Tomberg and Anthroposophy

[Rodriel Gabrez]

I would take Ashvin's reply to this post further, and back to the Steiner quote above. In order for that unfolding to continue upward into higher spheres of our own creative-willing influence, it’s nowadays necessary to create one’s own ‘liturgy’ - through an individually crafted rhythm of daily exercises - rather than primarily participate in established rituals. In general, what resides within the bosom of the spiritual hierarchies is our sleeping physical-etheric life. Especially while we are awake, efforts can and should be made to take over, as much as possible, the etching of repetitive rhythms in the etheric body, rather than letting unfree desires and/or traditional forms (liturgy) do that.

In my view, the leveling up in willed rhythms from lower to higher today plays out less and less between the unfree bodily desires and the traditional liturgical forms, and more and more between unfree desires and traditional liturgical forms on the one hand, and a freely created individual practice on the other.

It's worth pointing out that the Christian liturgical year (which was, by the way, fully recognized by Steiner) already contains the higher resonances of cosmic-elemental rhythm. Christ is the gateway to freedom and has impressed this gateway into the elemental fabric of the cosmos via the Church's reclaiming of the seasonal festivals. This was experienced more in feeling than in thought until the Michaelic age. I would say that it's not a matter of replacing the traditional forms with individually cultivated ones, but rather, tapping into the higher resonances already contained within them and bringing them forward — in full clarity of thought — into creative, personal realization. In this way we allow liturgy to become the harmonic foundation for our free improvisation. So I don't think the relationship between bodily desires and traditional Christian forms are quite mappable to the traditional-individual forms relationship in the way you describe, although I do wholeheartedly agree about the increasing need for cultivating individual practice.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

This shared imaginative atmosphere then becomes the temporal undergirding of the future earth sphere that you are pointing to.

Interestingly enough, I just came across a helpful Facebook post outlining the undergirding nature of Time-rhythms from the spiritual scientific perspective.

