Tomberg and Anthroposophy

[Cleric]

But Rodriel just stated to me above,

If the John stream were to become more prominent within the Peter stream, it's very possible that a deepened awareness of this increasingly pronounced function of Peter's would even arise on the part of the Church, in contradistinction to the Church structure/hierarchy itself serving a culture-sculpting role. Those days are arguably over, and a primary element of John-within-Peter will necessarily be an increase of autonomous cultural streams flowing out of and bowing to the Intellectual-Soul-protecting apparatus.
...
Becoming increasingly open to it is what I would consider movement in the right direction. The autonomous cultural streams I mentioned above would be the primary seat of progressive activity.

It seems like you are subtly substituting what you are speaking of for what 'Rodriel speaks of', even though he has indicated differently several times already. I see the same thing happening with 'taking VT's statements seriously', which means 'taking my interpretation of his statements, based on my partial understanding of his whole work, seriously'.

I don't know, perhaps I am completely misunderstanding Rodriel's vision of this process, and I'm sure he can correct me on this point if that is the case. But as I see it, he has been continually trying to modify this understanding of his position, i.e. that the development and communication of all higher knowledge will now depend completely on what the Church does or doesn't do, to little avail.

Yes, I tend to express more directly here, but this is only because I try to bring forward the essential questions, which otherwise get easily blurred in the subtleties. For example, the above quote from Rodriel is a fully plausible development, but the question of centrality still hovers in the background: does this imply that these autonomous cultural streams will flow in a healthy way only from/to the Intellectual-Soul-protecting apparatus (RCC)? Does this mean that other such cultural streams which emerge independently of the RCC, but still follow the guidance of Sun-initiates, would be somehow deficient?

[AshvinP]

But Rodriel just stated to me above,

If the John stream were to become more prominent within the Peter stream, it's very possible that a deepened awareness of this increasingly pronounced function of Peter's would even arise on the part of the Church, in contradistinction to the Church structure/hierarchy itself serving a culture-sculpting role. Those days are arguably over, and a primary element of John-within-Peter will necessarily be an increase of autonomous cultural streams flowing out of and bowing to the Intellectual-Soul-protecting apparatus.
...
Becoming increasingly open to it is what I would consider movement in the right direction. The autonomous cultural streams I mentioned above would be the primary seat of progressive activity.

It seems like you are subtly substituting what you are speaking of for what 'Rodriel speaks of', even though he has indicated differently several times already. I see the same thing happening with 'taking VT's statements seriously', which means 'taking my interpretation of his statements, based on my partial understanding of his whole work, seriously'.

I don't know, perhaps I am completely misunderstanding Rodriel's vision of this process, and I'm sure he can correct me on this point if that is the case. But as I see it, he has been continually trying to modify this understanding of his position, i.e. that the development and communication of all higher knowledge will now depend completely on what the Church does or doesn't do, to little avail.

Yes, I tend to express more directly here, but this is only because I try to bring forward the essential questions, which otherwise get easily blurred in the subtleties. For example, the above quote from Rodriel is a fully plausible development, but the question of centrality still hovers in the background: does this imply that these autonomous cultural streams will flow in a healthy way only from/to the Intellectual-Soul-protecting apparatus (RCC)? Does this mean that other such cultural streams which emerge independently of the RCC, but still follow the guidance of Sun-initiates, would be somehow deficient?

Right, but I think we should also try to feel how things become much easier on us if we maintain the simple view of the position. Then it's obvious what the problem is, no one can reasonably deny it, and we don't need to think about it much more. The 'subtleties' can be safely deemed irrelevant details that only blur the simple clarity of our vision, or what Federica calls the 'core issue'. That stance is what I am highly skeptical of and questioning.

