Tomberg and Anthroposophy

[Rodriel Gabrez]

Thanks, Rodriel, for all the details. In the same line, I wonder about the following.

The Catholic project, as discussed here, is mainly about vivifying the Church, as if not to waste its already existing potential. And this, of course, is logical. Not only about the RCC but for the Christian religion as a whole. It is only natural that the last 2k years of exoteric tradition should somehow evolve and reconnect with the deeper reality that has been preserved in secret all the time. Now, there's also the part where the RCC is destined to become the only backbone of humanity, but let's put that aside for the moment.

Seen as a whole, this is a certain vision of how things should develop, and I think we all agree that it is not something that we can undertake just like that (in the sense of "Alright, I'm starting to implement the project right now"). The most we can do is whisper in this or that member's ear about MoT, but the actual transformation of the RCC becomes more hazy toward the horizon. It's not clear how exactly it can happen, but we have the good faith that it will (for God, anything is possible).

My question is, besides the obvious fact that you try to enlighten such souls about the John stream, has the Catholic project changed anything else for you? For example, are there certain ideas from spiritual science that you have come to see as incompatible with the project? Maybe the threefold social order, or education based on spiritual scientific insight (of which Waldorf is the current attempt), health, arts, and so on. I hope you see what I am asking. It is very clear that VT focused entirely on Christian Hermeticism. Not only did he not try to irrigate the various fields of human activity with spiritual insight, but he says that this is not the job of the Hermeticist - science, art, religion, are outside of his scope. I mean, he supports the souls of the fields spiritually, from the background so to speak, but doesn't enter into the manifestations of the fields themselves. All these three tiers of human activity (corresponding to body, soul, spirit) are ultimately the expression of the Spirit. So if we trace the origins of all these fields, we should reach the spiritual world, and it is the logical task of humanity to make these gradients conscious. Otherwise, these tiers become disconnected (at the conscious level) from the higher life. It is not that they no longer manifest from the spiritual flow, but it's only that when clear consciousness of the gradient is not sought, the deeper currents of the activities are quickly taken over by other beings. Then science becomes completely utilitarian, art becomes eccentric, serving only to evoke sensual and soul feelings, often of quite decadent nature, and religion becomes fanaticism, where people fight over beliefs (since no one can consciously reach the spiritual sources of religion and its beliefs). In reality, it is only the Johnian who is in a position to show how any of these fields can be reconnected to the life source. If the fields are left on their own, it's far more likely that they'll simply degenerate even more (even if the Hermeticist prays for their soul from the background). Probably, it will be said that VT simply focused on the purely spiritual/soul Hermetic knowledge, while all these fields will be resurrected later, when the John impulse begins to gain power within the RCC, and from there it starts to stream out with new life (like the autonomous social streams).

For you personally, do you feel that the Catholic project has made you see things in such a way? That the focus should now be on Hermeticism, while the resurrection of the fields is a further stage of the project, when the replanted impulse begins to take strength within the RCC? Or more bluntly, do you think it is necessary that humanity should try to resurrect these fields through deepened life within the spiritual, even now, and even if it is outside the RCC? Or in still other words, have you lost interest in certain aspects of spiritual science, which maybe you have been enthusiastic about before, but now you see as premature or even misguided?

"The grace of the New Testament is mysteriously hidden in the letter of the Old. This is why the Apostle says that the Law is spiritual. Thus the Law is rendered old and obsolete by the letter and becomes useless, but it is made young and thoroughly active by the Spirit. For grace is completely free of old age." - St. Maximus the Confessor

Before I begin to answer your specific questions, I think it's worth examining just how the Church functions within the context of the increasingly free world paradigm we find ourselves in as a result of the emergence of the Consciousness Soul. In the words above from St. Maximus the Confessor, we can sense how the relationship between the Law and the Gospel has unfolded progressively in stages over the course of history. The Law of Yahweh-Elohim, himself the representative of the Father within the Spirits of Form, spiraled together with the universal, globalizing impulse of the redeemed Roman Empire. The Gospel revelation of the Son was thus temporarily but necessarily blunted by this rolling-out of the Christ Impulse hidden beneath the expanding, protecting apparatus of the Father's Law. By this means, practically all of Western civilization was united (to varying degrees of intensity at various times) under the umbrella of universal Christendom, with its centralized authority in Rome. Here the Law of the Father, through the present but occluded Christ Impulse, was enforced through the regionalized state apparatus, all reporting back to Rome. The Church assumed a political, governing role on the various kingdoms, which themselves were so arranged as to fractally mirror the concentrically radiating hierarchy of the Church. Christ the King meant, quite literally Christ the King. This is in keeping with a human being completely in the grip of the Intellectual Soul. In the age of the Consciousness Soul, the Intellectual Soul remains ever important, but the manner of "bowing to Rome" (an image I mentioned before) changes, such that what was mysteriously hidden under the Father's cloak begins to reveal itself more directly as the activity of the Son, through the Spirits of Motion. The true essence of the Gospel begins to shine through free acts of fealty. The enforcement of the Law falls away, while the structure remains. The Spirit remains active in the Letter but is inwardly enlivened. Christ is still the King, but the King who is served in complete and total freedom. Likewise, the central authority of the mineral-physical world is still the central authority of that world, which everyone still inhabits and will inhabit for ages to come, but this authority of the Pope no longer has any power of enforcement; it is a sacrificial, protective service offered for any and all who desire a seat within the spirit-unified global community where mutual self-sacrifice is still arranged hierarchically according to the spiritual cosmos and by which the freedom of the human person within the sense world is vouchsafed. The Consciousness Soul's impulse of freedom has been realized in manifold ways outside this structure, but these risk disconnection from the physical sacrifice of Golgotha as long as they persist in their self-contained development. The cosmological structure of the Church acting through the operation of the Mass is actually the same as that of the Mystery of Golgotha in relation to the Earth and the cosmos. The physical event precipitates its own spiritualization, and the Roman Catholic Church is where this physical event still lives. The Mystery of Golgotha takes place on the altar and ripples outward into the broader world, the latter of which is gradually spiritualized over time.