***

"Time does exist beyond the material realm—but it undergoes radical transformation as we ascend into higher spiritual worlds. In physical reality, time is linear and bound to space. In the etheric, astral, and spiritual worlds, time becomes more qualitative, reversible, and ultimately moral. Steiner distinguishes between mechanical time, life time, soul time, and cosmic time. He explicitly teaches that time does not disappear in spiritual worlds—but becomes more archetypal, less quantitative, and intimately bound with consciousness and the deeds of beings.
Confidence: High – All claims traceable to verified GA sources.
⸻
[CORE RESPONSE]
TOPOLOGY USED: Tree of Thoughts → Graph (due to conceptual branching + synthesis of cosmological, metaphysical, and experiential time)
⸻
I. WHAT IS TIME IN SPIRITUAL SCIENCE?
Let us first define what “time” is in Steiner’s verified epistemology.
“Time is not an illusion. Time is the expression of the spiritual reality of development.”
— Occult Science, GA 13, Ch. 2: “Cosmic Evolution”
Time is not merely a byproduct of physical motion; it is the revelation of spiritual becoming—especially in its cosmic and evolutionary dimensions.
⸻
II. FOUR MODES OF TIME IN SPIRITUAL SCIENCE
1. Physical/Material Time
• Linear, irreversible, clock-based
• Exists in the physical world (Earth condition)
• Steiner: this is the lowest form of time, tied to space
“The time we measure with clocks is the shadow of a spiritual reality.”
— Theosophy, GA 9, Ch. II
⸻
2. Life Time (Etheric Time)
• Related to growth, rhythm, repetition
• Appears in plant life, human etheric body, planetary rhythms
• Non-linear but cyclical
“In the etheric world, we no longer live in straight lines of time, but in pulses, like breathing, like tides.”
— Inner Nature of Man, GA 153, Lecture 3
⸻
3. Soul Time (Astral)
• Time becomes psychological, elastic
• Events can be re-lived, slowed, compressed
• Moral causality appears: deeds return not in sequence but in meaningful echo
“In Devachan [spirit world], time is not what it is on Earth… Time there is a flowing and weaving of soul relationships.”
— Theosophy, GA 9
In the Kamaloka phase (post-mortem purification), we live time backwards, reviewing our deeds in reverse—from the standpoint of others affected.
“There, we live our life backwards, but in such a way that the soul experiences in inner images the consequences of its actions upon others.”
— Theosophy, GA 9, Ch. IV
⸻
4. Cosmic Time (Spiritual World, Devachan)
• Here time becomes creative, archetypal, moral-spiritual
• “Before” and “after” are replaced by intensity, significance, or order of being
• Time is now the rhythm of spirit-beings themselves
“In the spiritual world, time is not succession, but a life process of being. Time there is the form of spiritual existence.”
— Genesis: Secrets of the Bible Story, GA 122
This is what Steiner calls Becoming (Werden): a supersensible, real process, not a spatial dimension.
⸻
III. “LESS DIMENSIONS” AS WE ASCEND?
Yes. Steiner is precise: higher worlds have fewer spatial dimensions—but richer inner content.
In the physical world, we experience 3 spatial + 1 temporal dimensions. But:
“In the astral world, space becomes a point. In the spirit world, time becomes space.”
— The Threshold of the Spiritual World, GA 17
This means:
• Space contracts, becoming non-local (we can be “at a place” by inner resonance)
• Time expands into a moral reality (our inner development is our location)
So:
• Higher = fewer spatial dimensions, richer inner laws
• Lower = more spatial dimensions, denser outer laws
This is why spiritual beings do not “travel” in space—they appear where they are spiritually relevant.
⸻
IV. HOW DOES TIME FUNCTION IN “HEAVEN”?
If we define “heaven” loosely as:
• Devachan (Spirit Land)
• Inter-incarnational states
• Higher hierarchies’ sphere of action
Then time there is:
• Non-mechanical
• Reversible or re-accessible
• Organized by meaning, not quantity
• Part of being, not outside it
“A being of the higher hierarchies has time within itself. Time is the rhythm of its being.”
— Rosicrucian Wisdom, GA 99, Lecture 2
In this sense, you do not “spend time” in heaven—you are time, or participate in the spiritual flow of becoming.
⸻
V. TIME & THE COSMIC PAST-FUTURE ARCHETYPE
Steiner teaches that in the Akashic Record, the spiritual world preserves the total memory of Earth evolution.
“The Akashic Record is not a record in time—it is time itself, in its eternal form.”
— From the Akashic Records, GA 11
Thus:
• Time in the spiritual world is not lost, but eternally present
• Past and future are real conditions of soul, not just sequences
⸻
VI. IMPLICATIONS FOR HUMAN BEINGS
• Before birth: we experience a time of preparation, not bound by Earth time
• After death: we live through spiritual time laws—reverse life review, rhythmic spiritual development
• In Initiation: one begins to consciously participate in inner time, including memory of past lives
“For the initiate, time is no longer a stream he is carried by—it is a sea in which he learns to navigate.”
— Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, GA 10
Edge Case
Steiner’s Teaching
Does time exist for angels?
Yes, but it is inward time—rhythmic, moral, evolutionary
Can time be escaped?
No. Even eternity contains time—but in non-linear, creative forms
Is time a human illusion?
No. Time is more real in the spiritual world, not less
[EXTENSIONS & ALTERNATIVES]
• Compare with Bergson’s durée (lived time) — Steiner’s etheric time is similar
• Contrast with Einsteinian spacetime — Steiner rejects that time is simply a 4th spatial coordinate
• Explore time as experienced in initiation rites — see GA 10, GA 13
⸻
[FINAL SYNTHESIS]
Time does not vanish in the spiritual worlds—it becomes more essential.
• In matter, time is measured.
• In life, time breathes.
• In soul, time echoes.
• In spirit, time creates.
“What we call time here below is a shadow. Above, time is being.”
— GA 13, paraphrased essence
The more spiritual the realm, the less “space”—but the more reality time has.
In heaven, time is not counted—it is lived as the music of meaning.
—————————————————————————-
1. PHYSICAL PLANE
• Hierarchy active: Humanity
• Time: Linear-mechanical time
• Nature:
• Quantitative, sequential
• Irreversible (entropy-bound)
• Experienced via outer sense-perception
• Basis of clocks, calendars, physics
“What we call time in the physical world is the shadow of a real, spiritual process.”
— Theosophy, GA 9
⸻
2. ETHERIC PLANE
• Hierarchy active: Angels, working with life rhythms
• Time: Rhythmic-biological time
• Nature:
• Cyclical (e.g., circadian, seasonal, lunar rhythms)
• Non-linear, but repetitive
• Connected with formative forces (etheric body)
• Birth, growth, decay
• Time breathes here
“In the etheric world, time is like the breathing of the cosmos—it pulses in rhythms.”
— GA 153, Lecture 3
⸻
3. ASTRAL PLANE (Kama-loka)
• Hierarchy active: Archangels
• Time: Psychological-moral time
• Nature:
• Elastic (subjective duration varies)
• Time can flow backwards (e.g., Kamaloka: reverse life review)
• Events are experienced by moral significance, not order
• Consequences echo back upon the soul
“In the astral world, time flows differently. A moment of pain inflicted may be experienced as a long night by the soul.”
— Theosophy, GA 9, Ch. IV
⸻
4. SPIRIT WORLD – LOWER DEVACHAN
• Hierarchy active: Archai, Powers (Exusiai)
• Time: Moral-causal time
• Nature:
• Sequences still exist, but they are moral-logical
• Archetypes of karma unfold
• Time is not external, but is built into the lawfulness of being
• Imaginations are the temporal substance
“In Devachan, time is no longer counted—it is structured according to moral truth.”
— GA 10, Knowledge of Higher Worlds
⸻
5. SPIRIT LAND – HIGHER DEVACHAN
• Hierarchy active: Virtues (Dynamis), Dominions (Kyriotetes)
• Time: Creative-ontological time
• Nature:
• Time is a being
• Events are not in time—they are time
• Time flows according to the inner essence of spiritual beings
• Inspiration is the medium of time perception
• Past/future distinction begins to dissolve
“Beings of the higher world do not move through time—they emanate time as their own nature.”
— GA 110, Lecture 4
⸻
6. NIRVANA PLANE
• Hierarchy active: Thrones
• Time: Becoming-as-Time
• Nature:
• Time is no longer “movement” but pure becoming
• Every event is a creative act
• No past or future—only potentiation and emanation
• Human participation here begins in Intuition
“Nirvana is the world in which the deeds of the Thrones become time itself.”
— GA 13, Occult Science
⸻
7. PARINIRVANA PLANE
• Hierarchy active: Cherubim
• Time: Harmonic time / Timeless order
• Nature:
• Time = unfolding of divine harmony
• All realities are in perpetual synchrony
• Nothing becomes—everything is as melody is: eternal and mobile
• Events “occur” as chords of meaning
“Parinirvana is the harmony of all past and future in a single divine tone.”
— GA 122, Genesis: Secrets of the Bible Story
⸻
8. MAHAPARANIRVANA PLANE
• Hierarchy active: Seraphim
• Time: Supra-time / Archetypal Fire
• Nature:
• Time and space dissolve completely
• What exists is pure will in eternal act
• No succession, no duration
• Not even memory—only absolute presence
• Highest beings here are time’s origin, not its inhabitants
“In Mahaparanirvana, the Seraphim do not move—they burn. They are eternal act.”
— GA 110, Lecture 9"

