Spiritual Insights from Valentin Tomberg

[Federica]

On the radiating power of traditional prayer

The moral technique of prayer is generally a minefield for modern man. Probably everyone has experienced the inner conflicts that arise when the will-to-prayer is pursued - we feel silly, ashamed, guilty, anxious, fearful, uncertain, etc. What should we pray, who should we pray to, and why? These are not simple questions to answer, and certainly won't be answered by any sort of formal logical reasoning. Another conflict we may experience is that between 'personal' and 'impersonal' prayer - generally we feel the latter is too traditional, collective, and mechanical, so we need to personalize and customize our prayer in some way. Tomberg elucidates why that is not necessarily the wisest approach to take. Prayer can remain interiorized and alive without becoming too personal or straying too far from traditional formulae. As a side note, a great living example of that can be found in the book, The Way of a Pilgrim, in which an Orthodox Russian wanderer learns to literally 'pray without ceasing' (1 Thess. 5:17), day and night, waking and sleeping, by reciting the Jesus Prayer with the mind and and gradually interiorizing it to the heart (condensed: "Lord Jesus Christ... have mercy upon me."). The methods for this were picked up from his 'Starets' and by studying the Philokalia.

***

Prayer—which asks, thanks, worships and blesses—is the radiation, the breath and the warmth of the awakened heart: expressed in formulae of the articulated word, in the wordless inner sighing of the soul and, lastly, in the silence, both outward and inward, of the breathing of the soul immersed in the element of divine respiration and breathing in unison with it. Prayer has, therefore, different aspects: a “magical” aspect, i.e. prayer in formulae; a “gnostic” aspect, when it becomes inexpressible inner sighing; and, lastly, a “mystical” aspect, when it becomes the silence of union with the Divine. Thus, it is never in vain and without effect. Even a prayer-formula pronounced rapidly in a detached and impersonal manner has a magical effect, because the sum-total of ardour put into this formula in the past—by believers, saints and Angels—is evoked soley through the fact of pronouncing the prayer-formula. Every prayer-formula consecrated by use has a magical virtue, since it is collective. The voices of all those who have ever prayed it are evoked by it and join the voice of he who pronounces it with serious intention. This applies above all to all the formulae of liturgical prayer. Each phrase of the Roman Catholic Mass or Greek Orthodox Liturgy, for example, is a formula of divine sacred magic. There is nothing astonishing about this, since the Mass and the Liturgy consist only of the prayers of prophets, saints and Jesus Christ himself. But what is truly astonishing is that there are—and always have been—esotericists (such as Fabre d’Olivet, for example) who improvise cults, prayer-formulae, new “mantrams”, etc., as if something is gained through novelty! Perhaps they believe that the formulae taken from Holy Scripture or given by the saints are used up through usage and have lost their virtue? This would be a radical misunderstanding. Because usage does not at all deplete a prayer-formula, but rather, on the contrary, it adds to its virtue. For this reason it is also deplorable that certain Protestant churches have the custom of the minister or preacher improvising prayers in their divine service—probably believing that it is the personal which is more effective and not the common and collective tradition.

One should know, dear Unknown Friend, that one never prays alone, i.e. that there are always others—above, or in the past on earth—who pray with you in the same sense, in the same spirit and even in the same words. In praying, you always represent a visible or invisible community together with you. If you pray for healing, you represent all the sick and all healers, and the community of sick people and healers then prays with you. For this reason the Lord’s prayer is not addressed to “my Father in heaven”, but rather to “our Father in heaven”, and asks the Father to “give us this day our daily bread”, that he “forgive us our trespasses”, that he “leads us not into temptation” and that he “delivers us from evil”. Thus, whatever the particular intention of the one who prays the Lord’s prayer may be, it is in the name of the whole of mankind that he prays.

With respect to the prayer which is an inner, inexpressible sighing, that we have named “gnostic”—in Contrast to the “magical” prayer in formulae—it is a transformation of the psycho-physical breathing into prayer. Thus it can be made permanent—day and night, awake and asleep, without interruption, as long as respiration lasts. This type of prayer (which is practised above all in the Christian Orient) has a virtue that is more than magical: it transforms man into a mirror of the spiritual and divine world. For this reason we have named it “gnostic”—gnostic experience being the reflection of mystical experience.

Concerning mystical prayer properly said, i.e. the state of the human soul united with the Divine, where it no longer has even its own breathing, but breathes in and through the breath of divine respiration alone, it is the profound silence of all soul faculties—intelligence, imagination, memory and will—which, for example, St. John of the Cross describes and explains in his works. It is the consummation of love between the soul and God.

Anonymous . Meditations on the Tarot (pp. 618-619). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

What a great read on prayer Ashvin, thanks!
Do you think that replacing 'my' and 'me' with 'our' and 'us' in Psalm 23, The Lord is my Shepherd, would constitute an arbitrary, personalized novelty in the prayer, that would dissolve the power of its formula?

[AshvinP]

On the radiating power of traditional prayer

The moral technique of prayer is generally a minefield for modern man. Probably everyone has experienced the inner conflicts that arise when the will-to-prayer is pursued - we feel silly, ashamed, guilty, anxious, fearful, uncertain, etc. What should we pray, who should we pray to, and why? These are not simple questions to answer, and certainly won't be answered by any sort of formal logical reasoning. Another conflict we may experience is that between 'personal' and 'impersonal' prayer - generally we feel the latter is too traditional, collective, and mechanical, so we need to personalize and customize our prayer in some way. Tomberg elucidates why that is not necessarily the wisest approach to take. Prayer can remain interiorized and alive without becoming too personal or straying too far from traditional formulae. As a side note, a great living example of that can be found in the book, The Way of a Pilgrim, in which an Orthodox Russian wanderer learns to literally 'pray without ceasing' (1 Thess. 5:17), day and night, waking and sleeping, by reciting the Jesus Prayer with the mind and and gradually interiorizing it to the heart (condensed: "Lord Jesus Christ... have mercy upon me."). The methods for this were picked up from his 'Starets' and by studying the Philokalia.

***

Prayer—which asks, thanks, worships and blesses—is the radiation, the breath and the warmth of the awakened heart: expressed in formulae of the articulated word, in the wordless inner sighing of the soul and, lastly, in the silence, both outward and inward, of the breathing of the soul immersed in the element of divine respiration and breathing in unison with it. Prayer has, therefore, different aspects: a “magical” aspect, i.e. prayer in formulae; a “gnostic” aspect, when it becomes inexpressible inner sighing; and, lastly, a “mystical” aspect, when it becomes the silence of union with the Divine. Thus, it is never in vain and without effect. Even a prayer-formula pronounced rapidly in a detached and impersonal manner has a magical effect, because the sum-total of ardour put into this formula in the past—by believers, saints and Angels—is evoked soley through the fact of pronouncing the prayer-formula. Every prayer-formula consecrated by use has a magical virtue, since it is collective. The voices of all those who have ever prayed it are evoked by it and join the voice of he who pronounces it with serious intention. This applies above all to all the formulae of liturgical prayer. Each phrase of the Roman Catholic Mass or Greek Orthodox Liturgy, for example, is a formula of divine sacred magic. There is nothing astonishing about this, since the Mass and the Liturgy consist only of the prayers of prophets, saints and Jesus Christ himself. But what is truly astonishing is that there are—and always have been—esotericists (such as Fabre d’Olivet, for example) who improvise cults, prayer-formulae, new “mantrams”, etc., as if something is gained through novelty! Perhaps they believe that the formulae taken from Holy Scripture or given by the saints are used up through usage and have lost their virtue? This would be a radical misunderstanding. Because usage does not at all deplete a prayer-formula, but rather, on the contrary, it adds to its virtue. For this reason it is also deplorable that certain Protestant churches have the custom of the minister or preacher improvising prayers in their divine service—probably believing that it is the personal which is more effective and not the common and collective tradition.

One should know, dear Unknown Friend, that one never prays alone, i.e. that there are always others—above, or in the past on earth—who pray with you in the same sense, in the same spirit and even in the same words. In praying, you always represent a visible or invisible community together with you. If you pray for healing, you represent all the sick and all healers, and the community of sick people and healers then prays with you. For this reason the Lord’s prayer is not addressed to “my Father in heaven”, but rather to “our Father in heaven”, and asks the Father to “give us this day our daily bread”, that he “forgive us our trespasses”, that he “leads us not into temptation” and that he “delivers us from evil”. Thus, whatever the particular intention of the one who prays the Lord’s prayer may be, it is in the name of the whole of mankind that he prays.

