Whirlpool's core/first motion

[AshvinP]

The esoteric understanding requires us to approach what is completely unfamiliar and unsuspected to our normal waking intellect. If we feel that we can pluck out a verse and, only with our modern flattened, prosaic concepts, transport our consciousness into that of inspired writers 3,000 years ago, with a deep understanding of the spiritual landscape at that time, then we are surely trapped within the modern mind-container perspective. The worst outcome of this is that, when we assume to have already encompassed the many layers of deeper meaning within the text with our exoteric concepts, we rest comfortable and lose all motivation to actually seek out that deeper meaning. We pronounce judgments on the higher worlds without even consciously experiencing their lowest reaches.

Ashvin,

Your response here from last month does not sit well with me. Why are you giving all the biblical writings a free pass and granting them the status of coming from "inspired writers"? Sure they were written at a different time and we have to work hard to grasp the layers of meaning, but passages like the Numbers 31 are abominable by any ethical standard worthy of consideration. We don't need any higher cognition to make this judgement. We know that many societies of old held women to be lesser, properties of men. A blanket acceptance of all scripture as inspired is the stuff of the fundamentalists. Are not some of the influences upon the biblical writers (and all of us for that matter) aligned more with what we might consider diabolical?

Anthony,

The issue is more like this - why does Numbers 31 matter?, as an isolated passage? It actually doesn't mean anything. Certainly not anything which sheds light on ancient spiritual consciousness and evolution. Just like isolated sense experiences, isolated concepts can be used to justify whatever forgone conclusion we started out with. You are openly starting out with your various anti-Christian evangelical conclusions, which are also wrapped up in your understanding of the Old Testament.

I'm not giving anyone a free pass, but simply asking you to keep an open mind, free from intellectual prejudments, when approaching the deepest depths of human existence. When you take the prejudicial approach, you are only using it to erect barriers to your own higher thinking development and/or derive premature conclusions, like that passages which don't sit well with your current ethical perspective must have been inspried by demons. Even if that's true, what possible value do you gain from that little factoid? It leads you no closer to a holistic understanding of the actual spiritual forces which are still working in your consciousness today. That is the aim here, and studying scripture, or any other ancient texts and traditions, should only be a tool towards that aim.

[Anthony66]

The esoteric understanding requires us to approach what is completely unfamiliar and unsuspected to our normal waking intellect. If we feel that we can pluck out a verse and, only with our modern flattened, prosaic concepts, transport our consciousness into that of inspired writers 3,000 years ago, with a deep understanding of the spiritual landscape at that time, then we are surely trapped within the modern mind-container perspective. The worst outcome of this is that, when we assume to have already encompassed the many layers of deeper meaning within the text with our exoteric concepts, we rest comfortable and lose all motivation to actually seek out that deeper meaning. We pronounce judgments on the higher worlds without even consciously experiencing their lowest reaches.

Ashvin,

Your response here from last month does not sit well with me. Why are you giving all the biblical writings a free pass and granting them the status of coming from "inspired writers"? Sure they were written at a different time and we have to work hard to grasp the layers of meaning, but passages like the Numbers 31 are abominable by any ethical standard worthy of consideration. We don't need any higher cognition to make this judgement. We know that many societies of old held women to be lesser, properties of men. A blanket acceptance of all scripture as inspired is the stuff of the fundamentalists. Are not some of the influences upon the biblical writers (and all of us for that matter) aligned more with what we might consider diabolical?

Anthony,

The issue is more like this - why does Numbers 31 matter?, as an isolated passage? It actually doesn't mean anything. Certainly not anything which sheds light on ancient spiritual consciousness and evolution. Just like isolated sense experiences, isolated concepts can be used to justify whatever forgone conclusion we started out with. You are openly starting out with your various anti-Christian evangelical conclusions, which are also wrapped up in your understanding of the Old Testament.

I'm not giving anyone a free pass, but simply asking you to keep an open mind, free from intellectual prejudments, when approaching the deepest depths of human existence. When you take the prejudicial approach, you are only using it to erect barriers to your own higher thinking development and/or derive premature conclusions, like that passages which don't sit well with your current ethical perspective must have been inspried by demons. Even if that's true, what possible value do you gain from that little factoid? It leads you no closer to a holistic understanding of the actual spiritual forces which are still working in your consciousness today. That is the aim here, and studying scripture, or any other ancient texts and traditions, should only be a tool towards that aim.

Coming back to this after yet again being confronted by the dark side of the OT/NT, it matters because passages like Numbers 31 are in no sense isolated. The bible portrays deity in a light that is in considerable tension with one's deepest moral intuitions with the condoning of genocide, slavery, child sacrifice, misogyny and disproportionate justice. I would suggest the pervasiveness of such things sheds considerable light on the ancient spiritual consciousness. And it's not all pretty.

I recognize those same dark forces acting in my consciousness and they must be transformed. The study of scripture surely can't entertain all that is depicted as deity as something to aspire to. One can understand Marcion's dualistic project to identify the good God of the NT and the evil God of the OT although Revelation has some horrific stuff as well.

[Federica]

(...)

