Okay friends, in my studies I found that Isha is for a
girl and Ish is for a man. In looking to the mystery
of Elijah and Elisha I used to always be thinking of
Elisha as a feminine being. I know getting into male
and female comments tends to throw a curve but I want
to say that I think I might have found something
towards who the Elisha is in the story.

I was looking at this because I am looking for Elisha
in the story at the Jordan. X and I were having a
conversation last year, probably around this time, and
we talked about the Elisha and Elijah characters. And
so today I am at it again and I realize we have 'ish'
in Elisha's name and also we have this for Elizabeth
as well, John's mom. So I started checking things out
here and there and I became a bit frustrated thinking
this is just too much. And so I sat down for a bit and
just was like 'what the hell am I doing this for' and
it came to me, you know, that I just want to be of
service. I don't want this information for myself I
want to share something that I seem compelled to move
towards. So I sit down and sigh. I mean really it can
seem to be just so much for a little mind like mine. I
think if I had one like Bradford I would get it. But I
just don't have that brain. And you know, it's funny
in there. I mean one will basically be answering
questions as to why one wants this and then all the
dirt one thinks of oneself comes up to and then one
has to recognize that its not dirt really and that its
a learning and that its grace and so forth. I mean it
is really exhausting and probably why I try to stay
away from that part of myself for the most part.
Silence is really just all consuming.

Anyhow, if you have made it past that I have something
that my study turned into once I got out of my
sorrowful ways. :) And it was kind of back and forth
and then this led to that and then that led to this
and then I find myself at one of Adriana's posts from
3 years ago and I just go wahla! and then I forgot why
I was searching for Zarathustra and Cain:) and I still
can not remember. But this led me to this page here:

http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/isis/iu2-05.htm

And I found what I had been looking for in terms of
Eloah, Jahova as the feminine, and represented by
Binah. And in my Kabala book I came to find why it is
that we have the two snakes: one comes down from the
AinSoph and then from Malkutha/Shekinah one comes back
up. But one goes in the opposite direction. And in
here one can see why it is, because damn it! I have
always wondered why it was said that Mercury and Venus
were switched. And I have to think it was the Jews
that did this as they are the procters of the Astral
body or so it is related which in truth makes sense to
me.

So, if you have a kaballah book...oh, and damn, I'm
saying also that the Islamists surely did completely
out the feminine with their name as well Alaha. I
imagine that is part of how it is said that they
brought something before its time. From the Jewish
perspective it was soley kept within their own
tradition and truth being they hid Her well. Not even
the Christians could find her. But the Jews have kept
on Her track since the beginning. I think we really
need to reconsider what it is that they are waiting
for. They are waiting for it from the purified astral
body which seems to be still the ongoing path of the
Shekinah/Malkutha. And to me that is the path of the
Magdalene.

Beings that Madame Blatvaski was the first to really
speak on the Isis being and knowing that we are in a
recapitualating aspect of Ancient Egypt, her work can
be used to garner greater understanding of what is
before us.

I think also we might be able to see the three triads
of the Kaballah from an earthly, moonly, and then
sunly position.

Well, I've left the Elisha/Elizabeth thing for right
now but will return in a little bit, maybe tomorrow,
with some further thoughts on that. I figured that
some people, including Paramahansa, look at the Nathan
and Solomon as one Jesus being, whereas I look at them
as two: there are also interestingly enough
anthroposophists that do not note the two from a
different perspective. For example when a friend said
the Nathan being I was saying 'hey, wait a minute,
that's the Solomon child there' and he said 'well,
they were united so we can relate him as the Nathan
being as well'.

In that picture it seems that we might actually be
able to find Elisha, as a double portion of Elijah, in
the figure of Zarathustra. Zarathustra meaning 'star
seed' or princess, seems to not really seem proper for
some reason. It seems this Zarathustra being who had
been the first one to call forth this religion of
Christianity, also noted by the Jews, it seems to me
that he would not need a double portion of Elijah. It
seems that Zarathustra is a much older/wiser being
then Elisha so it does not make sense to me that
Zarathustra could be Elisha. It could make sense to me
that he was given the power to be the double feminine
in the sense that he could actually give birth to
Elijah as a creator being in a way. Well, that's just
me thinking anyway.

Best,
d

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

And here is the study by Adriana that I happened upon while
researching something. It was a really pleasant surprise. Hopefully I
shall have some time tomorrow to read it.

http://www.eleggua.com/Spirit/Manicheism,%20Catharism%20and%
20Freemasonry.html

All good things,
d

Dottie:
> And I found what I had been looking for in terms of
> Eloah, Jahova as the feminine, and represented by
> Binah. And in my Kabala book I came to find why it
> is
> that we have the two snakes: one comes down from the
> AinSoph and then from Malkutha/Shekinah one comes
> back
> up. But one goes in the opposite direction.

I am wondering if maybe this is why we do not see so
much of Lazarus really in the bible: as man descended
the woman/soul was invisible in the story, and now as
they ascend it will be the male that is silent in the
story.

d

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

I am not sure why this didn't work but I am going to
try and send it again.

http://www.eleggua.com/Spirit/Manicheism,%20Catharism%20and%20Freemasonry.html



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

Well, this is interesting in who is noted as whom.
Some of these connections are the first time I have
heard of them. d

http://www.runework.com/Rune%20homepage/English/SpirScience/Articles/EnglishSpir\
ScArticles.htm


"Templars as a revelation of esotheric Christianity -
a Revelation of the Grail

by Nicolaas de Jong.

In the 12th Century many things started to move in the
spiritual and political field in Europe. The Catholic
church had shown many decayed processes, like paying
on forehand for ones sins, the richness in which
higher priests surrounded themselves (as being often
from a high noble background), and the growing power
of the civilians in the cities, which showed clearly
the disbalance in possession of noblemen, clergy at
the one side and peasants at the other, with the
growing power of the citizens in the background.
Spiritually the malcontent showed itself in a strong
growth of groups of cathars, of which the Albigenzes
in France were the strongest. Many church authorities
turned against these people, and they were called
develish and pagan, and ultimately were even
extinguished (the Albigenzes at Mount Segur in the
Pyrenees).
Other reactions to this malcontent were less violent,
like the Franciscan monk order, which went back to the
roots of christianity in returning to devotion and
poverty. And the Templar knights, which were a monk
order that turned themselves outward, to the world, as
being knights that put their swords in service of
Christ. The latter had developed an initiation path
that was directly connected to the current of Grail
chistianity, being started in Europe in Avalon, but
prepared already a long time before.
In this article will be pointed at the esoterical side
of this current, as well as at the individualities
that initiated it.