With respect to the prayer which is an inner, inexpressible sighing, that we have named “gnostic”—in Contrast to the “magical” prayer in formulae—it is a transformation of the psycho-physical breathing into prayer. Thus it can be made permanent—day and night, awake and asleep, without interruption, as long as respiration lasts. This type of prayer (which is practised above all in the Christian Orient) has a virtue that is more than magical: it transforms man into a mirror of the spiritual and divine world. For this reason we have named it “gnostic”—gnostic experience being the reflection of mystical experience.

Concerning mystical prayer properly said, i.e. the state of the human soul united with the Divine, where it no longer has even its own breathing, but breathes in and through the breath of divine respiration alone, it is the profound silence of all soul faculties—intelligence, imagination, memory and will—which, for example, St. John of the Cross describes and explains in his works. It is the consummation of love between the soul and God.

Anonymous . Meditations on the Tarot (pp. 618-619). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

What a great read on prayer Ashvin, thanks!
Do you think that replacing 'my' and 'me' with 'our' and 'us' in Psalm 23, The Lord is my Shepherd, would constitute an arbitrary, personalized novelty in the prayer, that would dissolve the power of its formula?

Federica,

Here is the way I think about it now, but this should only be taken tentatively and should be contemplated deeply within our own inner forum of consciousness. I don't want to give the impression that any of this is something we can logically analyze to reach definitive conclusions in any mechanical way - ultimately, the appropriate mood of prayer, and perhaps the particular formula as well, will organically arrive to us through the higher worlds and the spiritual beings we are praying to themselves. They don't simply remain passive in accepting our prayers, but provide living feedback and generally show us the care, tenderness, thoughtfulness, etc. that we have showed them in our spiritual striving. We can and should certainly draw on past wisdom and experiences of others to aid our prayer technique, but we should also seek inner discernment from the higher beings themselves.

There are three Divine members we pray to or worship in Christianity - the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. (there is also the Mother, the Daughter, and the Holy Soul in some non-protestant traditions, but we can leave those aside for now).

The Father = All Be-ing of the Cosmos, the destiny of the Cosmos or humanity as a whole
The Son = All Life of the Solar system, the destiny of the Earth, human collectives or individual souls
The Spirit = the destiny of individual soul-spiritual beings or small organizations

So when we pray in the name of the Father, we are always praying for the whole Cosmic organism or humanity as a whole.  Through the MoG, the Son established inextricable Karmic links with individual human souls as well. When we pray to the Son, we may be praying on behalf of all Life, of certain collectives of humanity, or of individual souls (including ourselves). The Son spans the whole gradient of scale-relative existence within the Solar system, in that sense. Psalm 23 would fit here, as Christ the Son is our Lord. Therefore, I don't feel it would be inappropriate or dissolve its power to make the pronouns more collective or more personal, as the context of our prayer suggests, although my preference would be to maintain the traditional formula. When we invoke the Spirit, we are generally praying on behalf of individual souls or small communities of souls, like a particular spiritual organization.

As you know, the Son harmonizes the poles of existence, such as the collective and the personal. He accomplishes at the macrocosmic scale what we do at the microcosmic scale when uniting archetypal ideas with particular perceptions through the "I". I feel that the mood of our prayer to the Son, irrespective of the particular words used, should always be seeking the harmony of these existential poles. If we are praying "the Lord is my Shepherd", for ex., perhaps it is also implicit in our mood, "and with His guidance, I shall be of better service to my fellow humanity". Or if we are praying for the health of our nation, it should be implicit that we seek our nation to be healthy so it can better harmonize with the functioning of all nations of the Earth. It is always our inner mood and intention that matters the most. The way I see it, Tomberg is saying we put unnecessary obstacles in the way of expressing that intention when we focus too much on personalizing/customizing rather than perfecting the traditional formula within our minds and hearts. And if we personalize too much, i.e. we are simply petitioning for material or spiritual things on behalf of ourselves, that reflects a selfish intention contrary to the Godhead. 

On a somewhat separate note, a faithful adherence to wise tradition is a consistent theme in Tomberg's writings. Personally, I don't think we need to be too concerned with changing a few words here or there, and I don't think that is what Tomberg is speaking of as "tradition" either. For ex., if we use Steiner's label of "Spirits of Form'' instead of the traditional name for that hierarchy, "Exusiai", I don't think that is a problem. The real issue is our overall mood and disposition towards traditional wisdom - do we casually throw these traditions aside as outdated and irrelevant, or do we reverently examine and contemplate them to extract their essence and integrate that essence into our modern practices? Steiner also takes a similar reverential approach to tradition, although it may not seem that way since he distances spiritual science from traditional terminology. I think he knew that his mission was to represent the core wisdom teachings from an altogether different angle, but there were others working in the 20th century whose mission it was to continue the golden thread of traditional spiritual ideas and practices. 

Tradition is the moral content of time in the same way as just retribution is the moral content of causality. Things following one another conceived of merely as following one another—purely as time—is morally without content and without essence, if they are not bound to one another by the thread of tradition. Tradition is the “moral backbone” of time. It binds what comes before and what comes later, whether in progress or regression, in ascension or descension. Culture and civilization are simply alternative designations for tradition. There is, however, yet another meaning to time endowed upon it by science. This is development in the sense of biological evolution. Evolution rests on two factors—on the one hand on preservation by way of the law of heredity, and on the other hand on the appearance of so-called mutations in the line of heredity, i.e., new tendencies that burst in from time to time into hereditary succession...

Time, conceived of as evolution, is amoral. And the fruits of amoral ideas are generally immoral. One relates to the world in a quite different way when one conceives of time as the bearer of living tradition. Then time becomes transformed. Past, present, and future become a morally connected organic whole in which what is of the past (i.e., “fathers” and “mothers”) is honored, valued, and cherished as inexhaustible sources—sources of fountains of the living water of tradition, which flows into the future. Every moment in the present provides a possibility and an opportunity for reflecting on the values of tradition and bringing them to mind, and the future holds the hopeful expectation of the ripening of the fruits of tradition.

Valentin, Tomberg. "Lazarus, Come Forth!"

[ScottRoberts]

I am having a hard time following the logic here. Surely our geometric concepts don't arrive within our consciousness from a lawless void.

Right. We learn mathematics from sensory-conceptual thinking. But at some point the student leaves the sensory behind, and mathematics becomes purely conceptual.

As you are probably aware, somewhat occult theology has traditionally considered the equilateral triangle as a symbol for the Holy Trinity itself. I wouldn't hold that to be an arbitrary symbolic association (and I don't think there is any such thing as arbitrary symbolic associations more generally). This is why ancient Hermeticism holds that the sensory-conceptual realm is a world of analogs to the unmanifest soul-spiritual, and vice versa.

What if my example had been, not "equilateral triangle", which does have symbolic use, but "37-sided regular polygon". or something non-geometrical like "the set of integral solutions to a^2 + b^2 = c^2", neither of which, as far as I can tell, does?

As for Hermeticism, that's what I said earlier, that the sensory world is symbolic of (among much else) the mathematical. But what is the mathematical symbolic of, in general?

The last part is exactly the issue. The internally coherent ontological system only has use if it serves as a bridge (or symbol) towards fulfilling higher intents. If we make use of it in the meantime, without also using it as such a bridge, then it becomes a closed loop for the intellectual soul and we are in some ways worse off than if we had not used it at all, because now we are languishing on the bridge (an abstract ontological system). The system becomes like deadweight that kills our forward momentum, or weighs down our ship as we continue to take on water due to the leaks that are still present in our lower soul life. Eventually the ship will sink unless we throw all those systems overboard. So we have to always be prepared to only treat the system as a symbol and also sacrifice our reliance on it once its purpose has been served. (you will notice how this is also the sacrificial way in which we proceed from imagination to inspiration and from the latter to intuition).

Put another way, the Ideational OP cannot be said to have interest in us forming coherent systems about its reality, but in us actually becoming its reality. The former only serves the final cause of the latter when the entire conceptual system is treated as a symbol.

And the way to avoid the trap is to avoid being satisfied with that which can be "thought through", as Goethe said.

[AshvinP]

I am having a hard time following the logic here. Surely our geometric concepts don't arrive within our consciousness from a lawless void.