The way I understand it is as follows - given the reality of our current situation, a few souls (like us) can continue working from within the independent streams, but a wide swath of other souls will find the Church is the only institution which safeguards against the complete deterioriation of the intellectual soul due to the novel subhuman circumstances that have arisen since Steiner's time (by the way, Salman points out that VT had a broader view of the 'Universal Church' similar to Solovyov, i.e. which includes all of its currently split-off tributaries). Therefore, it is from within the Universal Church that many souls will even find the opportunity to develop a moral orientation and preserve intellectual faculties that can potentially be revived, arriving at the threshold of higher development, and proceeding from there into autonomous cultural streams. These streams 'bow to' the Church in the sense of "washing the feet of the disciples", i.e. the higher voluntarily puts its autonomous development in service of the lower from which it sprang. If we compare the Church to the physical-sensory-intellectual organism, our higher development does not detach us from that organism, but gives us a profound reverence for how it served as our stabilizing rock, bringing us into the vicinity of free spiritual development, and we work back into that organism with the fruits of higher knowledge. In no way does this prevent or diminish the work of independent streams following the guidance of Sun-initiates, who themselves will begin to appreciate the value and function of the Church cult and dogma as it is seen in a transformed light (just as Steiner indicates).

Rodriel can clarify where this vision may be off or needs modification, and again, I may not see it exactly the same way. I am open to the possibility that things could go a different way, but I also see no reason to rule out this vision from the beginning or ascribe it to an unexamined desire to preserve the Church in its current form.

[Cleric]

Right, but I think we should also try to feel how things become much easier on us if we maintain the simple view of the position. Then it's obvious what the problem is, no one can reasonably deny it, and we don't need to think about it much more. The 'subtleties' can be safely deemed irrelevant details that only blur the simple clarity of our vision, or what Federica calls the 'core issue'. That stance is what I am highly skeptical of and questioning.

The way I understand it is as follows - given the reality of our current situation, a few souls (like us) can continue working from within the independent streams, but a wide swath of other souls will find the Church is the only institution which safeguards against the complete deterioriation of the intellectual soul due to the novel subhuman circumstances that have arisen since Steiner's time (by the way, Salman points out that VT had a broader view of the 'Universal Church' similar to Solovyov, i.e. which includes all of its currently split-off tributaries). Therefore, it is from within the Universal Church that many souls will even find the opportunity to develop a moral orientation and preserve intellectual faculties that can potentially be revived, arriving at the threshold of higher development, and proceeding from there into autonomous cultural streams. These streams 'bow to' the Church in the sense of "washing the feet of the disciples", i.e. the higher voluntarily puts its autonomous development in service of the lower from which it sprang. If we compare the Church to the physical-sensory-intellectual organism, our higher development does not detach us from that organism, but gives us a profound reverence for how it served as our stabilizing rock, bringing us into the vicinity of free spiritual development, and we work back into that organism with the fruits of higher knowledge. In no way does this prevent or diminish the work of independent streams following the guidance of Sun-initiates, who themselves will begin to appreciate the value and function of the Church cult and dogma as it is seen in a transformed light (just as Steiner indicates).

Rodriel can clarify where this vision may be off or needs modification, and again, I may not see it exactly the same way. I am open to the possibility that things could go a different way, but I also see no reason to rule out this vision from the beginning or ascribe it to an unexamined desire to preserve the Church in its current form.

It all depends on how much the Church will reorient itself and open to higher guidance. If Sun-Initiates stand behind at least some aspects of the leadership, there could be potential. But if the teachings remain more or less the same, and the Church behaves as if only God is above it, we shouldn't be surprised if the persons developing within the Church turn out hostile to even mentioning certain 'higher' things.

In other words, the Church will have to assume the humble position that it acts as a preparatory school for a far greater path of development that can be pursued here on Earth and leads to the spiritual depths. If the souls are taught this, then there's a far greater chance for the Church to become a breeding den for gifted souls.

[Federica]

By the way, Rodriel, I am seeing from various sources (sympathizing with VT) that the 1970 letter in question was not written to Bernhard Martin, but to Willi Seiss - the person who, 15 years later, would publish VT's work. What do you think about that? In any case, the following doesn't seem to apply to that letter:

My apologies, Federica. Yes, you are right. The letter you excerpted from was indeed Seiss's and not Martin's. I just reviewed them both, and though their contents are quite similar, the letter to Seiss -- having been composed a decade and a half later -- is a bit more intensely centered around Tomberg's change of identity. I don't believe my error changes the below at all, however, as both letters were written in response to eager admirers of Tomberg's anthroposophical work, hoping to hear the Catholic-converted author's updated reflections on this earlier work.

