Here, I would say, is the most concerning trajectory for Anthroposophy if it takes hold - https://open.substack.com/pub/pleromaun ... medium=web
It is particularly concerning because it is so well articulated and argued, drawing on some isolated quotes, and I can imagine many Anthroposophists starting to feel that it even coincides with what Steiner intended to convey or, in any case, is not a major deviation from the latter. This fits in with some of Rodriel's observations previously about how Christ, as the fulcrum of Earthly evolution, is being marginalized within many Anthroposophical circles, and only paid lip service from time to time. This tendency is also closely aligned with the 'postmodern' ideological lens, through which the history of Western development is reduced to a series of colonialist catastrophes.
As usual, one can only reasonably embrace such a 'pagan Anthroposophical' position when one remains unfamiliar with the higher cognitive gradient, and how our intuitive activity can grow through its restricted intellectual development and weave in meaningful spectrums of reality independently of the bodily organization. The Christ Impulse, or the 'Abrahamic veil,' only starts to feel like a fundamental obstacle to reconnecting with the living spiritual beings-processes of the Earth when we remain ignorant of that gradient. When we expand into the deeper cognitive spectrum, on the other hand, we cannot help but encounter Christ, and what he brought into Earthly evolution (beginning in the West), as the central 'gravity well' around which all such beings revolve.
Understanding Steiner's Philosophy
Re: Understanding Steiner's Philosophy
"They only can acquire the sacred power of self-intuition, who within themselves can interpret and understand the symbol... those only, who feel in their own spirits the same instinct, which impels the chrysalis of the horned fly to leave room in the involucrum for antennae yet to come."
Re: Understanding Steiner's Philosophy
AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Mar 05, 2026 3:53 pm Here, I would say, is the most concerning trajectory for Anthroposophy if it takes hold - https://open.substack.com/pub/pleromaun ... medium=web
It is particularly concerning because it is so well articulated and argued, drawing on some isolated quotes, and I can imagine many Anthroposophists starting to feel that it even coincides with what Steiner intended to convey or, in any case, is not a major deviation from the latter. This fits in with some of Rodriel's observations previously about how Christ, as the fulcrum of Earthly evolution, is being marginalized within many Anthroposophical circles, and only paid lip service from time to time. This tendency is also closely aligned with the 'postmodern' ideological lens, through which the history of Western development is reduced to a series of colonialist catastrophes.
As usual, one can only reasonably embrace such a 'pagan Anthroposophical' position when one remains unfamiliar with the higher cognitive gradient, and how our intuitive activity can grow through its restricted intellectual development and weave in meaningful spectrums of reality independently of the bodily organization. The Christ Impulse, or the 'Abrahamic veil,' only starts to feel like a fundamental obstacle to reconnecting with the living spiritual beings-processes of the Earth when we remain ignorant of that gradient. When we expand into the deeper cognitive spectrum, on the other hand, we cannot help but encounter Christ, and what he brought into Earthly evolution (beginning in the West), as the central 'gravity well' around which all such beings revolve.
Yes, 100%. I would call this blasphemy grounded in Luciferic jumble. It's all along the lines of:
Or:the etheric is not waiting for a theological key to unlock it, it is waiting for the human animal to stop thinking about it and start interacting with it.
When you approach the etheric from this pagan and shamanic ground rather than from the Christological framework, something shifts in the body itself. The perception is no longer mediated by theology. You are no longer looking for the constructed Christ in the etheric. You are simply feeling the life force as it moves through the soil, through the roots, through the water table, through the atmosphere, through your own blood and breath and nervous system. You are not seeking redemption of sins. You are seeking reconnection and one can argue that IS what the Christ force does but we see very little evidence of the New Testament making light of this fact, its purely a cope we have projected onto the story at hand.
This post looks like a punchy sales page for an appealing commercial offering to come - perhaps in the upcoming posts. The grossly rhetorical style, the narrative of the powerful earthly forces… Let's only hope this is too obviously bunk for any genuine student of Anthroposophy to take it seriously (but this is far from sure…)
PS: We previously discussed this concerning author here.
it's really impressive to realize to which extent Steiner throughout his life was able to spread his science in the outer world without compromising with this or that academic, cultural, political, or social structure.