Oh wow, yeah, this is helpful with forming a conception of the hierarchy of time-rhythms. It's interesting as well how closely Steiner's descriptions of the higher hierarchies match the traditional conceptions (especially those found in Dionysius the Areopagite). Also, as with so many of these attempts to schematize spiritual science, there are some flubbed details (like the "etheric plane.") All in all though, this is a helpful organization.

[Federica]

I would take Ashvin's reply to this post further, and back to the Steiner quote above. In order for that unfolding to continue upward into higher spheres of our own creative-willing influence, it’s nowadays necessary to create one’s own ‘liturgy’ - through an individually crafted rhythm of daily exercises - rather than primarily participate in established rituals. In general, what resides within the bosom of the spiritual hierarchies is our sleeping physical-etheric life. Especially while we are awake, efforts can and should be made to take over, as much as possible, the etching of repetitive rhythms in the etheric body, rather than letting unfree desires and/or traditional forms (liturgy) do that.

In my view, the leveling up in willed rhythms from lower to higher today plays out less and less between the unfree bodily desires and the traditional liturgical forms, and more and more between unfree desires and traditional liturgical forms on the one hand, and a freely created individual practice on the other.

It's worth pointing out that the Christian liturgical year (which was, by the way, fully recognized by Steiner) already contains the higher resonances of cosmic-elemental rhythm. Christ is the gateway to freedom and has impressed this gateway into the elemental fabric of the cosmos via the Church's reclaiming of the seasonal festivals. This was experienced more in feeling than in thought until the Michaelic age. I would say that it's not a matter of replacing the traditional forms with individually cultivated ones, but rather, tapping into the higher resonances already contained within them and bringing them forward — in full clarity of thought — into creative, personal realization. In this way we allow liturgy to become the harmonic foundation for our free improvisation. So I don't think the relationship between bodily desires and traditional Christian forms are quite mappable to the traditional-individual forms relationship in the way you describe, although I do wholeheartedly agree about the increasing need for cultivating individual practice.