Around 3000 years before Christ, Abraham, the father
of both Jews and Arabs, conquerred the Fillistines in
Palestina and after his victory, he entered the region
where later on there should come the city of
Jerusalem. From the caves of mount Moria (one of the
two mountains on which Jerusalem is built nowadays)
the priest Melchizedek came to him, offering him on a
plate a chalice with in it wine, and besides it a
piece of bread. This ritual act was the forebode of
what Christ did 3000 years later at the Holy Supper,
telling his disciples that the wine was His blood, and
the bread His body (for through His death and
resurrection He became the Lord over the Earth ever
since). Now if you look thoroughly to those three
things, you can understand that these are closely
connected to the three higher spiritual capacities man
can develop when he individualises himself. A chalice
has the form that our soul may become when we open it
up for the spirit, in such a way that the angels may
form images in this chalice. We call this clairvoyancy
or imagination. The wine as being Christs blood one
can see as the faculty of inspiration, which means
that through the feelings, which are awoken in the
heart (where the blood is being centered and sent into
the body), we can learn to guide processes by each
time balancing from the feelings. And the bread is the
summary of the physical body, for in it come to a
blossoming the highest fruits of the Earth. It is the
high spiritual capacity that we can develop when we
develop our ideals and thus transform ourselves and
our surroundings. This capacity is called intuition,
which we may have from other beings as well, for
example when we see all of a sudden clearly the
possibillity for development of another person. So
through this ritual Melchizedek made a kind of promise
to Abraham.
In the 3rd century A.D. this Melchezedek returned as
Mani, an initiate that developed a kind of religion,
called manicheism, that was based upon the old Persian
teachings of the forces of light and darkness, once
initiated by Zarathustra there. It made it possible
for the people of his time to understand the coming
and deeds of Christ, as being the God of the light
that came to conquer the one of the darkness. Mani was
the returned Melchizedek, and at the time of Christ he
was John the Baptist, which was resurrected by Christ
in the youngster of Nain. His religion spread over
eastern Europe, the Middle East until India, and many
early church fathers took up his ideas. Mani has build
his ideas upon the books of Scythianos, the Germanic
initiate: this was the returned Abraham. At the time
of Christ it had been the apostle Thomas. Well, Mani
gathered four spiritual leaders around him, being
besides himself Zarathustra or also called Master
Jesus (for it was Jesus of Nazareth, who had carried
the spirit of Christ since he was 30 years old), a
person in whom was incorporated Gautama Buddha (for
Gautama, as having become already a Buddha about 500
B.C., did no more incarnate), and this Scythianos or
Abraham. Together they decided to bring the Grail to
Western Europe, as they knew that development should
continue there, after the Roman empire would fall, and
they made up a plan to bring that forth. For when
Christ had come to Earth, the main thing He did was
bringing the individual ego for each man (who was
before more living in herds, tribes), so that each
individual can go an own development ever since
(remember that Christ already showed Himself to
Abraham in the burning bush of ´morango´, saying “I am
the I AM”). Many happenings in Europe can be seen from
that light.
First of all this Scythianos incarnated to awaken the
higher Ego of the Germanic people. This we know from
the legend of Sygfrid, who woke up the Walkure goddess
Brunhilde. For her he had to conquer a kingdom of his
own, but after he got involved in the family story of
the Burgundoni, called the Nibelungen, he got killed.
A part of this story is that he conquerred the dragon
and took its gold. Not known, but quite important, is
that this fight took place in Middle America, where it
is known as the victory of Quetzlcoatl over Taotl, as
the latter asked to be honoured by cutting out hearts
of people. So the Rhine gold, which
Sygfrid/Quetzlcoatl won, comes from America.
In England there had been for a long time a mystery
place called Avalon, an island in the mists. It is
said that mother Mary together with Joseph of
Arimathea went there and took along the chalice which
had been used at the Holy Supper and later on in which
the blood of the died Christ on the cross had been
taken in. I don´t believe this to be a true historical
story. According to me it was more in this way that
the Celts in Ireland and Scotland (where Avalon lies
in between) kept the only mystery places in which the
death and resurrection of Christ had been observed.
Later on there came more and more contact with the
West Gothic tribe that by then lived in Aquitania
(soutwest France), that became acquiantant with the
knowledge of the Grail, being represented by the
chalice and its wine and bread, as they went through
this Celtic initiation. In this Germanic tribe was a
family line called ´Anschaue´ (meaning clairvoyant),
in which a boy called Parcival incarnated. Parcival
was an incarnation of Mani. In that time (around 840)
there was a Celtic English king, called king Arthur,
that had a circle of knights around him. They were the
flower of Celtic christianity that had come forth of
the mysteries of the Grail in Avalon. Parcival went to
king Arthur, and took upon himself the task to find
the Holy Grail in order to rescue that Avalon Grail
knowledge, which was about to fade because of the
changing consciousness and entering of more and more
Germanic tribes in England. After making many efforts
and mistakes, Parcival arrived at the Grail Castle
(the inner third eye, where lies the consciousness of
imagination, clairvoyancy), and became the Grail king
by helping the sick Grail king that he met. In the
circle around king Arthur, called the knights of the
Round Table (as they all had equal rights) lived a
knight called Gawain, who later on conquerred the
black magician knight Klingsor, that kept emprisoned
in the mind many noblemen in Europe. By this victory
they were freed from their ban of Klingsor, and could
see the Grail again. This Gawain was an incarnation of
Scythianos.
Later on, about 700 AD, this Gawain came back as the
after after grandson of Parcival, known as Lohengrin,
and had to revelate the Grail knowledge in Europe. But
besides this, he had to prepare the Germanic people in
western Europe for inner development, for until then
they had lived on the countryside, were very much
bound to nature and the cosmos, but had not developed
an inner life. So he and his fellow knights drove out
and funded cities, in which the inhabitants could
develop inner lifes, but to prevent that these became
too egocentrical, he made them develop trade, and thus
the hansa cities in northern and western Europe were
being funded (hansa means swan, an image for the ego
of man). Besides he should have children but not tell
his noble background, so that the noble name and
therewith nobility should extinguish, as heredity goes
via the mother. This latter however failed.
When this all was thus prepared, Grail christianity
could show itself more to the outern world. This
started in France, where in the beginning of the 12th
century there was a group of young revolting knights
under the guidance of Hugo of Payens that gathered and
went to the Holy Land to see what was left of the old
knowledge of the Temple of Salomon (in which was said
that the 12 world mysteries were hidden). Hugo had
been a participant of the 1st Crusade under the
guidance of Godfried of Bouillon, so he knew
Jerusalem, for it had been conquerred then). They went
there with six, found those mysteries, brought them to
Europe, and initiated in 1119 the order of the Templar
knights. When returning they were granted by the abt
of Clairvaux, called Bernhard, a highly estimated
person of that time (an incarnation of Mother Mary),
so their order was accepted by the catholic church. As
has been poined out, Hugo of Payens had been the
apostle Thomas, and hence the symbol of the Templar
knights became the cross of Thomas.
Now the Templars had as main aim to put their swords
in service of Christ in order to restore the Kingdom
of Heaven upon the earth (which, as seen backwards,
was quite early in development). It was a mystery
current of the will: by doing so, they were able to