Right. We learn mathematics from sensory-conceptual thinking. But at some point the student leaves the sensory behind, and mathematics becomes purely conceptual.

As you are probably aware, somewhat occult theology has traditionally considered the equilateral triangle as a symbol for the Holy Trinity itself. I wouldn't hold that to be an arbitrary symbolic association (and I don't think there is any such thing as arbitrary symbolic associations more generally). This is why ancient Hermeticism holds that the sensory-conceptual realm is a world of analogs to the unmanifest soul-spiritual, and vice versa.

What if my example had been, not "equilateral triangle", which does have symbolic use, but "37-sided regular polygon". or something non-geometrical like "the set of integral solutions to a^2 + b^2 = c^2", neither of which, as far as I can tell, does?

As for Hermeticism, that's what I said earlier, that the sensory world is symbolic of (among much else) the mathematical. But what is the mathematical symbolic of, in general?

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.

By the way, even at the conceptual level, I am sure ancient numerology such as we find in Cabbala could point to some symbolic significance for "37-sided regular polygon"

The last part is exactly the issue. The internally coherent ontological system only has use if it serves as a bridge (or symbol) towards fulfilling higher intents. If we make use of it in the meantime, without also using it as such a bridge, then it becomes a closed loop for the intellectual soul and we are in some ways worse off than if we had not used it at all, because now we are languishing on the bridge (an abstract ontological system). The system becomes like deadweight that kills our forward momentum, or weighs down our ship as we continue to take on water due to the leaks that are still present in our lower soul life. Eventually the ship will sink unless we throw all those systems overboard. So we have to always be prepared to only treat the system as a symbol and also sacrifice our reliance on it once its purpose has been served. (you will notice how this is also the sacrificial way in which we proceed from imagination to inspiration and from the latter to intuition).

Put another way, the Ideational OP cannot be said to have interest in us forming coherent systems about its reality, but in us actually becoming its reality. The former only serves the final cause of the latter when the entire conceptual system is treated as a symbol.

And the way to avoid the trap is to avoid being satisfied with that which can be "thought through", as Goethe said.

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.

[Federica]

On the radiating power of traditional prayer

The moral technique of prayer is generally a minefield for modern man. Probably everyone has experienced the inner conflicts that arise when the will-to-prayer is pursued - we feel silly, ashamed, guilty, anxious, fearful, uncertain, etc. What should we pray, who should we pray to, and why? These are not simple questions to answer, and certainly won't be answered by any sort of formal logical reasoning. Another conflict we may experience is that between 'personal' and 'impersonal' prayer - generally we feel the latter is too traditional, collective, and mechanical, so we need to personalize and customize our prayer in some way. Tomberg elucidates why that is not necessarily the wisest approach to take. Prayer can remain interiorized and alive without becoming too personal or straying too far from traditional formulae. As a side note, a great living example of that can be found in the book, The Way of a Pilgrim, in which an Orthodox Russian wanderer learns to literally 'pray without ceasing' (1 Thess. 5:17), day and night, waking and sleeping, by reciting the Jesus Prayer with the mind and and gradually interiorizing it to the heart (condensed: "Lord Jesus Christ... have mercy upon me."). The methods for this were picked up from his 'Starets' and by studying the Philokalia.

***

Prayer—which asks, thanks, worships and blesses—is the radiation, the breath and the warmth of the awakened heart: expressed in formulae of the articulated word, in the wordless inner sighing of the soul and, lastly, in the silence, both outward and inward, of the breathing of the soul immersed in the element of divine respiration and breathing in unison with it. Prayer has, therefore, different aspects: a “magical” aspect, i.e. prayer in formulae; a “gnostic” aspect, when it becomes inexpressible inner sighing; and, lastly, a “mystical” aspect, when it becomes the silence of union with the Divine. Thus, it is never in vain and without effect. Even a prayer-formula pronounced rapidly in a detached and impersonal manner has a magical effect, because the sum-total of ardour put into this formula in the past—by believers, saints and Angels—is evoked soley through the fact of pronouncing the prayer-formula. Every prayer-formula consecrated by use has a magical virtue, since it is collective. The voices of all those who have ever prayed it are evoked by it and join the voice of he who pronounces it with serious intention. This applies above all to all the formulae of liturgical prayer. Each phrase of the Roman Catholic Mass or Greek Orthodox Liturgy, for example, is a formula of divine sacred magic. There is nothing astonishing about this, since the Mass and the Liturgy consist only of the prayers of prophets, saints and Jesus Christ himself. But what is truly astonishing is that there are—and always have been—esotericists (such as Fabre d’Olivet, for example) who improvise cults, prayer-formulae, new “mantrams”, etc., as if something is gained through novelty! Perhaps they believe that the formulae taken from Holy Scripture or given by the saints are used up through usage and have lost their virtue? This would be a radical misunderstanding. Because usage does not at all deplete a prayer-formula, but rather, on the contrary, it adds to its virtue. For this reason it is also deplorable that certain Protestant churches have the custom of the minister or preacher improvising prayers in their divine service—probably believing that it is the personal which is more effective and not the common and collective tradition.

One should know, dear Unknown Friend, that one never prays alone, i.e. that there are always others—above, or in the past on earth—who pray with you in the same sense, in the same spirit and even in the same words. In praying, you always represent a visible or invisible community together with you. If you pray for healing, you represent all the sick and all healers, and the community of sick people and healers then prays with you. For this reason the Lord’s prayer is not addressed to “my Father in heaven”, but rather to “our Father in heaven”, and asks the Father to “give us this day our daily bread”, that he “forgive us our trespasses”, that he “leads us not into temptation” and that he “delivers us from evil”. Thus, whatever the particular intention of the one who prays the Lord’s prayer may be, it is in the name of the whole of mankind that he prays.

With respect to the prayer which is an inner, inexpressible sighing, that we have named “gnostic”—in Contrast to the “magical” prayer in formulae—it is a transformation of the psycho-physical breathing into prayer. Thus it can be made permanent—day and night, awake and asleep, without interruption, as long as respiration lasts. This type of prayer (which is practised above all in the Christian Orient) has a virtue that is more than magical: it transforms man into a mirror of the spiritual and divine world. For this reason we have named it “gnostic”—gnostic experience being the reflection of mystical experience.

Concerning mystical prayer properly said, i.e. the state of the human soul united with the Divine, where it no longer has even its own breathing, but breathes in and through the breath of divine respiration alone, it is the profound silence of all soul faculties—intelligence, imagination, memory and will—which, for example, St. John of the Cross describes and explains in his works. It is the consummation of love between the soul and God.

Anonymous . Meditations on the Tarot (pp. 618-619). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

What a great read on prayer Ashvin, thanks!
Do you think that replacing 'my' and 'me' with 'our' and 'us' in Psalm 23, The Lord is my Shepherd, would constitute an arbitrary, personalized novelty in the prayer, that would dissolve the power of its formula?

Federica,

Here is the way I think about it now, but this should only be taken tentatively and should be contemplated deeply within our own inner forum of consciousness. I don't want to give the impression that any of this is something we can logically analyze to reach definitive conclusions in any mechanical way - ultimately, the appropriate mood of prayer, and perhaps the particular formula as well, will organically arrive to us through the higher worlds and the spiritual beings we are praying to themselves. They don't simply remain passive in accepting our prayers, but provide living feedback and generally show us the care, tenderness, thoughtfulness, etc. that we have showed them in our spiritual striving. We can and should certainly draw on past wisdom and experiences of others to aid our prayer technique, but we should also seek inner discernment from the higher beings themselves.

There are three Divine members we pray to or worship in Christianity - the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. (there is also the Mother, the Daughter, and the Holy Soul in some non-protestant traditions, but we can leave those aside for now).

The Father = All Be-ing of the Cosmos, the destiny of the Cosmos or humanity as a whole
The Son = All Life of the Solar system, the destiny of the Earth, human collectives or individual souls
The Spirit = the destiny of individual soul-spiritual beings or small organizations

So when we pray in the name of the Father, we are always praying for the whole Cosmic organism or humanity as a whole.  Through the MoG, the Son established inextricable Karmic links with individual human souls as well. When we pray to the Son, we may be praying on behalf of all Life, of certain collectives of humanity, or of individual souls (including ourselves). The Son spans the whole gradient of scale-relative existence within the Solar system, in that sense. Psalm 23 would fit here, as Christ the Son is our Lord. Therefore, I don't feel it would be inappropriate or dissolve its power to make the pronouns more collective or more personal, as the context of our prayer suggests, although my preference would be to maintain the traditional formula. When we invoke the Spirit, we are generally praying on behalf of individual souls or small communities of souls, like a particular spiritual organization.