Re: Understanding Steiner's Philosophy
A related quote from the Fifth Gospel:
"For particularly in my own case I am aware of all kinds of difficulties, and of the labor required when it is a question of drawing from the Akasha Chronicle pictures relating to Christianity. It costs me great effort to make these pictures sufficiently concrete to be able to fix them, and I regard it, so to speak, as my karma that the duty is imposed upon me to say what I have now brought myself to say. For without any doubt it would cost me less effort if, as in the case of many of our contemporaries, circumstances in my early youth had enabled me to have a genuinely Christian education. I had no such education. I grew up in an entirely free-thinking environment. My own education was of a purely scientific character. And that is why it costs me great effort to discover these things of which it is my duty to speak. This personal reference may be justified for two reasons.—One is that with an utter lack of probity, an absurd story [It had been alleged by Annie Besant that Dr. Steiner had been educated by the Jesuits] has been sent broadcast through the world about my having been connected with certain Catholic influences. There is not a single word of truth in this. And it is easy to judge the pass to which things have come in what calls itself Theosophy nowadays when such dishonest statements and rumors emanate from its soil. As, however, we cannot ignore them but must confront them with the truth, this personal reference is justified. Just because of my remoteness from Christianity when I was young, I feel all the freer from bias in regard to it; I believe that the Spirit has led me to Christianity and to the Christ. Especially in this domain I think I have a certain right to claim freedom from bias and prejudice. Perhaps—in this particular epoch of world-history—more reliance can be placed upon the words of a man who has come from a scientific education, who in his youth stood at a distance from Christianity, than upon the words of someone who has been connected with Christianity since early childhood."
it's really impressive to realize to which extent Steiner throughout his life was able to spread his science in the outer world without compromising with this or that academic, cultural, political, or social structure.
Re: Understanding Steiner's Philosophy
Here are a few comments and responses on that thread:
This anti-Christian ‘pagan Anthroposophy’ pursuit is extremely misguided and dangerous… perhaps I will share more thoughts on why later, but just thought it should be mentioned frankly for now.
Pleroma:I’d love to hear why you think it’s dangerous
"Hello,
I believe that such a framework can lead us away from developing higher cognitive faculties, in which our intuitive activity navigates reality independently of the bodily organism. I understand this can sound like another form of theistic ‘escapism’ from the Earthly spectrum, but it can only sound that way as long as we remain unfamiliar with this deeper cognitive gradient and its characteristic dynamics. The latter bring us into intimate contact with the living bodily foundations and their spiritual beings-processes from the 'other side' of sensory life, so to speak. It is not a return to atavistic or animistic spirituality, but the blossoming of an entirely new way of individually and freely interfacing with the beings of the spiritual Cosmos, by uniting with their intuitive perspectives,(only possible through the impulse of Love freed from all natural and cultural conditioning, like blood, nationality, etc.) and feeling how the experiential flow takes shape and is navigated from those perspectives.
This higher development proceeds through the intellectual faculty, or what we could also call the 'constrained imaginative' faculty. It is a direct fruit of the Christian development that began in the West two millennia ago. In a certain sense, the human imagination needed to be stripped of its living entanglement with the spiritual Cosmos such that it could become alone in the wilderness of its imaginative space, where it weaves in ghostly mental images through which it remembers past experiences or rehearses for future pathways of experience, and thus hone in on the core kernel of its intuitive process, its higher self. There are many phenomenological observations that we could add here which would elucidate why this stripped-down space can be leveraged by the soul for reintegrating the wider intuitive dynamics of the Cosmic flow. The flattened and ghostly mental images can be retraced to their spiritual sources, and thus imbued with life and concreteness.
Once we come into closer contact with this alternative possibility for expanding intuitive orientation within reality, we will also begin to notice how the Biblical teachings are pointing in this same intuitive direction, just as Steiner did. This is the baptism by, not only water, but also fire. It is how we seek the Father in Spirit and in Truth. It is what Christ means when he says, "Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you." Or when he says that he will send the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who will teach and remind us of all things. Steiner's spiritual scientific impulse, which coincides with Christ's incarnation in the etheric, is the realization of that Biblical promise in our time.