When he wrote to Bernhard Martin, for instance, he was writing to a person who he knew full well was highly familiar with his work. He could reasonably and responsibly assume (or at least hope) that Martin would assess the personal statements being made in light of the broader context and come to the conclusion that the words are meant not as discursively interpreted opinions but as instructions and invitations for action.

Rodriel, that there are two letters changes quite a bit the way you presented things. The “personal comments” made by an ailing man in the 1970 letter were in fact not very personal to the recipient, since Tomberg wrote a very similar letter already to another person a decade and a half before. It seems like those sentences of drastic and explicit repudiation of spiritual science must have been deeply anchored in his soul, if they came out in about the same form at a 15 years interval. Did you know that there are two such Tomberg letters or did you discover that yesterday?

[AshvinP]

Right, but I think we should also try to feel how things become much easier on us if we maintain the simple view of the position. Then it's obvious what the problem is, no one can reasonably deny it, and we don't need to think about it much more. The 'subtleties' can be safely deemed irrelevant details that only blur the simple clarity of our vision, or what Federica calls the 'core issue'. That stance is what I am highly skeptical of and questioning.

The way I understand it is as follows - given the reality of our current situation, a few souls (like us) can continue working from within the independent streams, but a wide swath of other souls will find the Church is the only institution which safeguards against the complete deterioriation of the intellectual soul due to the novel subhuman circumstances that have arisen since Steiner's time (by the way, Salman points out that VT had a broader view of the 'Universal Church' similar to Solovyov, i.e. which includes all of its currently split-off tributaries). Therefore, it is from within the Universal Church that many souls will even find the opportunity to develop a moral orientation and preserve intellectual faculties that can potentially be revived, arriving at the threshold of higher development, and proceeding from there into autonomous cultural streams. These streams 'bow to' the Church in the sense of "washing the feet of the disciples", i.e. the higher voluntarily puts its autonomous development in service of the lower from which it sprang. If we compare the Church to the physical-sensory-intellectual organism, our higher development does not detach us from that organism, but gives us a profound reverence for how it served as our stabilizing rock, bringing us into the vicinity of free spiritual development, and we work back into that organism with the fruits of higher knowledge. In no way does this prevent or diminish the work of independent streams following the guidance of Sun-initiates, who themselves will begin to appreciate the value and function of the Church cult and dogma as it is seen in a transformed light (just as Steiner indicates).

Rodriel can clarify where this vision may be off or needs modification, and again, I may not see it exactly the same way. I am open to the possibility that things could go a different way, but I also see no reason to rule out this vision from the beginning or ascribe it to an unexamined desire to preserve the Church in its current form.

It all depends on how much the Church will reorient itself and open to higher guidance. If Sun-Initiates stand behind at least some aspects of the leadership, there could be potential. But if the teachings remain more or less the same, and the Church behaves as if only God is above it, we shouldn't be surprised if the persons developing within the Church turn out hostile to even mentioning certain 'higher' things.

In other words, the Church will have to assume the humble position that it acts as a preparatory school for a far greater path of development that can be pursued here on Earth and leads to the spiritual depths. If the souls are taught this, then there's a far greater chance for the Church to become a breeding den for gifted souls.

Yes, exactly, and we should note that "Church" could be replaced with "Anthroposophical Society" above, and the underlying point remains the same. It is a universal risk for organizations where a certain level of trust is needed in the words of authority figures, and where there is a possibility of stagnation with inner development and hostility toward higher revelations. That is what VT experienced in the Society of his time, as he was practically pushed out for expanding on Steiner's supersensible research. So he transitioned toward the Church, as another field of activity where the guidance of Sun-initiates is desperately needed, and where such initiates may actually discover more receptivity than most esotericists imagine is possible. Again, if the Meditations are seriously pursued within the sphere of the Church faithful (and it's hard to ignore Pope JPII having a copy on his desk, or a prominent Catholic theologian writing the introduction, as at least a preliminary indication of positive movement), then we are already speaking of a breeding den for gifted souls. Returning to Letter XX on The Judgement, it is fascinating how VT discusses the dynamics of our imaginative life as the means of drawing out the core principles for the 'Final Resurrection' (of which the passage that Federica shared only came at the end of this phenomenological reasoning). Anyone who deeply contemplates such imaginative experiences and the corresponding line of reasoning, will have already softened and expanded the rigid/flattened/remote/externalized perspective on the Second Coming.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

