Tomberg and Anthroposophy

[AshvinP]

Thank you for providing these very helpful quotations from Steiner showing the highly nuanced views he held in relation to the practical concerns of integrating religious and anthroposophical life. I'd like to examine one statement of yours in particular:

The fact is that this is how the Church functions in our time for wide swaths of souls and will continue to function for the foreseeable future. There is no value in smearing over this fact or equating those who observe this fact and desire to seek ways of leveraging it for the pursuit of higher knowledge, with those who imagine this trellis situation must statically remain as the unconditional valve for all future spiritual pursuits.

I would argue that it's crucially important to be able to discern the difference between the general texture of the unfolding morphology of the cosmos, which proceeds according to certain laws (divine intentions) that transcend all temporal contingencies, and the specific options available to the community of souls and spirits for creatively realizing that texture. That said, we must understand what the New Testament is in relation to the past and future. More specifically we need to fully grasp the significance of Christ's Incarnation into the physical-mineral realm at the exact nadir of Earth evolution and what the etheric return of the Christ means in relation to this.

Firstly, what is documented in the New Testament as recorded, witnessed physical history has been imprinted into the etheric body of the Earth, where it will now be rediscovered as the 5th Gospel in the imagination of the earthly assembly. The recorded, sensibly witnessed events have been so arranged (guided by the Holy Spirit, just as the Church claims) as to account for the unfolding of the prerequisite faculties and experiences needed to arrive at that imagination (the perception of the condensed etheric seed for the unfolding of the Earth's future). The etheric perception of the Mystery of Golgotha differs in certain ways from the intellectually derivable (dogmatic) account, but it is through this dogmatic version that the freedom of thought required to fully possess the etheric perception has been made possible. The physical events as intellectually apprehended are the necessary Cross upon which the events are sublimated into increasingly spiritual (eternal) spheres.

Now that the etheric seeds for the unfolding of the future were planted by Christ in the Earth organism, streams have gone out into the mineral domain of temporal becoming which are the transformed continuation of the those seeds. What does this mean? It means that human soul-spirits in cooperation with the hierarchies have begun to transform the spans of temporal duration between the present and the past into the formative curvatures contained in the etheric seeds. Those formative curvatures are the etherized realization of the physical events of the Gospels, apprehended in thought. When we see the contents of the 5th Gospel, we are seeing both the original events and their subsequent movement toward eternity through etherization. Therefore, the events of the Gospels actually are recapitulated again on the stage of human history, as the etheric formation of historical-morphological unfolding. Now connecting back to my first comment above, there is an inexorable texture to this unfolding, which corresponds exactly to the texture of the physical events. We need not interpret this to mean that certain possibilities for current and future action are foreclosed. Rather, we become morally creative in determining how the texture comes about. All the streams that flow out from Golgotha must realize the formative structure provided them by the Word through whom all things were made. This morphological structure grows toward equally pre-textured outcomes. But we creatively navigate our way through the re-eternalization of what was made free by descending into the mineral sphere of death at the midpoint of Earth evolution.

One of those pre-textured outcomes is the Peter-John relationship. Our imaginative apprehension of this aspect of the etheric seed -- precisely what you pointed out as the concealing and revealing becoming an explicit content of meditation -- is part and parcel of its impending realization on the stage of spiritual history.

That's a very clear, pictorial, and poetic way of expressing this underlying dynamic, thanks.

One thing I would caution in this respect is that we should always remain conscious of the distinction between the reality of these historical-morphological patterns and our application of them to unfolding current events. It reminds me of certain Anthroposophists (Robert Powell, mostly) who established various astrological rhythms that must hold sway based on the planetary relations during the Christ events. These valid patterns/rhythms are then used to identify various years in history (and in the future) that are of some particular spiritual import. These years are then examined and, no matter what happened during those years, the researcher will surely find what he is looking for. In some way, the events that unfolded can always be corresponded to the rhythms and thus fit into a particular narrative that 'explains' the facts.

To be clear, I'm not saying this approach never leads to valid insight or that you are doing the same thing. That example is basically an intellectual patching of facts once the relevant years are identified, whereas you are speaking of feeling out the texture of the events in a more fluid way, through intuitions which you admittedly are still in the process of shaping and refining. Personally, I am not quite comfortable resting my ideas in this domain on the application of those Biblical patterns, mainly because I doubt my capacity to do it impartially and through deeper insight into them. I do find your discussion of them fascinating and highly pedagogical, though. Perhaps a time will come when, through their lens, I will also reach some deeper insights into the recapitulated events unfolding.

PS - I am still interested in any responses you may have to this question

[Cleric]

Firstly, it seems we must at this point consider one of the currently knowable secrets of evil. When the epoch of the past passes over into its future state, the epoch of the past has associated with it certain backward beings who reluctantly sacrifice themselves, thus becoming the ossified support of the new epoch. The new epoch rests upon the Cross made of Ahrimanic beings who hold themselves back. These beings become allied with the spirit of death, which forms the barrier between the juxtaposed temporal worlds. Christ Jesus is crucified upon this barrier of death, filling it with the substantiality of Resurrection, so that what passes through it might enter the chastening fire of nonbeing and emerge into the higher world. The Cross is death, which has been conquered by the Sun of the Spiritual Cosmos. The Intellectual Soul, as I have said, is the Cross of thinking, upon which Peter's flock is crucified upside-down in humility to the Lord. The flock points their heads to the center of the earth, in which the forces of Ahriman are concentrated. We must not follow Lucifer or Ahriman, but the Representative of Man who stands in the middle, respecting both Ahriman and Lucifer in their proper domains. Let not the death of the Cross be taken away from the Church. For this darkness is the space that the Light now fills. The future rests on the disintegrated, discarded husks of former epochs and their sacrificed backward spirits.

Secondly, there is a crucial element of fractality that I believe is missing in the images you present. The Gospels are not simply depictions of events which will linearly transpire within one epoch and then make way for something else entirely. They are the words that do not pass away when heaven and earth pass away. The events in the Gospels contain the eternal blueprint for what happens fractally-morphologically across manifold planes of cosmic existence, for the entire collectivity of eternal spirits. Lazarus-John travels through the mineral plane into the etheric, where he is again initiated by Christ Jesus and raised. The crowds conspire to crucify Christ yet again, and the death of the Cross rips across the mineral-etheric divide. Again, Mary Madgalene mistakes him for the gardener. Again, John yields to Peter in the Tomb. And again the disciples find Jesus on the other shoreline. We have to be able to identify when these streams have reached their season. I have been pointing to the subtle perception that Lazarus has in the past hundred years died and been raised in the next morphological level his stream's trajectory.

This is all fine. What I tried to point out is something very simple. It's about having the proper inner orientation, knowing up from down, higher from lower. I think we all agree that our individual musical union with the Christ is something that is above any Church. We're talking not about a way of faith, which may need some religious framework, but about actual higher form of existence, where the Christ-attractor of evolution is as real (even more so) as the Sun is for our senses.