"When a subject, such as the present, is considered from the standpoint of spiritual science, there is no question of adopting as a basis of discussion, some record or other handed down in the course of human evolution, with a view to throwing light on the accumulated facts, on the authority of this documentary evidence. This is not the method pursued by spiritual science. On the contrary, spiritual science investigates the facts and occurrences of human evolution independently of all documents. The spiritual investigator does not refer to documentary evidence until he is in a position to investigate and truly describe the things in question by means which are independent of documents and traditions. If he then turns to documentary evidence, it is to examine if the latter corroborates the results of his own independent research. Thus, no statement is made in these lectures, regarding any particular event, merely on the strength of biblical evidence; only the results of occult investigation are given — investigation independent of the Gospels. But, at every opportunity, attention will be called to the fact that whatever can be ascertained and observed by the spiritual investigator is reproduced in the Gospels and particularly in the Gospel of St. John" (GA 112)."
Pleroma:"Appreciate the reply and you bring up some good points to address.
1. I am in total agreement with Steiner with the need and purpose of the development of the self and its use of the imagination and it does seem to be a major factor in the shaping of consciousness at present. However I dont think over the last two thousand years we needed a complete shut down of etheric vision in the West in order to develop this. One can easily see what this has led to in terms of neuroticisms and the ability to let (Ahrimanic) powers to run amok in this present day.
2. I do recognize what Steiner had to say about the Gospels and I do think that was an understandable position to take 100 years ago. However, we have over 100 years of scholarship, research, archeological discoveries, manuscript discoveries that have played out since then and (in my opinion) I do believe Steiner would have taken a different approach today if he had access to the information we have now. For instance we know from manuscriptual science that many of them were edited or changed or even chapters were added at a later time. We know that there were interpolations and various groups putting their words in Jesus´s mouth in order to convey a message. Look even in the synoptic Gospels themselves we have a Jesus who was truly expecting the end and thought he would establish this new kingdom (which we dont see taught in the Gospel of John) and by the time we get to the Pauline corpus - which I believe is later and I know im in a minority on this- but the ideas has changed again to a heavenly kingdom realized in a physical resurrection of the dead. Its a nice idea to think that its all just esoteric knowledge hidden and in the future we will see it all. Its not really like that nor was it constructed in that way. When realized this frees the human to actually participate in the flow of the Spirit and its process in history once you unhook yourself from having to save a text from its obvious shortcomings."
"1. I can see how it would be difficult to understand why such a complete stripping down of the imagination would be necessary. Again, I think this can only be fully appreciated once we endeavor to leverage that stripped-down imagination for our higher cognitive development. For example, the ability to concentrate all of our inner energy on a unitary thematic image, with lucid and mathematical precision, is something completely unique to modern humanity. It is only in such concentrated activity that we can experience the seed point of true freedom, around which our higher self can coalesce and incarnate. Our stripped-down mental images don't compel us one way or another, precisely because they lack vitality and connectedness with the wider Cosmos.
We instinctively utilize this concentrated activity all the time to intuitively navigate the experiential flow and attain insights into its lawfulness (philosophy, natural science, psychology, daily tasks, etc.), but without clear consciousness of what we are doing, that intuitive navigation is arbitrarily limited by our past natural-cultural conditioning. The intuitive process is cultivated to only reach myopic goal states that are prescribed for us by nature or culture, rather than being pursued for its own sake in an open-ended way. In other words, through consistent and conscious concentration within the inner process, which is pursued for its own sake, out of love for that inner process and its eternal and infinite possibilities, we leverage the unique state of the intellectual soul to expand its ‘intuitive aperture’ back into the Cosmic flow and redeem all of the negative qualities (neuroticism, alienation, etc.) it developed along the hero’s journey.
2. I think that much of the Biblical hermeneutics and manuscript scholarship you mentioned was also present in Steiner's time. There was plenty of speculation about various errors and contradictions in the Gospels, for example. Or the ‘documentary hypothesis’ for the Old Testament. What Steiner contributed was to clearly illustrate how all these debates and speculations take shape precisely from the mode of intellectual analysis that is applied, which fails to penetrate deeper into the Inspired essence of the scriptures. In other words, they fall into the same trap that Christ and St. Paul constantly warn against: focusing on the letter of the law rather than its spirit.