As for Cleric's diagram of the Peter and John streams progressing toward and ultimately converging in the omega point, I'm a bit confused as to where this image is coming from, as it is not what we have discussed. This has been a rather extended conversation (for which I am grateful!), so it might not be remembered that we discussed the relationship between the Peter and John streams in relation to the alternation between head and limbs within the successive incarnations of a single individuality. The vision is for all the Peters to ultimately have become Johns by the time of a certain eschatological horizon line (which at the moment remains unspecified, but that I would be very interested in collectively exploring). The image is a true spiraling together, not a parallel operation where those who have been Peters the entire time magically arrive at the "omega point" saved.

It comes literally from Tomberg:

Because just as the heart is not called upon to replace the head, so is John not called upon to succeed Peter. The heart certainly guards the life of the body and the soul, but it is the head which makes decisions, directs, and chooses the means for the accomplishment of the tasks of the entire organism—head, heart and limbs. The mission of John is to keep the life and soul of the Church alive until the Second Coming of the Lord. This is why John has never claimed and never will claim the office of directing the body of the Church. He vivifies this body, but he does not direct its actions.

What I meant by "this is not what we have discussed" is that your diagram depicts the Peter stream as a horizontal (static) line, with the John stream spiraling around it. What I've been describing for a while now is not a static and unchanging Peter stream but rather a Peter stream which is penetrated by and completely transformed by the John stream. The new impulse puts on the outer garment of the old which is then inwardly expanded into an entirely new dimension. This is Joan of Arc wearing the knight's armor. The knight is the visible director of Joan's operations. He is who is seen in battle. But it is the virginal preparation for the Consciousness Soul which is inwardly active. An even more sublime image is the Woman clothed in the Sun, with the moon at her feet. She has entered the Sun's radiance through the moon. Part of the moon has been transformed into the Sun, and the other part is now the support upon which she stands. I'm not sure precisely how your diagram would need to be altered to depict this. I would need to ponder it more. But in its current form it does not represent what VT or myself are describing.

As far as the alternating John-Peter incarnations - the arrows in my diagram were supposed to depict the streams, not the individual destinies, just as in the army, say, the infantry is a kind of stream that has its continuity no matter who dies or retires and what new recruits come in.

Right, but surely you see the problem with that metaphor, as the coming and going of personnel within the army is not a process of continual recycling like that of reincarnation. As I've said many times before, once the feet are washed, the whole body is clean (John 13:10). Moral purity in one lifetime is sufficient for salvation. The infantry return to higher rank in the next cycle through. And what is present in the Church but only apparent as a faint glimmer in the best militaries, is that the higher members serve the lower.

I owe Cleric a much fuller response, but I am short on time this weekend and wanted to just jump in quickly to note that Tomberg's vision of the Second Coming far more nuanced than what has been indicated here. I can't remember off the top of my head whether the quotations are from MoT or from other works in his Catholic oeuvre (I will attempt to find them), but what Tomberg essentially does is tie together the Church's eschatological vision with the mysteries of Vulcan and Spirit Man. He describes at some length how the "resurrection body", a core tenet of the Catholic faith, should be interpreted in the light esoteric wisdom. In no sense is Tomberg suggesting a "flattened out" Second Coming where the subsequent planetary incarnations we come to know through SS no longer come about.

But the bold would be even worse. It's already a stretch to tie the Second Coming with the transition to Jupiter (since the incarnations will be over far, far earlier than that, and the Church, as it is, becomes null when death is no longer part of existence). But pushing it all the way to Vulcan? The collective Spirit Man of humanity will have a Macrocosmic purely spiritual existence at that stage, but there will still be the Roman Catholic Church (Peter stream) that is not to be meddled with by the John stream, and there will still be anticipation for the sudden appearance of Jesus, resurrection of the dead, and judgment?

