Tomberg and Anthroposophy

[AshvinP]

Steiner lectured on this aspect as well - the Church still offers souls a 'quiet place' to live alone with their thoughts and experience the process of logical thinking.

Here's another interesting quote from Steiner on this topic (and, just so it's clear, this philosophical thinking, no matter how refined, will never be sufficient for the spiritual soul until it is accompanied by an introspective orientation to how the thinking soul participates in the perceived difference between man and animal, for example):

"Now look—if today you read philosophically inspired writings of well-educated learned Catholic men you will find, in all passages where a certain point comes into question, a quite definite outlook developed; and it may be said that you find this outlook developed by the very best of these scholarly Catholics. In passing I should like to point out that I am not at all in the habit of undervaluing the literary training of the Catholic clergy for example. I quite realise (and I have spoken of this in my book Vom Menschenrätsel) the superior schooling shown in the philosophical writings of many Catholic theologians, compared with the writings of those men of philosophical learning who have not made a study of Catholic theology. In this respect one must own that the literature, the theological literature, of protestant learning, of the reformed churches, lags far behind the excellent philosophical training of Catholic theologians. Through their strict schooling these people possess a certain ability to form their concepts really plastically. They have what the famous men of non-Catholic philosophical literature, for instance, have no notion of, that is, a particular faculty of seeing into the nature of a concept, the nature of an idea, and so on. To put it briefly, these people are scholarly. One need not even take one of Haeckel's books, one can take one of Eucken's, to confirm this playing about with concepts, this dreadful treatment of the most important concepts, a treatment merely on the level of a cheap novelette! Or, to give another example, we might take one of Bergson's books that always promote the feeling that he is catching hold of concepts but is unable really to come to grips with them—like the famous Chinaman who wanting to turn round always catches hold of his pigtail. This absolute confusion in the world of concepts, shown by the people who lack training is never to be found when you come to the philosophical literature of the Catholic Clerics. Thus, for example, in this connection, a book like the three volume History of Idealism by Otto Willmann, a thorough going Catholic who makes his Catholicism evident on every opportunity, takes a much higher place than most of what is written in the realm of philosophy on the non-Catholic side. All this may be quite well recognised while still taking the standpoint that must be taken in Spiritual Science. An inferior spirit may decide differently in this matter, may perhaps be of the opinion that because good schooling is shown, the whole thing is of more value.

In this polished Catholic philosophical literature one point will always confront you, a point that has an extraordinary way of hoodwinking the modern thinker. It is the point that always comes into evidence when there is question of the difference between man and animal. I think you will agree that the ordinary readers of Haeckel, the ordinary upholders of Haeckel, always proceed to minimise the difference between man and animal as much as possible, to arouse as much belief as they can that men as a whole is only to a certain extent a more highly developed animal. This is not done by the Catholic men of learning but they always bring forward something that appears to them as a radical difference between animal and man. They raise the point that the animal gets no further than the ordinary conception it acquires of an object by first smelling it, of another object by smelling that or inspecting it, and so on; that the animal always stops at mere detailed, unindividual ideas, whereas man has the capacity for forming deduced abstract concepts and of summing things up. This is indeed a fundamental difference, for when the matter is grasped in this way man is really definitely distinguished from the animals. The animal noticing only details cannot develop what is spiritual; abstract concepts must live in the spiritual. For this reason one has to recognise that in man there lives a soul specially adapted for forming abstract concepts; whereas the animal with its particular kind of inner life has no power of forming these abstract concepts." (GA 188, L1)

[Rodriel Gabrez]

I wrote down a thought today and figured it might be pertinent to this thread:

At its core, Christianity is concerned with the manner in which eternity relates to time and what this means for the fact of embodiment. In traditional Christianity, the way to salvation is framed as a "closing-of-the-gap" between eternity by bringing the latter into the former, in effect identifying them with each other. This act does not require an awareness of the interval which lies between these points. In fact, human beings at first (immediately after Golgotha) are aided in their development specifically by this lack of awareness. However, at a certain historical moment it becomes necessary for human beings to see the horizontal process of temporal unfolding in which they are embedded and through which they are destined to "close the gap." This is where Anthroposophy comes in. The task of heralding this new impulse lay with Rudolf Steiner. Its integration into the stream that carries forward the inertia of the past (the Catholic Church and the structures of society) is a task that lies with "Unknown Friends."

