Spiritual Insights from Valentin Tomberg

[Federica]

I would like to add that the word dogma, in its Greek origin, signifies opinion, as opposed to truth, as opposed to reality.
Similarly, the word ortho-doxy, means straight/right opinion, what can be enforeced as such within a worldly organizational structure, independent of its truth and reality. Christ naturally had teachings to spread, but didn't ever have any doxa, or dogma, or opinion, to impart to humaninty. Only within the institutional structure of the Church, can such concepts have relevance - concepts that nothing have to do with Love, and with the heart.

[AshvinP]

Federica,

That's how it appears from the normal Earthly perspective. Unlike physical traits that flow mostly through heredity forces from generation to generation, like hair color and such, cultural tradition flows through the life of ideas-ideals. So the individual souls who develop and participate in those traditions carry their fruits with them into the Cosmic spheres between incarnations and carry them forward into future epochs of history. Between every incarnation, the human soul expands out into all the Cosmic intents, to the Zodiac and beyond. We are even now participating in structuring the new rhythms of Nature and the Cosmos that will manifest on the next planetary incarnation of Jupiter, for ex. So I don't think it makes any sense to create a separate analysis for intentional streams of "human" tradition, which were also directly inspired by the higher beings when they were formed here on Earth (as Steiner documents in detail), from the intentional streams of Nature.

Ashvin,

I know that. It's even written in my post above, in different words. I don't argue at all for separating in principle the analysis of human traditions from the analysis of the ideals that inspire them. Surely it doesn’t make sense to artificially compartmentalize reality. Please don’t project on my current intentions some thinking mistakes I made in the past, don’t assume what is not written or suggested above. I am saying one simple thing. We have a language we use, which was formed within the earthly, human sphere, in full accordance with that sphere. There is a usefulness and an appropriateness in our language’s ability to single out limited dimensions, or portions, of any overarching rhythm or idea. That's what the word tradition does, for example. You can certainly decide to call the rising of the Sun a tradition, and as I said, in a sense I understand why, but you are risking serious misunderstanding when you decide to overstretch language in this way. Especially when there are other understandable ways to convey your thought in accordance to the logic of human language, namely by referring to Cosmic intent, or similar, for the rising Sun, and to tradition for the formula of a prayer, for instance, without implying any separate analysis of the two, and without disregarding the higher intents that manifest in both. It's hazardous to attempt an early deconstruction of human language beyond a certain extent.

Evidently, there is often sufficient reason to refer to only a limited aspect of a Cosmic intent, in this case, to a human tradition. The sufficient reason to intend tradition as human tradition apparent in this case is, to start with, because we trust and follow what Tomberg is saying in the quote, which is manifestly referred to the reality of tradition within the human sphere. He speaks of “not forgetting the past” and of “giving shape to the future”. He speaks of the life span of every tradition, he speaks of “the ability of the soul to bring the past alive in the present”, he brings devotional practices as an example, and so on. He is inviting us to focus attention on the human materialization of Cosmic intents in the form of traditions. So let’s follow this cue! This doesn’t mean that we lose sight of the larger wavelengths, through which we can encompass the reality of Cosmic intents across and beyond the boundaries of earthly life.

I am not intending to project your past thinking mistakes into the present discussion, Federica, or make unwritten assumptions. But I simply disagree with the way you are approaching this particular issue.If we are within the normal thinking perspective, trying to construct a conceptual system about 'tradition' that provides a neat and categorical definition, then what you are saying makes sense. But if we are aiming to develop our imaginative spiritual activity through symbolic ordering, then it is exactly these analogies that we want to draw between the levels of body, soul, and spirit, or nature, cultural tradition, and Divine ideals of thinking individuals. We don't want to arbitrarily limit ourselves to conceptions of 'tradition' that are commonplace in modern culture, because then we will never penetrate into their deeper significance. We could even say much of Steiner's spiritual science is a 'deconstruction' of language in this sense, although it is not arbitrary, but on the contrary it is rooted in the higher lawfulness of imaginative/symbolic thinking. It proceeds according to the Hermetic insight, "as above, so below, and as below, so above", which can be extended to the temporal domain, "as it was, so it will be, and as it will be, so it was."

Yes, we should focus on the human manifestation of Cosmic intents in the form of traditions, but we can't forget they are, in fact, situated within that context of Cosmic intents. If we are interested in unveiling the reasons why culture/tradition can be understood as the 'moral backbone' of Time, then we need to explore that context to the best of our ability. I suppose part of the problem is that I am clipping small excerpts from Tomberg's work to share here, but sometimes I wonder if even Tomberg would 'approve' of that, since he wrote those words knowing full well that they need the supporting context of the whole chapter, section, and book. The latter go into the deeper spiritual context. It only works if we take such excerpts loosely as inspirations and pointers at first, and then if we have questions about the deeper reasons and meaning of what is written, we need to put in the effort to explore the ideal relations on which the particular insights are balancing. 