Anyway. As said, I don't find joy rubbing in such a way on that level. If anything, it only sucks in our attention at the scale of sparks flying from crossing swords, while we completely miss the deeper elastic streams of destiny, which steer us to sympathize with one narrative or another.

The consistent thread that runs along all of the discussion is that, effectively, the kind of embodied existence that we are familiar with from the last few millennia is pushed as far as possible into the future. And together with this the Roman Catholic Church, which is the backbone, or the cross, on which the intellectual soul can have its seemingly secure existence within the cave. And this is how things will be until the Second Coming, whenever that might be. Isn't it strikingly obvious that something fights for its prolonged existence? That it is ready to subtly twist any intuition in such a way that it secures a narrative by which its existence will be fully relevant and necessary all the way until the Omega point? And while existence beyond the Omega point is in no way denied (the Reign of God), whatever that might be is deemed completely irrelevant (at most a matter of personal concern) as far as the Salvation operation is concerned (we'll see what it's like when we get there). This effectively implies that all the way to the Second Coming, there will be a threshold of death, demarcating embodied existence from the Heavenly. Only in this way the embodied intellect can feel fully content with the Church and dogma. Yet, it is precisely the Teachers of the twentieth century who tried to steer attention toward a kind of humanity for which the threshold of death will have diminishing weight. In the very beginning of this discussion I tried to paint a picture of the Nighttime Ecclesia, and how the two poles will become more and more diffused into each other. This asks us to completely reimagine what humanity's existence is, and asks us to urgently reconsider the picture of an embodied creature that seeks moral perfection by having this mode of existence immanent all the way to the end-point.

I tried to say that this kind of looking at things effectively ignores the kind of development that looks forward precisely toward the kind of human culture where the threshold of death will become diffused (initially at least at the level of consciousness; at the physical level it will be a sharp event for quite more time). Ignoring this prevents the influx of ideas and Cosmic Thinking that are as vital as the air for human beings who will have to increasingly manifest science, art, and religion directly from consciousness within the spiritual depth of reality. Expecting that such things are only relevant beyond the Second Coming, when Jesus will put an end to death, is the definition of ignoring them. I don't know why this was seen as a caricature.

Esotericism is by its very definition understood to be the deeper layer residing beneath the surface level explanation. The surface level explanation is often compressed, and we misunderstand the esoteric-exoteric relationship if we look at all times for a one-to-one relationship between details to map onto each other. The Church tradition takes its positions on eschatology directly from Scripture, in which the Second Coming is at times vertically compressed and at other times more horizontally expanded into a series of stages. It is in John's Revelation, naturally, that we get the most expanded view, as John is he to whom the secrets of the future were untrusted. In the Gospels themselves (and in Paul's letters), however, the eschaton is described in varying degrees of vertical compression. The language is quite varied: the kingdom of heaven, the end of the age (literally "aeonian times"), the age, the fullness of time, ages of ages, fulfillment, etc. As to when all this will happen, the answer likewise varies: soon, it is at hand, it is upon us, this generation will not taste death until it happens, it will come quickly and suddenly, etc. The Church takes all these variations and interprets them, albeit in admittedly limited sense-based concepts, extracting the following dogmas:

-Christ will return in clouds as he ascended. This will in some sense be a physical event.
-It will happen suddenly and take people by surprise. There is no formally defined notion of "sudden."
-The Anti-Christ will lead many people astray, into following man's will instead of God's will.
-There will be a final altercation between the Church and the forces of evil, in which the Church will prevail.
-All humanity will face judgment and either be thrown into the eternal fire or saved.
-The dead will be resurrected in their "resurrection bodies" into the domain of the new earth, and the saved will reign with God forever.