With all due respect for your sense of what is worth pointing out, I don’t think that Christ impressed the gateway to freedom “into the elemental fabric of the cosmos via the Church”, or whatever the Church does (btw, if you’re short of capital Cs, I would respect hierarchy over preference and go: ….of the Cosmos via the church). First, Christ impressed Himself in the Earth fabric via nothing, and then the Church did whatever it was meant to do within the timely unfolding of the fourth PA epoch. Therefore, the harmonic foundations of reality and their manifestation in the seasons, and so on, exist as an overarching structure for individual practice regardless of the Church. So it’s not liturgy that can become, if we allow, the foundation of our evolutive, individual participation in the flow, but the objective fabric of reality itself.

This said, I don’t think it’s a matter of necessarily replacing all traditional liturgical forms, in the same way that we don't necessarily have to replace all our desires (otherwise all of us who are not high initiates, saints, or stigmatists would starve to death, for example). Indeed, we have to imbue them with consciousness and discipline, and one can still participate in traditional ritual forms.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

With all due respect for your sense of what is worth pointing out, I don’t think that Christ impressed the gateway to freedom “into the elemental fabric of the cosmos via the Church”, or whatever the Church does (btw, if you’re short of capital Cs, I would respect hierarchy over preference and go: ….of the Cosmos via the church). First, Christ impressed Himself in the Earth fabric via nothing, and then the Church did whatever it was meant to do within the timely unfolding of the fourth PA epoch. Therefore, the harmonic foundations of reality and their manifestation in the seasons, and so on, exist as an overarching structure for individual practice regardless of the Church. So it’s not liturgy that can become, if we allow, the foundation of our evolutive, individual participation in the flow, but the objective fabric of reality itself.

This said, I don’t think it’s a matter of necessarily replacing all traditional liturgical forms, in the same way that we don't necessarily have to replace all our desires (otherwise all of us who are not high initiates, saints, or stigmatists would starve to death, for example). Indeed, we have to imbue them with consciousness and discipline, and one can still participate in traditional ritual forms.

I suppose it would have been more precise to say something like, "Christ is the gateway to freedom and has impressed this gateway into the elemental fabric of the cosmos; and this has come to expression in the Church's reclaiming of the seasonal festivals." So I take your point that Golgotha is woven into the objective fabric of reality itself. It's a supersensible fact. Additionally, we of course all know that what makes Golgotha so incredibly special is that it was also an historical event, a divine intervention into the flow of time. As such it became the seed for the transformation of the earth via human participation. Insofar as the settled patterns of human participation — in whatever form they take, whether it be the Mass or the Divine Liturgy (Orthodoxy) or Anthroposophical branch readings of the Calendar of the Soul — continue to point to the supersensible reality, they serve their proper function as harmonic tuning devices for the soul, which itself then must come into its own through creative improvisation.

[Federica]

With all due respect for your sense of what is worth pointing out, I don’t think that Christ impressed the gateway to freedom “into the elemental fabric of the cosmos via the Church”, or whatever the Church does (btw, if you’re short of capital Cs, I would respect hierarchy over preference and go: ….of the Cosmos via the church). First, Christ impressed Himself in the Earth fabric via nothing, and then the Church did whatever it was meant to do within the timely unfolding of the fourth PA epoch. Therefore, the harmonic foundations of reality and their manifestation in the seasons, and so on, exist as an overarching structure for individual practice regardless of the Church. So it’s not liturgy that can become, if we allow, the foundation of our evolutive, individual participation in the flow, but the objective fabric of reality itself.

This said, I don’t think it’s a matter of necessarily replacing all traditional liturgical forms, in the same way that we don't necessarily have to replace all our desires (otherwise all of us who are not high initiates, saints, or stigmatists would starve to death, for example). Indeed, we have to imbue them with consciousness and discipline, and one can still participate in traditional ritual forms.

I suppose it would have been more precise to say something like, "Christ is the gateway to freedom and has impressed this gateway into the elemental fabric of the cosmos; and this has come to expression in the Church's reclaiming of the seasonal festivals." So I take your point that Golgotha is woven into the objective fabric of reality itself. It's a supersensible fact. Additionally, we of course all know that what makes Golgotha so incredibly special is that it was also an historical event, a divine intervention into the flow of time. As such it became the seed for the transformation of the earth via human participation. Insofar as the settled patterns of human participation — in whatever form they take, whether it be the Mass or the Divine Liturgy (Orthodoxy) or Anthroposophical branch readings of the Calendar of the Soul — continue to point to the supersensible reality, they serve their proper function as harmonic tuning devices for the soul, which itself then must come into its own through creative improvisation.