As you know, the Son harmonizes the poles of existence, such as the collective and the personal. He accomplishes at the macrocosmic scale what we do at the microcosmic scale when uniting archetypal ideas with particular perceptions through the "I". I feel that the mood of our prayer to the Son, irrespective of the particular words used, should always be seeking the harmony of these existential poles. If we are praying "the Lord is my Shepherd", for ex., perhaps it is also implicit in our mood, "and with His guidance, I shall be of better service to my fellow humanity". Or if we are praying for the health of our nation, it should be implicit that we seek our nation to be healthy so it can better harmonize with the functioning of all nations of the Earth. It is always our inner mood and intention that matters the most. The way I see it, Tomberg is saying we put unnecessary obstacles in the way of expressing that intention when we focus too much on personalizing/customizing rather than perfecting the traditional formula within our minds and hearts. And if we personalize too much, i.e. we are simply petitioning for material or spiritual things on behalf of ourselves, that reflects a selfish intention contrary to the Godhead. 

On a somewhat separate note, a faithful adherence to wise tradition is a consistent theme in Tomberg's writings. Personally, I don't think we need to be too concerned with changing a few words here or there, and I don't think that is what Tomberg is speaking of as "tradition" either. For ex., if we use Steiner's label of "Spirits of Form'' instead of the traditional name for that hierarchy, "Exusiai", I don't think that is a problem. The real issue is our overall mood and disposition towards traditional wisdom - do we casually throw these traditions aside as outdated and irrelevant, or do we reverently examine and contemplate them to extract their essence and integrate that essence into our modern practices? Steiner also takes a similar reverential approach to tradition, although it may not seem that way since he distances spiritual science from traditional terminology. I think he knew that his mission was to represent the core wisdom teachings from an altogether different angle, but there were others working in the 20th century whose mission it was to continue the golden thread of traditional spiritual ideas and practices. 

Tradition is the moral content of time in the same way as just retribution is the moral content of causality. Things following one another conceived of merely as following one another—purely as time—is morally without content and without essence, if they are not bound to one another by the thread of tradition. Tradition is the “moral backbone” of time. It binds what comes before and what comes later, whether in progress or regression, in ascension or descension. Culture and civilization are simply alternative designations for tradition. There is, however, yet another meaning to time endowed upon it by science. This is development in the sense of biological evolution. Evolution rests on two factors—on the one hand on preservation by way of the law of heredity, and on the other hand on the appearance of so-called mutations in the line of heredity, i.e., new tendencies that burst in from time to time into hereditary succession...

Time, conceived of as evolution, is amoral. And the fruits of amoral ideas are generally immoral. One relates to the world in a quite different way when one conceives of time as the bearer of living tradition. Then time becomes transformed. Past, present, and future become a morally connected organic whole in which what is of the past (i.e., “fathers” and “mothers”) is honored, valued, and cherished as inexhaustible sources—sources of fountains of the living water of tradition, which flows into the future. Every moment in the present provides a possibility and an opportunity for reflecting on the values of tradition and bringing them to mind, and the future holds the hopeful expectation of the ripening of the fruits of tradition.

Valentin, Tomberg. "Lazarus, Come Forth!"

Ashvin, thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Regarding your separate note on the value of tradition, I have a few comments. It's difficult for me to imagine that the only novelty in Steiner has to do with terminology or angle, and that apart from that, all else in spiritual science is in line with traditional wisdom. I think that Steiner has initiated a new wisdom. New because adapted to a new epoch, to an evolved (changed) status of humanity and the Earth. Not only did he name things differently, but the ideas themselves, and the inner and outer practices connected with those ideas, from meditation to the tripartite social order, are innovative and non-traditional. He certainly reverently respected traditional wisdom. Surely it's not possible to find apporpriate orientation towards the future, without extended acknowledgment and integration of the shape and quality of the past waves of evolution in time. But i think Steiner honored that as a foundation for the creation of a new wisdom, as constituent element of the larger and more encompassing waves that are to be drawn going forward.

The way I see it, if a tradition really is wise, it doesn’t compel faithful adherence. Rather, it contains in itself the possibility for its overcoming. Otherwise, what would be the difference between tradition and involution?

I haven’t formed any direct appreciation of Tomberg’s understanding of tradition yet. However, in the quote, I don’t understand well his idea of tradition as the moral backbone of time. I see morality as a future-oriented quality of reality, and the value of tradition as memory integration. If morality arises from an inner recursive character of Time itself, that constantly falls back on its backbone, then what would evolution mean in proper sense? What challenge would the future present us with, if morality was entirely fulfilled by adherence to wise traditions? There must be an element of freedom and creativity, hence inevitably some unorthodoxy to discover, otherwise it would all come down to turning the crank of the “inexhaustible source of the living water of tradition”.
I realize both elements, past and future, tradition and creation, constraint and freedom, are necessary and present in polar relation, however I don’t see what is gained by especially highlighting the element of tradition, when our ideal, our work, our mission as humanity is to forge that creative missing part which will differentiate us from the existing, the known, the past, i.e. from tradition.

[ScottRoberts]

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.

[AshvinP]

On a somewhat separate note, a faithful adherence to wise tradition is a consistent theme in Tomberg's writings. Personally, I don't think we need to be too concerned with changing a few words here or there, and I don't think that is what Tomberg is speaking of as "tradition" either. For ex., if we use Steiner's label of "Spirits of Form'' instead of the traditional name for that hierarchy, "Exusiai", I don't think that is a problem. The real issue is our overall mood and disposition towards traditional wisdom - do we casually throw these traditions aside as outdated and irrelevant, or do we reverently examine and contemplate them to extract their essence and integrate that essence into our modern practices? Steiner also takes a similar reverential approach to tradition, although it may not seem that way since he distances spiritual science from traditional terminology. I think he knew that his mission was to represent the core wisdom teachings from an altogether different angle, but there were others working in the 20th century whose mission it was to continue the golden thread of traditional spiritual ideas and practices. 

Tradition is the moral content of time in the same way as just retribution is the moral content of causality. Things following one another conceived of merely as following one another—purely as time—is morally without content and without essence, if they are not bound to one another by the thread of tradition. Tradition is the “moral backbone” of time. It binds what comes before and what comes later, whether in progress or regression, in ascension or descension. Culture and civilization are simply alternative designations for tradition. There is, however, yet another meaning to time endowed upon it by science. This is development in the sense of biological evolution. Evolution rests on two factors—on the one hand on preservation by way of the law of heredity, and on the other hand on the appearance of so-called mutations in the line of heredity, i.e., new tendencies that burst in from time to time into hereditary succession...

Time, conceived of as evolution, is amoral. And the fruits of amoral ideas are generally immoral. One relates to the world in a quite different way when one conceives of time as the bearer of living tradition. Then time becomes transformed. Past, present, and future become a morally connected organic whole in which what is of the past (i.e., “fathers” and “mothers”) is honored, valued, and cherished as inexhaustible sources—sources of fountains of the living water of tradition, which flows into the future. Every moment in the present provides a possibility and an opportunity for reflecting on the values of tradition and bringing them to mind, and the future holds the hopeful expectation of the ripening of the fruits of tradition.

Valentin, Tomberg. "Lazarus, Come Forth!"

Ashvin, thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Regarding your separate note on the value of tradition, I have a few comments. It's difficult for me to imagine that the only novelty in Steiner has to do with terminology or angle, and that apart from that, all else in spiritual science is in line with traditional wisdom. I think that Steiner has initiated a new wisdom. New because adapted to a new epoch, to an evolved (changed) status of humanity and the Earth. Not only did he name things differently, but the ideas themselves, and the inner and outer practices connected with those ideas, from meditation to the tripartite social order, are innovative and non-traditional. He certainly reverently respected traditional wisdom. Surely it's not possible to find apporpriate orientation towards the future, without extended acknowledgment and integration of the shape and quality of the past waves of evolution in time. But i think Steiner honored that as a foundation for the creation of a new wisdom, as constituent element of the larger and more encompassing waves that are to be drawn going forward.