The quotes that I shared speak to that as well. Steiner's evaluation of the spiritual value embedded in scripture is not based on any such intellectual analysis, but on his intimate communion with the spiritual perspectives that Inspired the disciples in the first place. These are real spiritual beings who intend a certain direction for Earthly evolution and have conveyed those intentions to the disciples in admittedly imperfect forms (all human concepts and languages are such imperfect forms). Again, I fully expect that this will sound like just another, more exotic form of rationalist apologetics until the higher cognitive gradient is explored. As Steiner put it, “It is only through understanding our own inner being that we can come to see what lies hidden in these profound scriptures.” The former intuitive process is completely independent of how the documents took shape over the centuries. No matter how many additions and interpolations there may have been, we can always retrace what we have now to its spiritual kernel through our independent intuitive process."
This anti-Christian ‘pagan Anthroposophy’ pursuit is extremely misguided and dangerous… perhaps I will share more thoughts on why later, but just thought it should be mentioned frankly for now.
Pleroma:I’d love to hear why you think it’s dangerous
"Hello,
I believe that such a framework can lead us away from developing higher cognitive faculties, in which our intuitive activity navigates reality independently of the bodily organism. I understand this can sound like another form of theistic ‘escapism’ from the Earthly spectrum, but it can only sound that way as long as we remain unfamiliar with this deeper cognitive gradient and its characteristic dynamics. The latter bring us into intimate contact with the living bodily foundations and their spiritual beings-processes from the 'other side' of sensory life, so to speak. It is not a return to atavistic or animistic spirituality, but the blossoming of an entirely new way of individually and freely interfacing with the beings of the spiritual Cosmos, by uniting with their intuitive perspectives,(only possible through the impulse of Love freed from all natural and cultural conditioning, like blood, nationality, etc.) and feeling how the experiential flow takes shape and is navigated from those perspectives.
This higher development proceeds through the intellectual faculty, or what we could also call the 'constrained imaginative' faculty. It is a direct fruit of the Christian development that began in the West two millennia ago. In a certain sense, the human imagination needed to be stripped of its living entanglement with the spiritual Cosmos such that it could become alone in the wilderness of its imaginative space, where it weaves in ghostly mental images through which it remembers past experiences or rehearses for future pathways of experience, and thus hone in on the core kernel of its intuitive process, its higher self. There are many phenomenological observations that we could add here which would elucidate why this stripped-down space can be leveraged by the soul for reintegrating the wider intuitive dynamics of the Cosmic flow. The flattened and ghostly mental images can be retraced to their spiritual sources, and thus imbued with life and concreteness.
Once we come into closer contact with this alternative possibility for expanding intuitive orientation within reality, we will also begin to notice how the Biblical teachings are pointing in this same intuitive direction, just as Steiner did. This is the baptism by, not only water, but also fire. It is how we seek the Father in Spirit and in Truth. It is what Christ means when he says, "Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you." Or when he says that he will send the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who will teach and remind us of all things. Steiner's spiritual scientific impulse, which coincides with Christ's incarnation in the etheric, is the realization of that Biblical promise in our time.
"When a subject, such as the present, is considered from the standpoint of spiritual science, there is no question of adopting as a basis of discussion, some record or other handed down in the course of human evolution, with a view to throwing light on the accumulated facts, on the authority of this documentary evidence. This is not the method pursued by spiritual science. On the contrary, spiritual science investigates the facts and occurrences of human evolution independently of all documents. The spiritual investigator does not refer to documentary evidence until he is in a position to investigate and truly describe the things in question by means which are independent of documents and traditions. If he then turns to documentary evidence, it is to examine if the latter corroborates the results of his own independent research. Thus, no statement is made in these lectures, regarding any particular event, merely on the strength of biblical evidence; only the results of occult investigation are given — investigation independent of the Gospels. But, at every opportunity, attention will be called to the fact that whatever can be ascertained and observed by the spiritual investigator is reproduced in the Gospels and particularly in the Gospel of St. John" (GA 112)."
Pleroma:"Appreciate the reply and you bring up some good points to address.