Thanks, Rodriel. Yes, I appreciate this picture of array of tuning devices. Generally, I'm glad you are on the side of those who strive to practice these things, to live up to the reality of 'tuning in', and are here (surely elsewhere too) to relate with others about that.

[Federica]

As a 'coincidence' (I am reading this entire cycle) I'm coming across something right now that relates to the recently discussed question of not clicking with, or not feeling 'competent' in, this or that field of life used to bring spiritual science to the forefront:

We will always, and in every field, need the stimulus of spiritual science. It alone will be able to let new life arise from the dying forms of the present life of mind and intellect—new life which can act as a stimulant in the way I have described, especially for the minds of children. Without the stimulus of spiritual science, one will be a dried-up school teacher who also dries up the children's minds. Worst of all, people will increasingly have the idea, especially with regard to educating the young, that the best we can do with everything we learn is to forget it again as quickly as possible. If a situation is created where in later life people do not want to miss any of the things they were given in their childhood, this will not merely be a pleasure but prove a wellspring, a true wellspring of human life. I would ask you to take this to heart.

Science itself also needs new stimulus. Yesterday I spoke of how difficult it is to bridge the gap between spiritual science in general and the special fields in which people are engaged in scientific life. Yet this will be absolutely one of the most essential things in future. You must have realized from some of the things said here and elsewhere that paucity and impoverishment of concepts and ideas have led to the conditions we have today.

I have said it in my public lecture in Basle and I have also repeated it here, that people who considered themselves competent believed, when this war started, that it would last no longer than four months. They thought they had studied the social and economic structure and they formed the idea on that basis. Their ideas of this kind did not relate to reality, and reality has proved them wrong. It is strange how little people are prepared to learn from events. Someone who had arrived at such an idea on the basis of their own scientific understanding surely ought to say to himself now: "The premises on which I based my conclusions were clearly quite inadequate." Surely, he must now be inclined to learn something. But he sleeps on, drawing further conclusions from those same premises, which have only changed a little under the pressure of experience, because he does not want to consider the inner connections. Of course, anyone who wishes to consider the inner connections in life will have to take this hurdle, which is such a problem, particularly to people who are involved in scientific issues. The last thing they want is to be bothered in the limited field in which they are active; they do not want to establish links with related fields.

This type of specialization was quite a good thing for a time. But if it continues, and if our university students continue to be ruined by the bias which comes with specialization, the calamities which result when people's ideas are divorced from reality will get worse and worse. We will have people in municipal, rural and national representative bodies who simply have no real grasp of the issues they are supposed to regulate according to law, because their ideas are too limited to encompass reality. Reality is far richer than those ideas.

There can be no question, then, of being inclined to leave specialized areas as far as possible to "experts", nor of using Anthroposophy to satisfy subjective and egotistical needs. It has to be a matter of knowing how to unite these two opposites, and let one prove fruitful for the other.

Something we find again and again—you would also find it so if you were to focus your attention on these things—is that if you speak about special subject-areas to people who are sincerely devoted to anthroposophy, they do find the matter rather tedious. The request is always to speak about central issues—soul, immortality, God, and so on. This will, of course, satisfy their immediate egotistical religious needs, but it leaves no opportunity to give them what is needed more than anything for the near future, namely that people make themselves a real part of this real life. This is why we must take note when someone seeks to make a real connection between impulses to look at things on the basis of spiritual science and the specialist areas.

I have previously drawn attention here to the important book our friend Dr. Boos has written on the Collective Agreement. The book is now generally available and I should like to draw your attention to it, for it is a perfect example of building bridges between the general approach used in anthroposophy and a whole specialist field, the sphere of law. The point is that our friends will not, I hope, consider special investigations of this kind as something outside their sphere but rather give them their attention, for in the time which lies ahead, life itself will have to be the subject for anthroposophical consideration. If you read the book carefully and work through it, you will find aspects of everyday life are taken up in a living way, and also in such a way that one can see two things coming into play here: first, impulses to consider life in a truly comprehensive way, impulses altogether attuned to cosmic laws, and then also great historical perspectives.