[AshvinP]

I wrote down a thought today and figured it might be pertinent to this thread:

At its core, Christianity is concerned with the manner in which eternity relates to time and what this means for the fact of embodiment. In traditional Christianity, the way to salvation is framed as a "closing-of-the-gap" between eternity by bringing the latter into the former, in effect identifying them with each other. This act does not require an awareness of the interval which lies between these points. In fact, human beings at first (immediately after Golgotha) are aided in their development specifically by this lack of awareness. However, at a certain historical moment it becomes necessary for human beings to see the horizontal process of temporal unfolding in which they are embedded and through which they are destined to "close the gap." This is where Anthroposophy comes in. The task of heralding this new impulse lay with Rudolf Steiner. Its integration into the stream that carries forward the inertia of the past (the Catholic Church and the structures of society) is a task that lies with "Unknown Friends."

Thanks for sharing this thought, Rodriel. What you have described also reminds me of what we have discussed before as the 'attractive lure' of our archetypal goal state (union with the Godhead). There always remains a 'gap' between our compounded intuition of what 'we' are and what existence feels to be for us, and what it could potentially be, but which remains un-intuited and un-imagined. Within this gap takes shape the mystery of faith, i.e., the soul capacity by which we endure the eternally unknown and gradually engage with its thresholds, bringing the soul into a state of reverent receptivity and therefore to the brink of higher knowledge. I think that this faithful gap always aids inner development, and in fact, it is absolutely necessary for it, although the soul's relationship to it morphs as it grows into deeper spectrums of intuitive experience. It reminds me of a passage I recently came across in GA 67.

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA067/
"In ordinary life, we know that when we practice something repeatedly, it becomes more familiar to us. This is the power of habit. What would ordinary life be if we could not do something we are supposed to be able to do better through repetition? After all, all creation and activity in life is based on the fact that we habitually perfect ourselves.

With spiritual experiences, it is different. This is precisely what must seem so paradoxical to people. It often happens that someone undertakes exercises such as those that will be discussed later and, because the human soul always has reserve powers of the supersensible, makes good progress relatively quickly. I know many people who were able to approach the supersensible by doing the first exercises for only a relatively short time. But then they are surprised. They may have had quite significant supersensible experiences and seen something quite important. After some time, however, these experiences do not return; they cannot bring them back. For spiritual experience is precisely the opposite of ordinary practice in the outer world. In the outer world, one brings a skill to greater perfection by practicing it frequently. In spiritual vision, what we have already achieved flees from us through repetition; it becomes less and less, it goes away. Human efforts must therefore become greater and greater. This is another peculiarity of spiritual exercises: one finds the possibility of making ever greater and greater efforts to overcome the ever greater flight of the spiritual world. These things are, of course, all to be understood as something that can be overcome; but they are characteristic of the spiritual world."

Immediately after Golgotha (which finds its echo at the dawning of our individual ego consciousness), the relationship was felt as mostly an antagonistic one in which the striving for higher knowledge eventually came at the expense of maintaining the faithful gap. The intellect could explore the Divine curvatures of its existence up to a point, but then it felt any further striving as a prideful and practically vain encroachment on the holy gap. Through the ongoing incarnation of Christ in the etheric, however, the receptive soul begins to sense the luring function of the gap more keenly, as Steiner describes above. As the archetypal (eternal) potential of what existence could be continually flees, the soul can begin to feel that flight, not as a fundamental obstacle or warning sign not to go further, but as an invitation for deeper cognitive efforts that close the gap. The faithful gap remains, always, but now our perspective and relationship to it evolves. We become increasingly aware that the gap exists, to begin with, and then of the critical function it serves in our pursuit of higher knowledge.