1. I am in total agreement with Steiner with the need and purpose of the development of the self and its use of the imagination and it does seem to be a major factor in the shaping of consciousness at present. However I dont think over the last two thousand years we needed a complete shut down of etheric vision in the West in order to develop this. One can easily see what this has led to in terms of neuroticisms and the ability to let (Ahrimanic) powers to run amok in this present day.
2. I do recognize what Steiner had to say about the Gospels and I do think that was an understandable position to take 100 years ago. However, we have over 100 years of scholarship, research, archeological discoveries, manuscript discoveries that have played out since then and (in my opinion) I do believe Steiner would have taken a different approach today if he had access to the information we have now. For instance we know from manuscriptual science that many of them were edited or changed or even chapters were added at a later time. We know that there were interpolations and various groups putting their words in Jesus´s mouth in order to convey a message. Look even in the synoptic Gospels themselves we have a Jesus who was truly expecting the end and thought he would establish this new kingdom (which we dont see taught in the Gospel of John) and by the time we get to the Pauline corpus - which I believe is later and I know im in a minority on this- but the ideas has changed again to a heavenly kingdom realized in a physical resurrection of the dead. Its a nice idea to think that its all just esoteric knowledge hidden and in the future we will see it all. Its not really like that nor was it constructed in that way. When realized this frees the human to actually participate in the flow of the Spirit and its process in history once you unhook yourself from having to save a text from its obvious shortcomings."
"1. I can see how it would be difficult to understand why such a complete stripping down of the imagination would be necessary. Again, I think this can only be fully appreciated once we endeavor to leverage that stripped-down imagination for our higher cognitive development. For example, the ability to concentrate all of our inner energy on a unitary thematic image, with lucid and mathematical precision, is something completely unique to modern humanity. It is only in such concentrated activity that we can experience the seed point of true freedom, around which our higher self can coalesce and incarnate. Our stripped-down mental images don't compel us one way or another, precisely because they lack vitality and connectedness with the wider Cosmos.
We instinctively utilize this concentrated activity all the time to intuitively navigate the experiential flow and attain insights into its lawfulness (philosophy, natural science, psychology, daily tasks, etc.), but without clear consciousness of what we are doing, that intuitive navigation is arbitrarily limited by our past natural-cultural conditioning. The intuitive process is cultivated to only reach myopic goal states that are prescribed for us by nature or culture, rather than being pursued for its own sake in an open-ended way. In other words, through consistent and conscious concentration within the inner process, which is pursued for its own sake, out of love for that inner process and its eternal and infinite possibilities, we leverage the unique state of the intellectual soul to expand its ‘intuitive aperture’ back into the Cosmic flow and redeem all of the negative qualities (neuroticism, alienation, etc.) it developed along the hero’s journey.
2. I think that much of the Biblical hermeneutics and manuscript scholarship you mentioned was also present in Steiner's time. There was plenty of speculation about various errors and contradictions in the Gospels, for example. Or the ‘documentary hypothesis’ for the Old Testament. What Steiner contributed was to clearly illustrate how all these debates and speculations take shape precisely from the mode of intellectual analysis that is applied, which fails to penetrate deeper into the Inspired essence of the scriptures. In other words, they fall into the same trap that Christ and St. Paul constantly warn against: focusing on the letter of the law rather than its spirit.
The quotes that I shared speak to that as well. Steiner's evaluation of the spiritual value embedded in scripture is not based on any such intellectual analysis, but on his intimate communion with the spiritual perspectives that Inspired the disciples in the first place. These are real spiritual beings who intend a certain direction for Earthly evolution and have conveyed those intentions to the disciples in admittedly imperfect forms (all human concepts and languages are such imperfect forms). Again, I fully expect that this will sound like just another, more exotic form of rationalist apologetics until the higher cognitive gradient is explored. As Steiner put it, “It is only through understanding our own inner being that we can come to see what lies hidden in these profound scriptures.” The former intuitive process is completely independent of how the documents took shape over the centuries. No matter how many additions and interpolations there may have been, we can always retrace what we have now to its spiritual kernel through our independent intuitive process."
"They only can acquire the sacred power of self-intuition, who within themselves can interpret and understand the symbol... those only, who feel in their own spirits the same instinct, which impels the chrysalis of the horned fly to leave room in the involucrum for antennae yet to come."