see Christ and the Kingdom of Heavens with glimpses at
certain stages of initiation. This was mainly arrived
by wordhipping Mother Mary, as she was experienced as
the contact to the Holy Spirit and was the keeper of
the doorway to heaven (in this way Mary had shown
herself at the first ´Pentecote´). Anyway the Templar
order succeeded in keeping peace and order for about
200 years in Europe. They had an extended economy
during that time, because many people joined. Not only
knights, but there were many craftsmen and households
with many women involved in the order. A Templar
knight had to give all his posessions to the order,
which ment as well all the servants and their families
around him (if they wanted this). In return he begot a
paper that gave him and his men access to all the
posessions of the order, wherever he came. The road to
the holy land was kept safe, and they could travel
freely there, without posessions with them, as to
prevent robbery. These papers gave rise to something
new, namely a banking system, where the order was the
bank. There was the backing up of the previous
posession of the knight (later banks first used
valuable goods like gold against this bankpaper, but
nowadays this is left behind). So the order grew rich
by the time, and gathered a lot of posessions and
gold. The 12 secrets of the Temple in Jerusalem were
being laboured and out of these grew the building
impulse of the gothic cathedrals, which had as na aim
to make concrete the resurrected body of Christ and
the path to the heavenly kingdom in stone. Quite
recently there have been found gold coins from the
12th century, both in the ports of La Rochelle
(France) and Buenos Aires (Brasil) with the image of
an American indian on it. This shows clearly that the
Templars knew about the Americas. A secret department
within the Templar order sailed out to America and dug
there for silver, through which the construction of
the cathedrals could be paid more easily (1). The
organisation of the order was in districts, ruled by a
master, and the overall rule was by a greatmaster, the
first one being Hugo of Payens. Becoming a knight or
master had to do with certain initiation degrees.
Several side movements grew out of this, like the
freemacons in England (12th century, first these were
macons), who after the Temple secrets developed little
by little their own initiation path. Besides this they
were involved in alchemy, the art of dealing with life
processes (al chim is Arab for black earth, this is
what you see when you stand upstreams the river Nile
in Egypt and look down on its banks – the only places
where in Egypt there could grow something).
Not so known is that the troubadours, which had a
school in the Provence (southern France), was a part
of the Templar impulse. These people got quite an
extended education and initiation: they could sing and
play an instrument, but as well they could act,
mostoften as the clown of a court, in which role they
could well influence political decisions. Mostoften
they were the secret advisor of a duke or king.
Besides that they could influence with their music the
elemental world ( a remnant of the mysteries of
Avalon), and they in a way continued the mysteries of
Marduk (in christian esoterics called the Archangel
Michael), where the soul of the people was very much
raised, so that they could take up the impulse of
love. Known of them is mostly this part, for they
wrote many love songs. (2)
One other thing, not so known either, is that in his
next life Hugo of Payens returned as Richard I, king
of England. This king saw that the order had lost
Jerusalem and the holy land, main seat of it. So he
looked for companions and started the 2nd crusade in
order to get it back. When he crossed the Iberian
peninsula, he was asked to help the Portuguese in
their fight against the Mores, and so he helped to set
free Lisbon, which was a step in the independance of
Portugal. While he was cloesely connected to the
Templar knights and fought together with them (he
could not enter the order, for then he had to give up
his country, besides he had already gained the highest
order of greatmaster in his predecessive life), there
was created a bond with the Portuguese state and these
knights, which has remained ever since. Richard
conquerred Malta and gave it to the order. He did not
succeed to conquer Jerusalem, even though he had
reconquerred great parts of the holy land, and had to
sign a peace treatise in the end with Salladin, the
Arab king at that time, that the Templars were allowed
to enter the city freely. Saladdin had tried to make
friendship with him, had already become a christian
before, but Richard distrusted him, and went back to
Europe (where he was caught by the Austrians and
emprisoned for a long time). Saladdin died shortly
after this, he just faded away because they had failed
to make peace. This could have restored christianity
in the Middle East, but it did not, so many wars
followed. The karmic story behind this was that
Richard had been Abraham 3000 years B.C., and at that
time Saladdin had been Ismael, the first son of
Abraham and father of the Arab people, that had been
sent away by his father.
Anyway, Jerusalem was lost for the Templar order ever
since. This however did not disturb their existence
and expansion. With this not only good people joined
it, and with the growth of the posessions, it as well
attracted people being fond of it. So with the French
king Phillip the Beautiful, who wanted their gold but
did not give up his posessions and become a member of
them. He installed a shadow pope at Avignon, Clemens
V, and had him make a trial against the Templars, with
the charge of betraying Christ. As a matter of fact,
one of the initiation acts of the Templars was that
they had to spit on a sculpture of Christ hanging on
the cross. which had to be done while the cross was
already empty and Christ resurrected. But from the
outside this looked quite awkward, and hence this
charge. The members were being foltered and pushed in
the end to admit that they had betrayed Christ, and so
in 1312, about 200 years after its start, the order
was dismissed, and their goods given to the state
(though not in France, unfortunately for Phillip).Only
in Portugal the order could continue, because a new
name for it was created, the Order of Christ, as its
fate is closely connected to that of the Templars.
Actually much later king Henry the Sailor did order to
sail out in order to look for the Americas anew,
because he knew it existed. The karmical background of
Phillip of France is that he had been conquerred in
previous lifes by Hugo of Payens, in the story of
Quetzlquoatl and Taotl (Sygfrid and the dragon) and in
Gawain against Klingsor. A later incornation of him is
in Ignatius of Loyolla, the initiator of the Jesuit
order.
After the fall of the Templar order, esotheric
christianity in Europe threatened to lose its
continuation, and soon after this Christian Rosenkreuz
(an incarnation of the apostle John) tried to put up a
new order in this line. But he met a lot of fear at
the courts. Thus he decided to make a more secret
organisation, the Fellowship of the Rosecruce, that
worked in a more hidden way in Europe with the same
methods as the Templars did. They only revealed
themselves in a book in the 18th century, called ´The
Secret Teachings of the Rosecrucian Fellowship´, when
Delavoisier and others revealed their findings in
chemistry, which in itself had no more to do with the
living essence of nature. In the 19th century the
consciousness of western man changed and with the
coming of the Theosophist and Anthroposophist
movements Grail christianity begot a more exotheric
side which was apt to the spirit of that time. Rudolf
Steiner, initiativetaker of Anthroposophy, gathered
some important people around him, amongst whom
previous Parcival/Mani and Hugo of Payens/Gawain,
together with Godfried of St. Omar, the co-founder of
the Templars, and by doing this he was able to start
the new mysteries in 1923. This means that more
spiritual directions in esoteric christianity can be
developed ever since. (3)
Now in Portugal in Tomar the knowledge of the Templar
knight background has been saved and worshipped.
Typical here is the harvest feast, where the women
carry high stocks of bread on their heads, an image of
the body of Christ that is in their Grail chalice.
This is still a continuation of the mysteries of the
Holy Spirit, now in more exoteric shape. What will the
Portuguese people develop out of this?