The way I see it, if a tradition really is wise, it doesn’t compel faithful adherence. Rather, it contains in itself the possibility for its overcoming. Otherwise, what would be the difference between tradition and involution?

I haven’t formed any direct appreciation of Tomberg’s understanding of tradition yet. However, in the quote, I don’t understand well his idea of tradition as the moral backbone of time. I see morality as a future-oriented quality of reality, and the value of tradition as memory integration. If morality arises from an inner recursive character of Time itself, that constantly falls back on its backbone, then what would evolution mean in proper sense? What challenge would the future present us with, if morality was entirely fulfilled by adherence to wise traditions? There must be an element of freedom and creativity, hence inevitably some unorthodoxy to discover, otherwise it would all come down to turning the crank of the “inexhaustible source of the living water of tradition”.
I realize both elements, past and future, tradition and creation, constraint and freedom, are necessary and present in polar relation, however I don’t see what is gained by especially highlighting the element of tradition, when our ideal, our work, our mission as humanity is to forge that creative missing part which will differentiate us from the existing, the known, the past, i.e. from tradition.

Federica,

Thanks for your feedback. It is a very interesting topic to contemplate.

Certainly changing terminology is not the only novelty in Steiner's work, and I never intended to suggest that. Especially when we consider his educational, agricultural, artistic, social, etc. innovations, it would be quite foolish to suggest that. I was only trying to show why it may appear to some people that he places little importance on tradition (due to the different terminology), but when we delve beneath the surface of those appearances, we find he has a great respect and reverence for traditional wisdom. But he was also acutely aware of the modern habit to attach ourselves to tradition for only its outer form, rather than its inner moral essence. Once we penetrate into the latter, we are reaching up into wider and wider apertures of ideation that structure greater and greater lengths of Earthly time. It is ultimately the moral significance of things and events, rooted in archetypal spirits, that weave them into coherent unities across all levels of existence. We can even speak of the sunrise and sunset, or the four seasons, as 'traditions' at the Cosmic-Earthly level. These rhythms are rooted firmly in already accomplished intents, even more so than our cultural traditions. 

Many of these things can be better understood if we contemplate the self-similar fractal nature of reality, which expresses itself temporally in the waves of involution and evolution - natural, cultural, and individual. The future is and will continue to be, in the most literal sense, the past mirrored across the plane of self-consciousness of living souls. That is true at the level of physics, biology, psychology, and cultural history. Steiner himself is the best source for the expression during cultural history, as he goes into the details of how souls plant seeds in past epochs which ripen in future epochs (or are 'recapitulated' at a higher level) through the Spirit. All the spiritual forces-beings who inspired his ideas and work were, at their foundation, the same ones that inspired the souls of primordial times, and those souls are none other than us. These inspirations certainly express themselves in radically different forms on the physical plane over time, but their 'moral backbone' is eternal and what provides for the overarching continuity of consciousness. 

That excerpt from the previous post was taken from Tombeg's discussion of the commandment, "Honor thy Father and thy Mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you,” And we should remember the words of Christ Jesus as well - "I have not come to abolish the Law or prophets, but to fulfill them." Tomberg also focuses plenty on the fulfillment of that moral backbone through future creative activity, so I don't think there is any one-sided highlighting of the element of tradition, only needful warnings against the casual disregard for traditional institutions and practices, a disregard that has become commonplace in modern culture and even within some occult/esoteric organizations. And, in that haste to move on to 'new' ways of doing things, we often miss goldmines of opportunities embedded within cultural traditions to work towards our inner moral perfection. 

Every living tradition is based on two forces working together: the sustaining force of memory that is oriented toward the past, and the force of hope oriented toward the future. The former preserves the past from being forgotten, while the latter gives shape to the future understood as the path toward perfection. In other words, the motherly principle preserves tradition, and the fatherly principle guides it toward the goal in the future. The length of the life of tradition—of every tradition—has its basis thus in the commandment: “Honor your father and your mother.” Memory, upon which the life of tradition depends, is not the practice of mere recollection as the ability to recall ideas about the past. Rather, it is the ability of the soul—of the entire life of the soul—to bring the past alive in the present, to make it present. Thus, for example, the practice of devotion to the fourteen stations of Christ’s Way of the Cross that, according to tradition, the most holy Virgin Mother herself introduced, is not a mere memory exercise—an impressing into memory of what happened, in the proper order—but the striving to experience what is unforgettable about the Way of the Cross in the present.

One of his main concerns, as a practicing Catholic, was the nearly universal disregard and even disdain for the Catholic Church and its tradition, especially among esoteric circles. I mentioned before how I was falling into that trap as well, expressing a certain skepticism and cynicism towards the traditional faith, in so far as I was simply unaware of the deeper roots of Orthodox and Catholic teachings, dogmas, rites, sacraments, etc. Of course there is still room for constructive criticism, 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. But, in order to not become too one-sided, we should guard against the default modern mindset that makes us feel like we already know the depth and value of spiritual traditions, and therefore don't need to spend too much time contemplating them. Although the constitution of humanity is always evolving, the post-Christian constitution has remained relatively stable to our time and the core of esoteric striving, including Anthroposophical, will always be Christ-centered. If we aim for that striving to become more and more universal to humanity, the core streams of Christianity represented in the institutions of the Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant faiths, to which many millions belong, should be integrated and utilized. 

Powell also wrote a few interesting articles about the problematic relationship between Anthroposophy and Tomberg, which I think it is helpful to consider in this context. I would like to share an excerpt from one, which in turn is an introduction to Christ and Sophia written by the late Christopher Bamford. I think the key takeaway is that Steiner himself would have welcomed Tomberg's unique 'Platonic' approach with open arms, as even a fulfillment of his own prophesies for the future course of Anthroposophy, but after his death the Society went in an altogether different direction. So there is tension there, but it is between the post-war Anthroposophical Society and Tomberg, not between Steiner and Tomberg. The latter contributed quite a bit of original clairvoyant research into the Biblical mysteries just as Steiner did, and I view the integration of the Tomberg's contributions as the natural continuation and fulfillment of much of the Steiner's work in that area.

https://sophiafoundation.org/wp-content ... c-soul.pdf

Aristotelians and Platonists should work together, but during the period when Tomberg was active in Anthroposophy, the mood was Aristotelian. As a Platonist, he was controversial almost by definition. Likewise, as a Platonist (and a Russian) he had an ineradicable affinity for Russian Orthodoxy, which again made him “different”. It presented the problem of a “religious” temperament (again essentially Platonist) which, rather than turning toward nature and to visible history as the Aristotelians did, turned to Christ and the Christ Event as the heart of Anthroposophy, and hence to the heart and inner meaning of history, nature, and cosmos. On this basis…Tomberg sought to ground Anthroposophy in biblical revelation. Startling in its ambition though this might have been, it certainly was not orthogonal to Steiner’s own intentions, because for Steiner, too, the Mystery of Golgotha was indisputably the “turning point of time”… Something must still be added in conclusion. For Tomberg, as an anthroposophist, Sophia – as cosmic intelligence and ultimately, therefore, the source of our cognitions – is closely connected with the Archangel Michael. The Archangel Michael for Rudolf Steiner and for anthroposophists is at once the regent (or ruler) of our age, the Guardian of the Threshold who mediates cosmic intelligence to humanity, and the founder of a cosmic spiritual school, whose earthly reflection Anthroposophy seeks to be. In the first lecture (“The New Michael Community”) in Inner Development, Tomberg shows the intimate relationship between Michael, Sophia, and Christ. He speaks of Platonists and Aristotelians coming together to form a new “spiritual knighthood” under the name Michael-Sophia in nomine Christi (“Michael [and] Sophia in the name of Christ”): 

(Tomberg) "Rudolf Steiner speaks of two streams within the anthroposophic movement: the Platonists and the Aristotelians. The Platonists are those in whom the new clairvoyance will appear in the form of karmic seership. The Aristotelians will have a clairvoyance with regard to the secrets of nature…These two groups must work together; there is no other way for it to be. They will have to work together…The men and women of Sophia [Platonists], [human beings] of revelation, will walk the path together with the men and women of knowledge [Aristotelians oriented toward Michael]. The Platonists [Sophia] will stand guard with the Aristotelians [Michael] at the threshold of the spiritual world…

This community was begun through Rudolf Steiner, through the founding of the anthroposophic movement, through the revelation of the mission of Michael, and through the misfortune that we later experienced. We are summoned by the voice of Rudolf Steiner; we are tested by the misfortune now coming to us [1938]. What we must awaken in the depths of our souls is earnestness in regard to the spiritual and outer worlds, and fidelity to the spirit, each one according to his or her position in life. We can conduct ourselves in every way, in speech and action, according to the demands of everyday life. But let us keep one province free from compromise; let us remain true to the spirit, independent of all teachings and teachers, of all organizations in the world. Let us remain faithful to the inner voice of truth and conscience! Then we are in the school that is preparing for the future Michael Community – the community that will bear the motto: Michael-Sophia in nomine Christi (“Michael [and] Sophia in the name of Christ”)."15

[Federica]

Federica,

Thanks for your feedback. It is a very interesting topic to contemplate.