Re: Understanding Steiner's Philosophy
A few final comments on this topic:
Pleroma: 1. I do see that, im not saying that there is not necessity in the shaping of the human imagination to this lucid and mathematical degree (or denying that is happening). All i am saying (and where I diverge) is that I dont think other faculties had to be shut down to the degree did in order for it to emerge is my point ( I think some of the shut down was purely artificial in a sense). I do get the orthdox anthroposophist perspective point on the matter however I am not tied to their narrative that I think to a certain degree is cope to deal with the fact that this current epoch has been awful as a result of various faculties being shut off too much which then raises certain questions that begins a new round of deconstructions. In some total of it, it reminds me of story from Gurdjieff regarding the insertion of the Kundabuffer by the Archangels and its extreme effects that they had not expected to happen. But thats my own opinion on the matter.
2. I do agree that Steiner had scholars and scholarship around him at that time regarding the NT and Hebrew Bible, no doubt, you are totally correct in pointing that out. However clearer insights and archeological data that we have today is vastly different. I dont want to harp on this, its just a basic fact if you are in the world (which I am). Especially with the dating of the Hebrew Bible, it keeps getting later and later the more we dig (see Yonatan Adler and Gad Barnea). I know the average person isnt necessarily interested in this information but I know Steiner would have baked into his account the new insights we have gotten especially in the last 25 years. But this is where I differ from orthodox anthroposophists, I contextualize Steiner especially in the realm of biblical information that is purely conjecture to his time period. For instance lets say we find out for a fact there wasnt two Jesus children does that make all of his writings worthless? No, not from my perspective I can see how he came to that idea and thats that.
"I think we are simply approaching this issue in different ways, on different levels. You seem more focused on the exoteric history and what can be gathered from intellectual analysis of historical facts. Your question in the second point is a good example of that.
What would it look like to either verify or reject the existence of the two Jesus children, from an intellectual perspective based on textual analysis, archeological evidence, and so on? Surely the intellect can explore various historical facts that lend support to the existence of two Jesus children, but how could it ever gain full confidence in that claim? If we think about it enough, such a possibility cannot even be imagined. Even if some long-lost census was dug up and detailed the existence of two such children who lived in Judea around the same time, there would be endless ways for the intellect to doubt whether this has any relevance for Steiner's claim.
But Steiner never claims to have found this insight by relying on past tradition, exoteric or esoteric, or through any sort of intellectual analysis of the historical facts. He claims to have discovered it through higher-order perception of the Akashic record. Sooner or later, we have to decide whether we take such capacities and corresponding claims seriously, as very concrete possibilities for our cognitive development. If we put all of that to the side, then your criticisms of Steiner's Christocentric evolutionary narrative would make great sense, and there would be endless room for the intellect to doubt whether his various claims can be trusted, just as we can doubt whether the scriptures that are handed down to us can be trusted. But on what basis are we putting it all to the side?
According to me, and Steiner as well, the whole purpose of the Biblical revelation is to point our attention in a direction orthogonal to standard intellectual analysis. The latter is simply incommensurate with the mode of consciousness which gave rise to the revelations in the first place. It would be like a 2D flatlander being trying to deduce and analyze the workings of a 3D universe. Instead, the purpose of the revelation is to raise our consciousness to its own ‘higher-dimensional’ level before we begin evaluating its trustworthiness and significance for our evolving flow.
***
“What then is necessary, now that the time is approaching when, as a result of the materialism of the age the historic records are losing their value, when everyone can quite easily prove that these records cannot withstand criticism, so that nothing can be proved externally and historically? It is necessary that people should learn that Christ can be recognised as the historic Jesus without any external records whatever, that through a right training the Event of Damascus can be renewed in each human being and indeed in the near future will be renewed for humanity as a whole, so that it is absolutely possible to be convinced of the existence of an historic Jesus. That is the new way in which the world must find the road to Him. It is of no consequence whether the facts that occurred were right or wrong, the point of importance is that they did occur. It is of no consequence that such a book as The Christ Myth should contain certain errors, the thing that matters is, it was found possible to write it! It shows that quite different methods are necessary in order that Christ may remain with humanity; that He may be rediscovered.