What I wanted to point out is that the absolutization of the Church (as the body of Christ) can lead to a certain inversion of this up and down, and thus the aspirants for higher development can become entangled to the trellis.

We must understand that all of this hinges on the conviction that the Church, since it is the expression of Christ himself, is ineffible, and no matter how contradictory things may seem (even if it tightens the valve), we should have unconditional trust that everything will be set straight in the end. Such a conviction, however, ignores a very simple fact - that the Church is first and foremost a community of human beings. And freedom is the whole goal of our evolution. As such, the expression of the Church cannot be a perfect expression of Christ, as long as it manifests through possibly flawed human beings. The Christ cannot forcefully manifest his perfection through the Church - that would mean that the members of the Church are no longer free human beings, they would be externally possessed by the Christ.

For this reason, when we look for Christ, when we want him to manifest in the World, the only certain thing is to seek his inspiration in freedom. We cannot be responsible for everyone else's conduct, and thus we cannot depend on the Church being perfect. If it indeed consists of truly Christ-inspired souls, so much the better. But we cannot take this as an unconditional fact.

So our allegiance is first and foremost to the Living Christ within us. The Church is secondary. If we imagine an extreme case where the Church becomes totally corrupt and no longer serves as the body of Christ, we should say, "Truly I say unto you, I know you not." If instead we say "It's OK, Christ is there, he knows what he's doing", then we're really led by the nose.

This is not a crusade against the Church or VT. It's just an attempt to get the inner priorities of existence straight. Because such an inversion, where aligning ourselves with the Church becomes more important than serving the Christ in Spirit and Truth, can become a real evolutionary trap.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

That's a very clear, pictorial, and poetic way of expressing this underlying dynamic, thanks.

One thing I would caution in this respect is that we should always remain conscious of the distinction between the reality of these historical-morphological patterns and our application of them to unfolding current events. It reminds me of certain Anthroposophists (Robert Powell, mostly) who established various astrological rhythms that must hold sway based on the planetary relations during the Christ events. These valid patterns/rhythms are then used to identify various years in history (and in the future) that are of some particular spiritual import. These years are then examined and, no matter what happened during those years, the researcher will surely find what he is looking for. In some way, the events that unfolded can always be corresponded to the rhythms and thus fit into a particular narrative that 'explains' the facts.

To be clear, I'm not saying this approach never leads to valid insight or that you are doing the same thing. That example is basically an intellectual patching of facts once the relevant years are identified, whereas you are speaking of feeling out the texture of the events in a more fluid way, through intuitions which you admittedly are still in the process of shaping and refining. Personally, I am not quite comfortable resting my ideas in this domain on the application of those Biblical patterns, mainly because I doubt my capacity to do it impartially and through deeper insight into them. I do find your discussion of them fascinating and highly pedagogical, though. Perhaps a time will come when, through their lens, I will also reach some deeper insights into the recapitulated events unfolding.

PS - I am still interested in any responses you may have to this question

That's a fair issue to point out. Getting caught in the trap of forcing the facts to fit an obstinately adhered to pattern is a very real concern, and I hope that what I've been presenting doesn't run afoul of it. I mentioned the perceptions as "subtle," meaning not all have come from the standpoint of total personal certainty. I have given the ideas several years to germinate, only speaking of them after much astral sifting. This is one of the inherent problems of spiritual science. Those who dare to follow after Steiner face the burden of operating in the wake of a very high initiate. We shouldn't assume that we are incapable of carrying the stream forward. In fact we can and must pursue these explorations. But the bar is set very high. As for obtaining a deeper orientation to the recapitulated Biblical patterns, it seems one thing we all unanimously agree on here is the crucial importance of Rudolf Steiner within the John stream. Clearly he marks an inflection point. Insofar as Tomberg-Unknown has begun imaginatively steering that inflection point toward an interaction with the Peter stream, this becomes another groove in the texture we must consider.

Regarding your earlier post, I'll need to take more time to consider it. It seems quite possible to provide explanations to your hypothetical question about Old Saturn within the Tombergian framework. But at the moment I can only point to Tomberg's work itself, not having much of substance to offer myself. It's a valuable exercise, though. I will get back to you.

[AshvinP]

Regarding your earlier post, I'll need to take more time to consider it. It seems quite possible to provide explanations to your hypothetical question about Old Saturn within the Tombergian framework. But at the moment I can only point to Tomberg's work itself, not having much of substance to offer myself. It's a valuable exercise, though. I will get back to you.

So the 'Old Saturn' example was only for purposes of analogy. What I am interested in is if we imagine the same scenario except with a central dogma of the Church, like the one-life dogma. If a soul comes to us within the Church and we are in some sort of teaching capacity, and begins to wonder about what is at the foundation of such a dogma, how it may clash or harmonize with the idea of multiple lives (which, through the unfolding etheric impulse, is being increasingly intuited and spoken of even outside of esotericism), and generally how to truly make sense of it at a deeper level, would we be hesitant or even feel forbidden to go in this direction, or could we begin to offer helpful ways of orienting to the inner essence of this dogma?

In fact, the Tombergian discussion of this topic may be exactly the sort of stimulant that would lead to a better understanding, in the sense of - "The resurrection body matures from incarnation to incarnation, although in principle, it should be possible for a single incarnation to suffice". Deeply meditating on such indications (of course, also within a wider context of esoteric knowledge) should greatly deepen one's appreciation for the one-life dogma and what it is truly pointing toward, i.e., that holistic condition when the metamorphosis of our conscious state is perfectly continuous not despite, but because of, the journey through what was previously experienced as 'multiple lives' where we developed the virtues and took hold of the opportunities for inner perfection that destiny brought our way. The fact that this can be principally accomplished in one life under the perfect circumstances is, of course, testified to by the life of Christ Jesus, if we have some orientation to the inner threads that made it possible, the non-stop conjunctions between his will and the Divine Will of the Cosmos.

I suppose that question also leads to another related one. Cleric has illustrated a few times how the feeling/thinking may unfold for someone caught within the evolutionary trap he has been pointing out. For example,

“You are free to explore, but make sure you do not irritate my body, do not annoy it, do not make it your enemy. You can push the boundary slightly, but not so far that you get excommunicated. Otherwise, you went too far.”

I am not quite sure whether you see this as somewhat approximating your position, or instead feel it is mostly a caricature. For example, you pointed to the formalization of the doctrine of personal conscience in 1994. Now let's imagine this formalization was unwound by the Church in 2034, for whatever reason. Would this backtracking feel like a negative trajectory for the Church and something you can be openly critical of with other faithful, even while feeling that Christ always abides within and speaks through his Church body? I am just picking a random example here, and feel free to explore other examples you may feel are more relevant.