For ex., we can look at the animal forms of the Earth and see how they bring to outer expression the life of passions and instincts. What is outwardly expressed in the bodily nature of the animal is inwardly expressed in the soul nature of man - it has been raised to a level higher. In a similar way, what is outwardly expressed in the plant and mineral kingdoms is inwardly expressed in the life of ideas-ideals. We can easily use a tree as a symbol for the branching conceptual life of man, for ex. And we can use the Sunset and the Sunrise, and the Seasons, as symbols for the Death and Resurrection of humanity and the Earth. It is in this symbolic way that we draw closer to the inner significance of our cultural traditions, many of which are still rooted in the symbols of Nature (including Christian traditions). These traditions have raised to the level of Soul-Spirit, i.e a lucid life of heartfelt thinking, the aesthetic/moral intents that also weave through the outer rhythms of Nature. That is one way in which we can understand them as the 'moral backbone' of Time, which is the very process of evolution, natural and spiritual. What is latent within our moral traditions is the entire history of Nature's striving towards the Divine through humanity. As Steiner conveys it in his work on Goethe,

Now we have recognized the idea as that which underlies all reality as the determining element, as the intention of nature. Our knowing leads us to the point of finding the tendency of the world process, the intention of the creation, out of all the indications contained in the nature surrounding us. If we have achieved this, then our action is given the task of working along independently in the realizing of that intention. And thus our action appears to us as the direct continuation of that kind of activity that nature also fulfills. It appears to us as directly flowing from the world foundation. 

Generally, outer forms of nature and culture decay and die on the physical plane - for ex. we know that many physical forms of animals have gone extinct, as well as primitive cultural forms of religions. The ones that survive across many epochs do so because they bring value to the overarching intents of spiritual evolution - they are continually given new life from the Spirit because they continue to be useful to fulfilling those purposes, just like we continue to create new sheaths that are useful for our localized purposes. The long-lasting traditions are those which were valuable and adaptive enough to be continually replenished from the spirit worlds through the forces of living souls, with feedback from the higher hierarchies. 

Yes, but there is also a long-lasting tradition of Luciferic and Ahrimanic impulses coming to the physical Earth from across the boundary, at least as long-lasting as the institution of the Church, so I wouldn’t absolutize the time span of a tradition as a proof of its morality and goodness. It certainly means it’s given long life from across the spiritual world, but, as we know, there is more than only well-meaning impulses coming from across the boundary.

Well, I am not isolating and absolutizing the time span as the sole factor, but we do know from Steiner's extensive research into Lucifer-Ahriman that, without their impulses, there would be no possibility of moral development which comes through the free inner life working its spiritual activity through the fourth Earthly convolution. It is only when they are severed from a harmonized relationship, i.e. from the Christ impulse, that we get a one-sided emphasis on the poles of existence, i.e. the past or the future. So, once again, we come back to the issue of whether we are idolizing the outer forms of tradition (lopsided emphasis on the past), cynically casting them aside (lopsided emphasis on the future), or seeking their inner soul-depths of moral significance to carry forth the past into the present and future (harmonized balance).

These things get complex because there are many factors involved. It may seem like we learn the content of traditions only from our grandparents, parents, teachers, etc., but we need to also remember we choose the family and locality we are born into before birth, based on our Karmic past. We develop particular affinities for certain regions, cultural values, and heredity streams that will help us fulfill our Karmic mission for that incarnation. Then we should also remember that living traditions are sort of like the air we breathe - they simply permeate our entire environment and we absorb them through a sort of cultural osmosis (or at least we used to until very recently). If we incarnate in the West, then we are breathing in the traditions of Christendom whenever we go to school and learn, study philosophy, art, and literature, exercise our civil/legal rights, and many other such things. We may not easily discern the connections between seemingly arcane practices of the early Church and the life of culture around us today, but they are present regardless.

Absolutely. We breathe in the traditional context we have chosen to be born into, which comprises both moral and amoral traditions. If we are born in the West, we breathe in the traditions of Christendom, as you say, just as well as we breathe in those springing from extreme materialism and possibly from extreme mysticism (more and more perceptibly) leading to dreams of transhumanism on one side, or to dreams instant self-deification on the other. I think we can say that these spiritual shortcuts have both become traditional in our present world. We can easily breathe them in without noticing.

I don't see how we can call those very recent fantasies 'traditions' in any reasonable sense. If anything, they are the antithesis of cultural tradition. Materialism and transhumanism seeks the continual forgetting of the spiritual backbone that weaves through the outer forms of the World. Souls do not incarnate to continually forget their origins, so that is something that only becomes uniquely possible within the isolated modern Earthly context, as a result of failing to remember, reawaken, and resurrect the thread of moral/spiritual tradition.

Yes please, choose another name for the Apostle's Creed, because our human language has its logic and its functionality, with a certain openness to flexibility, however, words cannot be stretched out indefinitely. The fact that the Creeds or the Church are referred to with this same word blurs the question, not by coincidence, as it were. In order to convey the concrete import of the word dogma in common language (that we should use here) and all it signifies, in the context of the institution-Church (not the Church of the Apostle's Creed) in terms of hierarchically imposing arbitrary constraints in an attempt to overwrite reality, I would like to quote JVH in a passage about the evolving understanding of reincarnation within the institution of the Roman Catholic Church:

This old understanding of ‘eternal life’ [the rhythm of reincarnations] … was maintained by the Christian Church for several centuries. Of course, the Church knew the secret principle of development of spiritually-knowledgeable souls, as initiated by Christ, and it knew about the new spiritual maturity that every person could develop. A fact which however was not compatible with the institutional claims to power of later ecclesiastical dignitaries, which is why it was unceremoniously removed from the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church by means of dogma.