[Federica]

I wrote down a thought today and figured it might be pertinent to this thread:

At its core, Christianity is concerned with the manner in which eternity relates to time and what this means for the fact of embodiment. In traditional Christianity, the way to salvation is framed as a "closing-of-the-gap" between eternity by bringing the latter into the former, in effect identifying them with each other. This act does not require an awareness of the interval which lies between these points. In fact, human beings at first (immediately after Golgotha) are aided in their development specifically by this lack of awareness. However, at a certain historical moment it becomes necessary for human beings to see the horizontal process of temporal unfolding in which they are embedded and through which they are destined to "close the gap." This is where Anthroposophy comes in. The task of heralding this new impulse lay with Rudolf Steiner. Its integration into the stream that carries forward the inertia of the past (the Catholic Church and the structures of society) is a task that lies with "Unknown Friends."

After some reflection, it seems to me that this vision of the "heralding" task of Rudolf Steiner (in alignment with other remarks you previously made) is an instance of what JVH described:

It's interesting because, just yesterday, I came across a book by Judith von Halle that addresses this exact way of approaching Steiner's ideas, which is, unfortunately, increasingly common in our cynical times. Perhaps she has also come across FB before

"‘Man, Steiner, where does anthroposophy go from here?’ was recently an op-ed in a journal well-known in anthroposophic circles and is a quite ‘typical’ approach. Now, why is the question of where anthroposophy goes from here directed at Rudolf Steiner? Are we not aware of our own responsibility for the future of anthroposophic work and so must blame all that is wrong with anthroposophy in our times on the human being Rudolf Steiner? Such a phrase gives the reader the impression that many a present difficulty related to anthroposophic work today is the result of this talented but also fallible human being having not thought his ideas through. At present this emphasis on the ‘humanity’ of Rudolf Steiner is related less to qualities such as love, self-sacrifice, compassion or generosity, which we would normally associate with the idea of humanity, but more in the sense of ‘human, all too human’, of perceived weaknesses and errors or to some extent problematic developments, which are to be expected of a ‘historic’ Rudolf Steiner, understood in the ‘context of his age’ as a ‘child of his times’.

Thus today we are increasingly presented with an image of Rudolf Steiner which shows a person of great merit but also with flaws; a person like you and me, with perceived weaknesses and failures, which we—as enlightened anthroposophists of the present day—have risen above and from which we know to distance ourselves at the appropriate moments. This is an ideational construction of great arrogance, since we continually help ourselves to the fruits of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual achievements (insofar as our own imperfections allow) and at the same time we place ourselves above Rudolf Steiner by thinking we can or should ‘correct’ or ‘modernize’ him or his findings on various levels—a sign that we have not in the least understood the enduring timeliness of what anthroposophy was a hundred years ago and will be in the coming centuries. The appropriating of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual discoveries while simultaneously dismantling the discoverer has become a weird expression of our sickly soul-spiritual condition. Anthroposophy is connected directly and inextricably to its founder, because ultimately it was created through him. And this does not change one bit when on their spiritual path someone becomes able to make their own discoveries independently.
...
Even when many a speech given in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s birth praises these achievements in the realm of practical life, still we often look in vain for an appreciation of what it was that rendered them possible: a living knowledge of the spiritual world. In hardly any publication at this anniversary did I find a tribute to Rudolf Steiner as a servant of the Christ and we can only marvel at the fact that on this occasion of all times Rudolf Steiner’s great contribution to the renewal of esoteric Christianity is not at the forefront. It is from precisely this truly Christian-Trinitarian source that all the impulses, for example in the educational institutions or the development of the concept of social threefolding, the ‘Christ-appropriate gestalt’ of the social order, flow! Also the first advances in the field of anthroposophic medicine or biodynamic agriculture that we are now taking would not exist without the foundations of a ‘Pauline’ spiritual knowledge. Rudolf Steiner lived in constant interchange with the spiritual hierarchies; he experienced the spiritual world. And it is only this direct experiencing of the spiritual world, in contrast to ‘intellectualizing’, which can lead to spiritual knowledge."