The following is excerpted from an essay on a somewhat different topic, but it fits well at this point of the thread, I believe:

I don’t want to seem to have danced around the fundamental issue by merely citing this or that verse from the Gospels and syllogizing that “because the Gospels are all in agreement, then anything that agrees with one part of one Gospel therefore agrees with the whole of them.” After all, “the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose,” as Antonio reminds us (10), and moreover the Gospels do not even agree amongst themselves in all their parts, as everyone who has read them is most certainly aware and as the writers probably were too.

The Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Plato

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

Your response here from last month does not sit well with me. Why are you giving all the biblical writings a free pass and granting them the status of coming from "inspired writers"? Sure they were written at a different time and we have to work hard to grasp the layers of meaning, but passages like the Numbers 31 are abominable by any ethical standard worthy of consideration. We don't need any higher cognition to make this judgement. We know that many societies of old held women to be lesser, properties of men. A blanket acceptance of all scripture as inspired is the stuff of the fundamentalists. Are not some of the influences upon the biblical writers (and all of us for that matter) aligned more with what we might consider diabolical?

Anthony,

The issue is more like this - why does Numbers 31 matter?, as an isolated passage? It actually doesn't mean anything. Certainly not anything which sheds light on ancient spiritual consciousness and evolution. Just like isolated sense experiences, isolated concepts can be used to justify whatever forgone conclusion we started out with. You are openly starting out with your various anti-Christian evangelical conclusions, which are also wrapped up in your understanding of the Old Testament.

I'm not giving anyone a free pass, but simply asking you to keep an open mind, free from intellectual prejudments, when approaching the deepest depths of human existence. When you take the prejudicial approach, you are only using it to erect barriers to your own higher thinking development and/or derive premature conclusions, like that passages which don't sit well with your current ethical perspective must have been inspried by demons. Even if that's true, what possible value do you gain from that little factoid? It leads you no closer to a holistic understanding of the actual spiritual forces which are still working in your consciousness today. That is the aim here, and studying scripture, or any other ancient texts and traditions, should only be a tool towards that aim.

Coming back to this after yet again being confronted by the dark side of the OT/NT, it matters because passages like Numbers 31 are in no sense isolated. The bible portrays deity in a light that is in considerable tension with one's deepest moral intuitions with the condoning of genocide, slavery, child sacrifice, misogyny and disproportionate justice. I would suggest the pervasiveness of such things sheds considerable light on the ancient spiritual consciousness. And it's not all pretty.

I recognize those same dark forces acting in my consciousness and they must be transformed. The study of scripture surely can't entertain all that is depicted as deity as something to aspire to. One can understand Marcion's dualistic project to identify the good God of the NT and the evil God of the OT although Revelation has some horrific stuff as well.

Anthony,

I actually wrote a few paragraphs as an intro to the following quote, but forgot to copy it and then lost the post because I wasn't signed in. Here are the bullet points:

- The OT passages are not isolated, but our modern concepts of what they mean.
- We need to view the OT, NT, and Apocalypse as an evolving spiritual organism.
- There are ways in which a one-sided OT 'group-soul' consciousness (or, likewise, an ancient Indian, Persian, Egyptian, or Greco-Roman consciousness) can manifest as evil in modern times, particularly in the context of race relations, tribalism, nationalism, etc.
- The remedy to this one-sided tendency is not to further exacerbate the division of OT and NT, good and evil, or any other polar relation, but to discern how they are at work within a unified organism and how, through their harmonious balance, our individual and collective streams of becoming advance towards Divine ideals.
- This requires a delve into the living details of our soul-spiritual history without passion or prejudice. We have to at least put on "pause" our intellectual habit of projecting modern prejudices (prejudgments) onto the objects of inquiry. We can say, "I am going to forget everything that I thought I knew about this topic and approach it with fresh eyes and pure logical thinking." This may take us in all sorts of unsuspected directions that we normally consider "tangents", so we need to remain patient and open throughout the whole process.
- It is not about grasping all the details, but the overarching ideal context in which the details appear and through which they flow.
- We shouldn't expect to understand this context immediately, but can hold it fluidly in our consciousness, soaking it in.
-The below will be hard to follow at first, but we can simply try to perceive the overall ideal context and then gain a more precise resolution over time.

Because of the “fall of the angels” (the process through which luciferic angels became luciferic doubles), the human astral body became, as we have said, detached from guidance of the gods. This was manifested as egoism, a quality that, toward the end of the Lemurian epoch, mastered the human individual with the intensity of a natural force. Humankind would have succumbed entirely to this egoism if the hierarchies of good had not struck back. This involved the creation—from below, out of the human etheric and physical nature—of a countercurrent that opposed the egoism flowing down from the human astral nature and “I” being. In the depths of the human subconscious, a force was planted that restored the balance needed for the evolution of a free I-being. If the elemental force of love had not been planted in human beings, we would have completely succumbed to the elemental force of egoism. Through the luciferic impulse, humankind receives a strong tendency toward self-esteem; through the Yahweh impulse, we receive an equally strong tendency to esteem others. For it was Yahweh Elohim who planted the capacity for love in earthly human nature, whereby we are able to focus not only on ourselves, but also on others. To counterbalance the luciferic tendency toward self, the “Thou” tendency sprang up in humankind, receiving its impetus from Yahweh Elohim.