If one wants to see how the Church should function in our current free epoch one need look no further than Pope Leo himself. Everything he says is publicly available, and if you have not paid much attention to him I recommend that you do. This Pope is operating exactly in accord with what I have just laid out above. This is not a Pope who has any desire whatsoever for the Church to become a world government. Those days are completely and definitively over. Rather, like Tomberg says in his book on jurisprudence: the goal is not now for the Church to become the state but for the state to become the Church. The Church of the Consciousness Soul invites all into Communion with her, promising her vital service to all who bow before the appointed servant of the physical world, to all who find the Law written on their hearts. This is the resounding message that has been blasted from the Vatican for over a decade. Communion with Rome has always been somewhat flexible, for the Church in its essence has never desired absolute uniformity. For instance, since the Schism there have been Eastern churches with completely different liturgies but still in full Communion with the Holy See. These days the notion of Communion has been expanded to a series of concentric degrees of intensity. The Church of course wishes for all streams of human activity to participate in the Sacrifice of the altar, but in cases where this is not currently possible, she offers various other means for streams to put themselves into orbit around the central mystery. Any organization or stream of human activity that upholds a commitment to respecting the infinite dignity (this is now a formally defined doctrine) of the human being is a friend of the Church (as Lazarus was a friend of Christ Jesus) who is called to collaborate toward realizing the Spirit within the world. In this regard, as I have said before, many Anthroposophical practical endeavors are in perfect alignment with this initiative and could find much synergy in working with the Church. The corresponding level of respect is what is currently often missing. One respects the Church by honoring its important tradition and by recognizing its continued importance for the universal human community.

So, to answer your question: "has the Catholic project changed anything else for you? For example, are there certain ideas from spiritual science that you have come to see as incompatible with the project?"

No, not really. I don't see the Catholic project as putting any kind of damper on Anthroposophical initiatives, as long as they aren't competing at the level of the Church. Like Ashvin has pointed out in the quote above from Steiner regarding Waldorf education, such initiatives aren't meant to be a replacement for religion; far from it. They are meant to serve the human being through an understanding of the objective spiritual dynamics of the world that are attainable through spiritual science. Tomberg's work, far from being a passive "praying from afar" type of effort, is an active bridge-building force showing how the extant streams of world evolution can arrive first at dialogue so that they can subsequently collaborate spiralingly in the spiritualization of the Earth. Tomberg refers to Christianity as the resurrection of the entire created world and all its essential spiritual streams. He shows how the RCC is an integral part of the very mechanism by which this comes to pass, resulting in the unification of all things in Christ at the most zoomed out, panoramic level. So in this Tombergian Hermeticist picture, fields of activity which lie within farther orbits from the Sun altar are provided a pathway toward approaching more closely. Some free organizations will lie on the outer periphery while others will have very close orbits, perhaps taking the form of monastic communities.

"For you personally, do you feel that the Catholic project has made you see things in such a way? That the focus should now be on Hermeticism, while the resurrection of the fields is a further stage of the project, when the replanted impulse begins to take strength within the RCC? Or more bluntly, do you think it is necessary that humanity should try to resurrect these fields through deepened life within the spiritual, even now, and even if it is outside the RCC? Or in still other words, have you lost interest in certain aspects of spiritual science, which maybe you have been enthusiastic about before, but now you see as premature or even misguided?"

So in short, no, I don't even agree with that description of Hermeticism. My view is that all existing fields of operation in which there is life should be actively brought into the fold, which in no way involves waiting around for them to crop up within the walls of the Church but will entail an increasing approach toward death and eventual resurrection, to the degree to which they wish to participate fully in the universal Christian community which exists for the time being in the mineral-physical world to which Peter has been given the keys.

I hope that answers the question and doesn't come across as dodging it.

[Federica]

From my perspective, there is certainly a tension between the Hermetic vision and the more Anthroposophical vision of establishing parallel communities and organizations that undertake scientific, religious, educational, etc. work out of deeper spiritual insights. Which is not to say this parallel track is forbidden or it is imagined there is no value to them, but that the most fruitful work will likely be seeded and emerge from within existing structures like the RCC, Catholic schools, national governments, the scientific academy, and so on.

Like Ashvin has pointed out in the quote above from Steiner regarding Waldorf education, such initiatives aren't meant to be a replacement for religion; far from it. They are meant to serve the human being through an understanding of the objective spiritual dynamics of the world that are attainable through spiritual science.

Let's not forget: everything in the Anthroposophical Society - not the association founded in 1912, but the human society of the future, growing out of an anthroposophical understanding of Life, and the Worlds - everything in the Anthroposophical Society is the means by which religious institutions, and religion itself, will become more and more replaced by humanity's direct communion with the spiritual worlds. Of course not instantly, and of course for Steiner there was still a place for teaching religion in Waldorf. This is because school should prepare youth for real life, including practical life. It shouldn't disrupt families and communities, or estrange youth from the real world around them, as it is in the present.

So let's not lose ourselves in reactionary, retrograde micro-thought. Let's not lose sight of the big picture of humanity's future, and let's not indulge in the delusion that the decadent institutions of today - academia, governments, churches - have a chance to become the carriers of the human stream into the next epoch. It is today our collective responsibility to identify the carrier within, and the communities of the future are only the ones who will facilitate this self-discovery, as a shared discovery.



PS: Good to be reassured that the "parallel track" of Anthroposophy is not forbidden (thank goodness ) and that we should not understand that there is no value in it

[AshvinP]

Let's not forget: everything in the Anthroposophical Society - not the association founded in 1912, but the human society of the future, growing out of an anthroposophical understanding of Life, and the Worlds - everything in the Anthroposophical Society is the means by which religious institutions, and religion itself, will become more and more replaced by humanity's direct communion with the spiritual worlds. Of course not instantly, and of course for Steiner there was still a place for teaching religion in Waldorf. This is because school should prepare youth for real life, including practical life. It shouldn't disrupt families and communities, or estrange youth from the real world around them, as it is in the present.

Right, so this is the attitude that Christian Hermeticism criticizes, sees as dangerous, as the eventual negation of 'spiritual science' and the foundational role of religious life, and I cannot help but agree. Everything points toward VT being correct about that. The fruits of this current version of the Anthroposophical Society speak for themselves (not well).

Whenever we try to envision the 'Catholic project' and evaluate its constraints and possibilities, we are implicitly comparing it to other projects that we feel may be the 'carrier of universal spiritual life' for the foreseeable future, and in the domain of precise supersensible research, that is only the Anthroposophical project. The more I contemplate that project, the more I begin wondering about the source of my confidence in it. I suppose some kind of detailed study would need to be undertaken across the various projects of the current Anthroposophical Society to figure out whether there is any life in its methods, if there is any novel spiritual research going on. It was Steiner's core intention for souls to develop higher spiritual vision and to grow his foundational seeds of research in medicine, agriculture, education, and so on. According to various sources, and according to my direct experience with Anthroposophical authors, this life has mostly dried up, and there is practically no such supersensible research being undertaken (although there are surely plenty of Anthroposophers who imagine they are doing "supersensible research" with their arbitrary will and imagination). I would love to be corrected on that, if only some examples could be provided.