von Halle, Judith (2025-09-24T23:58:59.000). Rudolf Steiner, Master of the White Lodge: On his Occult Biography . Temple Lodge Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Through Tomberg we are led to see that Steiner's spiritual impulse was the important thing, not the exact form in which that impulse was delivered. Steiner was not a prophet but a genius seer. The form he gave to the impulse which flowed through him was personal and flawed but also in a sense the right form for what he needed to achieve (to send a lasting echo out into the world).
....

Do you agree (and thus disagree with JVH's critique)?

[Rodriel Gabrez]

Thanks for sharing this thought, Rodriel. What you have described also reminds me of what we have discussed before as the 'attractive lure' of our archetypal goal state (union with the Godhead). There always remains a 'gap' between our compounded intuition of what 'we' are and what existence feels to be for us, and what it could potentially be, but which remains un-intuited and un-imagined. Within this gap takes shape the mystery of faith, i.e., the soul capacity by which we endure the eternally unknown and gradually engage with its thresholds, bringing the soul into a state of reverent receptivity and therefore to the brink of higher knowledge. I think that this faithful gap always aids inner development, and in fact, it is absolutely necessary for it, although the soul's relationship to it morphs as it grows into deeper spectrums of intuitive experience. It reminds me of a passage I recently came across in GA 67.

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA067/
"In ordinary life, we know that when we practice something repeatedly, it becomes more familiar to us. This is the power of habit. What would ordinary life be if we could not do something we are supposed to be able to do better through repetition? After all, all creation and activity in life is based on the fact that we habitually perfect ourselves.

With spiritual experiences, it is different. This is precisely what must seem so paradoxical to people. It often happens that someone undertakes exercises such as those that will be discussed later and, because the human soul always has reserve powers of the supersensible, makes good progress relatively quickly. I know many people who were able to approach the supersensible by doing the first exercises for only a relatively short time. But then they are surprised. They may have had quite significant supersensible experiences and seen something quite important. After some time, however, these experiences do not return; they cannot bring them back. For spiritual experience is precisely the opposite of ordinary practice in the outer world. In the outer world, one brings a skill to greater perfection by practicing it frequently. In spiritual vision, what we have already achieved flees from us through repetition; it becomes less and less, it goes away. Human efforts must therefore become greater and greater. This is another peculiarity of spiritual exercises: one finds the possibility of making ever greater and greater efforts to overcome the ever greater flight of the spiritual world. These things are, of course, all to be understood as something that can be overcome; but they are characteristic of the spiritual world."

Immediately after Golgotha (which finds its echo at the dawning of our individual ego consciousness), the relationship was felt as mostly an antagonistic one in which the striving for higher knowledge eventually came at the expense of maintaining the faithful gap. The intellect could explore the Divine curvatures of its existence up to a point, but then it felt any further striving as a prideful and practically vain encroachment on the holy gap. Through the ongoing incarnation of Christ in the etheric, however, the receptive soul begins to sense the luring function of the gap more keenly, as Steiner describes above. As the archetypal (eternal) potential of what existence could be continually flees, the soul can begin to feel that flight, not as a fundamental obstacle or warning sign not to go further, but as an invitation for deeper cognitive efforts that close the gap. The faithful gap remains, always, but now our perspective and relationship to it evolves. We become increasingly aware that the gap exists, to begin with, and then of the critical function it serves in our pursuit of higher knowledge.