…
We have repeatedly laid stress on the fact that the first thing for us in our movement is not to take our stand on any record or external document, but first of all to enquire: What is revealed to clairvoyant consciousness when one ascends to the spiritual worlds? If, through some catastrophe, all the historical proofs of the historic Jesus of the Gospels and of the Epistles of St. Paul were lost, what would independent spiritual consciousness tell us? What do we learn concerning the spiritual worlds on the path which can be trodden any day and hour by each one? We are told: ‘In the Spiritual worlds you will find the Christ, even though you know nothing historically of the fact that He was on the earth at the beginning of our era.’
The fact which must be established over and over again by a renewal of the Event of Damascus is that there is an original proof of the historic personality of Jesus of Nazareth! Just as a school-boy is not told that he must believe the three sides of a triangle make a hundred and eighty degrees simply because in olden times that was laid down as a fact, but is made to prove it for himself,—so we to-day, not only testify out of a spiritual consciousness that Christ has always existed, but also that the historic Jesus can be found in the spiritual worlds, that He is a reality, and was a reality at the very time of which tradition tells.
We have gone further and have shown that what we established by spiritual perception without the Gospels, is to be rediscovered within them. We then feel a deep respect and reverence for the Gospels for we find again in them what we found in the spiritual worlds independently of them. We now know that they must have come from the same sources of super-sensible illumination from which we must draw to-day; we know they must be records of the spiritual worlds.” (GA 116. VII)"
"Look I get that it may seem like that. I totally get the exoteric/estoeric dimension. This is all I was into nearly 20 years was relooking at things from a esoteric point of view. The issue you run into is then whos account do you hold onto? Steienr´s or an blavatsky or a host of other so called seers of the esoteric who claim the right on this true understanding of these texts. It just straight up doesnt work that way. For the esoteric to be a dimension it has to very different reality to it then the text has And I dont believe it exists in this corpus. Thats my own conclusion based on years of being in both camps with numerous experiences and insights that dont just come from academic study. Why lie to yourself when you can swim in the pool of alethia? Thats the point that any true seeker gets to"
Pleroma: 1. I do see that, im not saying that there is not necessity in the shaping of the human imagination to this lucid and mathematical degree (or denying that is happening). All i am saying (and where I diverge) is that I dont think other faculties had to be shut down to the degree did in order for it to emerge is my point ( I think some of the shut down was purely artificial in a sense). I do get the orthdox anthroposophist perspective point on the matter however I am not tied to their narrative that I think to a certain degree is cope to deal with the fact that this current epoch has been awful as a result of various faculties being shut off too much which then raises certain questions that begins a new round of deconstructions. In some total of it, it reminds me of story from Gurdjieff regarding the insertion of the Kundabuffer by the Archangels and its extreme effects that they had not expected to happen. But thats my own opinion on the matter.
2. I do agree that Steiner had scholars and scholarship around him at that time regarding the NT and Hebrew Bible, no doubt, you are totally correct in pointing that out. However clearer insights and archeological data that we have today is vastly different. I dont want to harp on this, its just a basic fact if you are in the world (which I am). Especially with the dating of the Hebrew Bible, it keeps getting later and later the more we dig (see Yonatan Adler and Gad Barnea). I know the average person isnt necessarily interested in this information but I know Steiner would have baked into his account the new insights we have gotten especially in the last 25 years. But this is where I differ from orthodox anthroposophists, I contextualize Steiner especially in the realm of biblical information that is purely conjecture to his time period. For instance lets say we find out for a fact there wasnt two Jesus children does that make all of his writings worthless? No, not from my perspective I can see how he came to that idea and thats that.
"I think we are simply approaching this issue in different ways, on different levels. You seem more focused on the exoteric history and what can be gathered from intellectual analysis of historical facts. Your question in the second point is a good example of that.
What would it look like to either verify or reject the existence of the two Jesus children, from an intellectual perspective based on textual analysis, archeological evidence, and so on? Surely the intellect can explore various historical facts that lend support to the existence of two Jesus children, but how could it ever gain full confidence in that claim? If we think about it enough, such a possibility cannot even be imagined. Even if some long-lost census was dug up and detailed the existence of two such children who lived in Judea around the same time, there would be endless ways for the intellect to doubt whether this has any relevance for Steiner's claim.