J. von Halle. Reincarnation and Karma. Clairview Books, 2022, p. 29.

So, one greatly fitting example of dogma is the arbitrary decision by the RCC to cancel consciousness of reincarnation in order to allow for institutionalized (not isolated corrupted) power structures (=Ahrimanic structures) to take over, and not orders, if you see what I mean. Believe it or not, I have read the above for the first time today, after I wrote my post just above. Still, this summa is perfect to epitomize both points I have made:


- the meaning of dogma, and why it is not fine to normalize dogma, in the context of this forum. Again, our language is born and raised within the world of polarities, and cannot tolerate that words are extracted from their semantic milieu. It only can tolerate a fair level or artistic wise molding, so to say. By the way I notice the word dogma is not used either in the Apostle's Creed (naturally), or by Cleric. And when Tomberg uses it in the text you quoted, I notice he puts it multiple times within quotes, although he was writing in the 1950s, or 60s, and to the attention of a readership of Unkown Friends interested in esoteric matters.


- the real extent of the criticizable structure and behavior of the institution RCC - not of the spiritual community that practices the wise Christian traditions. So I am saying that the structure itself of RCC, which is a structure and not an order, is criticizable, not that merely isolated corrupted behaviors within it are.


I realize you have begun, as you shared in recent posts, a personal move towards the Church as institution. However, this cannot be a reason for me to add any vanilla flavor to the reality of such institution, agree to normalize the meaning of dogma, and let you state undisputed that there is of course room for constructive criticism of the institution-Church “especially when the leaders of the Church fight against free thinking or attach its practices to entirely worldly concerns. That is even more so the case in Protestant circles.” You should dare to extend your “especially” way beyond the boundaries of your current openness to constructive criticism. What you are doing with such statements is unfortunately the real sugarcoating of the reality of the Church-institution of these days.

As I said, with this criticism, I certainly don’t intend to negate the traditional value of the Church as spiritual community. On the contrary, I want to praise it. Similarly I want to praise the work of countless individuals who manage to think, feel and act in alignment with their high ideals, within the oppressive constraints of the institution. With all this saved, I am clearly saying that the institution-Church as a tentacular and stifling power structure (not order) on Earth, is no less an expression of the Ahrimanic impulse than other growing power structures we can nowadays observe. Esoteric Christianity developed for a reason. The reason is that the hindrance to the evolution of consciousness acted by the institution-Church had to be overcome. And it doesn't seem self-evident to me, at all, that the reconciliation between inner and outer Christianity, between spiritual and institutional Christianity, is something we can seamlessly transition into, glossing over the dark impulses ingrained in its institutions (that only can be redeemed across appropriate time lengths) by virtue of the unifying power of overarching ideals, compressed under the sign of timeless living tradition.

Everything has a positive and a negative valence, Federica. That should be especially evident if you have read JVH on how our experienced reality is the interface between the sub-Earthly spheres that mirror the Cosmic spheres. In astrology, every planetary aspect has its positive and negative valences. So we shouldn't expect anything different in the realm of cultural traditions and, yes, even in the realm of 'dogmas'. In fact, the so-called 'cancellation' of knowledge of reincarnation within the early Church is presented by Steiner in its positive aspect here. What makes the difference between the positive and negative is how self-aware we become of how the influences work into our stream of becoming - the more self-aware we are of the higher order intents underlying the traditions/dogmas, the more they reveal their positive aspect within our consciousness.

Even the denial of the reality of reincarnation — from the third century A.D. onwards — was made on the premises of reincarnation, because it was the intention to involve 18 so that practically all his spiritual life was taken up into incarnation. For that reason Christianity had no knowledge of reincarnation for 1,500 years. If we were to deny man a knowledge of reincarnation any longer we would be denying him this knowledge for a second time. That, however, would be a great sin, a sin against mankind. But to deny him this knowledge on the first occasion was necessary, for the value of the single life between birth and death had to be acknowledged.

There is no point boxing ourselves into rigid definitions, labels, and conceptual systems, which are no doubt convenient, but don't do justice to the complexity of our symbolic manifest reality. Ironically, if we choose to define 'dogma' in this rigid way and view all its manifestations through such a systematic lens, we are actually making our perspective on the matter into dogma in the negative sense. You are calling this approach remaining faithful to the "logic and functionality" of language, but that is faithfulness which is limited to a mechanical and systematic logic and functionality that excludes organic, aesthetic, and moral logic. If we want to explore our cultural heritage as something concrete, rather than a floating abstraction, we need to dispassionately look into how they are embodied in the institution and traditions of the Church. Interestingly enough, JVH was practically shoved out of Anthroposophy after she received the Stigmata, which is very much a phenomenon rooted in the tradition of the Catholic faith.

I am not really interested in debating the 'power structures' of the Church, or whatever real or perceived abuses it has committed, because that has no relevance to the topic at hand. I view it as a way to conveniently sidestep the effort that it takes to penetrate the inner moral significance of our institutions and traditions, by resorting to very familiar and oft-quoted narratives that we have absorbed through modern culture. We can hardly take two steps today without bumping into some article or documentary about the abuses and corruption and 'dark impulses' of the Catholic Church, including all sorts of conspiracy theories promulgated by secular culture and esoteric communities alike. Whether there are grains of truth within those narratives is besides the point, because genuine esoteric spiritual striving should simply resist indulging that pathway of thinking through these issues under all circumstances. That approach cannot possibly illuminate and elucidate the deeper layers we are striving to explore.

[AshvinP]

Simply put, it is all symbolic of spiritual reality proper. Our normal conceptual life is not that spiritual reality, but the outer manifestation of it, like sensory appearances are the outer manifestation of the conceptual/imaginative life. At some point we must leave the conceptual behind (and even imaginative cognitions behind), like we left the sensory behind, so the thinking becomes pure spirit. Then we discover the deeper relations of aesthetic/moral intents that our 'pure concepts' were symbolic of.

Ok, I see what you saying.