Notes:

1. In the 10th century the pope had forbidden to sail
the Americas, as he knew the double over there grew
quite strong. Before that time the existence of it was
quite known.
2. There has been suggested that they belong to the
cathar movement, but this current is denying mostly
the love of life and pleasure for earthly things as
they preferred to stop the flow of incarnations and
return to the state of the Paradise, which makes it
quite unbelievable the troubadours belonged to this
current.
3. In 1879 the Kali Yuga or Dark Age was over, and man
could try to enter again the realms of the spirit
little by little.




__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

Hi Dottie,
I don't see any citations. It is interesting - some of the esoteric truths
here can only come from Spiritual Science and yet there is no credit given
in the citation. It seems to me a somewhat plagaristic article. I am open to
changing my mind on this.
Mike T



>From: dottie zold <dottie_z@...>
>Reply-To: anthroposophy_tomorrow@yahoogroups.com
>To: anthroposophy_tomorrow@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Re: Mapping the Path of Ancient
>Mystery Personalities
>Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2006 21:01:40 -0800 (PST)
>
>Well, this is interesting in who is noted as whom.
>Some of these connections are the first time I have
>heard of them. d
>
>http://www.runework.com/Rune%20homepage/English/SpirScience/Articles/EnglishSpi\
rScArticles.htm
>
>
>"Templars as a revelation of esotheric Christianity -
>a Revelation of the Grail
>
>by Nicolaas de Jong.
>
>In the 12th Century many things started to move in the
>spiritual and political field in Europe. The Catholic
>church had shown many decayed processes, like paying
>on forehand for ones sins, the richness in which
>higher priests surrounded themselves (as being often
>from a high noble background), and the growing power
>of the civilians in the cities, which showed clearly
>the disbalance in possession of noblemen, clergy at
>the one side and peasants at the other, with the
>growing power of the citizens in the background.
>Spiritually the malcontent showed itself in a strong
>growth of groups of cathars, of which the Albigenzes
>in France were the strongest. Many church authorities
>turned against these people, and they were called
>develish and pagan, and ultimately were even
>extinguished (the Albigenzes at Mount Segur in the
>Pyrenees).
>Other reactions to this malcontent were less violent,
>like the Franciscan monk order, which went back to the
>roots of christianity in returning to devotion and
>poverty. And the Templar knights, which were a monk
>order that turned themselves outward, to the world, as
>being knights that put their swords in service of
>Christ. The latter had developed an initiation path
>that was directly connected to the current of Grail
>chistianity, being started in Europe in Avalon, but
>prepared already a long time before.
>In this article will be pointed at the esoterical side
>of this current, as well as at the individualities
>that initiated it.
>
>Around 3000 years before Christ, Abraham, the father
>of both Jews and Arabs, conquerred the Fillistines in
>Palestina and after his victory, he entered the region
>where later on there should come the city of
>Jerusalem. From the caves of mount Moria (one of the
>two mountains on which Jerusalem is built nowadays)
>the priest Melchizedek came to him, offering him on a
>plate a chalice with in it wine, and besides it a
>piece of bread. This ritual act was the forebode of
>what Christ did 3000 years later at the Holy Supper,
>telling his disciples that the wine was His blood, and
>the bread His body (for through His death and
>resurrection He became the Lord over the Earth ever
>since). Now if you look thoroughly to those three
>things, you can understand that these are closely
>connected to the three higher spiritual capacities man
>can develop when he individualises himself. A chalice
>has the form that our soul may become when we open it
>up for the spirit, in such a way that the angels may
>form images in this chalice. We call this clairvoyancy
>or imagination. The wine as being Christs blood one
>can see as the faculty of inspiration, which means
>that through the feelings, which are awoken in the
>heart (where the blood is being centered and sent into
>the body), we can learn to guide processes by each
>time balancing from the feelings. And the bread is the
>summary of the physical body, for in it come to a
>blossoming the highest fruits of the Earth. It is the
>high spiritual capacity that we can develop when we
>develop our ideals and thus transform ourselves and
>our surroundings. This capacity is called intuition,
>which we may have from other beings as well, for
>example when we see all of a sudden clearly the
>possibillity for development of another person. So
>through this ritual Melchizedek made a kind of promise
>to Abraham.
>In the 3rd century A.D. this Melchezedek returned as
>Mani, an initiate that developed a kind of religion,
>called manicheism, that was based upon the old Persian
>teachings of the forces of light and darkness, once
>initiated by Zarathustra there. It made it possible
>for the people of his time to understand the coming
>and deeds of Christ, as being the God of the light
>that came to conquer the one of the darkness. Mani was
>the returned Melchizedek, and at the time of Christ he
>was John the Baptist, which was resurrected by Christ
>in the youngster of Nain. His religion spread over
>eastern Europe, the Middle East until India, and many
>early church fathers took up his ideas. Mani has build
>his ideas upon the books of Scythianos, the Germanic
>initiate: this was the returned Abraham. At the time
>of Christ it had been the apostle Thomas. Well, Mani
>gathered four spiritual leaders around him, being
>besides himself Zarathustra or also called Master
>Jesus (for it was Jesus of Nazareth, who had carried
>the spirit of Christ since he was 30 years old), a
>person in whom was incorporated Gautama Buddha (for
>Gautama, as having become already a Buddha about 500
>B.C., did no more incarnate), and this Scythianos or
>Abraham. Together they decided to bring the Grail to
>Western Europe, as they knew that development should
>continue there, after the Roman empire would fall, and
>they made up a plan to bring that forth. For when
>Christ had come to Earth, the main thing He did was
>bringing the individual ego for each man (who was
>before more living in herds, tribes), so that each
>individual can go an own development ever since
>(remember that Christ already showed Himself to
>Abraham in the burning bush of ´morango´, saying “I am
>the I AM”). Many happenings in Europe can be seen from
>that light.
>First of all this Scythianos incarnated to awaken the
>higher Ego of the Germanic people. This we know from
>the legend of Sygfrid, who woke up the Walkure goddess
>Brunhilde. For her he had to conquer a kingdom of his
>own, but after he got involved in the family story of
>the Burgundoni, called the Nibelungen, he got killed.
>A part of this story is that he conquerred the dragon
>and took its gold. Not known, but quite important, is
>that this fight took place in Middle America, where it
>is known as the victory of Quetzlcoatl over Taotl, as
>the latter asked to be honoured by cutting out hearts
>of people. So the Rhine gold, which
>Sygfrid/Quetzlcoatl won, comes from America.
>In England there had been for a long time a mystery
>place called Avalon, an island in the mists. It is
>said that mother Mary together with Joseph of
>Arimathea went there and took along the chalice which
>had been used at the Holy Supper and later on in which
>the blood of the died Christ on the cross had been
>taken in. I don´t believe this to be a true historical
>story. According to me it was more in this way that
>the Celts in Ireland and Scotland (where Avalon lies
>in between) kept the only mystery places in which the
>death and resurrection of Christ had been observed.
>Later on there came more and more contact with the
>West Gothic tribe that by then lived in Aquitania
>(soutwest France), that became acquiantant with the
>knowledge of the Grail, being represented by the
>chalice and its wine and bread, as they went through
>this Celtic initiation. In this Germanic tribe was a
>family line called ´Anschaue´ (meaning clairvoyant),
>in which a boy called Parcival incarnated. Parcival
>was an incarnation of Mani. In that time (around 840)
>there was a Celtic English king, called king Arthur,
>that had a circle of knights around him. They were the
>flower of Celtic christianity that had come forth of
>the mysteries of the Grail in Avalon. Parcival went to
>king Arthur, and took upon himself the task to find
>the Holy Grail in order to rescue that Avalon Grail
>knowledge, which was about to fade because of the
>changing consciousness and entering of more and more
>Germanic tribes in England. After making many efforts
>and mistakes, Parcival arrived at the Grail Castle
>(the inner third eye, where lies the consciousness of
>imagination, clairvoyancy), and became the Grail king
>by helping the sick Grail king that he met. In the
>circle around king Arthur, called the knights of the
>Round Table (as they all had equal rights) lived a
>knight called Gawain, who later on conquerred the
>black magician knight Klingsor, that kept emprisoned
>in the mind many noblemen in Europe. By this victory
>they were freed from their ban of Klingsor, and could
>see the Grail again. This Gawain was an incarnation of
>Scythianos.
>Later on, about 700 AD, this Gawain came back as the
>after after grandson of Parcival, known as Lohengrin,
>and had to revelate the Grail knowledge in Europe. But
>besides this, he had to prepare the Germanic people in
>western Europe for inner development, for until then
>they had lived on the countryside, were very much
>bound to nature and the cosmos, but had not developed
>an inner life. So he and his fellow knights drove out
>and funded cities, in which the inhabitants could
>develop inner lifes, but to prevent that these became
>too egocentrical, he made them develop trade, and thus
>the hansa cities in northern and western Europe were
>being funded (hansa means swan, an image for the ego
>of man). Besides he should have children but not tell
>his noble background, so that the noble name and
>therewith nobility should extinguish, as heredity goes
>via the mother. This latter however failed.
>When this all was thus prepared, Grail christianity
>could show itself more to the outern world. This