From my perspective, if the Tombergian method and content can become fair game as open teaching within the Church, then we have already reached well beyond the domain of 'pushing the boundary slightly'.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

This is all fine. What I tried to point out is something very simple. It's about having the proper inner orientation, knowing up from down, higher from lower. I think we all agree that our individual musical union with the Christ is something that is above any Church. We're talking not about a way of faith, which may need some religious framework, but about actual higher form of existence, where the Christ-attractor of evolution is as real (even more so) as the Sun is for our senses.

What I wanted to point out is that the absolutization of the Church (as the body of Christ) can lead to a certain inversion of this up and down, and thus the aspirants for higher development can become entangled to the trellis.

We must understand that all of this hinges on the conviction that the Church, since it is the expression of Christ himself, is ineffible, and no matter how contradictory things may seem (even if it tightens the valve), we should have unconditional trust that everything will be set straight in the end. Such a conviction, however, ignores a very simple fact - that the Church is first and foremost a community of human beings. And freedom is the whole goal of our evolution. As such, the expression of the Church cannot be a perfect expression of Christ, as long as it manifests through possibly flawed human beings. The Christ cannot forcefully manifest his perfection through the Church - that would mean that the members of the Church are no longer free human beings, they would be externally possessed by the Christ.

For this reason, when we look for Christ, when we want him to manifest in the World, the only certain thing is to seek his inspiration in freedom. We cannot be responsible for everyone else's conduct, and thus we cannot depend on the Church being perfect. If it indeed consists of truly Christ-inspired souls, so much the better. But we cannot take this as an unconditional fact.

So our allegiance is first and foremost to the Living Christ within us. The Church is secondary. If we imagine an extreme case where the Church becomes totally corrupt and no longer serves as the body of Christ, we should say, "Truly I say unto you, I know you not." If instead we say "It's OK, Christ is there, he knows what he's doing", then we're really led by the nose.

This is not a crusade against the Church or VT. It's just an attempt to get the inner priorities of existence straight. Because such an inversion, where aligning ourselves with the Church becomes more important than serving the Christ in Spirit and Truth, can become a real evolutionary trap.

I do not at all find your statements to be a crusade. They are extremely reasonable and aiming toward the common goal it seems we all share. Regarding the bolded: these are such excellent points. The Church is not at all perfect and can't be forced to be, and these factors are prerequisites to its status as a school for the cultivation and protection of freedom. That this special relationship to human freedom is the Church's unique, universal, and providential purview is what I keep sensing is not being felt in its full depth.

Let us remember: The keys to the Kingdom are the Intellectual Soul by which freedom is won. Once one has attained freedom of thought in the mineral world, one can then re-enter the spiritual world through the Consciousness Soul and regain the objects of Paradise.

The mineral world exerts no compulsory influence on my organism. This state of full detachment between outer nature and inner soul is what it means to think. It is in thinking that the 'I' comes alive as a free, autonomous entity.

The Intellectual Soul is the only legitimate means of developing the 'I.' The 'I'-organization can develop along alternate trajectories and is in fact doing so today in souls for whom the Intellectual Soul has not fully unfolded but for whom new elemental beings create illusorily stable objective domains which replace the mineral world with submineral substance. The spirit of Peter has to enter into this submineral realm with them, to to pull them out as they sink toward the interior of the Earth. He offers them the mineral body and blood of the Lord by which means alone they will rise back through the mineral element and find freedom in I-pervaded thought. Now, those who have attained the freedom of the Intellectual Soul and proceed onward to entering into the future spiritual cosmos seeded by the Word made Flesh -- these souls who have partaken in the fruits of Peter's labor (aided greatly in that regard by the previous incarnations of Rudolf Steiner!) must decide what relationship they have to the stream of he who holds the sinking physical world together with the lofty forces of the Spirits of Wisdom. Should his Cross be removed, part of the world and the community of soul-spirits is lost to Ahriman. This is the sober fact which presents itself to the thinking of the heart. Is it a stretch to suggest we owe a certain loving deference to Peter whose kingdom is the world of the Law of Yahweh-Elohim wherein our freedom is won and out of which the Savior is born? Do not both our own salvation and the future of the Earth at least in part depend on the hand we extend to the souls of the Peter stream?

[Rodriel Gabrez]

So the 'Old Saturn' example was only for purposes of analogy. What I am interested in is if we imagine the same scenario except with a central dogma of the Church, like the one-life dogma. If a soul comes to us within the Church and we are in some sort of teaching capacity, and begins to wonder about what is at the foundation of such a dogma, how it may clash or harmonize with the idea of multiple lives (which, through the unfolding etheric impulse, is being increasingly intuited and spoken of even outside of esotericism), and generally how to truly make sense of it at a deeper level, would we be hesitant or even feel forbidden to go in this direction, or could we begin to offer helpful ways of orienting to the inner essence of this dogma?

In fact, the Tombergian discussion of this topic may be exactly the sort of stimulant that would lead to a better understanding, in the sense of - "The resurrection body matures from incarnation to incarnation, although in principle, it should be possible for a single incarnation to suffice". Deeply meditating on such indications (of course, also within a wider context of esoteric knowledge) should greatly deepen one's appreciation for the one-life dogma and what it is truly pointing toward, i.e., that holistic condition when the metamorphosis of our conscious state is perfectly continuous not despite, but because of, the journey through what was previously experienced as 'multiple lives' where we developed the virtues and took hold of the opportunities for inner perfection that destiny brought our way. The fact that this can be principally accomplished in one life under the perfect circumstances is, of course, testified to by the life of Christ Jesus, if we have some orientation to the inner threads that made it possible, the non-stop conjunctions between his will and the Divine Will of the Cosmos.

I suppose that question also leads to another related one. Cleric has illustrated a few times how the feeling/thinking may unfold for someone caught within the evolutionary trap he has been pointing out. For example,

“You are free to explore, but make sure you do not irritate my body, do not annoy it, do not make it your enemy. You can push the boundary slightly, but not so far that you get excommunicated. Otherwise, you went too far.”

I am not quite sure whether you see this as somewhat approximating your position, or instead feel it is mostly a caricature. For example, you pointed to the formalization of the doctrine of personal conscience in 1994. Now let's imagine this formalization was unwound by the Church in 2034, for whatever reason. Would this backtracking feel like a negative trajectory for the Church and something you can be openly critical of with other faithful, even while feeling that Christ always abides within and speaks through his Church body? I am just picking a random example here, and feel free to explore other examples you may feel are more relevant.

From my perspective, if the Tombergian method and content can become fair game as open teaching within the Church, then we have already reached well beyond the domain of 'pushing the boundary slightly'.