This is a wonderful connection, Ashvin. Thank you for sharing. It highlights from another angle the core insights of PoF, namely that as of the late 19th century humanity has emerged into an era of radical freedom and unprecedented responsibility. Our increasing awareness of the gap redoubles the effort necessary for closing it, which in turn further amplifies the invitation you describe (in what I have bolded above).

I have definitely noticed the pattern Steiner describes in what you've quoted from GA 67. What it causes me to wonder about is the relationship between liturgical rhythm (which Steiner elsewhere states is something that must become an increasingly prevalent feature in human activity) and repetitive practice of cognitive spiritual exercise. I don't have any immediate insights on this — it's just the first thing that comes to mind as a possibility for further exploration.

[Rodriel Gabrez]

After some reflection, it seems to me that this vision of the "heralding" task of Rudolf Steiner (in alignment with other remarks you previously made) is an instance of what JVH described:

It's interesting because, just yesterday, I came across a book by Judith von Halle that addresses this exact way of approaching Steiner's ideas, which is, unfortunately, increasingly common in our cynical times. Perhaps she has also come across FB before

"‘Man, Steiner, where does anthroposophy go from here?’ was recently an op-ed in a journal well-known in anthroposophic circles and is a quite ‘typical’ approach. Now, why is the question of where anthroposophy goes from here directed at Rudolf Steiner? Are we not aware of our own responsibility for the future of anthroposophic work and so must blame all that is wrong with anthroposophy in our times on the human being Rudolf Steiner? Such a phrase gives the reader the impression that many a present difficulty related to anthroposophic work today is the result of this talented but also fallible human being having not thought his ideas through. At present this emphasis on the ‘humanity’ of Rudolf Steiner is related less to qualities such as love, self-sacrifice, compassion or generosity, which we would normally associate with the idea of humanity, but more in the sense of ‘human, all too human’, of perceived weaknesses and errors or to some extent problematic developments, which are to be expected of a ‘historic’ Rudolf Steiner, understood in the ‘context of his age’ as a ‘child of his times’.

Thus today we are increasingly presented with an image of Rudolf Steiner which shows a person of great merit but also with flaws; a person like you and me, with perceived weaknesses and failures, which we—as enlightened anthroposophists of the present day—have risen above and from which we know to distance ourselves at the appropriate moments. This is an ideational construction of great arrogance, since we continually help ourselves to the fruits of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual achievements (insofar as our own imperfections allow) and at the same time we place ourselves above Rudolf Steiner by thinking we can or should ‘correct’ or ‘modernize’ him or his findings on various levels—a sign that we have not in the least understood the enduring timeliness of what anthroposophy was a hundred years ago and will be in the coming centuries. The appropriating of Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual discoveries while simultaneously dismantling the discoverer has become a weird expression of our sickly soul-spiritual condition. Anthroposophy is connected directly and inextricably to its founder, because ultimately it was created through him. And this does not change one bit when on their spiritual path someone becomes able to make their own discoveries independently.
...
Even when many a speech given in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner’s birth praises these achievements in the realm of practical life, still we often look in vain for an appreciation of what it was that rendered them possible: a living knowledge of the spiritual world. In hardly any publication at this anniversary did I find a tribute to Rudolf Steiner as a servant of the Christ and we can only marvel at the fact that on this occasion of all times Rudolf Steiner’s great contribution to the renewal of esoteric Christianity is not at the forefront. It is from precisely this truly Christian-Trinitarian source that all the impulses, for example in the educational institutions or the development of the concept of social threefolding, the ‘Christ-appropriate gestalt’ of the social order, flow! Also the first advances in the field of anthroposophic medicine or biodynamic agriculture that we are now taking would not exist without the foundations of a ‘Pauline’ spiritual knowledge. Rudolf Steiner lived in constant interchange with the spiritual hierarchies; he experienced the spiritual world. And it is only this direct experiencing of the spiritual world, in contrast to ‘intellectualizing’, which can lead to spiritual knowledge."

von Halle, Judith (2025-09-24T23:58:59.000). Rudolf Steiner, Master of the White Lodge: On his Occult Biography . Temple Lodge Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Through Tomberg we are led to see that Steiner's spiritual impulse was the important thing, not the exact form in which that impulse was delivered. Steiner was not a prophet but a genius seer. The form he gave to the impulse which flowed through him was personal and flawed but also in a sense the right form for what he needed to achieve (to send a lasting echo out into the world).
....