>started in France, where in the beginning of the 12th
>century there was a group of young revolting knights
>under the guidance of Hugo of Payens that gathered and
>went to the Holy Land to see what was left of the old
>knowledge of the Temple of Salomon (in which was said
>that the 12 world mysteries were hidden). Hugo had
>been a participant of the 1st Crusade under the
>guidance of Godfried of Bouillon, so he knew
>Jerusalem, for it had been conquerred then). They went
>there with six, found those mysteries, brought them to
>Europe, and initiated in 1119 the order of the Templar
>knights. When returning they were granted by the abt
>of Clairvaux, called Bernhard, a highly estimated
>person of that time (an incarnation of Mother Mary),
>so their order was accepted by the catholic church. As
>has been poined out, Hugo of Payens had been the
>apostle Thomas, and hence the symbol of the Templar
>knights became the cross of Thomas.
>Now the Templars had as main aim to put their swords
>in service of Christ in order to restore the Kingdom
>of Heaven upon the earth (which, as seen backwards,
>was quite early in development). It was a mystery
>current of the will: by doing so, they were able to
>see Christ and the Kingdom of Heavens with glimpses at
>certain stages of initiation. This was mainly arrived
>by wordhipping Mother Mary, as she was experienced as
>the contact to the Holy Spirit and was the keeper of
>the doorway to heaven (in this way Mary had shown
>herself at the first ´Pentecote´). Anyway the Templar
>order succeeded in keeping peace and order for about
>200 years in Europe. They had an extended economy
>during that time, because many people joined. Not only
>knights, but there were many craftsmen and households
>with many women involved in the order. A Templar
>knight had to give all his posessions to the order,
>which ment as well all the servants and their families
>around him (if they wanted this). In return he begot a
>paper that gave him and his men access to all the
>posessions of the order, wherever he came. The road to
>the holy land was kept safe, and they could travel
>freely there, without posessions with them, as to
>prevent robbery. These papers gave rise to something
>new, namely a banking system, where the order was the
>bank. There was the backing up of the previous
>posession of the knight (later banks first used
>valuable goods like gold against this bankpaper, but
>nowadays this is left behind). So the order grew rich
>by the time, and gathered a lot of posessions and
>gold. The 12 secrets of the Temple in Jerusalem were
>being laboured and out of these grew the building
>impulse of the gothic cathedrals, which had as na aim
>to make concrete the resurrected body of Christ and
>the path to the heavenly kingdom in stone. Quite
>recently there have been found gold coins from the
>12th century, both in the ports of La Rochelle
>(France) and Buenos Aires (Brasil) with the image of
>an American indian on it. This shows clearly that the
>Templars knew about the Americas. A secret department
>within the Templar order sailed out to America and dug
>there for silver, through which the construction of
>the cathedrals could be paid more easily (1). The
>organisation of the order was in districts, ruled by a
>master, and the overall rule was by a greatmaster, the
>first one being Hugo of Payens. Becoming a knight or
>master had to do with certain initiation degrees.
>Several side movements grew out of this, like the
>freemacons in England (12th century, first these were
>macons), who after the Temple secrets developed little
>by little their own initiation path. Besides this they
>were involved in alchemy, the art of dealing with life
>processes (al chim is Arab for black earth, this is
>what you see when you stand upstreams the river Nile
>in Egypt and look down on its banks – the only places
>where in Egypt there could grow something).
>Not so known is that the troubadours, which had a
>school in the Provence (southern France), was a part
>of the Templar impulse. These people got quite an
>extended education and initiation: they could sing and
>play an instrument, but as well they could act,
>mostoften as the clown of a court, in which role they
>could well influence political decisions. Mostoften
>they were the secret advisor of a duke or king.
>Besides that they could influence with their music the
>elemental world ( a remnant of the mysteries of
>Avalon), and they in a way continued the mysteries of
>Marduk (in christian esoterics called the Archangel
>Michael), where the soul of the people was very much
>raised, so that they could take up the impulse of
>love. Known of them is mostly this part, for they
>wrote many love songs. (2)
>One other thing, not so known either, is that in his
>next life Hugo of Payens returned as Richard I, king
>of England. This king saw that the order had lost
>Jerusalem and the holy land, main seat of it. So he
>looked for companions and started the 2nd crusade in
>order to get it back. When he crossed the Iberian
>peninsula, he was asked to help the Portuguese in
>their fight against the Mores, and so he helped to set
>free Lisbon, which was a step in the independance of
>Portugal. While he was cloesely connected to the
>Templar knights and fought together with them (he
>could not enter the order, for then he had to give up
>his country, besides he had already gained the highest
>order of greatmaster in his predecessive life), there
>was created a bond with the Portuguese state and these
>knights, which has remained ever since. Richard
>conquerred Malta and gave it to the order. He did not
>succeed to conquer Jerusalem, even though he had
>reconquerred great parts of the holy land, and had to
>sign a peace treatise in the end with Salladin, the
>Arab king at that time, that the Templars were allowed
>to enter the city freely. Saladdin had tried to make
>friendship with him, had already become a christian
>before, but Richard distrusted him, and went back to
>Europe (where he was caught by the Austrians and
>emprisoned for a long time). Saladdin died shortly
>after this, he just faded away because they had failed
>to make peace. This could have restored christianity
>in the Middle East, but it did not, so many wars
>followed. The karmic story behind this was that
>Richard had been Abraham 3000 years B.C., and at that
>time Saladdin had been Ismael, the first son of
>Abraham and father of the Arab people, that had been
>sent away by his father.
>Anyway, Jerusalem was lost for the Templar order ever
>since. This however did not disturb their existence
>and expansion. With this not only good people joined
>it, and with the growth of the posessions, it as well
>attracted people being fond of it. So with the French
>king Phillip the Beautiful, who wanted their gold but
>did not give up his posessions and become a member of
>them. He installed a shadow pope at Avignon, Clemens
>V, and had him make a trial against the Templars, with
>the charge of betraying Christ. As a matter of fact,
>one of the initiation acts of the Templars was that
>they had to spit on a sculpture of Christ hanging on
>the cross. which had to be done while the cross was
>already empty and Christ resurrected. But from the
>outside this looked quite awkward, and hence this
>charge. The members were being foltered and pushed in
>the end to admit that they had betrayed Christ, and so
>in 1312, about 200 years after its start, the order
>was dismissed, and their goods given to the state
>(though not in France, unfortunately for Phillip).Only
>in Portugal the order could continue, because a new
>name for it was created, the Order of Christ, as its
>fate is closely connected to that of the Templars.
>Actually much later king Henry the Sailor did order to
>sail out in order to look for the Americas anew,
>because he knew it existed. The karmical background of
>Phillip of France is that he had been conquerred in
>previous lifes by Hugo of Payens, in the story of
>Quetzlquoatl and Taotl (Sygfrid and the dragon) and in
>Gawain against Klingsor. A later incornation of him is
>in Ignatius of Loyolla, the initiator of the Jesuit
>order.
>After the fall of the Templar order, esotheric
>christianity in Europe threatened to lose its
>continuation, and soon after this Christian Rosenkreuz
>(an incarnation of the apostle John) tried to put up a
>new order in this line. But he met a lot of fear at
>the courts. Thus he decided to make a more secret
>organisation, the Fellowship of the Rosecruce, that
>worked in a more hidden way in Europe with the same
>methods as the Templars did. They only revealed
>themselves in a book in the 18th century, called ´The
>Secret Teachings of the Rosecrucian Fellowship´, when
>Delavoisier and others revealed their findings in
>chemistry, which in itself had no more to do with the
>living essence of nature. In the 19th century the
>consciousness of western man changed and with the
>coming of the Theosophist and Anthroposophist
>movements Grail christianity begot a more exotheric
>side which was apt to the spirit of that time. Rudolf
>Steiner, initiativetaker of Anthroposophy, gathered
>some important people around him, amongst whom
>previous Parcival/Mani and Hugo of Payens/Gawain,
>together with Godfried of St. Omar, the co-founder of
>the Templars, and by doing this he was able to start
>the new mysteries in 1923. This means that more
>spiritual directions in esoteric christianity can be
>developed ever since. (3)
>Now in Portugal in Tomar the knowledge of the Templar
>knight background has been saved and worshipped.
>Typical here is the harvest feast, where the women
>carry high stocks of bread on their heads, an image of
>the body of Christ that is in their Grail chalice.
>This is still a continuation of the mysteries of the
>Holy Spirit, now in more exoteric shape. What will the
>Portuguese people develop out of this?
>
>Notes:
>
>1. In the 10th century the pope had forbidden to sail
>the Americas, as he knew the double over there grew
>quite strong. Before that time the existence of it was
>quite known.
>2. There has been suggested that they belong to the
>cathar movement, but this current is denying mostly
>the love of life and pleasure for earthly things as
>they preferred to stop the flow of incarnations and
>return to the state of the Paradise, which makes it
>quite unbelievable the troubadours belonged to this
>current.
>3. In 1879 the Kali Yuga or Dark Age was over, and man
>could try to enter again the realms of the spirit
>little by little.
>
>
>
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
>http://mail.yahoo.com