Yes, ideally. But in practice, we often are satisfied with that which can be thought through, by default. Anything that can't be thought through is left to the side, and we keep thinking through what we have already thought through. So the question becomes, how do we practically avoid the default satisfaction we get from our life of thinking? I would say, one important way among others, is by avoiding conceptual systems and employing the symbolic ordering of concepts, or in other words, making everything we encounter in the way of intellectual content into an exercise for the perfecting of our spiritual activity. This also presupposes a complementary deepening of cognition through meditation/concentration, because the intellect alone can only get so creative in finding ways to make the content it approaches into exercises before reaching its limit. If there is no complementary deepening, then I suppose the best alternative is to adopt 'Kantian' transcendental idealism and remain unsatisfied with the 'empirical self' that way.

Well, I like to think one can do better than the Kantian option, but I have to think about it some more. I am basically wondering what to say to someone who has read PoF and agrees with it, and agrees, albeit only in a vague sort of way, with idealism, but while not denying any occult claims, does not accept any either. But, whatever I might come up with belongs in a separate thread.

Scott,

It seems to me the question is whether they have only read PoF to gain a systematic understanding of "cognition", "perception", "moral imagination", and so forth, or have read through it to experience the reality of their own thinking as that which unites ideas with perceptions at ever-higher stages, i.e. at greater degrees of moral perfection, as Steiner intended. If the latter, then there is no need to accept or deny occult claims or any other claims, and in fact it is best not to accept them or only accept them provisionally from reliable and tested sources. In other words, if someone reads through PoF and still needs us to "say something" to them for motivation to pursue the threads of their own spiritual activity further, then they have read it systematically. Then the core of PoF needs to be represented to them in other symbolic ways, such as Cleric has done on this forum. The only other viable path to higher knowledge I have discerned is one rooted in utmost reverence and devotion for the Godhead (as understood by Christianity), which leads along a more mystical route of gnosis to experience of the Christ within.

[AshvinP]

I would like to add that the word dogma, in its Greek origin, signifies opinion, as opposed to truth, as opposed to reality.
Similarly, the word ortho-doxy, means straight/right opinion, what can be enforeced as such within a worldly organizational structure, independent of its truth and reality. Christ naturally had teachings to spread, but didn't ever have any doxa, or dogma, or opinion, to impart to humaninty. Only within the institutional structure of the Church, can such concepts have relevance - concepts that nothing have to do with Love, and with the heart.
...
- the meaning of dogma, and why it is not fine to normalize dogma, in the context of this forum. Again, our language is born and raised within the world of polarities, and cannot tolerate that words are extracted from their semantic milieu. It only can tolerate a fair level or artistic wise molding, so to say. By the way I notice the word dogma is not used either in the Apostle's Creed (naturally), or by Cleric. And when Tomberg uses it in the text you quoted, I notice he puts it multiple times within quotes, although he was writing in the 1950s, or 60s, and to the attention of a readership of Unkown Friends interested in esoteric matters.


- the real extent of the criticizable structure and behavior of the institution RCC - not of the spiritual community that practices the wise Christian traditions. So I am saying that the structure itself of RCC, which is a structure and not an order, is criticizable, not that merely isolated corrupted behaviors within it are.

I'm not sure I really addressed the above points in my last post. It is somewhat lost on me how this has become such a rigid discussion about the definitions of "dogma", or how those definitions can somehow instruct our spiritual understanding of the value of traditions, creeds/formulations, practices, structures, etc. of the Church. We could debate the significance of the Greek word "doxa" endlessly, whether it really means 'opinion' in the way modern consciousness understands that word (actually the etymology within the NT context is interesting to look at), but is that what we are really interested in doing here? If you want to use a different word than "dogma" so as not to "normalize" it, then fine, but I am more interested in advancing to the underlying substance of what is being pointed to in Tomberg's excerpts and subsequent elaborations on them.

As always, concrete examples are what help us move from the domain of abstractions to the living substance of what is being referred to with all these words and labels. So can you provide a concrete example of the 'criticizable structure and behavior of the institution RCC', that is independent of 'corrupted behaviors within it' (such as for ex. the Crusades, the Inquisition, financial schemes, pedophilia and sex abuse scandals, etc.), that you refer to above? In other words, what is something baked into the very structure of the RCC, inherited from its understanding of scripture and ecclesiastical tradition, that makes into an equal parts moral and amoral institution, according to you?

[Federica]

Ashvin,

When I try to take a step back and consider our latest posts, I conclude that we have certainly not produced our best writing in this correspondence. For my part, I have been too driven by frustration and too focused on winning arguments. So I would like to refrain from laying out all that comes to mind in reply to your latest comments. Regarding your request for a concrete example of criticism against the RCC, I find I am unable to comply with the request without at the same time criticizing the terms in which you have put it out in the first place, whatever these terms may reflect.

It is my current opinion that the institution of the RCC (I am less sure about the Orthodox Church) has progressively become a more and more convenient - and counter-intuitive - hiding and nurturing dwelling place for Ahrimanic powers. However, I only have my own reflections to substantiate this claim, which is why I will now rest content with only planting this flag, sparing anyone - and you in particular - any arbitrary/personal arguments aiming to substantiate the idea.

[Anthony66]

As always, concrete examples are what help us move from the domain of abstractions to the living substance of what is being referred to with all these words and labels. So can you provide a concrete example of the 'criticizable structure and behavior of the institution RCC', that is independent of 'corrupted behaviors within it' (such as for ex. the Crusades, the Inquisition, financial schemes, pedophilia and sex abuse scandals, etc.), that you refer to above? In other words, what is something baked into the very structure of the RCC, inherited from its understanding of scripture and ecclesiastical tradition, that makes into an equal parts moral and amoral institution, according to you?