We may consider how crudely egoistic human beings would have become if husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters and relatives had not been able to love one another—in short, if individuals, surrounded by an abstract “humanity,” had only a living self-interest. Owing to the earthly activity of Yahweh Elohim in the earliest days, long before the Christ event, humankind became capable of sacrifice; it was Yahweh Elohim who infused the faculty of love into the human bloodstream... We can never understand the spirit of the Old Testament if we misrepresent the historical significance of Yahweh as the opponent of Lucifer on Earth. This is exactly what distinguishes the Bible from the sacred writings of other civilizations (for instance, the sacred writings of India); in style, form, and content, it is free of luciferic influence...

The Bible, however, is also distinguished from Eastern scriptures by its content. The ascetic, world-renouncing character, which is a feature of both Eastern and Early Christian ecclesiastical literature, is entirely absent in the Bible. No prophet or Old Testament hero is an ascetic in the Eastern or Christian ecclesiastical sense. The mortification of desires is not regarded as having the slightest value in the Bible; rather, it esteems the subordination of desire to high and distant ideals. There is, indeed, in the Bible a kind of asceticism, but it is an asceticism of the soul, a purely moral kind. It involves subordinating one’s personal inclinations to the call of duty. Fear, anger, and self-indulgence must be overcome in order to accomplish acts that will hasten the fulfillment of Israel’s mission. This is why the Israelites were a peaceful race. They hated war and had a horror of bloodshed. And yet this race waged wars of annihilation against those who followed corrupt cults. This—overcoming of one’s own interests for the sake of objective requirements—is asceticism in the biblical sense. Only this kind of asceticism is free of the luciferic impulse, from which asceticism in the usual sense is never free.
...
True Christian asceticism, therefore, can be found only in the history of the Grail line, which began with Joseph of Arimathea and ended with Lohengrin, not in the cells of the monks and hermits of the Eastern and Western Catholic churches. Similarly, the asceticism of the Bible is higher than what is contemplated in the Upanishads and Puranas. The asceticism of the Bible reveals the spirit of the cosmic cross bearer, Yahweh Elohim; and it is therefore, at heart, nothing less than a cross bearing in life. Cross bearing is the subordination of personality to the karmic decree to spiritual duty, and this indeed can be done with joy; it is the basic moral impulse of the Old Testament. Unless we understand this basic moral impulse of the Bible by realizing the cosmic and terrestrial mission of Yahweh, the Bible remains not only a mystery, but also a stumbling block for the modern human being, in whose subconscious mind still echoes the notions of the Catholic ecclesiastical worldview.

It may easily be argued that the age of the Old Testament is past; since the Mystery of Golgotha, humankind is freed from the ties of blood. The Yahweh impulse working in the blood has given place to the purely spiritual Christ impulse. Before raising this objection, however, we should consider that the Yahweh impulse does not oppose the Christ impulse, but represents a part of it. Just as white light can manifest the seven primary colors, likewise, the Christ impulse can be revealed in a sevenfold way through the seven elohim. The Yahweh impulse is simply one of the seven ways in which the Christ impulse reveals itself. And the process that was brought about by the advent on Earth of the “Fullness” (the six other ways of revelation) in Jesus Christ was that the six others were added to the Yahweh impulse. Freedom from blood ties does not mean that the blood loses its importance, but that it is now able to be not only the bearer of the Yahweh impulse, but also the bearer of the united entity of the seven elohim, the complete Christ impulse.

Tomberg, Valentin; Bruce, R.H.. Christ and Sophia: Anthroposophic Meditations on the Old Testament, New Testament, and Apocalypse (pp. 21-22). steinerbooks. Kindle Edition.

[AshvinP]

(...)

The following is excerpted from an essay on a somewhat different topic, but it fits well at this point of the thread, I believe:

I don’t want to seem to have danced around the fundamental issue by merely citing this or that verse from the Gospels and syllogizing that “because the Gospels are all in agreement, then anything that agrees with one part of one Gospel therefore agrees with the whole of them.” After all, “the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose,” as Antonio reminds us (10), and moreover the Gospels do not even agree amongst themselves in all their parts, as everyone who has read them is most certainly aware and as the writers probably were too.

The Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Plato

Thanks for sharing that great essay, Federica.

I think the above should be contextualized by saying the gospel accounts don't all agree in the same way photographs of the same object from different angles won't exactly agree. In some cases, the object may even appear as something very different between one angle and the next. Nevertheless, it is our task to harmonize the illustrations from various angles through our own deepened consciousness. Likewise, the conscious intentions of the painter (gospel authors) surely will not proscribe the limits of the meaningful depth of his painting. What was painted through the inspired gospel accounts surely surpasses the meaning of what the authors, and any human being after them, has so far brought into waking consciousness.

[Federica]

(...)

The following is excerpted from an essay on a somewhat different topic, but it fits well at this point of the thread, I believe:

I don’t want to seem to have danced around the fundamental issue by merely citing this or that verse from the Gospels and syllogizing that “because the Gospels are all in agreement, then anything that agrees with one part of one Gospel therefore agrees with the whole of them.” After all, “the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose,” as Antonio reminds us (10), and moreover the Gospels do not even agree amongst themselves in all their parts, as everyone who has read them is most certainly aware and as the writers probably were too.

The Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Plato

Thanks for sharing that great essay, Federica.

I think the above should be contextualized by saying the gospel accounts don't all agree in the same way photographs of the same object from different angles won't exactly agree. In some cases, the object may even appear as something very different between one angle and the next. Nevertheless, it is our task to harmonize the illustrations from various angles through our own deepened consciousness. Likewise, the conscious intentions of the painter (gospel authors) surely will not proscribe the limits of the meaningful depth of his painting. What was painted through the inspired gospel accounts surely surpasses the meaning of what the authors, and any human being after them, has so far brought into waking consciousness.

Ashvin,

We could certainly contextualize as you say, but, as I said, the topics are somewhat different indeed, so my choice was precisely to de-contextualize, and juxtapose what earnest Christians Anthony and Antonio do, in the forum as in the Shakespeare play. Namely, they point to the (I know you wouldn’t choose this word, but...) ambiguity of Scriptures, their spreading across the full spectrum of reality from pole to pole, which calls forth and trains the fluidity you mention, a readiness to transpose the literal, visual meaning, in trust and wait for an esoteric meaning to emerge. This scriptural character of full coverage inevitably leaves the option wide open for plenty of loveless and horrific reading and citing, both naive and evil-purposed, which is what Anthony is wrestling with.

[AshvinP]

The following is excerpted from an essay on a somewhat different topic, but it fits well at this point of the thread, I believe:

Thanks for sharing that great essay, Federica.

I think the above should be contextualized by saying the gospel accounts don't all agree in the same way photographs of the same object from different angles won't exactly agree. In some cases, the object may even appear as something very different between one angle and the next. Nevertheless, it is our task to harmonize the illustrations from various angles through our own deepened consciousness. Likewise, the conscious intentions of the painter (gospel authors) surely will not proscribe the limits of the meaningful depth of his painting. What was painted through the inspired gospel accounts surely surpasses the meaning of what the authors, and any human being after them, has so far brought into waking consciousness.

Ashvin,

We could certainly contextualize as you say, but, as I said, the topics are somewhat different indeed, so my choice was precisely to de-contextualize, and juxtapose what earnest Christians Anthony and Antonio do, in the forum as in the Shakespeare play. Namely, they point to the (I know you wouldn’t choose this word, but...) ambiguity of Scriptures, their spreading across the full spectrum of reality from pole to pole, which calls forth and trains the fluidity you mention, a readiness to transpose the literal, visual meaning, in trust and wait for an esoteric meaning to emerge. This scriptural character of full coverage inevitably leaves the option wide open for plenty of loveless and horrific reading and citing, both naive and evil-purposed, which is what Anthony is wrestling with.

What you say is true, Federica. 

Although, Anthony seems to be pointing towards a more 'sinister' possibility, where certain OT passages (and perhaps the entire OT) were inspired by dark adversarial forces. It is basically the evil 'demiurge' theory. I'm not saying Anthony fully agrees with that, but it sounds like something he is entertaining. There are many thorny issues here. I wouldn't say that the OT passages he is referencing about 'genocide' and so forth are talking about something else and modern people misinterpret the meaning for their own purposes (although that certainly happens as well). The esoteric perspective needs to confront the fact that certain violent events became necessary in the course of Hebrew history, but that the fuller significance of these events can only be appreciated by the mind and heart after some level of inner transformation. It is the same thing with the dark depths of our own be-ing, because the souls living back in those times and often warring with each other are none other than our own souls. The more we can find the living history of humanity within our own souls, the more we can empathize, relate, resonate, etc., and resist the temptation to externalize the Karmic issue, placing it at the feet of some abstract theory a la Marcion.

The latter is very tempting to do because there are, in fact, dark forces working from our sub-nature that parasitically imitate the archetypal Divine plan for humanity so as to subvert it. These forces are also addressed in the OT, for ex. as the cult of Baal worship. They generally attempt to condition our human qualities and capacities from the bottom-up so they are permeated with shadowy impulses, instincts, passions, etc., instead of the Light which flows through our conscience and reasoned ideals. Although we are still dealing with these adversarial forces now, they were perhaps most intensified in the period approaching the incarnation of Christ, since the overall mission of Mesopotamian cultures, and especially the Hebrew mission , was exactly to lay the foundation for that incarnation. We can't really understand the problematic relationship of the Hebrews-Israelites to the surrounding cultures unless we also account for these forces which threatened to extinguish the seed of the incoming Christ revelation on multiple occasions. But, again, we won't find satisfaction in such explanations as mere conceptual models. Only when we begin to experience the active living forces of resistance within ourselves will we be able to discern their reality through the course of outer history. 

The races under the Egypto-Chaldean civilization were to prepare for the birth of the being who would bring supreme health to humankind through his sacrificial death. The mysteries of birth and death were to be held unsullied by these races, so that the Christ event might take place on prepared ground. Chaldea was appointed guardian of the mysteries of birth, Egypt the mysteries of death. Both guardians, however, broke faith. The Turanian element penetrated Chaldea and poisoned the spiritual life of that land. The worship of Baal and Ashtaroth,3 widespread among the races of Mesopotamia and Syria, led to a concept of birth that contrasted in the greatest degree with the view that should have been fostered. 