I think you have precisely characterized the Tombergian approach to dogma, which is namely to use these statements as profound spiritual exercises -- not commandments "which [silence] the active knowing of thinking and insight but, on the contrary, [gifts] from heaven that [orientate] this activity toward knowing the truth." Tomberg shows us exactly how these teachings of the Church can be used as crosses for our thinking. The fact that this is such a difficult thing to fully grasp is part and parcel of the depth of the mystery involved. Since encountering Tomberg-Unknown, I have been really wrestling with this mystery. Here's a clumsy attempt to encapsulate it:

The facts pointed to by dogma within the realm of objective verifiability are actually statements of the highest spiritual reality expressed through objective, physical events which in certain cases differed in their actual details. This incongruity is a feature of the fact that the highest spiritual reality contains and substantiates the process of obtaining freedom through piecing the events together via reason and Revelation (the faith-opened Intellectual Soul). The incongruity is thus an imprint of the Cross on the physical-mineral plane. Therefore, the truths claimed by dogma are in the final analysis true in the highest sense. Contained within them is the transubstantiation of the physical-mineral world into the spiritualized world via the death and resurrection of thinking.

This obviously differs quite radically from the prevailing attitude within the Church itself. One would probably face considerable opposition to stating this so bluntly. However, Unknown's work provides a helpful instruction manual for how to skillfully approach these kinds of insight by gently leading people through a series of steps after which they can either arrive at the insight themselves, or not. This is how Unknown was able to secure the explicit written endorsement of one of the leading Catholic theologians of the 20th century (Hans Urs von Balthasar), who was himself also a posthumously ordained cardinal, proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI as someone who "points the way to the sources of living water." Now, you will likely not find many priests directly encouraging contemplation of reincarnation as a means of ultimately validating dogma. That is not the priest's express duty or function. Depending on their constitution, some might be open to it as a thought exercise, at best. However, if you (or a theologian) were to arrive at this contemplation yourself such that you unshakably proclaim the dogma of the Church through inner personal certainty and saintly action, then it would most likely be conceded -- as was the case with Tomberg -- that clearly 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." These quotations are the direct words of von Balthasar about the author of MoT. Through the quiet instreaming of the Church of John into the Church of Peter, such examples would start to become more numerous.

Regarding your question about formal doctrine and dogma becoming "unwound" later: this is something that basically does not happen in the RCC. There are three tiers of formal teaching within the Church: dogma, infallible doctrine, and non-infallible doctrine. The first is absolutely binding on the faithful and the first deals with the deepest, most sacred mysteries of the Church which are considered divinely revealed. The second is formally asserted and binding, but not considered divinely revealed. The third is the domain of theological opinion, which change over time according to cultural norms and the needs of the flock. Dogmas and infallible doctrines are cumulative and non-destructive. No dogma has ever been reversed. This would be a contradiction in terms (and a rupture in the very function of universal Law, as it applies to the mineral world). Infallible doctrines are firmly upheld as indispensable tradition. Both are subject to deepened and clarified understanding. Infallible doctrine is subject to development, which can at times seem to reverse the original meaning. VT correctly identifies the "one-life" doctrine as falling outside the purview of dogma. It is, at least in principle, possible that one day this infallible doctrine could be formally developed to arrive at a more Tombergian interpretation, although at the current moment this is a far-off possibility. For reasons I've attempted to convey in this continuing thread and especially immediately above, I don't see this as a problem.

It is also the case that a generally advancing wave has swept through the development of doctrine (both infallible and non-infallible) over the entire course of the Church's history. Its universally advancing thrust has mirrored the unfolding of the 'I' on the stage of world history. The very large majority of developments in doctrine have dealt directly with the further elucidation of the dignity and centrality of the free human person. The doctrinal update around conscience in the formally issued 1994 Catechism is one such development. While it's theoretically possible that further development could obscure this shining light, it would be contrary to the consistent and ongoing two-thousand year old forward thrust which has received multiple rejuvenating impulses over the past 60 years. If it were to happen, you ask whether or not the faithful could be openly critical of it. The answer is a resounding yes. Catholics of various stripes are highly critical of almost everything that goes on in the Church. This is mostly the noxious result of politics on the institution, which it -- today more than ever -- continually transcends and refuses to buckle to. People constantly denounce the Pope and then go right onto receive the Sacraments. This is mostly to their own detriment. A Johannine infusion would, perhaps paradoxically, need to be the greatest respecters and validators of the Holy See and of Church teaching.

[Cleric]

The Intellectual Soul is the only legitimate means of developing the 'I.' The 'I'-organization can develop along alternate trajectories and is in fact doing so today in souls for whom the Intellectual Soul has not fully unfolded but for whom new elemental beings create illusorily stable objective domains which replace the mineral world with submineral substance. The spirit of Peter has to enter into this submineral realm with them, to to pull them out as they sink toward the interior of the Earth. He offers them the mineral body and blood of the Lord by which means alone they will rise back through the mineral element and find freedom in I-pervaded thought. Now, those who have attained the freedom of the Intellectual Soul and proceed onward to entering into the future spiritual cosmos seeded by the Word made Flesh -- these souls who have partaken in the fruits of Peter's labor (aided greatly in that regard by the previous incarnations of Rudolf Steiner!) must decide what relationship they have to the stream of he who holds the sinking physical world together with the lofty forces of the Spirits of Wisdom. Should his Cross be removed, part of the world and the community of soul-spirits is lost to Ahriman. This is the sober fact which presents itself to the thinking of the heart. Is it a stretch to suggest we owe a certain loving deference to Peter whose kingdom is the world of the Law of Yahweh-Elohim wherein our freedom is won and out of which the Savior is born? Do not both our own salvation and the future of the Earth at least in part depend on the hand we extend to the souls of the Peter stream?

Of course it is not a stretch. Yet again, this once more shifts the focus to the clearer part of the issue. Additionally, the Peter souls are everywhere; they are not only church members. Even the materialists can be considered Peters because they too reach down (and additionally, today's Western secular culture largely evolves out of the Christian world, thus they are Peter's 'descendents'). So a hand needs to be extended to everyone. We've been focusing in this thread primarily on working within the Church, but let's not forget that a considerable portion of the World's population is not found within the RCC (and even of those who are, there are plenty who live their life no different than any materialist, except they label themselves Christians). I think it should be quite clear that we cannot give these souls a hand by saying, "But ultimately you need to convert to Catholicism." The only way we can appeal to these souls (if they have the good will, of course) is by leading them toward something that they can experience. They are fed up with believing. It is from there that the depth of religious feelings must be found anew, with a new kind of certainty powered by enlivened thinking within the flow of reality. And this is what the Michael impulse is about. By the way, the naively religious man may say, "I already have these deep religious feelings in my soul, thus I don't need this impulse. It is only for those who have lost their path and need to rediscover it from within their stripped intellectual ego." I think there's no need to explain how misled such an attitude is.

Let's try an even simpler metaphor. Plato's cave (symbol for the purely bodily spectrum). The Church has the indispensable function to tell the souls within the dark cave, "Here is the Good News: the Sun exists. It was here in the cave. The cave is still dark but his Light penetrates as a twilight. It is our duty to educate the souls in this Truth and help them lead a life that will make the leaving of the cave - death - successful." As such, the Church is the rightful representative of the Sun within the cave; it is its 'ambassador'.