Do you have a problem with the us/them, inside/outside, saved/unsaved, redeemed/damned dichotomies inherent in RCC teaching and dogma? You, me, Cleric, Federica, Steiner, and all others outside the Catholic Church, are hell-bound sinners according to RCC theology.

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

When I try to take a step back and consider our latest posts, I conclude that we have certainly not produced our best writing in this correspondence. For my part, I have been too driven by frustration and too focused on winning arguments. So I would like to refrain from laying out all that comes to mind in reply to your latest comments. Regarding your request for a concrete example of criticism against the RCC, I find I am unable to comply with the request without at the same time criticizing the terms in which you have put it out in the first place, whatever these terms may reflect.

It is my current opinion that the institution of the RCC (I am less sure about the Orthodox Church) has progressively become a more and more convenient - and counter-intuitive - hiding and nurturing dwelling place for Ahrimanic powers. However, I only have my own reflections to substantiate this claim, which is why I will now rest content with only planting this flag, sparing anyone - and you in particular - any arbitrary/personal arguments aiming to substantiate the idea.

Federica,

It's great to make these assessments of our tendencies while we are in the midst of engaging them. I suppose that, at some level, I also used the example of the RCC because I knew it would challenge your dispassionate thinking, just as it does mine. I went through a protestant evangelical phase where I literally equated the RCC with the Antichrist (and found very compelling discursive logical arguments for this position), and I don't think the cynical scars from that self-inflicted wound have entirely healed yet. I am slowly learning never to underestimate the depths of cynicism and resentment in my heart. Although I can't be grateful enough to all the higher individualities who have put me onto and guided me on the esoteric path of healing, where we attain the inner certainty that the scars will be healed by our faithful Allies if we remain faithful to the covenant on our end.

The issue regarding hierarchical structures is an important one, because I think it is very intuitive for modern people to be skeptical and cynical about such structures. And even on the esoteric path of intuitive thinking activity, we may start to feel that such structures inhibit our ability to freely commune with the Godhead without any, or only minimal, mediating individualities. Clearly that mood was at the very foundation of the Protestant reformation which sweeped Western Europe and its colonies. That was a clear move towards the forgetting of tradition and practices in which the living Spirit was embedded. I am not trying to identify Protestantism as some isolated mistake in cultural history, however, because that forgetfulness is also integral to our cultivation of thinking freedom, just like forgetting the reality of reincarnation was in the early Church. But we only fulfill the purpose of that forgetfulness if we use our thinking freedom to once again re-member and re-awaken the thread of tradition that was lost in the process. 

Christ is not a free-floating spirit, but the very substance of the Earth and humanity. He can act through inspiration directly within human souls but, with respect to exoteric cultural events, he also acts through the hierarchical structure that serves his aims. Steiner, Tomberg, JVH, and Powell have all pointed in various ways to how the 12 apostles of Christ, after their initiation at Pentecost, continue to incarnate from century to century and serve his purposes. They are sometimes referred to as the White Lodge and they work at both the esoteric and exoteric levels. Steiner actually presented the most exhaustive research into how there is an unbroken stream of Divine inspiration from the Rishis of ancient India, through Zoroaster of Persia, Hermes of ancient Chaldea-Egypt which met with the stream of the ancient Hebrews, i.e. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob through Moses, through the Wisdom of ancient Greek culture, and through the focal point of the Christ events, into subsequent NT tradition, including the Gnostics, the early Church fathers, and the medieval mystics. He goes into many more details of how the Christ impulse weaves through the cultural history of the last 2,000 years. 

The Church is the mystical body of Christ. Although we may treat our own bodies with much less care than they deserve when they are bruised and broken, Christ is always faithful to his body. When it becomes poisoned and sick, he does not abandon it but rather he strives to heal it. And our greatest human endeavor, in turn, is to imitate Christ. We should seek to understand all of these things as concretely as possible. If we conceive our own soul-spirit as an entity that doesn't concretely express itself through our bodily sheaths from incarnation to incarnation, then it remains a mystical abstraction. Likewise, Christ as the Spirit of the Earth and humanity remains an abstraction until we discern, through his impulse living within us, how that Spirit concretely expresses itself by incarnating into the cultural institutions and practices which bear the thread of living traditions from century to century.  That is the 'moral backbone' Tomberg was referring to. 

It should be clear that none of the above is said out of nostalgia for tradition or blind submission to religious institutions. It is all thoroughly reasoned out and aligned with, and confirmed by, the esoteric science of Steiner. I think Steiner would readily say that the core of Anthroposophy is to develop our intuitive thinking so as to progressively flesh out the inner certainties already revealed through the Christian faith. That is also the process of creatively participating in the fulfillment of the Christ-centered ideals. It is not only an Aristotelian endeavor of bottom-up thinking, but also a Platonic/Sophianic endeavor of revealed wisdom. Sophia is the Divine archetype revealed mostly perfectly in the Virgin Mary, who said to the archangel Gabriel, when the latter announced the Incarnation within her, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word." She thereby became the image of the human soul saying YES to the Divine Will. What does that mean for us practically today? It is nothing other than resisting the temptation to approach spiritual content with the intent of creating conceptual systems for ourselves, which become our prized possession, but approaching it as symbolic portals to help us fulfill the Divine Will in our thinking at ever-higher stages. 

