Rudolf Steiner: Vaccines to Kill The Soul?!

[Jim Cross]

My interest here is not the virus per se but the so-called "prism," which suggests that we have entered an era of accelerated novelty known as 'paradigm change' or 'phase shift' or 'great initiation' or whatever descriptor you favor. If novelty is truly the new normal, then so will be uncertainty, which is the handmaiden of the new birth. The challenge is to hold a calm balance rather than a culture war. The promise of the child is great and so are the tricks and traps of inevitable domestication, peer acceptance/rejection, personal ontological security/insecurity, etc. In future times, one's comfort with mask-wearing (for example) may boil down to whatever the child is taught now. IF covid follows a flu-like pattern it will settle into a culturally accepted normal including substantial vax and protection, sizable non-compliance and less political saliency. I'm not minimizing the risks, challenges and dangers but instead suggesting a general trend into more and more novel uncertainties. Personally, I've been focusing on how to comfortably hold/accept the Great Mysteriousness AND be aware of the time-honored aphorism, "Trust in Allah and tie up your camel."

Prism also means something that distorts.

I think we are on a hike and we think the destination is right over the next hill but every time we cross a hill there is just another hill. We don't live in exceptional times although probably every age thinks it does.

[Lou Gold]

My interest here is not the virus per se but the so-called "prism," which suggests that we have entered an era of accelerated novelty known as 'paradigm change' or 'phase shift' or 'great initiation' or whatever descriptor you favor. If novelty is truly the new normal, then so will be uncertainty, which is the handmaiden of the new birth. The challenge is to hold a calm balance rather than a culture war. The promise of the child is great and so are the tricks and traps of inevitable domestication, peer acceptance/rejection, personal ontological security/insecurity, etc. In future times, one's comfort with mask-wearing (for example) may boil down to whatever the child is taught now. IF covid follows a flu-like pattern it will settle into a culturally accepted normal including substantial vax and protection, sizable non-compliance and less political saliency. I'm not minimizing the risks, challenges and dangers but instead suggesting a general trend into more and more novel uncertainties. Personally, I've been focusing on how to comfortably hold/accept the Great Mysteriousness AND be aware of the time-honored aphorism, "Trust in Allah and tie up your camel."

Prism also means something that distorts.

I think we are on a hike and we think the destination is right over the next hill but every time we cross a hill there is just another hill. We don't live in exceptional times although probably every age thinks it does.

Ah Jim, the forever contrarian. Surely every image describes/distorts. But, NO, 'prism' does not mean distorts. It means reveals the results of fragmentation, such as splaying light into a full color spectrum. In other words, it brings into view the results of refraction and projection of a form of separation.

Have you ever literally seen, in normal ordinary perception, the end of the rainbow? It's profound.

Yes, new horizons are unending. My sense is that something is speeding up or being revealed more intensely. Perhaps your personal experience of our muddling along "hill-to-hill" is a pretty constant "same old, same old." I'm interested in knowing if this truly is how it is for you?

[Lou Gold]

Some day we will end up in a different place. That place may be the Borg world or it may be a world of Bodhisattvas. I would prefer the latter so I would be interested in hearing good ideas on how to get there from where we are that are more than magical thinking.

We can practice union in every way that we can wherever we are. Best to be prepared for a long challenging work. So be it.

[Soul_of_Shu]

I'm glad you have provided this perspective.
So you can't stop the march of the machine. The machine may stop itself if we mess up badly enough but, otherwise, it will keep going through crises after crises. Some day we will end up in a different place. That place may be the Borg world or it may be a world of Bodhisattvas. I would prefer the latter so I would be interested in hearing good ideas on how to get there from where we are that are more than magical thinking.

These are profound points and inquiries. Honestly I don't have a good answer, only some intuitive dreamlike inklings. And what I'm now realizing, with Cleric's pointings, is that to conceive good answers there first has to be a profound understanding of idea construction, for the 'machine' too is idea construction, which now conceived, as you say, there's no turning back. In that regard, as it currently is, we are idea beings wandering, and pretty much lost, in an ever-evolving, shape-shifting labyrinth, with no good understanding of how we got there, or how or where it's evolving, even as we've co-conceived it. Is idea construction 'magical' Thinking? Perhaps so, and we as the ever-present Sourcerer's (punster that I am) ideating apprentices had best learn how to work and play in sync with it. Now back to Cleric, who may now be ideating about the centre of the centre of the central topic

[Jim Cross]

Lou.

Not same-old, same-old but different-new, different-new.

Shu,

Compare the effect on the world of the computer, Christianity (or Islam or Buddhism), writings of Steiner, a random daydream.

The computer has had effects well beyond its idea. Nobody could have predicted YouTube directly from the idea of the computer. Religions are based on ideas but only have effect as they mobilize people and change behaviors. Steiner's writings have an effect but they mobilize fewer people so the effect is less than that of a major religion. A random daydream comes and goes with little or no effect on the world.

To have effect ideas must be actualized. Ideas by themselves will not have an effect. Technology, which is the externalization of ideas, can surpass its own idea.

[AshvinP]

Lou.

Not same-old, same-old but different-new, different-new.

Shu,

Compare the effect on the world of the computer, Christianity (or Islam or Buddhism), writings of Steiner, a random daydream.