Do you agree (and thus disagree with JVH's critique)?

I actually agree very much with JVH's critique. I see the pattern she describes often. From what I can tell it's two-pronged. On the one hand, people allow themselves to fall into the pernicious postmodern tendency of viewing history's actors through the lens of personal, biographical minutiae at the expense of the much more important "spiritual biographies." For instance, today is Martin Luther King Jr. day in the United States. Over the years people have focused increasingly on his personal moral shortcomings, to the extent that a cynical attitude has developed around his legacy and the spiritual force of his mighty impulse has been blunted. The other prong is the tendency to focus so much on practical application that the enlivening spiritual activity is drained out. Hence the cherry-picking of anthroposophical methods/techniques that JVH describes, which are thought to be divorceable from Steiner's more "out there" ideas (the living core of spiritual science). This goes hand in hand with the phenomenon (which I'm sure folks here have encountered) of the non-Christian Anthroposophist. "Who needs all this Christ stuff? Just give me my biodynamic farming and shut up about the spiritual world."

I don't see the Tombergian impulse of the Unknown Friend as participating in these tendencies at all. You have successfully located one quote in a 46-page forum conversation where I brought up the issue of Steiner as a flawed human who made mistakes. While I do think it's an important detail to keep in mind (mainly for the purpose of maintaining moral creativity against the temptation to harden the words of the master into law), it's most certainly not the primary lens through which I view Steiner. The Tombergian impulse, as I have attempted to portray and advocate for it, is about strategy, and moreover, a strategy which honors, retains, and propagates the spiritual essence of Anthroposophy. This is a different thing entirely to the efforts of the those who wish to jettison elements of Anthroposophy's spiritual makeup, so to speak.

[AshvinP]

This goes hand in hand with the phenomenon (which I'm sure folks here have encountered) of the non-Christian Anthroposophist. "Who needs all this Christ stuff? Just give me my biodynamic farming and shut up about the spiritual world."

Along with this, and although JVH doesn't mention it explicitly in the book, I think she had in mind the tendency to "modernize" Steiner by questioning his observations on racial differences (or similar things) and attributing it mostly to him being a 'child of the times'. That is exemplified in the Karp article thread that Federica shared, which originally prompted me to share the quote, especially the comments by MS and JF. Such critical tendencies reflect a much deeper misorientation toward what Steiner is doing through spiritual science.

On the other hand, there is still room for criticizing specific formulations of Steiner, which we did on another thread with respect to his observations on the physical nature of motor nerves and blood flow, for example. Without the possibility of such healthy criticism and refinement of the spiritual observations, we would not be dealing with a science but a dogmatic framework. The key here, and I think this is true for JVH's view on it as well, is that the criticism should be born of the desire to better orient toward the higher cognitive spectrum from which the spiritual observations are expressed. It should be rooted in a deeper participatory engagement with that spectrum rather than intellectual speculation about cultural circumstances, 'blind spots', and so on.

[Federica]

I actually agree very much with JVH's critique. I see the pattern she describes often. From what I can tell it's two-pronged. On the one hand, people allow themselves to fall into the pernicious postmodern tendency of viewing history's actors through the lens of personal, biographical minutiae at the expense of the much more important "spiritual biographies." For instance, today is Martin Luther King Jr. day in the United States. Over the years people have focused increasingly on his personal moral shortcomings, to the extent that a cynical attitude has developed around his legacy and the spiritual force of his mighty impulse has been blunted. The other prong is the tendency to focus so much on practical application that the enlivening spiritual activity is drained out. Hence the cherry-picking of anthroposophical methods/techniques that JVH describes, which are thought to be divorceable from Steiner's more "out there" ideas (the living core of spiritual science). This goes hand in hand with the phenomenon (which I'm sure folks here have encountered) of the non-Christian Anthroposophist. "Who needs all this Christ stuff? Just give me my biodynamic farming and shut up about the spiritual world."