Of course, there have also been these more advanced souls in secret communities, who could concentrate on the twilight, as if to follow it to its source, and know more about the nature of the Sun. In the course of the centuries, the Light has been steadily increasing. It can be said that it is now dawn within the cave. Then comes the important impulse at the turn of the twentieth century that heralds a new culture - not merely people with a greater amount of secret knowledge but actual Life in the Sun Light that transforms society itself. We're speaking about new ideas, new understanding, a new way of grasping how we're placed within the flow of being. There's not a single aspect of Earthly life that is to remain untouched by such a new understanding. I want to stress: we're not talking about evacuation of souls from the cave. The Light penetrates the cave, warms it up, and transforms it. This is important. Through materialistic inertia, we're prone to think of the souls and the Earthly environment as largely independent. Then it stands to reason that the developing souls in a way graduate from the environment, while the latter remains more or less the same, i.e. the cave in itself remains as dark as ever. Yet, everything forms a holistic organism in evolution, and the illumination of the souls is simultaneously connected with the illumination of the cave - to some extent, even for those who have not yet worked for the soul illumination.

With time, if everything goes well, more and more people will have direct knowledge of the reality of the Light that shines stronger and stronger within the cave. Then one begins to wonder, "But what's the role of the ambassador when more and more souls have direct experience of the Light they live in? Do I need someone to represent the Sun for me, when I already live in its light and warmth?" To represent - no. To teach how to live in and understand the Light - yes.

Steiner has called attention on many occasions that there are forces for whom it is of greatest interest that this dawning should remain unnoticed, unrealized - at least for as long as possible. Now think, can there be any more glaring attempt to dampen the impulse than to maintain the ambassador in the same way, as if nothing had ever happened? And not only to maintain it, but also to envision it as the central government of the World-cave? To this, it can be responded, "But what about the souls that are still in the dark? Don't they need the Church?" Indeed, they need it. However, as mentioned above, the whole environment changes. We cannot act as if we're in the same dark cave as centuries ago. Thus, the pedagogical methods also must change (and here I think BD is a great example that it is possible to address also the naively religious souls, yet in a way that doesn't spare them the reality of the epoch and the tasks at hand). It simply makes no sense to be bathed in the Light that seeks entry into the heart and mind, and yet be taught that I will meet it in full reality only after death or the second coming (which, however, is expected mainly as an event where Jesus should be beheld by everyone in a visible form).

I don't enjoy writing like this but I think the topic is vitally important. If we look at the facts in the face, it is clear that the Catholic project does not simply build a more palpable path to the new culture that has to transform science/economics, art, and religion through real Sun Intelligence - this is simply not there! What is there is a path to deepened and refined consciousness of the soul twilight that ultimately affirms the ambassador in place for the unforseeable future.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

Cleric,

It's fine with me if you ultimately conclude that the "Catholic project" is misguided. If it's case closed for you, then I am happy to move onto other topics for which there is more of a shared enthusiasm and convergence of vision. But I am personally happy to continue discussing this, as it's clearly something I find vitally important as well.

Of course it is not a stretch. Yet again, this once more shifts the focus to the clearer part of the issue. Additionally, the Peter souls are everywhere; they are not only church members. Even the materialists can be considered Peters because they too reach down (and additionally, today's Western secular culture largely evolves out of the Christian world, thus they are Peter's 'descendents'). So a hand needs to be extended to everyone. We've been focusing in this thread primarily on working within the Church, but let's not forget that a considerable portion of the World's population is not found within the RCC (and even of those who are, there are plenty who live their life no different than any materialist, except they label themselves Christians). I think it should be quite clear that we cannot give these souls a hand by saying, "But ultimately you need to convert to Catholicism." The only way we can appeal to these souls (if they have the good will, of course) is by leading them toward something that they can experience. They are fed up with believing. It is from there that the depth of religious feelings must be found anew, with a new kind of certainty powered by enlivened thinking within the flow of reality. And this is what the Michael impulse is about. By the way, the naively religious man may say, "I already have these deep religious feelings in my soul, thus I don't need this impulse. It is only for those who have lost their path and need to rediscover it from within their stripped intellectual ego." I think there's no need to explain how misled such an attitude is.

You are absolutely right that there are "Peters" outside the Church and that they deserve a hand as well. Your labelling of them as Peter's "descendants" is even better. This implicitly references the fact that the "materialism" of today, the general atmosphere that human beings are embedded within in their soul life, is different from the materialism of the early 20th century -- radically different, in fact. I have already mentioned this on a few occasions: the West's legacy of materialism, describable as a kind an overrefinement of the Intellectual Soul on the part of its extra-ecclesial development, has over the past several decades undergone an intense pendulum swing toward total atrophy of those same soul faculties. We do not live in the same materialistic paradigm as Rudolf Steiner. This doesn't render the Michael impulse moot; but it does change things considerably. More on this in a moment.

Let's try an even simpler metaphor. Plato's cave (symbol for the purely bodily spectrum). The Church has the indispensable function to tell the souls within the dark cave, "Here is the Good News: the Sun exists. It was here in the cave. The cave is still dark but his Light penetrates as a twilight. It is our duty to educate the souls in this Truth and help them lead a life that will make the leaving of the cave - death - successful." As such, the Church is the rightful representative of the Sun within the cave; it is its 'ambassador'.

Of course, there have also been these more advanced souls in secret communities, who could concentrate on the twilight, as if to follow it to its source, and know more about the nature of the Sun. In the course of the centuries, the Light has been steadily increasing. It can be said that it is now dawn within the cave. Then comes the important impulse at the turn of the twentieth century that heralds a new culture - not merely people with a greater amount of secret knowledge but actual Life in the Sun Light that transforms society itself. We're speaking about new ideas, new understanding, a new way of grasping how we're placed within the flow of being. There's not a single aspect of Earthly life that is to remain untouched by such a new understanding. I want to stress: we're not talking about evacuation of souls from the cave. The Light penetrates the cave, warms it up, and transforms it. This is important. Through materialistic inertia, we're prone to think of the souls and the Earthly environment as largely independent. Then it stands to reason that the developing souls in a way graduate from the environment, while the latter remains more or less the same, i.e. the cave in itself remains as dark as ever. Yet, everything forms a holistic organism in evolution, and the illumination of the souls is simultaneously connected with the illumination of the cave - to some extent, even for those who have not yet worked for the soul illumination.

With time, if everything goes well, more and more people will have direct knowledge of the reality of the Light that shines stronger and stronger within the cave. Then one begins to wonder, "But what's the role of the ambassador when more and more souls have direct experience of the Light they live in? Do I need someone to represent the Sun for me, when I already live in its light and warmth?" To represent - no. To teach how to live in and understand the Light - yes.

