's not that these things were fundamentally excluded. It has always been very interesting to me how Steiner sounds as an almost different person in the Esoteric Letters, where in private conversations, he gives such advice for devotional practice. It's simply that SS had to be given in such a completely neutral way, and everyone be stimulated to seek the rhythmic practice on their own.

[AshvinP]

Everything becomes clear if we simply take VT seriously in what he communicates. The difficulties here issue mainly because, in the background, it is assumed that, in the long run, he somehow wants to help Catholic souls to reach an expanded world outlook as that portrayed by spiritual science. And while it is true, he leads them into esoteric experience, we should simply acknowledge that fact that there's no attempt to lead toward the greater picture of SS. VT's goal is to synthesize the exoteric and the esoteric aspects of the Church. Rodriel has already made that very clear. There's no inkling that the outer Church is only temporary. They will both go together until the End. And this End is the key. Tomberg's transformation was indeed that he reached the conviction that the Church's vision of the end times (among other things) is correct: "Sooner or later one inevitably experiences that spiritual reality corresponds—with an astonishing exactitude—to what the Church teaches" Thus, for VT the Omega point of the Second Coming was found to be, in fact, of the nature that the Church teaches. It is a sudden, singular, universal event, marking the end of history and the Lord coming into his Power, transmuting the World, abolishing sin, suffering, and evil. Now I can be opposed that he had a far more nuanced view on the Second Coming, that there was a multi-tiered gradual build-up, and so on. Yet, the fact remains that the end-point of this gradual build-up is in full agreement with the Church's vision.

But first, we need to clarify the bold - when you say 'take VT seriously in what he communicates', you seem to mean 'in what he communicates after he converted to Catholicism' (and mostly what we can discern from private letters to friends). Because as soon as we start taking seriously his extensive lecturing on topics like the etheric Christ and the second coming up until the early 1940s, then your portrayal of his vision that coincides with the flattened vision of the exoteric Church simply falls apart. So, in order to take your portrayal seriously, we need to imagine VT repudiated everything he learned and communicated in the past, even though he never actually did that. We should only take him half-seriously, in that sense, for your portrayal to stand up.

Of course, I deeply appreciate your illustrations and ongoing discussion of this dynamic, which is undeniably valuable even if we disagree exactly on where VT fits in. Contemplating the dogma of the Second Coming in this way is undeniably a great way to become more sensitive to how, not just Catholics, but practically everyone thinks about how the World will transform and humanity will be 'saved'. Therefore, we should continually engage in such exercises to refine and expand that sensitivity, since this way of thinking no doubt applies to our expectations as well. But this is why I have been mentioning how need more familiarity with VT's life and work. When we try to move from there to the specifics of VT's vision and what he hoped for other souls to take away from his work, we need to patiently cultivate a better feel for his perspective as it took shape over the years (which, I would say, Salman does pretty well in his bio). If we want to take his statements seriously, then there is no way around that.

[Federica]

So, in order to take your portrayal seriously, we need to imagine VT repudiated everything he learned and communicated in the past, even though he never actually did that. We should only take him half-seriously, in that sense, for your portrayal to stand up.

Let's recall that VT did repudiate spiritual science:


"Whilst the experiences themselves are mystical, they cannot claim a status that is scientific – universally applicable or verifiable. It follows that so-called ‘spiritual science’ can only be psychologically convincing on the basis of a faithful endorsement by a particular group of people, objectively, however only on the basis of trust in the account of the witness, i.e. authority. No pope has ever demanded of mankind such an extent of trust as the ‘spiritual scientist’ or initiate Rudolf Steiner. The pontiffs represent tradition with hundreds of witnesses, whilst the ‘spiritual scientist’ draws on his own experiences and their interpretations and not out of tradition, and whether intentional or not, demands an authority which rivals that of the Pope."

[Federica]

Let's recall that VT did repudiate spiritual science:


"Whilst the experiences themselves are mystical, they cannot claim a status that is scientific – universally applicable or verifiable. It follows that so-called ‘spiritual science’ can only be psychologically convincing on the basis of a faithful endorsement by a particular group of people, objectively, however only on the basis of trust in the account of the witness, i.e. authority. No pope has ever demanded of mankind such an extent of trust as the ‘spiritual scientist’ or initiate Rudolf Steiner. The pontiffs represent tradition with hundreds of witnesses, whilst the ‘spiritual scientist’ draws on his own experiences and their interpretations and not out of tradition, and whether intentional or not, demands an authority which rivals that of the Pope."

Tomberg REPUDIATED spiritual science, and he wanted us to get that very clearly.
One can have a tantrum and recalcitrate, but that's what Tomberg added:


"This is the spiritual change that has happened to the Valentin Tomberg of the Thirties. He no longer has a relationship to spiritual science, which he believes to be abstract."

[Cleric]

But first, we need to clarify the bold - when you say 'take VT seriously in what he communicates', you seem to mean 'in what he communicates after he converted to Catholicism' (and mostly what we can discern from private letters to friends). Because as soon as we start taking seriously his extensive lecturing on topics like the etheric Christ and the second coming up until the early 1940s, then your portrayal of his vision that coincides with the flattened vision of the exoteric Church simply falls apart. So, in order to take your portrayal seriously, we need to imagine VT repudiated everything he learned and communicated in the past, even though he never actually did that. We should only take him half-seriously, in that sense, for your portrayal to stand up.

I'll leave it there, but we do have an indication of a major shift, and AFAIK, it is a fact that he didn't want his pre-Catholic works to be republished. Of course, we may choose to ignore, for example, the famous letter of 1970, where he admits to feel alien to his past self, but this is precisely where we have to consider what to take seriously, and what we would like to dismiss in order to preserve an aura that we would much rather prefer VT to abide in. This is something everyone will have to solve on their own. I just wanted to point out that things become very clear if we consider that through his transformation, he found a higher Truth in the Church, while his past self seemed to be busy in a more abstract attempt to solve the Great Mystery. A thing to contemplate: just because we may write extensively on spiritual scientific topics, fueled by intuitive thinking, it doesn't mean that we are able to fully enter the Spirit of the endeavor. It is fully possible that in the face of his later deep immersion in the Catholic mysteries, he felt much greater security and certainty than he was able to experience while working intuitively on spiritual scientific topics.