In that case, it seems these self-contained parallel bubbles of spiritual life are destined to degenerate into little more than competing institutions that operate through the same unpurified, intellectual gestures as various religious organizations, governments, etc. Who among us truly wants to merge our spiritual life and striving with the Anthroposophical Society in its current form (which refuses to die and be reborn)? Is anyone really enthusiastic about that? Perhaps you are, Federica, and that would make a lot of sense of why you are so hostile to VT's indications. Perhaps you are understanding VT all too well in this domain, and also ignoring Steiner's indications to the contrary. Even Steiner, toward the end of his life, had grave misgivings about the Society and its capacity to fulfill the intentions of the higher worlds in our time. Let's remember that, when the conditions of the World state became dire, he desired to introduce threefolding directly into the existing state apparatus, not cultivate it in some parallel bubble. He felt later that, if that endeavor had been successful, it would have prevented the first war. We generally can't appreciate how such events on the World scene strike deeply into the hearts of the initiates, especially since we haven't lived through any such wars. WWII was, of course, even worse, and it clarified even more for VT that humanity simply cannot afford to adopt the unrealistic attitude expressed above.

[Anthony66]

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

It comes literally from Tomberg:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moral purity in one lifetime is sufficient for salvation.

Would you be able to flesh this out a little?

From a reformed "biblical" Protestant perspective, the one-life teaching is a non-negotiable and the condition for salvation is derived from the likes of Romans 10:9

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Moral purity is not the condition for salvation, rather the fruit of salvation, c.f. Ephesians 2:8-10

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Of course the whole faith/works issue has been a significant point of contention between Protestants and the RCC since the reformation. But there was the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” in 1999 where the dueling parties agreed

By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.

I'm not interested entering that particular debate but I am interested in understanding your "moral purity in some life" justification view and how you see that fitting into the declarations/dogmas of the Peter church, particular in reference to the traditional "one life salvation chance".

I personally find the eschatological perspectives discussed in this thread a far grander vision of things compared to a jaundiced "believe the right things in your one life and the salvation story is done". But trying to get my head at least partially around the dynamics of the omega point is challenging!

[AshvinP]

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

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

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

I had missed this post before until Anthony quoted it. What you have expressed is very helpful and clear. It is especially helpful to consider how these dynamics come to expression in the Gospel and Revelation images themselves, so thank you for sharing those images here.

I'm not sure if you have ever contemplated it this way before, but in a certain sense, the nature of spiritual evolution is such that the 'final judgment/resurrection' could rightly be said to happen in a 'lightning flash', as a singular event. That is because each new period of evolution is comprised of a recapitulation of all prior stages in some form until what is truly new can unfold. By the Vulcan aeon, that will be the entire evolutionary history of our Solar development. At the culmination of this recapitulatory process, it will be as if the very beginning is merging with the very end, the Alpha point with the Omega point. So, in a strange way, the dogma that takes shape at the physical-intellectual scale is an accurate reflective image of how all the stages of Creation finally metamorphose into pure Intuitive becoming, even if this relationship is almost entirely unconscious for most who adhere to the dogma. Of course, our experience of Time will be metamorphosing along this entire gradient of evolution as well. From our decohered intellectual perspective, this final resurrection is experienced as being teased apart into many sequential epochs and ages of development. We could loosely compare it to our dream process, where a singular event like a drop of water falling on our head could be experienced as a long, drawn-out, dramatic sequence of images in which we are completely entangled. 

That is not to downplay the immense problem of souls confusing the compressed dogma for the living reality of the evolutionary process. This is a problem even for esotericists, most of whom probably think of Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan as discrete stages that unfold in linear sequence and are far-off, remote realities. It is not much different than the standard Darwinian evolutionary conception, in that sense. There is simply no getting around such idolatry of spatialized and sequentialized images except through a spiritualization of the intellect. Once we begin taking steps toward the latter, however, we no longer feel any need for the already existing World content, including scientific theories and religious dogmas, to be rejected, dismissed, refuted, ignored, and so on. We don't need to tuck them away in a shadowy corner and pretend like they have nothing instructive to offer for our spiritual development, that they need to be "replaced" by more flashy esoteric words and expressions. Already through something like what you have presented above, if it is approached with genuine interest and good faith, the soul can begin to feel the dynamic relationship between horizontal stages and vertical compression embedded within the dogmas. Of course, that feeling can only be refined and expanded by living into the underlying realities through rhythmic sacramental and meditative practices, as both Steiner and VT advised throughout their works.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

Moral purity in one lifetime is sufficient for salvation.

Would you be able to flesh this out a little?

From a reformed "biblical" Protestant perspective, the one-life teaching is a non-negotiable and the condition for salvation is derived from the likes of Romans 10:9

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Moral purity is not the condition for salvation, rather the fruit of salvation, c.f. Ephesians 2:8-10

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Of course the whole faith/works issue has been a significant point of contention between Protestants and the RCC since the reformation. But there was the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification” in 1999 where the dueling parties agreed

By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.

I'm not interested entering that particular debate but I am interested in understanding your "moral purity in some life" justification view and how you see that fitting into the declarations/dogmas of the Peter church, particular in reference to the traditional "one life salvation chance".

I personally find the eschatological perspectives discussed in this thread a far grander vision of things compared to a jaundiced "believe the right things in your one life and the salvation story is done". But trying to get my head at least partially around the dynamics of the omega point is challenging!

This is an interesting line of inquiry. You're right that from a traditional perspective moral purity is not the condition for salvation. In building a Tombergian bridge between the traditional and esoteric pictures, one would need to be more nuanced with the language used so that the truth of the statement you quoted from the Joint Declaration, which underscores a crucial Catholic dogma, is upheld and reinforced. It is, after all, true at the deepest level that we owe our salvation to God alone and if our works be good, this is a testament to God's grace. Now, this truth is often (not always, but often) caricatured in Protestant and Evangelical views, devolving into the jaundiced form you mention. People are given license to basically change nothing in their lives and expect the assurance of salvation by simply proclaiming a belief. Of course belief (faith) is not simply an utterance but a condition of the soul which manifests in moral activity. But even a life of spotless moral virtue and good works fails to provide the assurance of salvation, because these things can be done outwardly without the inward, spiritual wellspring springing forth from repentance. Given this important dynamic interplay between faith and works, in the Catholic (and Orthodox) tradition salvation is never absolutely assumed but instead hoped and prayed for. When a person dies, many Protestants will say things like "X is with the Lord." A Catholic instead says, "Lord we pray that you grant X kind admittance to your kingdom. Have mercy on us all that we too might come to share in the promise of eternal life."