Every clever chain of reasoning, every insight, every inspiration, etc. should be concretely felt as the activity of the Spirit coming and going to reveal its grace within us from orthogonal directions, as it so pleases. Steiner also remarks on the core of esoteric striving as patiently waiting in stillness of soul for our thinking to be progressively impregnated by the Spirit so as to more perfectly reflect its intents. We really need to stop and consider what we are doing in our thinking whenever we work through these topics, regardless of the particular content we have chosen to focus on. Are we seeking to construct a nice conceptual system that replaces the inner certainty of our need for constant faithful striving into higher spheres of understanding with the conceptual certainty of definitive conclusions and the sense that we have 'figured it out'? Not to pick on Anthony in particular, but his latest comment really provides a good example to work with.

Do you have a problem with the us/them, inside/outside, saved/unsaved, redeemed/damned dichotomies inherent in RCC teaching and dogma? You, me, Cleric, Federica, Steiner, and all others outside the Catholic Church, are hell-bound sinners according to RCC theology.

Why do we assume that "RCC theology" is some static framework of concepts with definite meanings? What is the meaning of "hell-bound", "sinners", or being "outside the Catholic Church"? I am sure Anthony feels the answers to all of that are self-evident from theological literature, but I am saying that feeling reflects a systematic thinking that excludes the symbolic nature of the World appearances, including all cultural forms. And this symbolic nature of the Church in its structure, practices, and teachings was not lost on the early Church fathers, as any survey of their work will show. Even the discussion with Scott showed how difficult it can be for us to remember our entire conceptual life is a symbol for higher realities that are mysterious to us. Could that difficulty itself be related to what it means to be "sinners" in need of "salvation" through faith/grace? Perhaps it means we continually project our own cognitive shortcomings onto the Cosmically intuited, inspired, and imagined forms of the World, including our cultural heritage, and our only Hope in escaping from that "Hell" is in attuning to the Life of Christ-Sophia, in which the redemption of thinking has already been accomplished. 

[Federica]

Ashvin,

When I try to take a step back and consider our latest posts, I conclude that we have certainly not produced our best writing in this correspondence. For my part, I have been too driven by frustration and too focused on winning arguments. So I would like to refrain from laying out all that comes to mind in reply to your latest comments. Regarding your request for a concrete example of criticism against the RCC, I find I am unable to comply with the request without at the same time criticizing the terms in which you have put it out in the first place, whatever these terms may reflect.

It is my current opinion that the institution of the RCC (I am less sure about the Orthodox Church) has progressively become a more and more convenient - and counter-intuitive - hiding and nurturing dwelling place for Ahrimanic powers. However, I only have my own reflections to substantiate this claim, which is why I will now rest content with only planting this flag, sparing anyone - and you in particular - any arbitrary/personal arguments aiming to substantiate the idea.

Federica,

It's great to make these assessments of our tendencies while we are in the midst of engaging them. I suppose that, at some level, I also used the example of the RCC because I knew it would challenge your dispassionate thinking, just as it does mine. I went through a protestant evangelical phase where I literally equated the RCC with the Antichrist (and found very compelling discursive logical arguments for this position), and I don't think the cynical scars from that self-inflicted wound have entirely healed yet. I am slowly learning never to underestimate the depths of cynicism and resentment in my heart. Although I can't be grateful enough to all the higher individualities who have put me onto and guided me on the esoteric path of healing, where we attain the inner certainty that the scars will be healed by our faithful Allies if we remain faithful to the covenant on our end.

The issue regarding hierarchical structures is an important one, because I think it is very intuitive for modern people to be skeptical and cynical about such structures. And even on the esoteric path of intuitive thinking activity, we may start to feel that such structures inhibit our ability to freely commune with the Godhead without any, or only minimal, mediating individualities. Clearly that mood was at the very foundation of the Protestant reformation which sweeped Western Europe and its colonies. That was a clear move towards the forgetting of tradition and practices in which the living Spirit was embedded. I am not trying to identify Protestantism as some isolated mistake in cultural history, however, because that forgetfulness is also integral to our cultivation of thinking freedom, just like forgetting the reality of reincarnation was in the early Church. But we only fulfill the purpose of that forgetfulness if we use our thinking freedom to once again re-member and re-awaken the thread of tradition that was lost in the process. 

Christ is not a free-floating spirit, but the very substance of the Earth and humanity. He can act through inspiration directly within human souls but, with respect to exoteric cultural events, he also acts through the hierarchical structure that serves his aims. Steiner, Tomberg, JVH, and Powell have all pointed in various ways to how the 12 apostles of Christ, after their initiation at Pentecost, continue to incarnate from century to century and serve his purposes. They are sometimes referred to as the White Lodge and they work at both the esoteric and exoteric levels. Steiner actually presented the most exhaustive research into how there is an unbroken stream of Divine inspiration from the Rishis of ancient India, through Zoroaster of Persia, Hermes of ancient Chaldea-Egypt which met with the stream of the ancient Hebrews, i.e. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob through Moses, through the Wisdom of ancient Greek culture, and through the focal point of the Christ events, into subsequent NT tradition, including the Gnostics, the early Church fathers, and the medieval mystics. He goes into many more details of how the Christ impulse weaves through the cultural history of the last 2,000 years. 

The Church is the mystical body of Christ. Although we may treat our own bodies with much less care than they deserve when they are bruised and broken, Christ is always faithful to his body. When it becomes poisoned and sick, he does not abandon it but rather he strives to heal it. And our greatest human endeavor, in turn, is to imitate Christ. We should seek to understand all of these things as concretely as possible. If we conceive our own soul-spirit as an entity that doesn't concretely express itself through our bodily sheaths from incarnation to incarnation, then it remains a mystical abstraction. Likewise, Christ as the Spirit of the Earth and humanity remains an abstraction until we discern, through his impulse living within us, how that Spirit concretely expresses itself by incarnating into the cultural institutions and practices which bear the thread of living traditions from century to century.  That is the 'moral backbone' Tomberg was referring to. 