Steiner has called attention on many occasions that there are forces for whom it is of greatest interest that this dawning should remain unnoticed, unrealized - at least for as long as possible. Now think, can there be any more glaring attempt to dampen the impulse than to maintain the ambassador in the same way, as if nothing had ever happened? And not only to maintain it, but also to envision it as the central government of the World-cave? To this, it can be responded, "But what about the souls that are still in the dark? Don't they need the Church?" Indeed, they need it. However, as mentioned above, the whole environment changes. We cannot act as if we're in the same dark cave as centuries ago. Thus, the pedagogical methods also must change (and here I think BD is a great example that it is possible to address also the naively religious souls, yet in a way that doesn't spare them the reality of the epoch and the tasks at hand). It simply makes no sense to be bathed in the Light that seeks entry into the heart and mind, and yet be taught that I will meet it in full reality only after death or the second coming (which, however, is expected mainly as an event where Jesus should be beheld by everyone in a visible form).

Addressing the bolded first: this is a sheer caricature, and one that I struggle to know how to respond to at this point in the conversation, given everything I have presented which speaks directly to this quite simplified view.

Moving on from that to your Plato's cave metaphor. You continually make the point -- and it is a good one -- that the entire landscape is shifting, so to speak. The old structures transform along with what is emerging such that they cease to function in their old way. This is a good principle to remember and to live into imaginatively, but it can be misapplied so as to cover over important nuances and subtleties. In your metaphor, the Light is progressively illuminating the entire environment. The exact same dark cave that was once there is no longer there. Okay, let's apply this to the world right now. While it is most definitely the case that the entire setup has shifted, including the darkness of the cave, we have to admit that the cave still persists in a way that directly impinges on our soul experience and movement through the world. In other words, even though a new light-filled dimension of experience has opened up, this new dimension is overlaid atop the old one, which souls very much still need to be able to navigate, with the healthy and intact faculties proper to that domain. The Intellectual Soul must remain healthy and intact, and for the foreseeable near future. Unless we assume that the physical-mineral world will pass away (as it will eventually) in the next several hundred years, the organs proper to it remain important.

I will here again return to an image I've used a few times already, the Intellectual Soul as sepal of a flowering plant. As the Light you describe illumines the whole environment more and more, the flowering plants all reach up to that Light with excitement. A few catch this Light and take into themselves, producing beautiful, radiant flowers. However, some find themselves with deteriorated sepals, and the same Light is for them a scorching fire. Some manage to unfold their blossoms with minor burns. Others are simply incinerated. The Light received without protecting, backward-pulling organs becomes a deadly force. "I did not come to bring peace but the sword" (Matt. 10:34).

At the turn of the 20th century, the entire Western world (and soon to be the globe) had just emerged from an era of maximum sepal development. Every aspect of life was shot through with "sepalness." The world of the Intellectual Soul was the water all of culture swam in. Materialism was at an all-time high, balanced to that point only by the spirit-open intellectuality of the Roman Catholic Church. The major shift of the entirely different environment we live in today was already emerging then: the submineral world had begun to open in opposition to the descent of the etheric Light. This submineral world, directly related to the discovery of the secrets of electromagnetism and of the media environment which hovers over these forces, literally exploded onto the world stage with the dropping of the atomic bombs on the innocent populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From that point forward, the Intellectual Soul on the collective level began a process of large-scale atrophy. The world we now live in is superimposed atop the materialistic world of the early 20th century. Those same hyper-materialistic forces run rampant within an environment that now has added to it a completely new submineral layer. This layer consists of new objective environments made of soul content impressed into the substrate of the mineral-physical world (the virtual media landscape). The 'I' which has not already been strengthened via sharp, mineral-conceptual activity attempts to unfold in this new environment and is completely corrupted. Intellectual Soul development is largely and somewhat unwittingly passed over in our time (or it is at least blunted by the sheer force of the new paradigm), and souls are plunged more or less immediately into the submineral domain. Those who, on the other hand, have undergone this necessary and formerly default preparation, have a chance of moving forward to the development of the progressive Michaelic faculties.

So I guess I would ask you this question: do you think it is possible currently for souls to pass directly from Sentient Soul life to moral imagination? Because that is what you seem to be suggesting with your images. Or do you perhaps suggest that the Michael community on its own is sufficient to provide the necessary Intellectual Soul development, such that the Peters of the world will be duly tended to?

[AshvinP]

So the 'Old Saturn' example was only for purposes of analogy. What I am interested in is if we imagine the same scenario except with a central dogma of the Church, like the one-life dogma. If a soul comes to us within the Church and we are in some sort of teaching capacity, and begins to wonder about what is at the foundation of such a dogma, how it may clash or harmonize with the idea of multiple lives (which, through the unfolding etheric impulse, is being increasingly intuited and spoken of even outside of esotericism), and generally how to truly make sense of it at a deeper level, would we be hesitant or even feel forbidden to go in this direction, or could we begin to offer helpful ways of orienting to the inner essence of this dogma?

In fact, the Tombergian discussion of this topic may be exactly the sort of stimulant that would lead to a better understanding, in the sense of - "The resurrection body matures from incarnation to incarnation, although in principle, it should be possible for a single incarnation to suffice". Deeply meditating on such indications (of course, also within a wider context of esoteric knowledge) should greatly deepen one's appreciation for the one-life dogma and what it is truly pointing toward, i.e., that holistic condition when the metamorphosis of our conscious state is perfectly continuous not despite, but because of, the journey through what was previously experienced as 'multiple lives' where we developed the virtues and took hold of the opportunities for inner perfection that destiny brought our way. The fact that this can be principally accomplished in one life under the perfect circumstances is, of course, testified to by the life of Christ Jesus, if we have some orientation to the inner threads that made it possible, the non-stop conjunctions between his will and the Divine Will of the Cosmos.

I suppose that question also leads to another related one. Cleric has illustrated a few times how the feeling/thinking may unfold for someone caught within the evolutionary trap he has been pointing out. For example,

“You are free to explore, but make sure you do not irritate my body, do not annoy it, do not make it your enemy. You can push the boundary slightly, but not so far that you get excommunicated. Otherwise, you went too far.”

I am not quite sure whether you see this as somewhat approximating your position, or instead feel it is mostly a caricature. For example, you pointed to the formalization of the doctrine of personal conscience in 1994. Now let's imagine this formalization was unwound by the Church in 2034, for whatever reason. Would this backtracking feel like a negative trajectory for the Church and something you can be openly critical of with other faithful, even while feeling that Christ always abides within and speaks through his Church body? I am just picking a random example here, and feel free to explore other examples you may feel are more relevant.

From my perspective, if the Tombergian method and content can become fair game as open teaching within the Church, then we have already reached well beyond the domain of 'pushing the boundary slightly'.