When we examine things from an esoteric perspective, however, we can bracket certain dogmatic aspects in order to approach the topic from a particular angle. In the bridge building exercise between the "one life" doctrine and the esoteric reality of reincarnation, we can bracket the faith/works issue, holding it in the background while we observe the manner in which one life relates morally (karmically) to the unfolding sequence of incarnations. And in this regard, Jesus's statements to Peter about the feet and head become instructive. "Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all" (John 13:8-10). We can see from this the uniquely crucial importance of establishing a purified moral foundation and Peter's special association with this fact. (Later on in the Tomb we find two angels resting by the feet and head garments of the risen Christ, further emphasizing the linked destiny of the "feet stream" and the "head stream"). In dogmatic terms we would more correctly refer to this purified moral foundation of the washed feet simply as "faith" (and moreover a faith tied essentially to humility). Esoterically speaking, achieving salvation through faith in Christ within one lifetime is the necessary prerequisite for the secure continuation of one's journey into the future, toward the promise of eternal life. The value of one lifetime therefore is infinite, as the misuse of this one lifetime could be the difference between spiritual advancement and falling out of the forward thrust of evolution altogether.

[Cleric]

This is not a Pope who has any desire whatsoever for the Church to become a world government. Those days are completely and definitively over. Rather, like Tomberg says in his book on jurisprudence: the goal is not now for the Church to become the state but for the state to become the Church. The Church of the Consciousness Soul invites all into Communion with her, promising her vital service to all who bow before the appointed servant of the physical world, to all who find the Law written on their hearts. This is the resounding message that has been blasted from the Vatican for over a decade. Communion with Rome has always been somewhat flexible, for the Church in its essence has never desired absolute uniformity. For instance, since the Schism there have been Eastern churches with completely different liturgies but still in full Communion with the Holy See. These days the notion of Communion has been expanded to a series of concentric degrees of intensity. The Church of course wishes for all streams of human activity to participate in the Sacrifice of the altar, but in cases where this is not currently possible, she offers various other means for streams to put themselves into orbit around the central mystery.

Thanks for the elaboration, Rodriel.

Let's focus on the bold and try to understand what's going on. Realistically, there could be no Church of the Consciousness Soul (in the sense of outer organization). Why is that? To answer, we first need to realize lucidly what life in the intellectual soul consists of. It is life in meaningful inner gestures that are experienced as symbols of the fuller depth of reality (for the materialist, they symbolize the dark world-in-itself, for the religious, they point to the mysterious Divine within which we live). In this way, this life leads to an inner conceptual representation of reality. It doesn't need to be abstract; it can be warmly felt, but it is nevertheless a representation woven of intuitive gestures. For this reason, before Christ can be known in his Cosmic reality, we learn to know him in thoughts; we represent the Tree of Life in our intuitive asanas. The Church can only exist in this sense. It is the intuitive representation of reality, streaming into the will and becoming the organizing principle of human affairs.

What is the life of the consciousness, or the spiritual soul? It's the awakening of the human being within the creative currents that are actually World-creating. This is the so troublesome barrier that we witness today in thinkers - the transition from intuitive representation of reality to living participation in the flow.

To this, it will be replied that the John stream is precisely about this inner flow. And this is true, yet, if it is not clear already, the whole nexus of this discussion is actually about in what relations these two souls exist and should exist in the future. Let me try to show how the development of the spiritual soul can be stimulated in different ways.

* All the geniuses of humanity, all the great people, saints, adepts, all the scientists, writers, statesmen who help the development of humanity in one direction or another, are all servants of the Great Universal Brotherhood.

* Many think that the Universal White Brotherhood is in Bulgaria... It has done Bulgaria a great honor if you think that it is here. The Universal White Brotherhood cannot choose such a small nation as its headquarters. It has chosen neither England, nor France, nor Germany, nor Russia, it has its headquarters elsewhere. The only thing that now exists in the world is the Universal White Brotherhood. All other people: writers, priests, preachers, philosophers, they are all servants of the White Brotherhood. And culture, truthfulness in the world, are always prompted by their powerful force, by their powerful spirit.

* The White Brotherhood is not something visible, it is not a sect, it is not a church, it is something living, outside these corrupt conditions in which people live. As people live now, what we have is not a brotherhood.

* A brother is one who, from his departure from God to his return to God, has been your brother throughout all his existences. Your brother is one who, through all the conditions of his life, has been ready to sacrifice himself for you. A brother is one who has loved you as himself. And he does all this not by force, but with the great consciousness of that Divine Spirit that lives in his soul. And if you all have such an ideal, only then will you be disciples and servants of this great Universal Brotherhood.

* There is one church in the world. But outside the church is the Universal White Brotherhood – it is higher than the church. But even higher than the Universal White Brotherhood is the Kingdom of God. Therefore, the church is the first step. The Universal White Brotherhood is the second step, and the Kingdom of God is the third step – the greatest that must be manifested. May the Love of God live in all hearts and minds, and when people meet, let them know that they are brothers and sisters, that they are children of one Father, one Love, one Wisdom and one Truth.

* The Church says: “You are heretics!” No, we are members of the Universal White Brotherhood, of which Christ is the head. If Christ is the head of the church, and we are disciples of this head, then we have one head, there is no reason to slander us, there is no reason to persecute us. He who is your head is also our head. – Therefore, we have one common head. You call Christ the head of the church, and we – the head of the Universal White Brotherhood. Which is a more effective word? Universal White Brotherhood is a more effective word. Because the word “brothers” means living beings, and “church” implies people of the content^†. Both are important.

^† BD often uses the terms: form, content, and meaning. These are archetypally related to body, soul, and spirit, and also form, life, and consciousness. The materialist lives in the forms, the religious lives in a world that also has content, while the initiate lives in the Intelligence that meaningfully creates the forms and fills them with content.

It is unfortunate that the term White Brotherhood in our age inevitably evokes the worst prejudices of all, but I hope that between us, this will not be an issue. White is as in White Lodge (in contrast to the black lodge). However, as BD says above, Brotherhood adds something higher to it, because now the focus is on relations between living beings and not on abstract camps (similarly to the way Anthroposophy shifts the focus on living beings from the more nebulous Theosophy).