Clearly these dogmas are a quite compressed distillation. They are the essential facts—sitting at the limit of the Intellectual Soul's capacities—which encapsulate what is described as unfolding through a series of stages, with multiple horizon lines, in Revelation. Traditional Christian art and theology have always attempted to deal more with the more detailed view, while keeping certain elements open-ended. Does accepting the dogma as the detailed description present a problem? Yes, definitely. And it is not uncommon for eschatological realities to be understood in this way. But the John stream, under the leadership of the Revelator himself, stands to offer much to such souls through its influence on the Peter stream.

Given all this, it becomes quite clear how and why Tomberg's tying together of the Second Coming with Vulcan is absolutely justified. Far from misplacing eschatological happenings on the fully expanded timeline, he is substantiating the compressed view of the Church by tying it to the farthest-knowable esoteric intimation of the future, namely the arrival of Spirit Man: the completely spiritualized, incorruptible transformation of the physical body—the fullest realization and deepest meaning of the term "resurrection body." This does not mean, however, that the Church will not have first become the ark that sails to Jupiter. At this point, the Church will have attained the full spiraling together of Peter and John. To mention this too in connection with the Second Coming is to perform the same act of symbolic compression, but from the other end of the Second Coming Event, namely the beginning. This "beginning" too is capable of expansion. It is simultaneously the arrival of the incipient Spirit Self within the Earth incarnation at the advent of the 6th cultural age and the full realization of Spirit Self within the astralized condition of Jupiter. Both meanings are contained in the doubly compressed form of "Second Coming" just described. Will the function of the Church that I've been harping on in relation to the Intellectual Soul still be operative during the transition to Jupiter? In a sense yes, and in a sense no. Insofar as the Intellectual Soul is essentially related to the comprehension of the physical-mineral world, it is foregrounded in the Earth incarnation of our planetary sphere. So while collective human morphology will have progressed all the way to a nascent form of Life Spirit by the 7th cultural age, certain echoes of the Intellectual Soul will still be operative in connection with the very condition of form inherent to the Earth itself. I do not claim to know exactly what those echoes will look like within the function of the John-enspiraled Peter stream of the Earth-Jupiter boundary. These are nuances that would be very fascinating to explore.

Anyway. I think we have tilled the soil more than enough. At this point, I don't think explicating these things further could have any beneficial effect besides more sword sparks. I'll, of course, continue to follow the thread with interest. I'm open to have my eyes cleansed and see how Tomberg's strategy was far more sophisticated than it seems. But so far all we get is that things are subtle, nuanced, etc., but ultimately we never get to a point that can reconcile (1) the existence of embodied intellect (and its social RCC backbone/cross) secured up to the end-point of history, with (2) the spiritual scientific view that sees human culture moving into an increasingly spiritualized existence where the threshold of death diffuses, and together with it the Church (at least in its present form, not speaking of the Celestial Ecclesia, which is a spiritual unity, woven in the fabric of exsitence, and not an institutional replica of the Cosmic relations). Expecting that some subtleties will somehow solve this problem in the future is almost like the scientist who still hopes that somehow the seeming impossibility of abiogenesis will be resolved in the future when more data is available. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking.

That's totally fair. We don't have to keep going at it if it's not bearing fruit. I would definitely still recommend at least reading Lazarus, Come Forth in order to gain a fuller orientation to VT's work before putting it aside. I appreciate the conversation.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

Rodriel, that there are two letters changes quite a bit the way you presented things. The “personal comments” made by an ailing man in the 1970 letter were in fact not very personal to the recipient, since Tomberg wrote a very similar letter already to another person a decade and a half before. It seems like those sentences of drastic and explicit repudiation of spiritual science must have been deeply anchored in his soul, if they came out in about the same form at a 15 years interval. Did you know that there are two such Tomberg letters or did you discover that yesterday?

You can interpret these things however you wish, of course. I know you are entirely unconvinced by what I've been presenting here, so I don't expect that this one detail will change things much. By "personal comments," I was simply referring to the fact that these were indeed personally addressed letters to specific people.

Mistaking one letter for the other was an honest mistake on my part. I am not always writing these responses from my office and in this case was working from memory. The two letters are contained back to back in Salman's book, and so I suppose that's where I crossed the wires. Multiple letters are also included in Martin's book. In content, they are all "renunciations" of Anthroposophy.