Certainly changing terminology is not the only novelty in Steiner's work, and I never intended to suggest that. Especially when we consider his educational, agricultural, artistic, social, etc. innovations, it would be quite foolish to suggest that. I was only trying to show why it may appear to some people that he places little importance on tradition (due to the different terminology), but when we delve beneath the surface of those appearances, we find he has a great respect and reverence for traditional wisdom. But he was also acutely aware of the modern habit to attach ourselves to tradition for only its outer form, rather than its inner moral essence. Once we penetrate into the latter, we are reaching up into wider and wider apertures of ideation that structure greater and greater lengths of Earthly time. It is ultimately the moral significance of things and events, rooted in archetypal spirits, that weave them into coherent unities across all levels of existence. We can even speak of the sunrise and sunset, or the four seasons, as 'traditions' at the Cosmic-Earthly level. These rhythms are rooted firmly in already accomplished intents, even more so than our cultural traditions. 

Many of these things can be better understood if we contemplate the self-similar fractal nature of reality, which expresses itself temporally in the waves of involution and evolution - natural, cultural, and individual. The future is and will continue to be, in the most literal sense, the past mirrored across the plane of self-consciousness of living souls. That is true at the level of physics, biology, psychology, and cultural history. Steiner himself is the best source for the expression during cultural history, as he goes into the details of how souls plant seeds in past epochs which ripen in future epochs (or are 'recapitulated' at a higher level) through the Spirit. All the spiritual forces-beings who inspired his ideas and work were, at their foundation, the same ones that inspired the souls of primordial times, and those souls are none other than us. These inspirations certainly express themselves in radically different forms on the physical plane over time, but their 'moral backbone' is eternal and what provides for the overarching continuity of consciousness. 

That excerpt from the previous post was taken from Tombeg's discussion of the commandment, "Honor thy Father and thy Mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you,” And we should remember the words of Christ Jesus as well - "I have not come to abolish the Law or prophets, but to fulfill them." Tomberg also focuses plenty on the fulfillment of that moral backbone through future creative activity, so I don't think there is any one-sided highlighting of the element of tradition, only needful warnings against the casual disregard for traditional institutions and practices, a disregard that has become commonplace in modern culture and even within some occult/esoteric organizations. And, in that haste to move on to 'new' ways of doing things, we often miss goldmines of opportunities embedded within cultural traditions to work towards our inner moral perfection. 

Every living tradition is based on two forces working together: the sustaining force of memory that is oriented toward the past, and the force of hope oriented toward the future. The former preserves the past from being forgotten, while the latter gives shape to the future understood as the path toward perfection. In other words, the motherly principle preserves tradition, and the fatherly principle guides it toward the goal in the future. The length of the life of tradition—of every tradition—has its basis thus in the commandment: “Honor your father and your mother.” Memory, upon which the life of tradition depends, is not the practice of mere recollection as the ability to recall ideas about the past. Rather, it is the ability of the soul—of the entire life of the soul—to bring the past alive in the present, to make it present. Thus, for example, the practice of devotion to the fourteen stations of Christ’s Way of the Cross that, according to tradition, the most holy Virgin Mother herself introduced, is not a mere memory exercise—an impressing into memory of what happened, in the proper order—but the striving to experience what is unforgettable about the Way of the Cross in the present.

One of his main concerns, as a practicing Catholic, was the nearly universal disregard and even disdain for the Catholic Church and its tradition, especially among esoteric circles. I mentioned before how I was falling into that trap as well, expressing a certain skepticism and cynicism towards the traditional faith, in so far as I was simply unaware of the deeper roots of Orthodox and Catholic teachings, dogmas, rites, sacraments, etc. Of course there is still room for constructive criticism, 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. But, in order to not become too one-sided, we should guard against the default modern mindset that makes us feel like we already know the depth and value of spiritual traditions, and therefore don't need to spend too much time contemplating them. Although the constitution of humanity is always evolving, the post-Christian constitution has remained relatively stable to our time and the core of esoteric striving, including Anthroposophical, will always be Christ-centered. If we aim for that striving to become more and more universal to humanity, the core streams of Christianity represented in the institutions of the Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant faiths, to which many millions belong, should be integrated and utilized. 

Powell also wrote a few interesting articles about the problematic relationship between Anthroposophy and Tomberg, which I think it is helpful to consider in this context. I would like to share an excerpt from one, which in turn is an introduction to Christ and Sophia written by the late Christopher Bamford. I think the key takeaway is that Steiner himself would have welcomed Tomberg's unique 'Platonic' approach with open arms, as even a fulfillment of his own prophesies for the future course of Anthroposophy, but after his death the Society went in an altogether different direction. So there is tension there, but it is between the post-war Anthroposophical Society and Tomberg, not between Steiner and Tomberg. The latter contributed quite a bit of original clairvoyant research into the Biblical mysteries just as Steiner did, and I view the integration of the Tomberg's contributions as the natural continuation and fulfillment of much of the Steiner's work in that area.

https://sophiafoundation.org/wp-content ... c-soul.pdf

Aristotelians and Platonists should work together, but during the period when Tomberg was active in Anthroposophy, the mood was Aristotelian. As a Platonist, he was controversial almost by definition. Likewise, as a Platonist (and a Russian) he had an ineradicable affinity for Russian Orthodoxy, which again made him “different”. It presented the problem of a “religious” temperament (again essentially Platonist) which, rather than turning toward nature and to visible history as the Aristotelians did, turned to Christ and the Christ Event as the heart of Anthroposophy, and hence to the heart and inner meaning of history, nature, and cosmos. On this basis…Tomberg sought to ground Anthroposophy in biblical revelation. Startling in its ambition though this might have been, it certainly was not orthogonal to Steiner’s own intentions, because for Steiner, too, the Mystery of Golgotha was indisputably the “turning point of time”… Something must still be added in conclusion. For Tomberg, as an anthroposophist, Sophia – as cosmic intelligence and ultimately, therefore, the source of our cognitions – is closely connected with the Archangel Michael. The Archangel Michael for Rudolf Steiner and for anthroposophists is at once the regent (or ruler) of our age, the Guardian of the Threshold who mediates cosmic intelligence to humanity, and the founder of a cosmic spiritual school, whose earthly reflection Anthroposophy seeks to be. In the first lecture (“The New Michael Community”) in Inner Development, Tomberg shows the intimate relationship between Michael, Sophia, and Christ. He speaks of Platonists and Aristotelians coming together to form a new “spiritual knighthood” under the name Michael-Sophia in nomine Christi (“Michael [and] Sophia in the name of Christ”): 

(Tomberg) "Rudolf Steiner speaks of two streams within the anthroposophic movement: the Platonists and the Aristotelians. The Platonists are those in whom the new clairvoyance will appear in the form of karmic seership. The Aristotelians will have a clairvoyance with regard to the secrets of nature…These two groups must work together; there is no other way for it to be. They will have to work together…The men and women of Sophia [Platonists], [human beings] of revelation, will walk the path together with the men and women of knowledge [Aristotelians oriented toward Michael]. The Platonists [Sophia] will stand guard with the Aristotelians [Michael] at the threshold of the spiritual world…

This community was begun through Rudolf Steiner, through the founding of the anthroposophic movement, through the revelation of the mission of Michael, and through the misfortune that we later experienced. We are summoned by the voice of Rudolf Steiner; we are tested by the misfortune now coming to us [1938]. What we must awaken in the depths of our souls is earnestness in regard to the spiritual and outer worlds, and fidelity to the spirit, each one according to his or her position in life. We can conduct ourselves in every way, in speech and action, according to the demands of everyday life. But let us keep one province free from compromise; let us remain true to the spirit, independent of all teachings and teachers, of all organizations in the world. Let us remain faithful to the inner voice of truth and conscience! Then we are in the school that is preparing for the future Michael Community – the community that will bear the motto: Michael-Sophia in nomine Christi (“Michael [and] Sophia in the name of Christ”)."15

Ashvin,

Thanks again for expanding on the context of the idea of tradition.