If we are able to put aside prejudices, we should very honestly feel that such words as above make us a little uncertain, even doubting. We must understand very clearly what we're being asked for: to basically seek a center of coherence that is not of this world. Every word pushes us beyond our zone of comfort, into something that cannot be seen, cannot be found in this or that organization, nation, or church. This is the clash between the spiritual and the intellectual soul. The latter resists. It says, "But how can we ever expect to have coherence if there's no worldly structure that represents that coherence and gives it stability?" For the intellect, it feels that if the intuitive representations are taken away, everything is endangered of collapse. And in the age of the intellect, this is a fact. Yet, our task today is to understand what life in the spiritual soul demands. God supports the whole universe without any external organization. And this is what the new age calls us upon - to take part in this work that God does, where the whole organization results from inner, Cosmic relations of living beings. If Cosmic Intelligence can support the miraculous structure of the human body, should we doubt that it can also support human society and development? We should feel this differentiation very vividly. The Church is the intellectually woven order, representing the Cosmic. This is the first stage that BD speaks of. The second stage is the Universal Brotherhood of living spirits, where the order is no longer thought out in representations but is the actual flow of spiritual reality. It is woven of Intelligence. This is where the center, the head, is to be found on a more fundamental level.

It can be said, "But this is so far into the future! Until then we need the Church." Here we can refer to Steiner's quote Federica provided above. What is unimaginable today can be imminent few centuries from now. And we're already one century late! We're speaking about impulses that have flown into the World more than a hundred years ago.

The life of the future cannot be organized around the Church and hope for great results. It can only bear fruit if organized around the Living Center, which is not of this (sensory-intellectual) world. We must realize that the force that needs to organize humanity of the future can only flow from the spiritual world, through the spiritual soul, by seeking discipleship in the Universal Brotherhood, which is to serve Christ and all creation in Spirit and Truth.

We should very closely observe how our soul reacts to such things. We are predisposed to say, "This 'White Brotherhood' is so foggy. It sounds like a Luciferic cloud that seeks to suck in the souls. We should rather ground ourselves in the old and tested - the bedrock of the Church." This inner conflict is a reality. And if we don't feel it, we should look for it. Because it is there somewhere (where the bedrock can take many other different forms).

One can still say, "But even if we seek this center, that is not of this world, don't other souls still need the Church?" What they need is proper upbringing and education. We must realize that what the Church provides today will be more and more inadequate as we move forward - even for those who are not yet that far ahead in their development. How can this be? Imagine the following. If we make an analogy between development and age, we may teach children up to a certain age in Hebrew wisdom, and explain how the Messiah should one day come, and so on. Then, at a later age, when we should transition to Christianity, we say, "By the way, the Messiah was actually already here." Does this make any sense? Even if the soul is on a lower level of development, say pre-Christian, it still needs to be educated in a way compatible with the times. It cannot be spared the facts. We face something similar at the transition of the two souls. And this is really at the heart of this discussion. The desire to push the Church far into the future, even if reformed, is in reality the desire to prolong the reign of the intellectual soul as far as possible. This doesn't mean that there will be no organizations that fulfill the educational services. Yet these can only bear fruit if they flow from the spiritual world and are rightly fit for the age.

Some scientists still wonder, "Where in the body is the seat of consciousness?" This is the intellectual soul in action, which needs to feel how everything can be traced through the representations, as we can trace wires. It is something very similar when we need to feel that there should be a seat of the Christ within the world that the intellect grasps. The ability to trace in a sensory-intellectual way all the worldly events out and into this seat-organization, is the ideal of the intellectual soul. It feels secure, because when it lives in its own intuitive representational gestures, it can follow perfectly these worldly processes. Conversely, the greatest source of discomfort for the intellectual soul is to have here and there manifestations of human activity that, in a trivial sense, can be called 'spontaneous'. This is uncomfortable because the intellectual soul completely misses the thread. It cannot trace the wires. It is then filled with doubt, "How do I know where this activity manifests from? What if it comes from a Luciferic cloud? To be on the safe side, it would be better that everything manifesting in the worldly sphere should have its clearly traceable image in the wires that the senses and the intellect can grasp." Now it may be said that I'm again twisting things, that it was earlier said that the Church even today encourages free creative streams. Yes, but doesn't the fact remain that these are nevertheless still expected to somehow be traceable as united with the tangible body of the Church? Isn't this precisely the security that the intellectual soul yearns for? The latter jumps and says, "Wait, what's that stream of creative activity over there? Oh, OK... I can trace its files to relations with the Church. That's fine - it has the stamp of approval."

These things are not a trivial matter. We should realize that we are in the midst of a battlefield. Our soul is being torn in different directions, and our "I" wonders about which side to turn. Would we have the courage to seek the higher life within the fabric of the Universal Brotherhood? And have our center of life in something that is not of this world? Or we'll conclude that this is too risky? And maybe even declare that the impulse of the spiritual soul has failed? Thus, we need to use the Church as a lifeboat, safe and secure, with traceable wires leading to a clearly perceived central hub, which we convince ourselves is the perfect image of Christ, and hope that it will be able to take us to the other shore?

[Federica]

Let's not forget: everything in the Anthroposophical Society - not the association founded in 1912, but the human society of the future, growing out of an anthroposophical understanding of Life, and the Worlds - everything in the Anthroposophical Society is the means by which religious institutions, and religion itself, will become more and more replaced by humanity's direct communion with the spiritual worlds. Of course not instantly, and of course for Steiner there was still a place for teaching religion in Waldorf. This is because school should prepare youth for real life, including practical life. It shouldn't disrupt families and communities, or estrange youth from the real world around them, as it is in the present.

Right, so this is the attitude that Christian Hermeticism criticizes, sees as dangerous, as the eventual negation of 'spiritual science' and the foundational role of religious life, and I cannot help but agree. Everything points toward VT being correct about that. The fruits of this current version of the Anthroposophical Society speak for themselves (not well).

Whenever we try to envision the 'Catholic project' and evaluate its constraints and possibilities, we are implicitly comparing it to other projects that we feel may be the 'carrier of universal spiritual life' for the foreseeable future, and in the domain of precise supersensible research, that is only the Anthroposophical project. The more I contemplate that project, the more I begin wondering about the source of my confidence in it. I suppose some kind of detailed study would need to be undertaken across the various projects of the current Anthroposophical Society to figure out whether there is any life in its methods, if there is any novel spiritual research going on. It was Steiner's core intention for souls to develop higher spiritual vision and to grow his foundational seeds of research in medicine, agriculture, education, and so on. According to various sources, and according to my direct experience with Anthroposophical authors, this life has mostly dried up, and there is practically no such supersensible research being undertaken (although there are surely plenty of Anthroposophers who imagine they are doing "supersensible research" with their arbitrary will and imagination). I would love to be corrected on that, if only some examples could be provided.