_________________________________________________________________
Advertisement: Getting married? Tell us why to WIN @ LetsShop
http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eletsshop%2Ecom%2FCompetiti\
ons%2FLetsMarry%2Ftabid%2F549%2FDefault%2Easpx&_t=751480117&_r=HM_tagline_letssh\
op_wedding&_m=EXT

Hey Mike, yeah it's interesting. I just thought I'd
put it up to see if anyone else had any thoughts on
some of the things he said as he states them as if it
is common knowledge. I'd not even thought on any of
those connections for the most part and I didn't
experience 'oh yes, that's right'. I'm gonna make some
time tomorrow to do some check up on those
connections. As I'm looking at something to do with
Melchizedek I think I'll poke around there.

Thanks,
Dottie




> Hi Dottie,
> I don't see any citations. It is interesting - some
> of the esoteric truths
> here can only come from Spiritual Science and yet
> there is no credit given
> in the citation. It seems to me a somewhat
> plagaristic article. I am open to
> changing my mind on this.
> Mike T
>
>
>
> >From: dottie zold <dottie_z@...>
> >Reply-To: anthroposophy_tomorrow@yahoogroups.com
> >To: anthroposophy_tomorrow@yahoogroups.com
> >Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Re: Mapping
> the Path of Ancient
> >Mystery Personalities
> >Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2006 21:01:40 -0800 (PST)
> >
> >Well, this is interesting in who is noted as whom.
> >Some of these connections are the first time I have
> >heard of them. d
> >
>
>http://www.runework.com/Rune%20homepage/English/SpirScience/Articles/EnglishSpi\
rScArticles.htm
> >
> >
> >"Templars as a revelation of esotheric Christianity
> -
> >a Revelation of the Grail
> >
> >by Nicolaas de Jong.
> >
> >In the 12th Century many things started to move in
> the
> >spiritual and political field in Europe. The
> Catholic
> >church had shown many decayed processes, like
> paying
> >on forehand for ones sins, the richness in which
> >higher priests surrounded themselves (as being
> often
> >from a high noble background), and the growing
> power
> >of the civilians in the cities, which showed
> clearly
> >the disbalance in possession of noblemen, clergy at
> >the one side and peasants at the other, with the
> >growing power of the citizens in the background.
> >Spiritually the malcontent showed itself in a
> strong
> >growth of groups of cathars, of which the
> Albigenzes
> >in France were the strongest. Many church
> authorities
> >turned against these people, and they were called
> >develish and pagan, and ultimately were even
> >extinguished (the Albigenzes at Mount Segur in the
> >Pyrenees).
> >Other reactions to this malcontent were less
> violent,
> >like the Franciscan monk order, which went back to
> the
> >roots of christianity in returning to devotion and
> >poverty. And the Templar knights, which were a monk
> >order that turned themselves outward, to the world,
> as
> >being knights that put their swords in service of
> >Christ. The latter had developed an initiation path
> >that was directly connected to the current of Grail
> >chistianity, being started in Europe in Avalon, but
> >prepared already a long time before.
> >In this article will be pointed at the esoterical
> side
> >of this current, as well as at the individualities
> >that initiated it.
> >
> >Around 3000 years before Christ, Abraham, the
> father
> >of both Jews and Arabs, conquerred the Fillistines
> in
> >Palestina and after his victory, he entered the
> region
> >where later on there should come the city of
> >Jerusalem. From the caves of mount Moria (one of
> the
> >two mountains on which Jerusalem is built nowadays)
> >the priest Melchizedek came to him, offering him on
> a
> >plate a chalice with in it wine, and besides it a
> >piece of bread. This ritual act was the forebode of
> >what Christ did 3000 years later at the Holy
> Supper,
> >telling his disciples that the wine was His blood,
> and
> >the bread His body (for through His death and
> >resurrection He became the Lord over the Earth ever
> >since). Now if you look thoroughly to those three
> >things, you can understand that these are closely
> >connected to the three higher spiritual capacities
> man
> >can develop when he individualises himself. A
> chalice
> >has the form that our soul may become when we open
> it
> >up for the spirit, in such a way that the angels
> may
> >form images in this chalice. We call this
> clairvoyancy
> >or imagination. The wine as being Christs blood one
> >can see as the faculty of inspiration, which means
> >that through the feelings, which are awoken in the
> >heart (where the blood is being centered and sent
> into
> >the body), we can learn to guide processes by each
> >time balancing from the feelings. And the bread is
> the
> >summary of the physical body, for in it come to a
> >blossoming the highest fruits of the Earth. It is
> the
> >high spiritual capacity that we can develop when we
> >develop our ideals and thus transform ourselves and
> >our surroundings. This capacity is called
> intuition,
> >which we may have from other beings as well, for
> >example when we see all of a sudden clearly the
> >possibillity for development of another person. So
> >through this ritual Melchizedek made a kind of
> promise
> >to Abraham.
> >In the 3rd century A.D. this Melchezedek returned
> as
> >Mani, an initiate that developed a kind of
> religion,
> >called manicheism, that was based upon the old
> Persian
> >teachings of the forces of light and darkness, once
> >initiated by Zarathustra there. It made it possible
> >for the people of his time to understand the coming
> >and deeds of Christ, as being the God of the light
> >that came to conquer the one of the darkness. Mani
> was
> >the returned Melchizedek, and at the time of Christ
> he
> >was John the Baptist, which was resurrected by
> Christ
> >in the youngster of Nain. His religion spread over
> >eastern Europe, the Middle East until India, and
> many
> >early church fathers took up his ideas. Mani has
> build
> >his ideas upon the books of Scythianos, the
> Germanic
> >initiate: this was the returned Abraham. At the
> time
> >of Christ it had been the apostle Thomas. Well,
> Mani
> >gathered four spiritual leaders around him, being
> >besides himself Zarathustra or also called Master
> >Jesus (for it was Jesus of Nazareth, who had
> carried
> >the spirit of Christ since he was 30 years old), a
> >person in whom was incorporated Gautama Buddha (for
> >Gautama, as having become already a Buddha about
> 500
> >B.C., did no more incarnate), and this Scythianos
> or
> >Abraham. Together they decided to bring the Grail
> to
> >Western Europe, as they knew that development
> should
> >continue there, after the Roman empire would fall,
> and
> >they made up a plan to bring that forth. For when
> >Christ had come to Earth, the main thing He did was
> >bringing the individual ego for each man (who was
> >before more living in herds, tribes), so that each
> >individual can go an own development ever since
> >(remember that Christ already showed Himself to
> >Abraham in the burning bush of ´morango´, saying “I
> am
> >the I AM”). Many happenings in Europe can be seen
> from
> >that light.
> >First of all this Scythianos incarnated to awaken
> the
> >higher Ego of the Germanic people. This we know
> from
> >the legend of Sygfrid, who woke up the Walkure
> goddess
> >Brunhilde. For her he had to conquer a kingdom of
> his
> >own, but after he got involved in the family story
> of
> >the Burgundoni, called the Nibelungen, he got
> killed.
> >A part of this story is that he conquerred the
> dragon
> >and took its gold. Not known, but quite important,
> is
> >that this fight took place in Middle America, where
> it
>
=== message truncated ===


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

How appropriate that Bush would find himself, and
those with him, under a bunker as a 'whirlwind' passed
by the day of Saddam's execution in the threat of a
hurricane. I can't believe he did it. I can't believe
he would bring that type of wrong upon himself after 6
years of wrong. d

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

It's interesting to me the date that they chose to
kill Saddam. I can imagine that Saddam going on this
most important holiday was something that made his
heart accept easily what was to happen. That they
chose this date, for those who would look at this
question from a spiritual science perspective I would
think it would leave some interesting questions for
our time.

http://www3.kumc.edu/diversity/ethnic_relig/eid-al-adha.html

I used to wonder about a group of numbers that came
about in my dream about ten years ago when I first
began my spiritual research with Rudolf Steiner's
work. And the numbers were 5457. And all these years I
just held that in my mind as a wonder to what they
meant. Looking at my life now and considering the
importance I put upon the Towers coming down I had to
wonder if what my numbers were pointing to was 911. To
me this date was the date of the emergence fully of
the Feminine Divine for our time. I thought that the
Towers went down and something came up. And to me that
was She. Looking back to where they went, a land that
is called the Land of the Mothers, I can have a feel
for the numbers that have an S in them. Six being one
of them and Seven being the other. I can see the
importance of what happened here on the 11th but there
on the 12th. Interesting sign. And today we have
another interesting sign of this man of Iraq who was
killed today on the holiest festival of the Islam
calandar.

d

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

Hi Dottie,
I had a look around the web site - he only mentions Anthroposophy in passing
however I got the impression that the entire site was somehow promoting the
de jong, and he has not seen fit to give credit where credit is due - a
pseudo "Initiate"; one who doesn't say it but promotes it hoping others will
say it. That is the impression of THIS web site - he really should do
something about citation. Thank goodness for the Prokofieffs of the world!