The details of that dark cult cannot be discussed with decency; suffice it to say that in every detail, it was designed to banish everything spiritual or holy from the relationship of father, mother, and child. Sex life was intended to be torn away from its divine source, leaving it prey to demonic forces, and birth was to be mechanized. This was supposed to be attained by killing all the firstborn—a purposeful measure designed to destroy the conscious, loving expectation of the soul descending among humanity, to be replaced by unconscious, mechanical human reproduction. If this had succeeded, the appearance of eminently spiritual individuals on Earth would have absolutely come to an end, because eminently spiritual souls can be born only when they are expected consciously. The cooperation of the free human consciousness of the parents is a fundamental condition of their appearance. So now we see clearly what was the intention of these cults: to hinder the birth of Jesus.

Tomberg, Valentin; Bruce, R.H.. Christ and Sophia: Anthroposophic Meditations on the Old Testament, New Testament, and Apocalypse (p. 10). steinerbooks. Kindle Edition. 

The reason I wanted to add the context, though, is mostly for people who would not read the full essay, and because skeptical 'biblical scholarship' in recent centuries and decades often speaks of 'contradictions' in the Gospel accounts. For ex. they may point to how the Gospels all identify a different number of women who visited the tomb of Jesus. I'm sure Anthony is aware of all these things. Some apologists may write this off as a simple stylistic decision made by the authors, or a copying error, or something similar, but I am pointing to the fact that all these details have a more profound significance. The way the events are ordered, the parables and sayings which are included, the names which are referenced, down to the particular words that are used (in the original Aramaic or Greek) - all of it is highly significant and can reveal unsuspected depth of meaning, much of which was even unsuspected to the Gospel authors and is still unsuspected to initiates today. It is remarkable how the Spirit working through us fashions, not only the written accounts, but the very events which have condensed through the various planes to provide this endless reservoir of thought-full inspiration for humanity to draw upon during the future course of its evolution.  

[Federica]

Thank you, Ashvin, the above is clear and useful, and I'm sure Anthony will read it with interest too. I wrote the post despite my ignorance of the topic, as an intuitive initiative, mainly to smooth some rough edges.

[Anthony66]

Anthony,

The issue is more like this - why does Numbers 31 matter?, as an isolated passage? It actually doesn't mean anything. Certainly not anything which sheds light on ancient spiritual consciousness and evolution. Just like isolated sense experiences, isolated concepts can be used to justify whatever forgone conclusion we started out with. You are openly starting out with your various anti-Christian evangelical conclusions, which are also wrapped up in your understanding of the Old Testament.

I'm not giving anyone a free pass, but simply asking you to keep an open mind, free from intellectual prejudments, when approaching the deepest depths of human existence. When you take the prejudicial approach, you are only using it to erect barriers to your own higher thinking development and/or derive premature conclusions, like that passages which don't sit well with your current ethical perspective must have been inspried by demons. Even if that's true, what possible value do you gain from that little factoid? It leads you no closer to a holistic understanding of the actual spiritual forces which are still working in your consciousness today. That is the aim here, and studying scripture, or any other ancient texts and traditions, should only be a tool towards that aim.

Coming back to this after yet again being confronted by the dark side of the OT/NT, it matters because passages like Numbers 31 are in no sense isolated. The bible portrays deity in a light that is in considerable tension with one's deepest moral intuitions with the condoning of genocide, slavery, child sacrifice, misogyny and disproportionate justice. I would suggest the pervasiveness of such things sheds considerable light on the ancient spiritual consciousness. And it's not all pretty.

I recognize those same dark forces acting in my consciousness and they must be transformed. The study of scripture surely can't entertain all that is depicted as deity as something to aspire to. One can understand Marcion's dualistic project to identify the good God of the NT and the evil God of the OT although Revelation has some horrific stuff as well.

Anthony,

I actually wrote a few paragraphs as an intro to the following quote, but forgot to copy it and then lost the post because I wasn't signed in. Here are the bullet points:

- The OT passages are not isolated, but our modern concepts of what they mean.
- We need to view the OT, NT, and Apocalypse as an evolving spiritual organism.
- There are ways in which a one-sided OT 'group-soul' consciousness (or, likewise, an ancient Indian, Persian, Egyptian, or Greco-Roman consciousness) can manifest as evil in modern times, particularly in the context of race relations, tribalism, nationalism, etc.
- The remedy to this one-sided tendency is not to further exacerbate the division of OT and NT, good and evil, or any other polar relation, but to discern how they are at work within a unified organism and how, through their harmonious balance, our individual and collective streams of becoming advance towards Divine ideals.
- This requires a delve into the living details of our soul-spiritual history without passion or prejudice. We have to at least put on "pause" our intellectual habit of projecting modern prejudices (prejudgments) onto the objects of inquiry. We can say, "I am going to forget everything that I thought I knew about this topic and approach it with fresh eyes and pure logical thinking." This may take us in all sorts of unsuspected directions that we normally consider "tangents", so we need to remain patient and open throughout the whole process.
- It is not about grasping all the details, but the overarching ideal context in which the details appear and through which they flow.
- We shouldn't expect to understand this context immediately, but can hold it fluidly in our consciousness, soaking it in.
-The below will be hard to follow at first, but we can simply try to perceive the overall ideal context and then gain a more precise resolution over time.