But Steiner never claims to have found this insight by relying on past tradition, exoteric or esoteric, or through any sort of intellectual analysis of the historical facts. He claims to have discovered it through higher-order perception of the Akashic record. Sooner or later, we have to decide whether we take such capacities and corresponding claims seriously, as very concrete possibilities for our cognitive development. If we put all of that to the side, then your criticisms of Steiner's Christocentric evolutionary narrative would make great sense, and there would be endless room for the intellect to doubt whether his various claims can be trusted, just as we can doubt whether the scriptures that are handed down to us can be trusted. But on what basis are we putting it all to the side?
According to me, and Steiner as well, the whole purpose of the Biblical revelation is to point our attention in a direction orthogonal to standard intellectual analysis. The latter is simply incommensurate with the mode of consciousness which gave rise to the revelations in the first place. It would be like a 2D flatlander being trying to deduce and analyze the workings of a 3D universe. Instead, the purpose of the revelation is to raise our consciousness to its own ‘higher-dimensional’ level before we begin evaluating its trustworthiness and significance for our evolving flow.
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“What then is necessary, now that the time is approaching when, as a result of the materialism of the age the historic records are losing their value, when everyone can quite easily prove that these records cannot withstand criticism, so that nothing can be proved externally and historically? It is necessary that people should learn that Christ can be recognised as the historic Jesus without any external records whatever, that through a right training the Event of Damascus can be renewed in each human being and indeed in the near future will be renewed for humanity as a whole, so that it is absolutely possible to be convinced of the existence of an historic Jesus. That is the new way in which the world must find the road to Him. It is of no consequence whether the facts that occurred were right or wrong, the point of importance is that they did occur. It is of no consequence that such a book as The Christ Myth should contain certain errors, the thing that matters is, it was found possible to write it! It shows that quite different methods are necessary in order that Christ may remain with humanity; that He may be rediscovered.
…
We have repeatedly laid stress on the fact that the first thing for us in our movement is not to take our stand on any record or external document, but first of all to enquire: What is revealed to clairvoyant consciousness when one ascends to the spiritual worlds? If, through some catastrophe, all the historical proofs of the historic Jesus of the Gospels and of the Epistles of St. Paul were lost, what would independent spiritual consciousness tell us? What do we learn concerning the spiritual worlds on the path which can be trodden any day and hour by each one? We are told: ‘In the Spiritual worlds you will find the Christ, even though you know nothing historically of the fact that He was on the earth at the beginning of our era.’
The fact which must be established over and over again by a renewal of the Event of Damascus is that there is an original proof of the historic personality of Jesus of Nazareth! Just as a school-boy is not told that he must believe the three sides of a triangle make a hundred and eighty degrees simply because in olden times that was laid down as a fact, but is made to prove it for himself,—so we to-day, not only testify out of a spiritual consciousness that Christ has always existed, but also that the historic Jesus can be found in the spiritual worlds, that He is a reality, and was a reality at the very time of which tradition tells.
We have gone further and have shown that what we established by spiritual perception without the Gospels, is to be rediscovered within them. We then feel a deep respect and reverence for the Gospels for we find again in them what we found in the spiritual worlds independently of them. We now know that they must have come from the same sources of super-sensible illumination from which we must draw to-day; we know they must be records of the spiritual worlds.” (GA 116. VII)"
"Look I get that it may seem like that. I totally get the exoteric/estoeric dimension. This is all I was into nearly 20 years was relooking at things from a esoteric point of view. The issue you run into is then whos account do you hold onto? Steienr´s or an blavatsky or a host of other so called seers of the esoteric who claim the right on this true understanding of these texts. It just straight up doesnt work that way. For the esoteric to be a dimension it has to very different reality to it then the text has And I dont believe it exists in this corpus. Thats my own conclusion based on years of being in both camps with numerous experiences and insights that dont just come from academic study. Why lie to yourself when you can swim in the pool of alethia? Thats the point that any true seeker gets to"
"They only can acquire the sacred power of self-intuition, who within themselves can interpret and understand the symbol... those only, who feel in their own spirits the same instinct, which impels the chrysalis of the horned fly to leave room in the involucrum for antennae yet to come."