It should be clear that none of the above is said out of nostalgia for tradition or blind submission to religious institutions. It is all thoroughly reasoned out and aligned with, and confirmed by, the esoteric science of Steiner. I think Steiner would readily say that the core of Anthroposophy is to develop our intuitive thinking so as to progressively flesh out the inner certainties already revealed through the Christian faith. That is also the process of creatively participating in the fulfillment of the Christ-centered ideals. It is not only an Aristotelian endeavor of bottom-up thinking, but also a Platonic/Sophianic endeavor of revealed wisdom. Sophia is the Divine archetype revealed mostly perfectly in the Virgin Mary, who said to the archangel Gabriel, when the latter announced the Incarnation within her, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word." She thereby became the image of the human soul saying YES to the Divine Will. What does that mean for us practically today? It is nothing other than resisting the temptation to approach spiritual content with the intent of creating conceptual systems for ourselves, which become our prized possession, but approaching it as symbolic portals to help us fulfill the Divine Will in our thinking at ever-higher stages. 

Every clever chain of reasoning, every insight, every inspiration, etc. should be concretely felt as the activity of the Spirit coming and going to reveal its grace within us from orthogonal directions, as it so pleases. Steiner also remarks on the core of esoteric striving as patiently waiting in stillness of soul for our thinking to be progressively impregnated by the Spirit so as to more perfectly reflect its intents. We really need to stop and consider what we are doing in our thinking whenever we work through these topics, regardless of the particular content we have chosen to focus on. Are we seeking to construct a nice conceptual system that replaces the inner certainty of our need for constant faithful striving into higher spheres of understanding with the conceptual certainty of definitive conclusions and the sense that we have 'figured it out'? Not to pick on Anthony in particular, but his latest comment really provides a good example to work with.

Do you have a problem with the us/them, inside/outside, saved/unsaved, redeemed/damned dichotomies inherent in RCC teaching and dogma? You, me, Cleric, Federica, Steiner, and all others outside the Catholic Church, are hell-bound sinners according to RCC theology.

Why do we assume that "RCC theology" is some static framework of concepts with definite meanings? What is the meaning of "hell-bound", "sinners", or being "outside the Catholic Church"? I am sure Anthony feels the answers to all of that are self-evident from theological literature, but I am saying that feeling reflects a systematic thinking that excludes the symbolic nature of the World appearances, including all cultural forms. And this symbolic nature of the Church in its structure, practices, and teachings was not lost on the early Church fathers, as any survey of their work will show. Even the discussion with Scott showed how difficult it can be for us to remember our entire conceptual life is a symbol for higher realities that are mysterious to us. Could that difficulty itself be related to what it means to be "sinners" in need of "salvation" through faith/grace? Perhaps it means we continually project our own cognitive shortcomings onto the Cosmically intuited, inspired, and imagined forms of the World, including our cultural heritage, and our only Hope in escaping from that "Hell" is in attuning to the Life of Christ-Sophia, in which the redemption of thinking has already been accomplished. 

Ashvin,

For my part, I don’t have any self-inflicted wounds related to religion, and I have no clear idea what the protestant-evangelical or evangelical faiths believe in. Sure I was born in a Catholic culture, however I didn't receive any explicitly religious education, and I have never been a member of any church, religious group or community. So in this sense, my consideration of the RCC is dispassionate. It's based on sound observation of how the RCC operates in the world, and on reasoning inspired by what I read from essentially Steiner. With that said, it certainly is an opinion. At the same time, I do have resentment against the RCC - that I am well aware of - but I wouldn’t call it a passionate feeling, because I have no direct connection with the Church. It's similar to the conscious resentment - or maybe better said, disapproval - that I have for a variety of cultural institutions, that I am surely not ready and not willing to consider as positive or neutral symbols. I don’t think that the path of living thinking should prompt us to become understanding of, and tolerant of, and happily embracing all kinds of cultural institutions, on grounds that they are there, and need to find a recognized place in the human cultural panorama as external symbols of a deep reality that reaches across the threshold. This is the risk I see in the symbolic approach you are communicating: to blur and balance out judgments to the point that we feel compelled to explain everything on Earth in the expanded terms of a divine reason and trajectory, that we should strive to apprehend no matter what. That certainly makes complete sense at the encompassing level of the highest intents and their telos, but is it an appropriate approach to every moment of our life on Earth? We are immersed in this finite world of contrasts, and I think we need to accept that this world calls for some ability to zoom in and out. In general, our human weakness is that we are all zoomed in at the level of sensory and soul fragmentation, but you seem to argue now that we need to zoom all out instead, and lock the objective in that mode indefinitely. I think we have to maintain some ability to also segment, consider things in isolation, and to discriminate, until we are here with a physical body, immersed in the sensory world. We need to remain flexible to zoom in, and out, and in again, when necessary. In other words we need to form flexible opinions. Not that we shouldn’t be open to move, and evolve, and expand orthogonally, of course. Not that we don’t need the ability to zoom out of the specific context, event, or angle, but we cannot either pretend that we should always be all-encompassing and all-seeing throughout, all-dispassionate and all-detached from the contextual, polar, one-sided content of everyday earthly life. Otherwise, isn't there the risk that this too can become a dogma? This focused aspiration that everything should always be loosely held, as loosely as one possibly can, maintained in perpetual balance on the mysterious apex of the cone of reality, and that nothing is bad, because when we say 'bad' we are first unduly isolating, and second projecting outside our inner evil, seems a way to stick to an extreme, paradoxically, by not willing to dwell in any extreme. Do you think we can traverse this world of form without holding any beliefs or opinions? In a permanent strive to maintain the zoom at maximum extension? Do you think that, while we pass through this Earthly life, we should always find a way to swallow and digest anything challenging that we find on our path, reedit it as lawful, or traditional, hence understanding and accepting any inner resistance we may encounter in this attempt as personal inadequacy?