Because of the “fall of the angels” (the process through which luciferic angels became luciferic doubles), the human astral body became, as we have said, detached from guidance of the gods. This was manifested as egoism, a quality that, toward the end of the Lemurian epoch, mastered the human individual with the intensity of a natural force. Humankind would have succumbed entirely to this egoism if the hierarchies of good had not struck back. This involved the creation—from below, out of the human etheric and physical nature—of a countercurrent that opposed the egoism flowing down from the human astral nature and “I” being. In the depths of the human subconscious, a force was planted that restored the balance needed for the evolution of a free I-being. If the elemental force of love had not been planted in human beings, we would have completely succumbed to the elemental force of egoism. Through the luciferic impulse, humankind receives a strong tendency toward self-esteem; through the Yahweh impulse, we receive an equally strong tendency to esteem others. For it was Yahweh Elohim who planted the capacity for love in earthly human nature, whereby we are able to focus not only on ourselves, but also on others. To counterbalance the luciferic tendency toward self, the “Thou” tendency sprang up in humankind, receiving its impetus from Yahweh Elohim.

We may consider how crudely egoistic human beings would have become if husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters and relatives had not been able to love one another—in short, if individuals, surrounded by an abstract “humanity,” had only a living self-interest. Owing to the earthly activity of Yahweh Elohim in the earliest days, long before the Christ event, humankind became capable of sacrifice; it was Yahweh Elohim who infused the faculty of love into the human bloodstream... We can never understand the spirit of the Old Testament if we misrepresent the historical significance of Yahweh as the opponent of Lucifer on Earth. This is exactly what distinguishes the Bible from the sacred writings of other civilizations (for instance, the sacred writings of India); in style, form, and content, it is free of luciferic influence...

The Bible, however, is also distinguished from Eastern scriptures by its content. The ascetic, world-renouncing character, which is a feature of both Eastern and Early Christian ecclesiastical literature, is entirely absent in the Bible. No prophet or Old Testament hero is an ascetic in the Eastern or Christian ecclesiastical sense. The mortification of desires is not regarded as having the slightest value in the Bible; rather, it esteems the subordination of desire to high and distant ideals. There is, indeed, in the Bible a kind of asceticism, but it is an asceticism of the soul, a purely moral kind. It involves subordinating one’s personal inclinations to the call of duty. Fear, anger, and self-indulgence must be overcome in order to accomplish acts that will hasten the fulfillment of Israel’s mission. This is why the Israelites were a peaceful race. They hated war and had a horror of bloodshed. And yet this race waged wars of annihilation against those who followed corrupt cults. This—overcoming of one’s own interests for the sake of objective requirements—is asceticism in the biblical sense. Only this kind of asceticism is free of the luciferic impulse, from which asceticism in the usual sense is never free.
...
True Christian asceticism, therefore, can be found only in the history of the Grail line, which began with Joseph of Arimathea and ended with Lohengrin, not in the cells of the monks and hermits of the Eastern and Western Catholic churches. Similarly, the asceticism of the Bible is higher than what is contemplated in the Upanishads and Puranas. The asceticism of the Bible reveals the spirit of the cosmic cross bearer, Yahweh Elohim; and it is therefore, at heart, nothing less than a cross bearing in life. Cross bearing is the subordination of personality to the karmic decree to spiritual duty, and this indeed can be done with joy; it is the basic moral impulse of the Old Testament. Unless we understand this basic moral impulse of the Bible by realizing the cosmic and terrestrial mission of Yahweh, the Bible remains not only a mystery, but also a stumbling block for the modern human being, in whose subconscious mind still echoes the notions of the Catholic ecclesiastical worldview.

It may easily be argued that the age of the Old Testament is past; since the Mystery of Golgotha, humankind is freed from the ties of blood. The Yahweh impulse working in the blood has given place to the purely spiritual Christ impulse. Before raising this objection, however, we should consider that the Yahweh impulse does not oppose the Christ impulse, but represents a part of it. Just as white light can manifest the seven primary colors, likewise, the Christ impulse can be revealed in a sevenfold way through the seven elohim. The Yahweh impulse is simply one of the seven ways in which the Christ impulse reveals itself. And the process that was brought about by the advent on Earth of the “Fullness” (the six other ways of revelation) in Jesus Christ was that the six others were added to the Yahweh impulse. Freedom from blood ties does not mean that the blood loses its importance, but that it is now able to be not only the bearer of the Yahweh impulse, but also the bearer of the united entity of the seven elohim, the complete Christ impulse.

Tomberg, Valentin; Bruce, R.H.. Christ and Sophia: Anthroposophic Meditations on the Old Testament, New Testament, and Apocalypse (pp. 21-22). steinerbooks. Kindle Edition.

It's very difficult to overcome "prejudices" towards genocide, slavery, child sacrifice and the like. The orgy of blood depicted in Ezekiel 16 for example with the woman exposed before being cut into pieces to appease the wrath and jealousy of the divinity is fitting of the mind of the psychopath, not the mind infused with higher ideals.

I can appreciate the evolution of consciousness at large but the extreme means employed and depicted in some biblical texts to bring about ends depict a morality which at best is wildly vacillating and inconsistent in world evolution. There may well have been dark forces resisting the coming of Christ but resisting those with means that fly in the face of the sacrificial ethics of Christ is quite paradoxical to say the least.