We can even speak of the sunrise and sunset, or the four seasons, as 'traditions' at the Cosmic-Earthly level. These rhythms are rooted firmly in already accomplished intents, even more so than our cultural traditions.

Indeed, in certain sense, I am much more comfortable with such an extensive interpretation of the word ‘tradition’ that goes well beyond human cultural traditions. In this way, I understand that “these inspirations certainly express themselves in radically different forms on the physical plane over time, but their 'moral backbone' is eternal and what provides for the overarching continuity of consciousness”.

But then the question becomes how to distinguish this extended, thus diluted meaning of the word ‘tradition’ from the idea of Cosmic intent? For me, a tradition is something specifically human, because it implies generational transmission, thus requires the context of physicality. Zooming out of that context, through the contemplation of the fractal nature of reality, the concept of tradition is left behind, attached to the smaller Earthly cycles of incarnation and family and folk continuity. As I see it, tradition can refer to those smaller cycles, or oscillations manifesting on the earthly plane, nested within but not identical to those Cosmic inspirations.
I am not pointing this out for the sake of mere debate, but because the context you have added to Tomberg’s thoughts on tradition seems to confirm that human tradition is at the center of his reflections. This seems to differ from the concept of tradition as you illustrate it above. However, the last quote you shared tells me that Tomberg’s idea of tradition also is extensive, in so far as he puts it at the balancing point between the forces of the past/memory integration - what I would think exhaustively constitutes tradition - and the forces of the future/of hope, that guide towards perfection. So, like you, he also seems to have an idea of tradition that extends well beyond the etymological sense, although maybe not in the same way as yours. For Tomberg, tradition is continuity, as it seems. It possibly even joins the idea itself of Time rhythms, or time waves, but in relation to their human effects. I am sure there is much more left for me to grasp in his vision, which I certainly look forward to. For now, I naturally agree with the call against disregard and disdain for the wise Catholic traditions, and their respectful and heartfelt continued practice.


I have to add though - part of what I was trying to signal with these comments on tradition, is an intention to dam what seems to me an excessive praise of traditions in general, and here in relation with the Catholic Church, when you even seem to make an attempt to redeem the word (and maybe the nature itself?) of dogmas, by ‘sneaking’ the word in the middle of a positive series of traditional concepts, with ‘teachings’ at its left and 'rites' at its right, and an “etc.” at the end, to smoothly blend it all together. I have to admit, I don't like that! (yes, I am aware it’s my personality speaking )

Dogma might be traditional, but should be clearly distinguished from wise tradition, I believe. Dogma represents all that we are trying to fight, when we aim at being open to new, unexpected, unthought-of ways to grasp reality. And I would also recall that the good reasons for criticism towards the Church as institution (not as a locus of manifestation of ancient traditions) go way beyond the fact that it “fights against free thinking or attaches its practices to entirely worldly concerns”. The institution of the Catholic Church has been, and still is, the favorable milieu in which horrible crimes are committed. Let's not implicitely wipe off that. Suffice to consider as an example the wide-spread crimes of pedophilia, that the institution-Church often doesn’t hesitate to cover up and dismiss. Which is why, when you say that the Protestant Churches in particular are guilty of too much focus on worldly concerns, I want to say, I personally surely prefer that, I prefer a less hierarchical institution-Church that plays the worldly role of social safety net, rather than the odious play of power games typical of the Roman Catholic Church. Notice, this power structure does not guarantee that, by preseving its institutional traditions, that Church fully preserves the wise traditions in liturgy as well, as we have recently seen with the changes approved to the Lord’s Prayer’s formula, or the fact that their representatives also regularly find lots to say on entirely worldly concerns.

For all these reasons, I would like to mark a necessary, very clear distinction between the cultural institution-Church and its wide-spread aberrations on one side, and the Church as ideal, as Christ-centered spiritual community, held together on the worldly plane around the power and continuity of wise traditions, on the other. I understand that Tomberg wanted to redeem the institution-Church in some sense (I don’t know if the intention was primarily related to its relationships with Anthroposophy or not) by becoming an active member of it. This appears to me as a very noble intention. But nothing can be redeemed today by seamlessly assimilating certain amoral traditions of certain institutions of the Church to the Cosmic ‘traditional’ rhythms rooted in archetypal spirits, and the higher ideals they order across time and space.


I haven’t read Powell’s article yet. I will save that part for another post.

[AshvinP]

But then the question becomes how to distinguish this extended, thus diluted meaning of the word ‘tradition’ from the idea of Cosmic intent? For me, a tradition is something specifically human, because it implies generational transmission, thus requires the context of physicality. Zooming out of that context, through the contemplation of the fractal nature of reality, the concept of tradition is left behind, attached to the smaller Earthly cycles of incarnation and family and folk continuity. As I see it, tradition can refer to those smaller cycles, or oscillations manifesting on the earthly plane, nested within but not identical to those Cosmic inspirations.

I am not pointing this out for the sake of mere debate, but because the context you have added to Tomberg’s thoughts on tradition seems to confirm that human tradition is at the center of his reflections. This seems to differ from the concept of tradition as you illustrate it above. However, the last quote you shared tells me that Tomberg’s idea of tradition also is extensive, in so far as he puts it at the balancing point between the forces of the past/memory integration - what I would think exhaustively constitutes tradition - and the forces of the future/of hope, that guide towards perfection. So, like you, he also seems to have an idea of tradition that extends well beyond the etymological sense, although maybe not in the same way as yours. For Tomberg, tradition is continuity, as it seems. It possibly even joins the idea itself of Time rhythms, or time waves, but in relation to their human effects. I am sure there is much more left for me to grasp in his vision, which I certainly look forward to. For now, I naturally agree with the call against disregard and disdain for the wise Catholic traditions, and their respectful and heartfelt continued practice.

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.

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. 

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.

I have to add though - part of what I was trying to signal with these comments on tradition, is an intention to dam what seems to me an excessive praise of traditions in general, and here in relation with the Catholic Church, when you even seem to make an attempt to redeem the word (and maybe the nature itself?) of dogmas, by ‘sneaking’ the word in the middle of a positive series of traditional concepts, with ‘teachings’ at its left and 'rites' at its right, and an “etc.” at the end, to smoothly blend it all together. I have to admit, I don't like that! (yes, I am aware it’s my personality speaking )

Dogma might be traditional, but should be clearly distinguished from wise tradition, I believe. Dogma represents all that we are trying to fight, when we aim at being open to new, unexpected, unthought-of ways to grasp reality. And I would also recall that the good reasons for criticism towards the Church as institution (not as a locus of manifestation of ancient traditions) go way beyond the fact that it “fights against free thinking or attaches its practices to entirely worldly concerns”. The institution of the Catholic Church has been, and still is, the favorable milieu in which horrible crimes are committed. Let's not implicitely wipe off that. Suffice to consider as an example the wide-spread crimes of pedophilia, that the institution-Church often doesn’t hesitate to cover up and dismiss. Which is why, when you say that the Protestant Churches in particular are guilty of too much focus on worldly concerns, I want to say, I personally surely prefer that, I prefer a less hierarchical institution-Church that plays the worldly role of social safety net, rather than the odious play of power games typical of the Roman Catholic Church. Notice, this power structure does not guarantee that, by preseving its institutional traditions, that Church fully preserves the wise traditions in liturgy as well, as we have recently seen with the changes approved to the Lord’s Prayer’s formula, or the fact that their representatives also regularly find lots to say on entirely worldly concerns.

For all these reasons, I would like to mark a necessary, very clear distinction between the cultural institution-Church and its wide-spread aberrations on one side, and the Church as ideal, as Christ-centered spiritual community, held together on the worldly plane around the power and continuity of wise traditions, on the other. I understand that Tomberg wanted to redeem the institution-Church in some sense (I don’t know if the intention was primarily related to its relationships with Anthroposophy or not) by becoming an active member of it. This appears to me as a very noble intention. But nothing can be redeemed today by seamlessly assimilating certain amoral traditions of certain institutions of the Church to the Cosmic ‘traditional’ rhythms rooted in archetypal spirits, and the higher ideals they order across time and space.