I think you have precisely characterized the Tombergian approach to dogma, which is namely to use these statements as profound spiritual exercises -- not commandments "which [silence] the active knowing of thinking and insight but, on the contrary, [gifts] from heaven that [orientate] this activity toward knowing the truth." Tomberg shows us exactly how these teachings of the Church can be used as crosses for our thinking. The fact that this is such a difficult thing to fully grasp is part and parcel of the depth of the mystery involved. Since encountering Tomberg-Unknown, I have been really wrestling with this mystery. Here's a clumsy attempt to encapsulate it:

Right, and I can see how this is quite difficult for those coming from Anthroposophy (in its post-Steiner form), especially, to appreciate. Unlike the hypothetical future scenario where the Catholic Church becomes a dominating world power and dampens the Impulse for everyone (which could be a real threat, not just for the CC, but for practically all major cultural organizations), the threat of spirit-seeking souls completely missing the opportunities for moral-cognitive development provided through individualities like Tomberg has already manifested and continues to. It is the threat of absolutizing "Steiner said", and because some of his indications are highly critical of the Churches and their modern roles in spiritual life, we never give works like MoT a chance and instead paint such individualities (and perhaps the Church itself) as unwitting enemies of Christ. We all need to try and remain aware of how such perspectives practically influence the souls around us. The adversarial forces would like nothing better than for spiritual seekers to fractionize in this way and paint each other as mutually exclusive opponents, rather than co-contibutors to the shared Impulse. Of course, I am not the first to point this out, and it seems practically everyone who is intimately familiar with both Anthroposophy and Tomberg-MoT feels the same way (including Salman, Martin, Powell, Bamfield, and others).

Perhaps we are all prejudiced in some way, but I can only trust my intuitive experience in this domain. Experiencing the inner organic process of MoT was very similar to the first time PoF 'clicked' for me - I knew that I was in the presence of something utterly unique and profound, which was opening unsuspected degrees of freedom for my inner life. It was clearly born out of spiritual depth of experience. Other commentators have pointed out that, since Steiner, practically no one else has attained the capacities to do true supersensible research except for Tomberg. That also rings true to me based on trying to experience his inner process. And they have likewise pointed out that many Anthroposophical leaders ostracized Tomberg exactly for that reason, because his capacity to extend PoF-spiritual science in a novel direction was seen as a direct affront to the Ambassador of spiritual science. He was practically excommunicated. We should be careful not to fall into this same trap, as these are real-time threats of spiritual fragmentation that are unfolding at a time when we need to leverage all the reservoirs of Wisdom possible to become spirit-open and resist the subsensibsle and subhuman currents.

The facts pointed to by dogma within the realm of objective verifiability are actually statements of the highest spiritual reality expressed through objective, physical events which in certain cases differed in their actual details. This incongruity is a feature of the fact that the highest spiritual reality contains and substantiates the process of obtaining freedom through piecing the events together via reason and Revelation (the faith-opened Intellectual Soul). The incongruity is thus an imprint of the Cross on the physical-mineral plane. Therefore, the truths claimed by dogma are in the final analysis true in the highest sense. Contained within them is the transubstantiation of the physical-mineral world into the spiritualized world via the death and resurrection of thinking.

This obviously differs quite radically from the prevailing attitude within the Church itself. One would probably face considerable opposition to stating this so bluntly. However, Unknown's work provides a helpful instruction manual for how to skillfully approach these kinds of insight by gently leading people through a series of steps after which they can either arrive at the insight themselves, or not. This is how Unknown was able to secure the explicit written endorsement of one of the leading Catholic theologians of the 20th century (Hans Urs von Balthasar), who was himself also a posthumously ordained cardinal, proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI as someone who "points the way to the sources of living water." Now, you will likely not find many priests directly encouraging contemplation of reincarnation as a means of ultimately validating dogma. That is not the priest's express duty or function. Depending on their constitution, some might be open to it as a thought exercise, at best. However, if you (or a theologian) were to arrive at this contemplation yourself such that you unshakably proclaim the dogma of the Church through inner personal certainty and saintly action, then it would most likely be conceded -- as was the case with Tomberg -- that clearly 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." These quotations are the direct words of von Balthasar about the author of MoT. Through the quiet instreaming of the Church of John into the Church of Peter, such examples would start to become more numerous.

Regarding your question about formal doctrine and dogma becoming "unwound" later: this is something that basically does not happen in the RCC. There are three tiers of formal teaching within the Church: dogma, infallible doctrine, and non-infallible doctrine. The first is absolutely binding on the faithful and the first deals with the deepest, most sacred mysteries of the Church which are considered divinely revealed. The second is formally asserted and binding, but not considered divinely revealed. The third is the domain of theological opinion, which change over time according to cultural norms and the needs of the flock. Dogmas and infallible doctrines are cumulative and non-destructive. No dogma has ever been reversed. This would be a contradiction in terms (and a rupture in the very function of universal Law, as it applies to the mineral world). Infallible doctrines are firmly upheld as indispensable tradition. Both are subject to deepened and clarified understanding. Infallible doctrine is subject to development, which can at times seem to reverse the original meaning. VT correctly identifies the "one-life" doctrine as falling outside the purview of dogma. It is, at least in principle, possible that one day this infallible doctrine could be formally developed to arrive at a more Tombergian interpretation, although at the current moment this is a far-off possibility. For reasons I've attempted to convey in this continuing thread and especially immediately above, I don't see this as a problem.

It is also the case that a generally advancing wave has swept through the development of doctrine (both infallible and non-infallible) over the entire course of the Church's history. Its universally advancing thrust has mirrored the unfolding of the 'I' on the stage of world history. The very large majority of developments in doctrine have dealt directly with the further elucidation of the dignity and centrality of the free human person. The doctrinal update around conscience in the formally issued 1994 Catechism is one such development. While it's theoretically possible that further development could obscure this shining light, it would be contrary to the consistent and ongoing two-thousand year old forward thrust which has received multiple rejuvenating impulses over the past 60 years. If it were to happen, you ask whether or not the faithful could be openly critical of it. The answer is a resounding yes. Catholics of various stripes are highly critical of almost everything that goes on in the Church. This is mostly the noxious result of politics on the institution, which it -- today more than ever -- continually transcends and refuses to buckle to. People constantly denounce the Pope and then go right onto receive the Sacraments. This is mostly to their own detriment. A Johannine infusion would, perhaps paradoxically, need to be the greatest respecters and validators of the Holy See and of Church teaching.

Thanks for providing this elaboration. Just reading something like this is a good dose of humility, since it helps me realize how unfamiliar I am with the nuances of the Church process. It is all too tempting to feel like these details are irrelevant, and we can reach the proper judgments simply through the big picture of the spiritual evolutionary process, but the spiritual scientific stance is there to remind us of how that can easily go astray. It is certainly the case that we often try to avoid the inner dynamics by zooming into all sorts of details that we intellectually patch together and which help us rationalize our avoidance, but as long as we remain conscious of this tendency and utilize the details as loose anchor points for our independent intuitive process, we then realize how they are indispensable for forming a healthy orientation. We shouldn't forsake this patient process of exploration, no matter how concerning the ideas on the 'other side' feel to be. What we express shouldn't be aimed at practically ending the exploration-discussion, as it often feels to be from the Anthroposophical side on this topic of the Church and its current and future significance.