I don't see the Tombergian impulse of the Unknown Friend as participating in these tendencies at all. You have successfully located one quote in a 46-page forum conversation where I brought up the issue of Steiner as a flawed human who made mistakes. While I do think it's an important detail to keep in mind (mainly for the purpose of maintaining moral creativity against the temptation to harden the words of the master into law), it's most certainly not the primary lens through which I view Steiner. The Tombergian impulse, as I have attempted to portray and advocate for it, is about strategy, and moreover, a strategy which honors, retains, and propagates the spiritual essence of Anthroposophy. This is a different thing entirely to the efforts of the those who wish to jettison elements of Anthroposophy's spiritual makeup, so to speak.

I completely agree that Tomberg’s attitude towards Steiner (even as it changed in his last years) is certainly not an instance of what JVH describes.

What I connect with the tendency of treating Steiner as “a ‘historic’ Rudolf Steiner, understood in the ‘context of his age’ as a ‘child of his times’” (in JVH's words) is the “heralding” character of his task, as you have repeatedly described it. Which seems to signify - upon double-checking the Merriam Webster - that Steiner was the mere announcer, or prefigurer, of the new impulse which would later come for real, with the Unknown Friends. It's Steiner's "blowing of the trumpet" (as you have put it before).

Perhaps understandably, I am never particularly pleased, or in agreement, when it is repeated that Steiner’s role was basically that of the pompom girl of the new impulse.
To me it indicates a serious misunderstanding of his role and figure, of what he is, and is doing in the world.

[Federica]

I would like to add another thing, Rodriel. It's an invitation.

As it seems to me, you have grown disinterested in foundational phenomenological work. It would be great if I'm mistaken, please correct me if appropriate, but when it comes to this forum, you have shown clear disinterest in the phenomenological work we try to cope with in all threads. Even in this one thread, you have shared your thoughts, but have systematically dodged the soft invitations received from various sides. You may be thinking, "been there, done that back in the day, now I've found home in the real work, now I'm part of the real task as an Unknown Friend. No need to digress with the basics anymore. I'm doing more advanced spiritual exercises now, working with stream integration now". I see this disinterest as closely correlated with your view of Steiner as representative of the now historically closed task of blowing the trumpet, foreshadowing, heralding, and hailing at the coming of the new impulse lying with Unknown Friends.

Evidently, in my view this is the expression of personal preferences. But in any case, for an Unknown Friend fully faithful to Tomberg's legacy, isn't it true that nothing of the knowledge of the higher worlds one may attain can be taken for granted without serious risks? Isn't it the case that nothing of one's participation in these worlds can be retained as an ideal private island where to plant the high flagpole of spirit-land? And no real cognitive exploration aiming to sense-freedom is too basic, or passé, to be fully relevant and pertinent to all our life threads - not true?

If you agree, I am joining my invitation to the numerous ones, softer ones, you have received and so far quietly declined. Would you begin to unballast the ballasts of layers of indirection with us, and join in our efforts to directly investigate the inner facts? It would be great and very welcomed if you could.

[AshvinP]

This is a wonderful connection, Ashvin. Thank you for sharing. It highlights from another angle the core insights of PoF, namely that as of the late 19th century humanity has emerged into an era of radical freedom and unprecedented responsibility. Our increasing awareness of the gap redoubles the effort necessary for closing it, which in turn further amplifies the invitation you describe (in what I have bolded above).