The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness GA 177 - Lecture XI: Recognizing the Inner Human Being
(before Ahriman takes hold of it)

retrieved from the Rudolf Steiner Archive

[Rodriel Gabrez]

As a 'coincidence' (I am reading this entire cycle) I'm coming across something right now that relates to the recently discussed question of not clicking with, or not feeling 'competent' in, this or that field of life used to bring spiritual science to the forefront:

We will always, and in every field, need the stimulus of spiritual science. It alone will be able to let new life arise from the dying forms of the present life of mind and intellect—new life which can act as a stimulant in the way I have described, especially for the minds of children. Without the stimulus of spiritual science, one will be a dried-up school teacher who also dries up the children's minds. Worst of all, people will increasingly have the idea, especially with regard to educating the young, that the best we can do with everything we learn is to forget it again as quickly as possible. If a situation is created where in later life people do not want to miss any of the things they were given in their childhood, this will not merely be a pleasure but prove a wellspring, a true wellspring of human life. I would ask you to take this to heart.

Science itself also needs new stimulus. Yesterday I spoke of how difficult it is to bridge the gap between spiritual science in general and the special fields in which people are engaged in scientific life. Yet this will be absolutely one of the most essential things in future. You must have realized from some of the things said here and elsewhere that paucity and impoverishment of concepts and ideas have led to the conditions we have today.

I have said it in my public lecture in Basle and I have also repeated it here, that people who considered themselves competent believed, when this war started, that it would last no longer than four months. They thought they had studied the social and economic structure and they formed the idea on that basis. Their ideas of this kind did not relate to reality, and reality has proved them wrong. It is strange how little people are prepared to learn from events. Someone who had arrived at such an idea on the basis of their own scientific understanding surely ought to say to himself now: "The premises on which I based my conclusions were clearly quite inadequate." Surely, he must now be inclined to learn something. But he sleeps on, drawing further conclusions from those same premises, which have only changed a little under the pressure of experience, because he does not want to consider the inner connections. Of course, anyone who wishes to consider the inner connections in life will have to take this hurdle, which is such a problem, particularly to people who are involved in scientific issues. The last thing they want is to be bothered in the limited field in which they are active; they do not want to establish links with related fields.

This type of specialization was quite a good thing for a time. But if it continues, and if our university students continue to be ruined by the bias which comes with specialization, the calamities which result when people's ideas are divorced from reality will get worse and worse. We will have people in municipal, rural and national representative bodies who simply have no real grasp of the issues they are supposed to regulate according to law, because their ideas are too limited to encompass reality. Reality is far richer than those ideas.

There can be no question, then, of being inclined to leave specialized areas as far as possible to "experts", nor of using Anthroposophy to satisfy subjective and egotistical needs. It has to be a matter of knowing how to unite these two opposites, and let one prove fruitful for the other.

Something we find again and again—you would also find it so if you were to focus your attention on these things—is that if you speak about special subject-areas to people who are sincerely devoted to anthroposophy, they do find the matter rather tedious. The request is always to speak about central issues—soul, immortality, God, and so on. This will, of course, satisfy their immediate egotistical religious needs, but it leaves no opportunity to give them what is needed more than anything for the near future, namely that people make themselves a real part of this real life. This is why we must take note when someone seeks to make a real connection between impulses to look at things on the basis of spiritual science and the specialist areas.

I have previously drawn attention here to the important book our friend Dr. Boos has written on the Collective Agreement. The book is now generally available and I should like to draw your attention to it, for it is a perfect example of building bridges between the general approach used in anthroposophy and a whole specialist field, the sphere of law. The point is that our friends will not, I hope, consider special investigations of this kind as something outside their sphere but rather give them their attention, for in the time which lies ahead, life itself will have to be the subject for anthroposophical consideration. If you read the book carefully and work through it, you will find aspects of everyday life are taken up in a living way, and also in such a way that one can see two things coming into play here: first, impulses to consider life in a truly comprehensive way, impulses altogether attuned to cosmic laws, and then also great historical perspectives.


The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness GA 177 - Lecture XI: Recognizing the Inner Human Being
(before Ahriman takes hold of it)

retrieved from the Rudolf Steiner Archive

This is all really good, Federica. Thank you for sharing. In my own life I am attempting to do similar practical work as what Cleric and Ashvin are doing in their essays. Given that I have a different background and sphere of influence/cooperation, this work has taken a different form and attained a kind of inertia (like what comes from doing anything repeatedly). I'll continue to follow and absorb the phenomenological discussions happening here until I have something meaningful to contribute.