[Cleric]

Yes, exactly, and we should note that "Church" could be replaced with "Anthroposophical Society" above, and the underlying point remains the same. It is a universal risk for organizations where a certain level of trust is needed in the words of authority figures, and where there is a possibility of stagnation with inner development and hostility toward higher revelations. That is what VT experienced in the Society of his time, as he was practically pushed out for expanding on Steiner's supersensible research. So he transitioned toward the Church, as another field of activity where the guidance of Sun-initiates is desperately needed, and where such initiates may actually discover more receptivity than most esotericists imagine is possible. Again, if the Meditations are seriously pursued within the sphere of the Church faithful (and it's hard to ignore Pope JPII having a copy on his desk, or a prominent Catholic theologian writing the introduction, as at least a preliminary indication of positive movement), then we are already speaking of a breeding den for gifted souls. Returning to Letter XX on The Judgement, it is fascinating how VT discusses the dynamics of our imaginative life as the means of drawing out the core principles for the 'Final Resurrection' (of which the passage that Federica shared only came at the end of this phenomenological reasoning). Anyone who deeply contemplates such imaginative experiences and the corresponding line of reasoning, will have already softened and expanded the rigid/flattened/remote/externalized perspective on the Second Coming.

Sure, anything is possible. Yet, it's worth noting that these things are seen through the 'best-possible-scenario glasses' When we read MoT, we should never forget that we do so from a rich spiritual-scientific background. We are prone to take joy in the way things intersect, how they can be seen as fitting with our understanding, but it could be quite different when someone else reads it. And by the way, that's why I don't share the same admiration for the subtle half-messaging approach. Truth is, people will fill the other half with what they are susceptible to and not what the author intended. And thus, when we see the book on the Pope's desk, we should also try to conceive what such a person has gathered from it. Rodriel's quote of von Balthazar is actually indicative: 'this is "a thinking, praying Christian of unmistakable purity" who has entered into different "varieties of occult science" as "secondary realities, which are only able to be truly known when they can be referred to in the absolute mystery of divine love manifest in Christ."' Can we say here that he was at all hinted that there's a path of higher cognition that can lead to the actual intuitive reality of the Logos? Or rather, he indeed sees all the occult sciences as secondary realities, which in the end only affirm the absolute mystery that the Church soul approaches asymptotically through faith? Has Balthazar actually learned something significantly new from this book, or he was simply happy that the various occult sciences were rendered as pointers to the Christ mystery that the Church has been teaching for centuries anyway? Same for Letter XX. Isn't it almost certain that these high Catholics, when filling their half of the story, saw there precisely an elaborated confirmation of the Church dogma of the Second Coming as a singular Event?

Ashvin, since you already have experience with the most varied online spiritual communities, maybe you should try (if you haven't already) join a few Catholic servers and test the ground That would be a good reality check for how well, in fact, the Church prepares its members for higher truths.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

Catholic servers are overwhelmingly hangouts for a growing contingent within the Church, namely that of the right wing political reactionary seeking escape in a traditional authoritarian structure. Many of these people are disappointed to find that the Pope does not share their vision of the world nor buckle to their demands. In any case, these are very tough nuts to crack as far as online conversation about spiritual science goes. Just putting that out there.

[Cleric]

Catholic servers are overwhelmingly hangouts for a growing contingent within the Church, namely that of the right wing political reactionary seeking escape in a traditional authoritarian structure. Many of these people are disappointed to find that the Pope does not share their vision of the world nor buckle to their demands. In any case, these are very tough nuts to crack as far as online conversation about spiritual science goes. Just putting that out there.

Yeah, online communities are often hubs of strange personalities (what does this tell about us )

Rodriel, in the context of what I wrote to Ashvin above, whenever you have time, can you share something of your real-life experiences with the people who you have pursuaded to read MoT? I suppose there's a whole spectrum of results. Were there those who only gathered from there support for what they already knew as dogma? What about the others? Do you have any sense of what the most significant change was for them? And ultimately, was there anyone to approach spiritual science after that?