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

For my part, I don’t have any self-inflicted wounds related to religion, and I have no clear idea what the protestant-evangelical or evangelical faiths believe in. Sure I was born in a Catholic culture, however I didn't receive any explicitly religious education, and I have never been a member of any church, religious group or community. So in this sense, my consideration of the RCC is dispassionate.

Federica,

I will respond to your post/questions more in detail later. But the above really needs to confronted on an esoteric path of self-knowledge, first and foremost. What are you doing in your thinking when you declare, "I don’t have any self-inflicted wounds related to religion... So in this sense, my consideration of the RCC is dispassionate."? In a way, you are declaring that the current life of waking consciousness sufficiently informs you as to what actually lives in the deeper archetypal layers of mind and heart. Then that leads you to the unrepentant and definitive conclusion, "my consideration of the RCC is dispassionate". But we know that is not actually the case, and that our waking consciousness is the tiniest of apertures into what lives in our depths of soul. Perhaps I should have been more clear in my anecdote - the protestant evangelical phase is not the self-inflicted wound itself, but only a temporal manifestation of it in my given incarnation (along with many others). It is a symbol for that wound which we all sustained through the Luciferic Fall, and which is slowly but surely being healed through the redemption of Christ. The 'dogma' of repentance and confession should be seen as a symbolic portal towards self-knowledge of our soul-depths in which cynicism and resentment towards revealed Wisdom are most assuredly alive, regardless of our particular circumstances in this incarnation.

I do appreciate that, as usual, you are intelligently considering my posts and asking very pertinent questions in response, and I really want to address those questions soon. There are many portals of striving that can opened through such questions. The above is just something we always need to keep in mind, no matter what topic we are considering.

[Federica]

Ashvin,

For my part, I don’t have any self-inflicted wounds related to religion, and I have no clear idea what the protestant-evangelical or evangelical faiths believe in. Sure I was born in a Catholic culture, however I didn't receive any explicitly religious education, and I have never been a member of any church, religious group or community. So in this sense, my consideration of the RCC is dispassionate.

Federica,

I will respond to your post/questions more in detail later. But the above really needs to confronted on an esoteric path of self-knowledge, first and foremost. What are you doing in your thinking when you declare, "I don’t have any self-inflicted wounds related to religion... So in this sense, my consideration of the RCC is dispassionate."? In a way, you are declaring that the current life of waking consciousness sufficiently informs you as to what actually lives in the deeper archetypal layers of mind and heart. Then that leads you to the unrepentant and definitive conclusion, "my consideration of the RCC is dispassionate". But we know that is not actually the case, and that our waking consciousness is the tiniest of apertures into what lives in our depths of soul. Perhaps I should have been more clear in my anecdote - the protestant evangelical phase is not the self-inflicted wound itself, but only a temporal manifestation of it in my given incarnation (along with many others). It is a symbol for that wound which we all sustained through the Luciferic Fall, and which is slowly but surely being healed through the redemption of Christ. The 'dogma' of repentance and confession should be seen as a symbolic portal towards self-knowledge of our soul-depths in which cynicism and resentment towards revealed Wisdom are most assuredly alive, regardless of our particular circumstances in this incarnation.

I do appreciate that, as usual, you are intelligently considering my posts and asking very pertinent questions in response, and I really want to address those questions soon. There are many portals of striving that can opened through such questions. The above is just something we always need to keep in mind, no matter what topic we are considering.

Ashvin,

Thanks, I look forward to reading your ideas on the question I asked, but wait a second here: you are overinterpreting:

What are you doing in your thinking when you declare, "I don’t have any self-inflicted wounds related to religion... So in this sense, my consideration of the RCC is dispassionate."? In a way, you are declaring that the current life of waking consciousness sufficiently informs you as to what actually lives in the deeper archetypal layers of mind and heart. Then that leads you to the unrepentant and definitive conclusion, "my consideration of the RCC is dispassionate".

I deny the bold. What I did is to mirror your statement in which you mentioned some past events of your present life. You said: "I went through a protestant evangelical phase where I literally equated the RCC with the Antichrist (and found very compelling discursive logical arguments for this position), and I don't think the cynical scars from that self-inflicted wound have entirely healed yet". I have simply reciprocated that, providing similar context referred to my present life. I have not declared anything more than that at all, I wanted to highlight the difference, because if you brought in that element from your present life, surely you thought it had a relevance in the discussion. Notice: I said "in this sense it is dispassionate", it is "a disapproval". I also said, in another sense it is still an opinion, it is still colored with the soul likes and preferences we often refer to. So, by all means, when you say "unrepentant and definitive conclusion" you are going overboard. I know that "our waking consciousness is the tiniest of apertures into what lives in our depths of soul" and I knew it as I was writing the above. Please revise your judgment in this case. Please realize that I promptly admitted that my position is an opinion, and in that clarification is encapsulated the awareness that you believe I have lost in unrepentant and definitive conclusions.