Happy New Year to You :)
Mike T


>From: dottie zold <dottie_z@...>
>Reply-To: anthroposophy_tomorrow@yahoogroups.com
>To: anthroposophy_tomorrow@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Re: Mapping the Path of Ancient
>Mystery Personaliti
>Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2006 01:06:59 -0800 (PST)
>
>Hey Mike, yeah it's interesting. I just thought I'd
>put it up to see if anyone else had any thoughts on
>some of the things he said as he states them as if it
>is common knowledge. I'd not even thought on any of
>those connections for the most part and I didn't
>experience 'oh yes, that's right'. I'm gonna make some
>time tomorrow to do some check up on those
>connections. As I'm looking at something to do with
>Melchizedek I think I'll poke around there.
>
>Thanks,
>Dottie
>
>
>
>
> > Hi Dottie,
> > I don't see any citations. It is interesting - some
> > of the esoteric truths
> > here can only come from Spiritual Science and yet
> > there is no credit given
> > in the citation. It seems to me a somewhat
> > plagaristic article. I am open to
> > changing my mind on this.
> > Mike T
> >
> >
> >
> > >From: dottie zold <dottie_z@...>
> > >Reply-To: anthroposophy_tomorrow@yahoogroups.com
> > >To: anthroposophy_tomorrow@yahoogroups.com
> > >Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Re: Mapping
> > the Path of Ancient
> > >Mystery Personalities
> > >Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2006 21:01:40 -0800 (PST)
> > >
> > >Well, this is interesting in who is noted as whom.
> > >Some of these connections are the first time I have
> > >heard of them. d
> > >
> >
>
>http://www.runework.com/Rune%20homepage/English/SpirScience/Articles/EnglishSpi\
rScArticles.htm
> > >
> > >
> > >"Templars as a revelation of esotheric Christianity
> > -
> > >a Revelation of the Grail
> > >
> > >by Nicolaas de Jong.
> > >
> > >In the 12th Century many things started to move in
> > the
> > >spiritual and political field in Europe. The
> > Catholic
> > >church had shown many decayed processes, like
> > paying
> > >on forehand for ones sins, the richness in which
> > >higher priests surrounded themselves (as being
> > often
> > >from a high noble background), and the growing
> > power
> > >of the civilians in the cities, which showed
> > clearly
> > >the disbalance in possession of noblemen, clergy at
> > >the one side and peasants at the other, with the
> > >growing power of the citizens in the background.
> > >Spiritually the malcontent showed itself in a
> > strong
> > >growth of groups of cathars, of which the
> > Albigenzes
> > >in France were the strongest. Many church
> > authorities
> > >turned against these people, and they were called
> > >develish and pagan, and ultimately were even
> > >extinguished (the Albigenzes at Mount Segur in the
> > >Pyrenees).
> > >Other reactions to this malcontent were less
> > violent,
> > >like the Franciscan monk order, which went back to
> > the
> > >roots of christianity in returning to devotion and
> > >poverty. And the Templar knights, which were a monk
> > >order that turned themselves outward, to the world,
> > as
> > >being knights that put their swords in service of
> > >Christ. The latter had developed an initiation path
> > >that was directly connected to the current of Grail
> > >chistianity, being started in Europe in Avalon, but
> > >prepared already a long time before.
> > >In this article will be pointed at the esoterical
> > side
> > >of this current, as well as at the individualities
> > >that initiated it.
> > >
> > >Around 3000 years before Christ, Abraham, the
> > father
> > >of both Jews and Arabs, conquerred the Fillistines
> > in
> > >Palestina and after his victory, he entered the
> > region
> > >where later on there should come the city of
> > >Jerusalem. From the caves of mount Moria (one of
> > the
> > >two mountains on which Jerusalem is built nowadays)
> > >the priest Melchizedek came to him, offering him on
> > a
> > >plate a chalice with in it wine, and besides it a
> > >piece of bread. This ritual act was the forebode of
> > >what Christ did 3000 years later at the Holy
> > Supper,
> > >telling his disciples that the wine was His blood,
> > and
> > >the bread His body (for through His death and
> > >resurrection He became the Lord over the Earth ever
> > >since). Now if you look thoroughly to those three
> > >things, you can understand that these are closely
> > >connected to the three higher spiritual capacities
> > man
> > >can develop when he individualises himself. A
> > chalice
> > >has the form that our soul may become when we open
> > it
> > >up for the spirit, in such a way that the angels
> > may
> > >form images in this chalice. We call this
> > clairvoyancy
> > >or imagination. The wine as being Christs blood one
> > >can see as the faculty of inspiration, which means
> > >that through the feelings, which are awoken in the
> > >heart (where the blood is being centered and sent
> > into
> > >the body), we can learn to guide processes by each
> > >time balancing from the feelings. And the bread is
> > the
> > >summary of the physical body, for in it come to a
> > >blossoming the highest fruits of the Earth. It is
> > the
> > >high spiritual capacity that we can develop when we
> > >develop our ideals and thus transform ourselves and
> > >our surroundings. This capacity is called
> > intuition,
> > >which we may have from other beings as well, for
> > >example when we see all of a sudden clearly the
> > >possibillity for development of another person. So
> > >through this ritual Melchizedek made a kind of
> > promise
> > >to Abraham.
> > >In the 3rd century A.D. this Melchezedek returned
> > as
> > >Mani, an initiate that developed a kind of
> > religion,
> > >called manicheism, that was based upon the old
> > Persian
> > >teachings of the forces of light and darkness, once
> > >initiated by Zarathustra there. It made it possible
> > >for the people of his time to understand the coming
> > >and deeds of Christ, as being the God of the light
> > >that came to conquer the one of the darkness. Mani
> > was
> > >the returned Melchizedek, and at the time of Christ
> > he
> > >was John the Baptist, which was resurrected by
> > Christ
> > >in the youngster of Nain. His religion spread over
> > >eastern Europe, the Middle East until India, and
> > many
> > >early church fathers took up his ideas. Mani has
> > build
> > >his ideas upon the books of Scythianos, the
> > Germanic
> > >initiate: this was the returned Abraham. At the
> > time
> > >of Christ it had been the apostle Thomas. Well,
> > Mani
> > >gathered four spiritual leaders around him, being
> > >besides himself Zarathustra or also called Master
> > >Jesus (for it was Jesus of Nazareth, who had
> > carried
> > >the spirit of Christ since he was 30 years old), a
> > >person in whom was incorporated Gautama Buddha (for
> > >Gautama, as having become already a Buddha about
> > 500
> > >B.C., did no more incarnate), and this Scythianos
> > or
> > >Abraham. Together they decided to bring the Grail
> > to
> > >Western Europe, as they knew that development
> > should
> > >continue there, after the Roman empire would fall,
> > and
> > >they made up a plan to bring that forth. For when
> > >Christ had come to Earth, the main thing He did was
> > >bringing the individual ego for each man (who was
> > >before more living in herds, tribes), so that each
> > >individual can go an own development ever since
> > >(remember that Christ already showed Himself to
> > >Abraham in the burning bush of ´morango´, saying “I
> > am
> > >the I AM”). Many happenings in Europe can be seen
> > from
> > >that light.
> > >First of all this Scythianos incarnated to awaken
> > the
> > >higher Ego of the Germanic people. This we know
> > from
> > >the legend of Sygfrid, who woke up the Walkure
> > goddess
> > >Brunhilde. For her he had to conquer a kingdom of
> > his
> > >own, but after he got involved in the family story
> > of
> > >the Burgundoni, called the Nibelungen, he got
> > killed.
> > >A part of this story is that he conquerred the
> > dragon
> > >and took its gold. Not known, but quite important,
> > is
> > >that this fight took place in Middle America, where
> > it
> >
>=== message truncated ===
>
>
>__________________________________________________
>Do You Yahoo!?
>Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
>http://mail.yahoo.com

_________________________________________________________________
Advertisement: Amazing holiday rentals?
http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eninemsn%2Erealestate%2Ecom\
%2Eau%2Fcgi%2Dbin%2Frsearch%3Fa%3Dbhp%26t%3Dhol%26cu%3DMSN&_t=758874163&_r=HM_Tx\
t_Link_Holiday_Oct06&_m=EXT

"A Hanging" by George Orwell (August 1931)

http://southerncrossreview.org/36/hanging.htm

"It was about forty yards to the gallows. I
watched the bare brown back of the prisoner
marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with
his bound arms, but quite steadily, with that
bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens
his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly
into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced
up and down, his feet printed themselves on the
wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who
gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly
aside to avoid a puddle on the path.