I have definitely noticed the pattern Steiner describes in what you've quoted from GA 67. What it causes me to wonder about is the relationship between liturgical rhythm (which Steiner elsewhere states is something that must become an increasingly prevalent feature in human activity) and repetitive practice of cognitive spiritual exercise. I don't have any immediate insights on this — it's just the first thing that comes to mind as a possibility for further exploration.

I have noticed the pattern as well, and in fact, what he describes sounds like he is giving an account of my personal meditative experience. In the first few months and especially weeks after my characteristic 'inner clicking' with meditation, there seemed to be a steady flow of revelatory experiences. Alas, those vivid experiences quickly faded after a few months, even though I maintained or even increased the time spent with exercises.

It may sound odd to say the spirit flees from repetitive practice, because how else can we make progress without repetitive exercise? It's not so much about avoiding repetitive exercises, but simultaneously cultivating a new inner context that engages with the exercise through cognitive-moral efforts. Again, once we orient to the luring function of the faithful gap, I think we begin experiencing this fleeing of the spirit as something necessary in the evolutionary flow and that which invites our radical freedom and unprecedented responsibility, as you say. The key is that we avoid forming rigid expectations and habits with respect to the exercises as much as possible, like we are used to when developing sensory skills. That is where the inner forces of patience, persistence, humility, reverence, devotion, prayerfulness, and so on become indispensable. We have to make peace with the fact that we are dealing with an inner terrain that escapes our ordinary mental movements by which we conveniently memorize, accumulate, and recall facts of experience. I was actually kind of surprised when I first read the following from Steiner:

"There is something else that comes into play. If, as spiritual researchers, we have grasped something of these things and try to approach what we have now gained with untrained thinking, untrained in spiritual science but well trained in natural science, then what we have gained becomes confused. It is indeed as if that which is so wonderfully applicable to external nature were to drive away that which human beings can bring forth from within themselves through their own being. In addition, human beings are very easily inclined to bring their desires, cravings, and prejudices into the results of soul research, to color what should be objective with their imagination, just as objective as the results in the field of natural science should be. All of this creates obstacle after obstacle. And anyone who wants to know how to actually approach the spirit does not really need to apply specific exercises to bring out certain abilities hidden in the soul; for if you give them freedom, if you let them act as they wish, they will come of their own accord; they only fail to come for the reasons mentioned above. A large part of the effort required in the exercises comes from the need to overcome the obstacles just mentioned. "


Of course, by this, he does not mean we can do away with meditative exercises and passively wait for higher knowledge to arrive. Rather, he is offering a different perspective on what we should be inwardly doing within the meditative process. It's not about forcefully reaching out to grab higher insights and cobble concepts together, as we become accustomed to with our intellectual-sensory movements, but about cultivating a strong presence of mind within the flow and purifying the soul of its inner obstacles. I think that relates to what you have mentioned about the liturgical rhythm. There is repetition in a lower and the higher sense, just as there is imitation in a lower and higher sense (are we imitating familiar Earthly personalities, or Christ?). When we work with the rhythms instilled by the initiates in full consciousness (self-aware of what we are doing), we are integrating a repetitive pattern that remains receptive to truly novel and unsuspected insights. Along with strengthening our thinking-will, we remain receptive by purifying the soul of the selfish qualities that constrain the imagination and continually obscure the true dynamics of the Inner Flow.

This applies not only to the liturgical rhythm, but our everyday rhythm as well. The days of the week were also fashioned by the initiates. The difference, as usual, between repetition in the lower and higher sense, resides in how we integrate the rhythms and allow them to harmonize or clash with our soul movements. If we follow the rhythms with a mechanical necessity, forming rigid expectations and entitlements along the way, then we are like the person imitating the appearance and speech of a popular celebrity to mold our personality. On the other hand, if we voluntarily engage with the rhythms out of love for the inner process that instilled them, remaining patiently receptive to what higher insights they may offer, then we are imitating Christ.