In that case, it seems these self-contained parallel bubbles of spiritual life are destined to degenerate into little more than competing institutions that operate through the same unpurified, intellectual gestures as various religious organizations, governments, etc. Who among us truly wants to merge our spiritual life and striving with the Anthroposophical Society in its current form (which refuses to die and be reborn)? Is anyone really enthusiastic about that? Perhaps you are, Federica, and that would make a lot of sense of why you are so hostile to VT's indications. Perhaps you are understanding VT all too well in this domain, and also ignoring Steiner's indications to the contrary. Even Steiner, toward the end of his life, had grave misgivings about the Society and its capacity to fulfill the intentions of the higher worlds in our time. Let's remember that, when the conditions of the World state became dire, he desired to introduce threefolding directly into the existing state apparatus, not cultivate it in some parallel bubble. He felt later that, if that endeavor had been successful, it would have prevented the first war. We generally can't appreciate how such events on the World scene strike deeply into the hearts of the initiates, especially since we haven't lived through any such wars. WWII was, of course, even worse, and it clarified even more for VT that humanity simply cannot afford to adopt the unrealistic attitude expressed above.

Yes, this is the attitude that CH criticizes and sees as dangerous negation of the foundational role of religion. But it’s utterly untenable that CH sees my attitude as the negation of spiritual science. Rather, my attitude IS the attitude of Steiner’s spiritual science, and, as many times shown in this thread, VT’s Chatholic Hermeticism negates/ repudiates/ rejects/ strongly distances itself from spiritual science and its vision of the future. The abyss between the two visions of the future is impossible to camouflage through rhetoric expedients.

Now, I do not comprehend why you over and over refer to the Anthroposophical society founded in 1912, as if rebashing its failures is your only way to support your theses. Please stop bringing the AS in this conversation. This doesn’t prove or disprove anything that is under discussion. As said dozens times, I agree that the AS is not an example of community as Steiner intended it (though I don’t intend this as a generalized condemnation of their current works and initiatives, since for example Hueck and Klocek work within its framework). As much as you are right that the AS has not lived up to Steiner’s expectations, the AS is off-topic here and won't help you. I see you'd love to keep clinging to the AS failures, but this only hides the real question. Please drop it once and for all in this discussion.

This discussion is about the future, just as your thesis about the value of the RCC is about the future. But whereas you insist that the failure of the present RCC to live up to the requirements coming to present-day man from the future, will transform into a success, and must be the only home of our spiritual operations today, I don’t rely at all on the present institution of the AS. I don’t care about what the AS does or doesn’t do. It plays no role in what I am talking about. Is it clear?

Can we have something of a free vision of the future, rather than again and again fall into a trapped, institutionalized understanding of these things? Can we break free from institutions of all sorts as the carriers of man's impulse toward its future?

I am saying that the evident and pressing need that Steiner spent his entire life pinpointing for us is for the recognition of the carrier within, and at the same time for a communal intention to facilitate for all the accessibility of this recognition, and its applicability to all fields of practical life. If this shift progressively succeeds - if man accepts to work at actively meeting his future - the shift will progressively make religion a thing of the past. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the present AS. It has all to do with our collective responsibility to build new means of realizing the pressing need articulated by Steiner, and to bring it to the world, in the face of evolution's pressing requirements.

As shown, VT unfortunately pedals against this needed evolution, as he encourages his friends to abdicate the mentioned collective responsibility, doing all he can to seamlessly minimize, and covertly discredit Steiner’s practical initiatives and spiritual-scientific approach, while arguing for silence, secrecy, and inactivity within the practical fields of human activity, in the name of temperance and modesty. At a first reading of MoT, this had not stood out to my attention, as I ignored his volte-face to spiritual science. Aware of that now, I see the trajectory of his writing standing out in much more clarity.

So what will you cling to now, to argue your thesis that we need to ignore the call coming from the future and follow instead VT’s retrograde indications?

[Rodriel Gabrez]

Thanks for the elaboration, Rodriel.

Let's focus on the bold and try to understand what's going on. Realistically, there could be no Church of the Consciousness Soul (in the sense of outer organization). Why is that? To answer, we first need to realize lucidly what life in the intellectual soul consists of. It is life in meaningful inner gestures that are experienced as symbols of the fuller depth of reality (for the materialist, they symbolize the dark world-in-itself, for the religious, they point to the mysterious Divine within which we live). In this way, this life leads to an inner conceptual representation of reality. It doesn't need to be abstract; it can be warmly felt, but it is nevertheless a representation woven of intuitive gestures. For this reason, before Christ can be known in his Cosmic reality, we learn to know him in thoughts; we represent the Tree of Life in our intuitive asanas. The Church can only exist in this sense. It is the intuitive representation of reality, streaming into the will and becoming the organizing principle of human affairs.

What is the life of the consciousness, or the spiritual soul? It's the awakening of the human being within the creative currents that are actually World-creating. This is the so troublesome barrier that we witness today in thinkers - the transition from intuitive representation of reality to living participation in the flow.

To this, it will be replied that the John stream is precisely about this inner flow. And this is true, yet, if it is not clear already, the whole nexus of this discussion is actually about in what relations these two souls exist and should exist in the future. Let me try to show how the development of the spiritual soul can be stimulated in different ways.

* All the geniuses of humanity, all the great people, saints, adepts, all the scientists, writers, statesmen who help the development of humanity in one direction or another, are all servants of the Great Universal Brotherhood.

* Many think that the Universal White Brotherhood is in Bulgaria... It has done Bulgaria a great honor if you think that it is here. The Universal White Brotherhood cannot choose such a small nation as its headquarters. It has chosen neither England, nor France, nor Germany, nor Russia, it has its headquarters elsewhere. The only thing that now exists in the world is the Universal White Brotherhood. All other people: writers, priests, preachers, philosophers, they are all servants of the White Brotherhood. And culture, truthfulness in the world, are always prompted by their powerful force, by their powerful spirit.

* The White Brotherhood is not something visible, it is not a sect, it is not a church, it is something living, outside these corrupt conditions in which people live. As people live now, what we have is not a brotherhood.

* A brother is one who, from his departure from God to his return to God, has been your brother throughout all his existences. Your brother is one who, through all the conditions of his life, has been ready to sacrifice himself for you. A brother is one who has loved you as himself. And he does all this not by force, but with the great consciousness of that Divine Spirit that lives in his soul. And if you all have such an ideal, only then will you be disciples and servants of this great Universal Brotherhood.