With that said, I think that I have a better feel for your position. When you say that you don't see the 'far-off possibility' of a more Tombergian approach to the one-life dogma as a problem, it is because you see the Church as realistically functioning in a distinct domain of preserving the intellectual soul from complete atrophy. In other words, if somehow this far-off possibility were to become a near-term reality, you would welcome it with open arms.. But based on your understanding of the current situation, it makes little sense to place hope in something that is simply impossible to attain in the near future, and instead, we should focus on how the Church can be leveraged in its existing constitution for the benefit of the Peter souls across various domains of cultural life. In other words, the prospect for widespread clairvoyance didn't seem to manifest at the scale that Steiner anticipated, and while a few souls are prepared to take that next step, most souls are dealing with the much more pressing problem of unwinding the steps that we have already collectively taken. Is that about right, at least in part?

I won't reiterate all of the cautions that I have already shared in this respect, and which Cleric has also pointed to in various ways. You seem to be quite open and receptive to contemplating the risks involved with this general inner stance, and how we may have blind spots with respect to how things may look differently from the clairvoyant perspective. Another thing to keep in mind is how common it is today for people to invoke apocalyptic conditions and scenarios to justify various rushed outer policies and programs. Everyone appeals to 'saving the world' when it isn't quite understood how patient development of higher knowledge (which is not to say isolated, secret, etc.) still holds the best hope and is the direct wish of the Christ-centered higher worlds in our time. If the Church leadership continues to obstinately refuse to take the Tombergian approach as anything more than a 'thought exercise', then I would see this as a major problem, just as I do when the Anthroposophical Society does the same thing and fails to develop any truly spiritually deepened souls within its ranks. (and in some ways this is even worse, since that is the explicit function of Anthroposophy as Steiner intended it)

[Federica]

This is simply unfamiliarity with VT speaking. The deeper consideration is that, in the sense of Knowledge of Higher Worlds, we can only gain an orientation to such individualities and their works if we approach them with a certain degree of humility and reverence, and also patience in condensing our unequivocal judgments. All too often, we forsake the process of attuning our inner activity to such a lofty being as Anthroposophy in the name of 'defending' her against her perceived enemies, thereby missing how this Being can adorn many expressive husks. We then selectively ignore some expressions, zoom into others, add our commentary, and so on, all in the name of rationally preserving the perceived opposition within supersensible dynamics. Because, as Cleric also illustrated before with the arcane asanas, VT's work is entirely meant to stimulate a higher, supersensible vantage point that brings the pinhole of inversion into clear focus. It is not about comparing and contrasting two seemingly 'competing' imploded manifestations of the Tradition, but retracing and renewing the unified Tradition through our entirely new creative efforts.

I surely admit unfamiliarity with VT works, but are you then in agreement with Rodriel that at times one must intend in his prose quite the opposite of what it says? It must be so, otherwise there's not much one can do with expressions such as: "For the tradition lives not thanks to organisations, but in spite of them. One should content oneself purely and simply with friendship in order to preserve the life of a tradition; it should not be entrusted to the care of the embalmers and mummifiers par excellence that organisations are." other than understanding them as I did.

Yes, at times, depending on the particular soul we are engaging and the circumstances, we may need to take a more arcanic symbolic approach. Sometimes, if we communicate with physical symbols or very familiar intellectual content (like 'spacetime curvature'), the receiving soul will need to strive to see through those symbols to experience the underlying spiritual gestures, and for some souls that is easier with religiously charged images. We have characterized this before as an 'inverted' stance and it could also be described as striving toward the opposite of the habitual gestures we make when encountering certain explicit content, the typical associations of meaning, so the deeper meaning of that content can shine through. That is essentially what was sought through various veiled analogical approaches, including in Rosicrucianism.

At the same time, I already offered Rodriel some cautions in this area and pointed out how the Gospels differentiate between how things are presented to the disciples or St. Paul (more directly) versus the masses (by parables). Now, with the new etheric Impulse, we should understand the etheric disciples of Christ have expanded to encompass many more souls who have developed the intellectual forces and are thus prepared to directly unveil the Spirit concealed within and animating their real-time thoughts. The content of those thoughts can more directly point to their spiritual gestures, if we craft them wisely and artistically. Of course, the soul still must receive that directly symbolic content reverently and livingly - there is no way around that, no matter how clear and precise our words become. I also cautioned, likewise, that we should be careful not to assume what worked for us in this direct way won't work for other souls, because the gap probably isn't as large as we imagine.

It should be said that VT's approach is much more in the style of the latter, or at least a fusion. His concepts and his reasoning are quite directly pointing to spiritual realities, yet he also infuses that reasoning with religiously charged images and sometimes more veiled indications and instructions. The arcana have become something quite different in his treatment of them, from my perspective, and are no longer purely 'concealing and revealing'. The reason is because this function of the arcana 'concealing and revealing' has itself become revealed, it has become the explicit content of meditation. In that sense, one can clearly detect the PoF influence here, the recursively self-conscious observation of inner activity, if one has become sensitive to that kind of activity. It brings the Hermetic tradition into a new phase which does indeed appear to hear and heed the 'trumpet blast' of Steiner in many important ways.

It doesn't seem like there is much that you caution Rodriel about anymore, in the middle of this seemingly nuanced, but actually compounded, and ultimately radical veering you have recently undertaken. For me, it’s evident how this escalating indulgence to an indispensable role of the Church resounds strongly with your older self, the one which didn’t yet know PoF, according to your descriptions of it. Yet, the matter is, at its bare core, so limpid. Steiner has demonstrated through his own life how it is now possible for every normally constituted human being to deeply know Christ regardless of any connection whatsoever with the institution of the Church. His upbringing and education were not in the least Catholic, but scientific. And he arrived at the living Christ by the willful development of his soul forces of thinking, feeling and willing alone. This is the powerful novelty, the gift evolution has granted humanity with, and the path of freedom that everyone is tasked with emulating today.

Any workarounds aiming at discarding this truth - no matter how much infused with subtleties, nuances, half-inversions of full inversions, and the like, disparage the gift of the Hierarchies, and mortify human potential itself. The Church is, at the very least, irrelevant to the understanding and accomplishment of the task that lies before us. Christ addresses each of us directly. This is reality, not all the disguised speculations about the role of the Church. The Church is irrelevant today, no middleman makes any sense anymore. And the spectacle on this thread, the arcanic approaches, the subtle reversed interpretations of dogma and symbols that “we must understand” and “we need to grasp", is no poetry to my ears, but rather borders on indecency, in its retrograde effect of blurring the truth and the task which in this very moment strives to be kept alive within human hearts and minds.