The computer has had effects well beyond its idea. Nobody could have predicted YouTube directly from the idea of the computer. Religions are based on ideas but only have effect as they mobilize people and change behaviors. Steiner's writings have an effect but they mobilize fewer people so the effect is less than that of a major religion. A random daydream comes and goes with little or no effect on the world.

To have effect ideas must be actualized. Ideas by themselves will not have an effect. Technology, which is the externalization of ideas, can surpass its own idea.

Jim,

Every institution you encounter in the Western world (which practically encompasses the entire globe now), including all universities and scientific organizations, is grounded in Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian ideas, and those ideas will continue to have influence regardless of what happens specifically to machine technology. The real question here is which one is necessary for the other. Ideas are necessary for computers (and everything else you experience), computers are not necessary for ideas.

[Lou Gold]

Lou.

Not same-old, same-old but different-new, different-new.

Shu,

Compare the effect on the world of the computer, Christianity (or Islam or Buddhism), writings of Steiner, a random daydream.

The computer has had effects well beyond its idea. Nobody could have predicted YouTube directly from the idea of the computer. Religions are based on ideas but only have effect as they mobilize people and change behaviors. Steiner's writings have an effect but they mobilize fewer people so the effect is less than that of a major religion. A random daydream comes and goes with little or no effect on the world.

To have effect ideas must be actualized. Ideas by themselves will not have an effect. Technology, which is the externalization of ideas, can surpass its own idea.

OK. Thanks Jim. I have no reason to challenge your experience as yours but I will note that it seems rather like "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose," which offers nothing novel, just history repeating itself.

My take is that globalization with its concomitant planetary boundaries is producing something profoundly new, namely limits that will force or drive changes at the species level. In my view you are correct to the extent you are saying "different human, different technology." Cyborgs are becoming actual-factual-real. This would surely be, in my view, a difference making the difference. But I don't know that you are saying this from your perspective. Is it the way it is for you?

[Jim Cross]

Lou.

Not same-old, same-old but different-new, different-new.

Shu,

Compare the effect on the world of the computer, Christianity (or Islam or Buddhism), writings of Steiner, a random daydream.

The computer has had effects well beyond its idea. Nobody could have predicted YouTube directly from the idea of the computer. Religions are based on ideas but only have effect as they mobilize people and change behaviors. Steiner's writings have an effect but they mobilize fewer people so the effect is less than that of a major religion. A random daydream comes and goes with little or no effect on the world.

To have effect ideas must be actualized. Ideas by themselves will not have an effect. Technology, which is the externalization of ideas, can surpass its own idea.

Jim,

Every institution you encounter in the Western world (which practically encompasses the entire globe now), including all universities and scientific organizations, is grounded in Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian ideas, and those ideas will continue to have influence regardless of what happens specifically to machine technology. The real question here is which one is necessary for the other. Ideas are necessary for computers (and everything else you experience), computers are not necessary for ideas.

Somewhat agree. But you also need to consider the effect of technology on universities and scientific institutions. I'm using technology in the broadest sense - written language, printing, measuring devices, libraries, up through digital technology. Without technology - written language, for example - some of those might not even exist and others would exist in vastly altered and more limited forms.

[Jim Cross]

Lou.

Not same-old, same-old but different-new, different-new.

Shu,

Compare the effect on the world of the computer, Christianity (or Islam or Buddhism), writings of Steiner, a random daydream.

The computer has had effects well beyond its idea. Nobody could have predicted YouTube directly from the idea of the computer. Religions are based on ideas but only have effect as they mobilize people and change behaviors. Steiner's writings have an effect but they mobilize fewer people so the effect is less than that of a major religion. A random daydream comes and goes with little or no effect on the world.

To have effect ideas must be actualized. Ideas by themselves will not have an effect. Technology, which is the externalization of ideas, can surpass its own idea.

OK. Thanks Jim. I have no reason to challenge your experience as yours but I will note that it seems rather like "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose," which offers nothing novel, just history repeating itself.

My take is that globalization with its concomitant planetary boundaries is producing something profoundly new, namely limits that will force or drive changes at the species level. In my view you are correct to the extent you are saying "different human, different technology." Cyborgs are becoming actual-factual-real. This would surely be, in my view, a difference making the difference. But I don't know that you are saying this from your perspective. Is it the way it is for you?

I agree mostly but I don't our time is all that unique. Humans careen from crises to crises with a little peace and calm in between.

[Lou Gold]

OK. Thanks Jim. I have no reason to challenge your experience as yours but I will note that it seems rather like "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose," which offers nothing novel, just history repeating itself.

My take is that globalization with its concomitant planetary boundaries is producing something profoundly new, namely limits that will force or drive changes at the species level. In my view you are correct to the extent you are saying "different human, different technology." Cyborgs are becoming actual-factual-real. This would surely be, in my view, a difference making the difference. But I don't know that you are saying this from your perspective. Is it the way it is for you?

I agree mostly but I don't our time is all that unique. Humans careen from crises to crises with a little peace and calm in between.

OK. Nothing unique about emergent planetary awareness and its challenges/opportunities, just careening through crisis and calm. Is this what you deeply feel should be taught to the children? Or, are you simply noting that change and challenge have broadly similar pendular cycles? If the latter, is there for you any personal meaning or purpose in it?