* There is one church in the world. But outside the church is the Universal White Brotherhood – it is higher than the church. But even higher than the Universal White Brotherhood is the Kingdom of God. Therefore, the church is the first step. The Universal White Brotherhood is the second step, and the Kingdom of God is the third step – the greatest that must be manifested. May the Love of God live in all hearts and minds, and when people meet, let them know that they are brothers and sisters, that they are children of one Father, one Love, one Wisdom and one Truth.

* The Church says: “You are heretics!” No, we are members of the Universal White Brotherhood, of which Christ is the head. If Christ is the head of the church, and we are disciples of this head, then we have one head, there is no reason to slander us, there is no reason to persecute us. He who is your head is also our head. – Therefore, we have one common head. You call Christ the head of the church, and we – the head of the Universal White Brotherhood. Which is a more effective word? Universal White Brotherhood is a more effective word. Because the word “brothers” means living beings, and “church” implies people of the content^†. Both are important.

^† BD often uses the terms: form, content, and meaning. These are archetypally related to body, soul, and spirit, and also form, life, and consciousness. The materialist lives in the forms, the religious lives in a world that also has content, while the initiate lives in the Intelligence that meaningfully creates the forms and fills them with content.

It is unfortunate that the term White Brotherhood in our age inevitably evokes the worst prejudices of all, but I hope that between us, this will not be an issue. White is as in White Lodge (in contrast to the black lodge). However, as BD says above, Brotherhood adds something higher to it, because now the focus is on relations between living beings and not on abstract camps (similarly to the way Anthroposophy shifts the focus on living beings from the more nebulous Theosophy).

If we are able to put aside prejudices, we should very honestly feel that such words as above make us a little uncertain, even doubting. We must understand very clearly what we're being asked for: to basically seek a center of coherence that is not of this world. Every word pushes us beyond our zone of comfort, into something that cannot be seen, cannot be found in this or that organization, nation, or church. This is the clash between the spiritual and the intellectual soul. The latter resists. It says, "But how can we ever expect to have coherence if there's no worldly structure that represents that coherence and gives it stability?" For the intellect, it feels that if the intuitive representations are taken away, everything is endangered of collapse. And in the age of the intellect, this is a fact. Yet, our task today is to understand what life in the spiritual soul demands. God supports the whole universe without any external organization. And this is what the new age calls us upon - to take part in this work that God does, where the whole organization results from inner, Cosmic relations of living beings. If Cosmic Intelligence can support the miraculous structure of the human body, should we doubt that it can also support human society and development? We should feel this differentiation very vividly. The Church is the intellectually woven order, representing the Cosmic. This is the first stage that BD speaks of. The second stage is the Universal Brotherhood of living spirits, where the order is no longer thought out in representations but is the actual flow of spiritual reality. It is woven of Intelligence. This is where the center, the head, is to be found on a more fundamental level.

It can be said, "But this is so far into the future! Until then we need the Church." Here we can refer to Steiner's quote Federica provided above. What is unimaginable today can be imminent few centuries from now. And we're already one century late! We're speaking about impulses that have flown into the World more than a hundred years ago.

The life of the future cannot be organized around the Church and hope for great results. It can only bear fruit if organized around the Living Center, which is not of this (sensory-intellectual) world. We must realize that the force that needs to organize humanity of the future can only flow from the spiritual world, through the spiritual soul, by seeking discipleship in the Universal Brotherhood, which is to serve Christ and all creation in Spirit and Truth.

We should very closely observe how our soul reacts to such things. We are predisposed to say, "This 'White Brotherhood' is so foggy. It sounds like a Luciferic cloud that seeks to suck in the souls. We should rather ground ourselves in the old and tested - the bedrock of the Church." This inner conflict is a reality. And if we don't feel it, we should look for it. Because it is there somewhere (where the bedrock can take many other different forms).

One can still say, "But even if we seek this center, that is not of this world, don't other souls still need the Church?" What they need is proper upbringing and education. We must realize that what the Church provides today will be more and more inadequate as we move forward - even for those who are not yet that far ahead in their development. How can this be? Imagine the following. If we make an analogy between development and age, we may teach children up to a certain age in Hebrew wisdom, and explain how the Messiah should one day come, and so on. Then, at a later age, when we should transition to Christianity, we say, "By the way, the Messiah was actually already here." Does this make any sense? Even if the soul is on a lower level of development, say pre-Christian, it still needs to be educated in a way compatible with the times. It cannot be spared the facts. We face something similar at the transition of the two souls. And this is really at the heart of this discussion. The desire to push the Church far into the future, even if reformed, is in reality the desire to prolong the reign of the intellectual soul as far as possible. This doesn't mean that there will be no organizations that fulfill the educational services. Yet these can only bear fruit if they flow from the spiritual world and are rightly fit for the age.

Some scientists still wonder, "Where in the body is the seat of consciousness?" This is the intellectual soul in action, which needs to feel how everything can be traced through the representations, as we can trace wires. It is something very similar when we need to feel that there should be a seat of the Christ within the world that the intellect grasps. The ability to trace in a sensory-intellectual way all the worldly events out and into this seat-organization, is the ideal of the intellectual soul. It feels secure, because when it lives in its own intuitive representational gestures, it can follow perfectly these worldly processes. Conversely, the greatest source of discomfort for the intellectual soul is to have here and there manifestations of human activity that, in a trivial sense, can be called 'spontaneous'. This is uncomfortable because the intellectual soul completely misses the thread. It cannot trace the wires. It is then filled with doubt, "How do I know where this activity manifests from? What if it comes from a Luciferic cloud? To be on the safe side, it would be better that everything manifesting in the worldly sphere should have its clearly traceable image in the wires that the senses and the intellect can grasp." Now it may be said that I'm again twisting things, that it was earlier said that the Church even today encourages free creative streams. Yes, but doesn't the fact remain that these are nevertheless still expected to somehow be traceable as united with the tangible body of the Church? Isn't this precisely the security that the intellectual soul yearns for? The latter jumps and says, "Wait, what's that stream of creative activity over there? Oh, OK... I can trace its files to relations with the Church. That's fine - it has the stamp of approval."

These things are not a trivial matter. We should realize that we are in the midst of a battlefield. Our soul is being torn in different directions, and our "I" wonders about which side to turn. Would we have the courage to seek the higher life within the fabric of the Universal Brotherhood? And have our center of life in something that is not of this world? Or we'll conclude that this is too risky? And maybe even declare that the impulse of the spiritual soul has failed? Thus, we need to use the Church as a lifeboat, safe and secure, with traceable wires leading to a clearly perceived central hub, which we convince ourselves is the perfect image of Christ, and hope that it will be able to take us to the other shore?