[AshvinP]

Coming back to this after yet again being confronted by the dark side of the OT/NT, it matters because passages like Numbers 31 are in no sense isolated. The bible portrays deity in a light that is in considerable tension with one's deepest moral intuitions with the condoning of genocide, slavery, child sacrifice, misogyny and disproportionate justice. I would suggest the pervasiveness of such things sheds considerable light on the ancient spiritual consciousness. And it's not all pretty.

I recognize those same dark forces acting in my consciousness and they must be transformed. The study of scripture surely can't entertain all that is depicted as deity as something to aspire to. One can understand Marcion's dualistic project to identify the good God of the NT and the evil God of the OT although Revelation has some horrific stuff as well.

Anthony,

I actually wrote a few paragraphs as an intro to the following quote, but forgot to copy it and then lost the post because I wasn't signed in. Here are the bullet points:

- The OT passages are not isolated, but our modern concepts of what they mean.
- We need to view the OT, NT, and Apocalypse as an evolving spiritual organism.
- There are ways in which a one-sided OT 'group-soul' consciousness (or, likewise, an ancient Indian, Persian, Egyptian, or Greco-Roman consciousness) can manifest as evil in modern times, particularly in the context of race relations, tribalism, nationalism, etc.
- The remedy to this one-sided tendency is not to further exacerbate the division of OT and NT, good and evil, or any other polar relation, but to discern how they are at work within a unified organism and how, through their harmonious balance, our individual and collective streams of becoming advance towards Divine ideals.
- This requires a delve into the living details of our soul-spiritual history without passion or prejudice. We have to at least put on "pause" our intellectual habit of projecting modern prejudices (prejudgments) onto the objects of inquiry. We can say, "I am going to forget everything that I thought I knew about this topic and approach it with fresh eyes and pure logical thinking." This may take us in all sorts of unsuspected directions that we normally consider "tangents", so we need to remain patient and open throughout the whole process.
- It is not about grasping all the details, but the overarching ideal context in which the details appear and through which they flow.
- We shouldn't expect to understand this context immediately, but can hold it fluidly in our consciousness, soaking it in.
-The below will be hard to follow at first, but we can simply try to perceive the overall ideal context and then gain a more precise resolution over time.

Because of the “fall of the angels” (the process through which luciferic angels became luciferic doubles), the human astral body became, as we have said, detached from guidance of the gods. This was manifested as egoism, a quality that, toward the end of the Lemurian epoch, mastered the human individual with the intensity of a natural force. Humankind would have succumbed entirely to this egoism if the hierarchies of good had not struck back. This involved the creation—from below, out of the human etheric and physical nature—of a countercurrent that opposed the egoism flowing down from the human astral nature and “I” being. In the depths of the human subconscious, a force was planted that restored the balance needed for the evolution of a free I-being. If the elemental force of love had not been planted in human beings, we would have completely succumbed to the elemental force of egoism. Through the luciferic impulse, humankind receives a strong tendency toward self-esteem; through the Yahweh impulse, we receive an equally strong tendency to esteem others. For it was Yahweh Elohim who planted the capacity for love in earthly human nature, whereby we are able to focus not only on ourselves, but also on others. To counterbalance the luciferic tendency toward self, the “Thou” tendency sprang up in humankind, receiving its impetus from Yahweh Elohim.

We may consider how crudely egoistic human beings would have become if husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters and relatives had not been able to love one another—in short, if individuals, surrounded by an abstract “humanity,” had only a living self-interest. Owing to the earthly activity of Yahweh Elohim in the earliest days, long before the Christ event, humankind became capable of sacrifice; it was Yahweh Elohim who infused the faculty of love into the human bloodstream... We can never understand the spirit of the Old Testament if we misrepresent the historical significance of Yahweh as the opponent of Lucifer on Earth. This is exactly what distinguishes the Bible from the sacred writings of other civilizations (for instance, the sacred writings of India); in style, form, and content, it is free of luciferic influence...

The Bible, however, is also distinguished from Eastern scriptures by its content. The ascetic, world-renouncing character, which is a feature of both Eastern and Early Christian ecclesiastical literature, is entirely absent in the Bible. No prophet or Old Testament hero is an ascetic in the Eastern or Christian ecclesiastical sense. The mortification of desires is not regarded as having the slightest value in the Bible; rather, it esteems the subordination of desire to high and distant ideals. There is, indeed, in the Bible a kind of asceticism, but it is an asceticism of the soul, a purely moral kind. It involves subordinating one’s personal inclinations to the call of duty. Fear, anger, and self-indulgence must be overcome in order to accomplish acts that will hasten the fulfillment of Israel’s mission. This is why the Israelites were a peaceful race. They hated war and had a horror of bloodshed. And yet this race waged wars of annihilation against those who followed corrupt cults. This—overcoming of one’s own interests for the sake of objective requirements—is asceticism in the biblical sense. Only this kind of asceticism is free of the luciferic impulse, from which asceticism in the usual sense is never free.
...
True Christian asceticism, therefore, can be found only in the history of the Grail line, which began with Joseph of Arimathea and ended with Lohengrin, not in the cells of the monks and hermits of the Eastern and Western Catholic churches. Similarly, the asceticism of the Bible is higher than what is contemplated in the Upanishads and Puranas. The asceticism of the Bible reveals the spirit of the cosmic cross bearer, Yahweh Elohim; and it is therefore, at heart, nothing less than a cross bearing in life. Cross bearing is the subordination of personality to the karmic decree to spiritual duty, and this indeed can be done with joy; it is the basic moral impulse of the Old Testament. Unless we understand this basic moral impulse of the Bible by realizing the cosmic and terrestrial mission of Yahweh, the Bible remains not only a mystery, but also a stumbling block for the modern human being, in whose subconscious mind still echoes the notions of the Catholic ecclesiastical worldview.