I haven’t read Powell’s article yet. I will save that part for another post.

Let me first say, there are obviously corruptions that have entered into every institution of the last 2,000 years and no one is defending those. Every institution has its ascents and descents, its generative and degenerative phases, because they are entrusted to souls who go through these same psycho-spiritual oscillations, i.e. us. But we simply cannot let that sway our spiritual contemplation of what really resides beneath these institutions and their traditions. For ex. even the early Church fathers, such as Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Maximus, and others, recognized the hierarchy of the Church is a microcosmic model of the Divine hierarchy. We shouldn't confuse the corruption of souls who took part in that hierarchy for the reality of what that hierarchy symbolized and what it could ideally symbolize (or directly reflect) again.

I use the word 'dogma' because the creeds of the Church, for ex., are often referred to that way, but perhaps a better word could be chosen. Whatever the word is, I would look at a creed or teaching the same way I would look at a tree outside. If am trying to penetrate to the inner essence of the tree by gazing at its trunk, branches, leaves, etc. and making quantitative measurements, then I am making the tree phenomenon into a dogma in the negative sense. 

Apostle's Creed: “I believe in God, the Father almighty creator of heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father almighty. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.”


Similarly, if I am trying to understand the essence of the Christ mystery and even attain 'salvation' by staring at and reciting the Apostle's Creed, only reaching its dim surface meaning (or, more often, projecting my personalized meaning into it), then it is dogma in the negative sense. But the creed itself, like the tree, embeds a whole array of archetypal ideal relations which point the way toward the immanent Divine essence in our stream of becoming. It can be like the balancing point for those relations that Cleric illustrated here. 

"When I concentrate on the [Apostle's creed] it is like I exist amidst a totality of complicated ideal relations. I cannot easily grasp this totality. It is living, it is dynamic. I have to consider simultaneously all the [higher hierarchies and the Godhead and their complicated relations with humanity] if I'm to grasp it. My mind would burst If I were to do that - I simply can't fit it all. Nevertheless I feel that there's certain lawful unity within the totality, something which captures a specific ideal current with it. In my mind I can find this specificity as a kind of point of balance. When my mind is focused in this point I feel as if I have found a peculiar point of stability within the totality - it is the point-experience that makes sense of the totality. The ideal totality is vastly larger than the soul life I experience at any instance, yet in my mind I can find a point which is stable and somehow remains at rest amidst the dynamics of the ideal. This ideal point in my mind I can call the concept. It is only a symbolic point of balance within my intellect which captures something essential of an ideal totality."

There is no point fighting against the dogma of the Apostle's Creed any more than there is to fight against the percept-concept of a tree in my yard, or any other concept I may use in my spiritual striving like 'evolution'. It only makes sense to fight against my own tendency to idolize the outer form of the dogma and thereby rest satisfied with it or become cynical about it. 

Or here's another example from Tomberg:

The Queen of the Angels, the Queen of the patriarchs, the Queen of the apostles, the Queen of martyrs, confessors, virgins, and saints, the Queen of peace, is, in the texts of liturgical prayers, also the Mother of God, the Mother of divine grace, and the Mother of the Church. In the churches of the Greek Orthodox Church one sings: “More honoured than the Cherubim, more glorious than the Seraphim—thou who art the true Mother of God, we honour thee”. Now, the Cherubim and Seraphim are the first celestial hierarchy and the Holy Trinity alone is above them. This “dogma” of the heart is so powerful that the time will come when it will result in official recognition from the Church and will be formulated. For it is thus that all Church dogmas have arrived, in the past, at their promulgation: they live first of all in the hearts of the believers, then influence more and more the liturgical life of the Church, in order—lastly—to be promulgated as formulated dogmas. Dogmatic theology is only the last stage of the “way of dogma” which begins in the depths of the life of souls and results in ceremonious promulgation. This way is exactly what is understood by “the direction of the Church by the Holy Spirit”. The Church knows it and has the patience to await—even for centuries—the time when the work of the Holy Spirit will have attained to maturity.

Anonymous . Meditations on the Tarot (pp. 550-551). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

So the dogma, in this context, is the end result of a whole stream of soul-spiritual development, just like the percepts-concepts we perceive around us. In the modern age, these have been encrusted and hardened to the extent that we fail to discern their inner currents anymore. So the first step is always to develop our own inner capacity of living and ennobled thinking. Before that, there is little point approaching the traditions and dogmas of our heritage, since we can't but help attach ourselves to their outer forms or cynically cast them aside based on the appearance of those same outer forms. In that sense, it may be best to stick with the 'social safety net' basics of plain vanilla Protestantism and avoid too much exposure to the mysteries of tradition, dogma, rites, etc. Once we have deepened and matured our spiritual activity, though, we can revisit the latter to recover the essential soul-depths from which they arose. And by doing so we participate in shaping the spiritual pathways of future human and Earthly evolution. 

[Federica]

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.

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.

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.

Let me first say, there are obviously corruptions that have entered into every institution of the last 2,000 years and no one is defending those. Every institution has its ascents and descents, its generative and degenerative phases, because they are entrusted to souls who go through these same psycho-spiritual oscillations, i.e. us. But we simply cannot let that sway our spiritual contemplation of what really resides beneath these institutions and their traditions. For ex. even the early Church fathers, such as Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Maximus, and others, recognized the hierarchy of the Church is a microcosmic model of the Divine hierarchy. We shouldn't confuse the corruption of souls who took part in that hierarchy for the reality of what that hierarchy symbolized and what it could ideally symbolize (or directly reflect) again.

I use the word 'dogma' because the creeds of the Church, for ex., are often referred to that way, but perhaps a better word could be chosen. Whatever the word is, I would look at a creed or teaching the same way I would look at a tree outside. If am trying to penetrate to the inner essence of the tree by gazing at its trunk, branches, leaves, etc. and making quantitative measurements, then I am making the tree phenomenon into a dogma in the negative sense. 

Similarly, if I am trying to understand the essence of the Christ mystery and even attain 'salvation' by staring at and reciting the Apostle's Creed, only reaching its dim surface meaning (or, more often, projecting my personalized meaning into it), then it is dogma in the negative sense. But the creed itself, like the tree, embeds a whole array of archetypal ideal relations which point the way toward the immanent Divine essence in our stream of becoming. It can be like the balancing point for those relations that Cleric illustrated here. 

"When I concentrate on the [Apostle's creed] it is like I exist amidst a totality of complicated ideal relations. I cannot easily grasp this totality. It is living, it is dynamic. I have to consider simultaneously all the [higher hierarchies and the Godhead and their complicated relations with humanity] if I'm to grasp it. My mind would burst If I were to do that - I simply can't fit it all. Nevertheless I feel that there's certain lawful unity within the totality, something which captures a specific ideal current with it. In my mind I can find this specificity as a kind of point of balance. When my mind is focused in this point I feel as if I have found a peculiar point of stability within the totality - it is the point-experience that makes sense of the totality. The ideal totality is vastly larger than the soul life I experience at any instance, yet in my mind I can find a point which is stable and somehow remains at rest amidst the dynamics of the ideal. This ideal point in my mind I can call the concept. It is only a symbolic point of balance within my intellect which captures something essential of an ideal totality."

There is no point fighting against the dogma of the Apostle's Creed any more than there is to fight against the percept-concept of a tree in my yard, or any other concept I may use in my spiritual striving like 'evolution'. It only makes sense to fight against my own tendency to idolize the outer form of the dogma and thereby rest satisfied with it or become cynical about it. 

(...)

So the dogma, in this context, is the end result of a whole stream of soul-spiritual development, just like the percepts-concepts we perceive around us. In the modern age, these have been encrusted and hardened to the extent that we fail to discern their inner currents anymore. So the first step is always to develop our own inner capacity of living and ennobled thinking. Before that, there is little point approaching the traditions and dogmas of our heritage, since we can't but help attach ourselves to their outer forms or cynically cast them aside based on the appearance of those same outer forms. In that sense, it may be best to stick with the 'social safety net' basics of plain vanilla Protestantism and avoid too much exposure to the mysteries of tradition, dogma, rites, etc. Once we have deepened and matured our spiritual activity, though, we can revisit the latter to recover the essential soul-depths from which they arose. And by doing so we participate in shaping the spiritual pathways of future human and Earthly evolution. 

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.