Thank you for these thoughts, Cleric. I think at this point it's safe to say that we have exhaustively established the differences in our respective outlooks. Like you said a few posts ago, for the time being I'm not so sure further elaboration will take us beyond where things stand at the moment. This has been a very engaging conversation, and I really appreciate and have benefited from your very thoughtful input. And to be clear, this is not an attempt to shut down the conversation. I will probably just back off a bit.

[AshvinP]

Some scientists still wonder, "Where in the body is the seat of consciousness?" This is the intellectual soul in action, which needs to feel how everything can be traced through the representations, as we can trace wires. It is something very similar when we need to feel that there should be a seat of the Christ within the world that the intellect grasps. The ability to trace in a sensory-intellectual way all the worldly events out and into this seat-organization, is the ideal of the intellectual soul. It feels secure, because when it lives in its own intuitive representational gestures, it can follow perfectly these worldly processes. Conversely, the greatest source of discomfort for the intellectual soul is to have here and there manifestations of human activity that, in a trivial sense, can be called 'spontaneous'. This is uncomfortable because the intellectual soul completely misses the thread. It cannot trace the wires. It is then filled with doubt, "How do I know where this activity manifests from? What if it comes from a Luciferic cloud? To be on the safe side, it would be better that everything manifesting in the worldly sphere should have its clearly traceable image in the wires that the senses and the intellect can grasp." Now it may be said that I'm again twisting things, that it was earlier said that the Church even today encourages free creative streams. Yes, but doesn't the fact remain that these are nevertheless still expected to somehow be traceable as united with the tangible body of the Church? Isn't this precisely the security that the intellectual soul yearns for? The latter jumps and says, "Wait, what's that stream of creative activity over there? Oh, OK... I can trace its files to relations with the Church. That's fine - it has the stamp of approval."

It may be helpful, Cleric, if you can paint a picture of what an alternative is for the spiritual soul that desires to live in the intuitive flow and contribute the fruits of its prayerful and meditative work to the spiritualization of education, medicine, political affairs, and so on, through the tools of the intellectual soul. I'm sure you agree that BD's stream simply is not sufficient for this spiritualization of the intellect. So do you still trace the wires of Cosmic Intelligence to the Anthroposophical Society and its various endeavors in these domains? Federica says that is a separate question, but I cannot imagine any other option for those who feel quite satisfied with dismantling the Church or, at least, letting it naturally fade away into oblivion. You may say that there is no desire to dismantle the Church, but nevertheless, it's the unquestionable vision of the future in what you have expressed above. So I'm guessing you still have quite a bit of confidence in the Anthroposophical projects, despite no signs of these projects actually acting as a breeding den for clairvoyant souls. Is that confidence simply rooted in the fact that they seem to speak directly about the fact that the Messiah has already come and is here?

The interesting thing for me is that everything you have expressed above about the soul that struggles to maintain its wired connection to traceable representations and institutions on the physical plane, can be applied to the soul that seeks to maintain Anthroposophical projects as the sole hub of the direct spiritual scientific work, and acts like the ancient Hebrew in relation to the Catholic project. This soul feels like, whatever VT-Rodriel's vision is, casting aside all the pesky nuances, it must be a regression to an old mode of being. I am sure there are quite a few Rabbis who have felt the same way about Christianity. What is missed here, and what Rodriel tries to elucidate before, is that the whole relationship to the Church is transformed when the soul begins to feel at home in the inner Kingdom of Christ. Everything you are saying obviously applies to souls who seek their core stability in the traceable intellectual representations (including those of Anthroposophy), and no one has ever claimed differently, but it no longer applies to the soul that voluntarily, out of a profound sense of responsibility and a commitment to self-sacrifice, seeks to bring the Church into the future and spiritualize its representations, just as Christ spiritualized the Earth. It is only the a priori dismissal of this possibility (as 'wishful thinking', or what have you), which forces the soul to reduce the Church to its traceable intellectual representation, to fix this representation in stone, and use that as a basis for justifying its dismantling. I can think of no other reason why all of Rodriel's indications are so casually brushed aside, not even engaged with. (it reminds me of a concept in chess, where a certain pawn that is pushed by the opponent can act as a "hook", i.e., an easy target to attack - that is what it feels like when one sentence is bolded out of Rodriel's whole post, or a series of posts, and it is used as a hook "to understand what's going on")

In this respect, I am also reminded of something you wrote to Federica before, when you spoke of how humanity should reach the point where its nightlife becomes like a long meditative session:

With all this in mind, everything that we have as our modern civilization should stand before us as a riddle - how will all this be transformed? It is clear that humanity can't change overnight. We can't say "All this modern technology is Ahrimanic so we have to get rid of it in order for the world to become spiritual." But if we're to do such a thing it is not at all clear how the redemption of the sensory spectrum can be achieved. If we swiftly destroy the Internet, transportation, technology and live in small communities with local ashrams where people meditate all day, sing and pray, the Earth will transform into something like a temporary restrictive space (even if very peaceful and pleasant) that one has to endure until death. Needless to say, this can't happen because even if some part of the population would accept such a path, there will always be those who still live in the ambitious mindset of dominating the Earthly realm.

We shouldn't imagine that what lies ahead of us will be easy. Personally, I have no idea how these transformations will be possible. It's so easy to be overwhelmed by pessimism when we see how hopeless everything looks. But the fact that through the cognitive tools developed by spiritual science and even those who instinctively make their way (like Levin), we also begin to see new possibilities. In any case, our present job is to develop the spiritual soul. More and more of our perceptual world has to be grasped from the proper spiritual perspective. We need to learn to read the world with our spiritual eyes. For this reason, we have to be able to find the place of every Earthly phenomenon within the spectrum of reality. We need to understand how the phenomena work, what ideas are invested in them, what desires and so on. This is the raw material that we will work with. Higher spiritual ideas will have to meet this raw material and give it more musical forms. If we seek the spiritual by turning our sight away from the raw material, by saying that there's nothing to learn there, we enter spiritual vacuum. The spiritual has to flow into the raw material and make it pliable and docile.

So what is the riddle of the Church, how it will be transformed (or diffused, as you characterized it before)? What is its place within the spectrum of reality, and how do we give it more musical forms, or do you now feel that there is no place for it or possibility for taking more musical forms, and we (as those who seek the spiritual soul, in keeping with the times) should simply ignore it and let it fade away?