It may easily be argued that the age of the Old Testament is past; since the Mystery of Golgotha, humankind is freed from the ties of blood. The Yahweh impulse working in the blood has given place to the purely spiritual Christ impulse. Before raising this objection, however, we should consider that the Yahweh impulse does not oppose the Christ impulse, but represents a part of it. Just as white light can manifest the seven primary colors, likewise, the Christ impulse can be revealed in a sevenfold way through the seven elohim. The Yahweh impulse is simply one of the seven ways in which the Christ impulse reveals itself. And the process that was brought about by the advent on Earth of the “Fullness” (the six other ways of revelation) in Jesus Christ was that the six others were added to the Yahweh impulse. Freedom from blood ties does not mean that the blood loses its importance, but that it is now able to be not only the bearer of the Yahweh impulse, but also the bearer of the united entity of the seven elohim, the complete Christ impulse.

Tomberg, Valentin; Bruce, R.H.. Christ and Sophia: Anthroposophic Meditations on the Old Testament, New Testament, and Apocalypse (pp. 21-22). steinerbooks. Kindle Edition.

It's very difficult to overcome "prejudices" towards genocide, slavery, child sacrifice and the like. The orgy of blood depicted in Ezekiel 16 for example with the woman exposed before being cut into pieces to appease the wrath and jealousy of the divinity is fitting of the mind of the psychopath, not the mind infused with higher ideals.

I can appreciate the evolution of consciousness at large but the extreme means employed and depicted in some biblical texts to bring about ends depict a morality which at best is wildly vacillating and inconsistent in world evolution. There may well have been dark forces resisting the coming of Christ but resisting those with means that fly in the face of the sacrificial ethics of Christ is quite paradoxical to say the least.

Anthony,

The reason I call it "prejudice" is not because of the content of what is expressed, but the method. You seem to want to keep this discussion on the horizontal track of "OT skepticism" or "Demiurge theory" vs. "OT apologetic arguments for Bible atrocities". That sort of discussion may help validate our already held convictions or perhaps secure an intellectual victory here and there, but how does it help unveil the Truth of our living and evolving relationship with the Divine who speaks through our conscience? For the latter, we need to be willing to stay open to avenues of exploration that are completely unfamiliar to our normal discursive reasoning through history.

That is why we need the discipline of scientific method in these situations. Let's say a scientist observes that certain acquired characteristics can be passed on to future generations within decades and centuries through heredity. Can you imagine such a scientist, who remains faithful to his method, saying "but that flies in the face of the standard genetic theory of heredity changes through only random mutations and millions of years, so it can't be investigated further"? The faithful scientist would instead be excited about this 'paradox' which arises in his observations and use it as a prompt for further investigation. Both the skeptics and the evangelicals could use much more of the open-ended scientific disposition on these questions, rather than pronouncing final conclusions on the matter that only remain valid in a closed loop of thought.

With that said, I want to ask you whether you are open to viewing the Earth with all its kingdoms - humanity, animals, plant, mineral - as a living and evolving organism, and the cultural history of humanity, including its ethical history, as something which occurs entirely within that context? It is easy for us to discern the process of death, extinction, and renewal through the course of natural evolution, but when it comes to the course of cultural evolution we suddenly become Newtonians again. In that context, we can discern how our own ethical perspective is shaped through that evolution. For ex., your ethical perspective toward your child is going to be quite different when he is 5 years old compared to when he is 30 years old. If a group of people start bullying him emotionally and physically when he is 5, most parents are going to feel it is appropriate to use quite extreme measures in defense of their child. When the child becomes 30, however, it is expected he will have the independent agency to defend himself or avoid those situations altogether. Then it would be quite absurd for the parent to step in.

The above crude metaphor is not meant to be a satisfactory explanation or answer to the question of OT atrocities, but only a pointer towards the sort of ways we can begin thinking about them with our own effortful reasoning power. There is a lot more work to do - a lot more context to fill in through investigation of the living facts surrounding our spiritual evolution as individuals and collectives. For ex., the laws of Karma should be understood, along with the overarching Divine intent of shepherding humanity from the Fall of spiritual consciousness into toil, suffering, and death back to the Paradisical state, without obviating our fully conscious freedom (to pursue the Good or the Evil). None of the atrocities occurred independently of the Karma incurred by the individuals and communities involved. It is not enough to hold any of this as an abstract conceptual model or theology - it has to be explored in relation to our living inner experience of the World and its evolution, which is microcosmically reflected in the story of our own lives.