"It is curious, but till that moment I had never
realized what it means to destroy a healthy,
conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside
to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the
unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short
when it is in full tide. This man was not dying,
he was alive just as we were alive. All the
organs of his body were working – bowels
digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails
growing, tissues forming – all toiling away in
solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing
when he stood on the drop, when he was falling
through the air with a tenth of a second to live.
His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey
walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw,
reasoned – reasoned even about puddles. He and we
were a party of men walking together, seeing,
hearing, feeling, understanding the same world;
and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us
would be gone – one mind less, one world less."

Uncle Taz commenteth:

Of course I'm aware that Saddam Hussein was a
mass murderer, a brutal demagogue building his
power base on fear and terror, responsible for 2
million dead Iraqis during 35 years, a madman
with Stalin as role model, whom he emulated down
to periodic purges and mass executions and so on.

And yet, the utter obscenity of the death penalty
and the sickness of the noose won't go away.
We're looking at a man in good health, seemingly
in incomprehension when the noose is placed
around his neck. My concern is less for the
convict in this case, and probably in most other
cases, but for the souls of the executioners with
their faces always well hidden, and the souls of
all the individuals involved in the process. And
those who dance in the streets with the Invisible
Noseless One, cherring for freedom, death, joy,
and revenge, and American reporters sharing their
joy. It's a victory for those who say they love
death more than their adversaries love life,
namely the bin Ladens, the Bushes, the Cheneys,
the military brass, etc.  Like I said before,
there's no such thing as pro-life in politics,
but pro-death? Oh yes indeed, death is cheered
with celebratory gunfire, dancing in the streets
and champaigne, hosted by the Invisible Noseless One.

  From a political perspective, the US helped
Saddam Hussein to power and gave him the chemical
weapons he used against his own people, and now
they're celebrating his execution for crimes they
put him up to in the first place. In other words,
who are hanged and who celebrate the hangings all
depends upon who the victors and the losers
happen to be. Reversely, Saddam Hussein and his
Baath Party cohorts and half-brothers and in-laws
and so on would be celebrating the hangings of
Bush, Cheney, and Rummy. But the executioners
with their faces well hidden would be the same,
and the Invisible Noseless One would be dancing with anyone willing to join in.

Grim greetings,

Tarjei

Dottie wrote:

>It's interesting to me the date that they chose to
>kill Saddam. I can imagine that Saddam going on this
>most important holiday was something that made his
>heart accept easily what was to happen. That they
>chose this date, for those who would look at this
>question from a spiritual science perspective I would
>think it would leave some interesting questions for
>our time.
>
>http://www3.kumc.edu/diversity/ethnic_relig/eid-al-adha.html
>
>I used to wonder about a group of numbers that came
>about in my dream about ten years ago when I first
>began my spiritual research with Rudolf Steiner's
>work. And the numbers were 5457. And all these years I
>just held that in my mind as a wonder to what they
>meant. Looking at my life now and considering the
>importance I put upon the Towers coming down I had to
>wonder if what my numbers were pointing to was 911. To
>me this date was the date of the emergence fully of
>the Feminine Divine for our time. I thought that the
>Towers went down and something came up. And to me that
>was She. Looking back to where they went, a land that
>is called the Land of the Mothers, I can have a feel
>for the numbers that have an S in them. Six being one
>of them and Seven being the other. I can see the
>importance of what happened here on the 11th but there
>on the 12th. Interesting sign. And today we have
>another interesting sign of this man of Iraq who was
>killed today on the holiest festival of the Islam
>calandar.
>
>d

You know I'm not shocked by much from this
administration however I was quite shocked they moved
so quickly. But then this morning I was thinking of
why they moved so quickly and I came to two thoughts:
one the democratic party was coming into control of
the Houses and they want to make sure they took care
of business before who knows what could've happened,
and two, to break the backs of the Islamists on a day
of great reverence to their Holy Teacher. What a
disgrace is all I keep thinking.

>
> "A Hanging" by George Orwell (August 1931)
>
> http://southerncrossreview.org/36/hanging.htm
>
> "It was about forty yards to the gallows. I
> watched the bare brown back of the prisoner
> marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with
> his bound arms, but quite steadily, with that
> bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens
> his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly
> into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced
> up and down, his feet printed themselves on the
> wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who
> gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly
> aside to avoid a puddle on the path.
>
> "It is curious, but till that moment I had never
> realized what it means to destroy a healthy,
> conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside
> to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the
> unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short
> when it is in full tide. This man was not dying,
> he was alive just as we were alive. All the
> organs of his body were working – bowels
> digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails
> growing, tissues forming – all toiling away in
> solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing
> when he stood on the drop, when he was falling
> through the air with a tenth of a second to live.
> His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey
> walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw,
> reasoned – reasoned even about puddles. He and we
> were a party of men walking together, seeing,
> hearing, feeling, understanding the same world;
> and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us
> would be gone – one mind less, one world less."
>
> Uncle Taz commenteth:
>
> Of course I'm aware that Saddam Hussein was a
> mass murderer, a brutal demagogue building his
> power base on fear and terror, responsible for 2
> million dead Iraqis during 35 years, a madman
> with Stalin as role model, whom he emulated down
> to periodic purges and mass executions and so on.
>
> And yet, the utter obscenity of the death penalty
> and the sickness of the noose won't go away.
> We're looking at a man in good health, seemingly
> in incomprehension when the noose is placed
> around his neck. My concern is less for the
> convict in this case, and probably in most other
> cases, but for the souls of the executioners with
> their faces always well hidden, and the souls of
> all the individuals involved in the process. And
> those who dance in the streets with the Invisible
> Noseless One, cherring for freedom, death, joy,
> and revenge, and American reporters sharing their
> joy. It's a victory for those who say they love
> death more than their adversaries love life,
> namely the bin Ladens, the Bushes, the Cheneys,
> the military brass, etc.  Like I said before,
> there's no such thing as pro-life in politics,
> but pro-death? Oh yes indeed, death is cheered
> with celebratory gunfire, dancing in the streets
> and champaigne, hosted by the Invisible Noseless
> One.
>
>  From a political perspective, the US helped
> Saddam Hussein to power and gave him the chemical
> weapons he used against his own people, and now
> they're celebrating his execution for crimes they
> put him up to in the first place. In other words,
> who are hanged and who celebrate the hangings all
> depends upon who the victors and the losers
> happen to be. Reversely, Saddam Hussein and his
> Baath Party cohorts and half-brothers and in-laws
> and so on would be celebrating the hangings of
> Bush, Cheney, and Rummy. But the executioners
> with their faces well hidden would be the same,
> and the Invisible Noseless One would be dancing with
> anyone willing to join in.
>
> Grim greetings,
>
> Tarjei
>
> Dottie wrote:
>
> >It's interesting to me the date that they chose to
> >kill Saddam. I can imagine that Saddam going on
> this
> >most important holiday was something that made his
> >heart accept easily what was to happen. That they
> >chose this date, for those who would look at this
> >question from a spiritual science perspective I
> would
> >think it would leave some interesting questions for
> >our time.
> >
>
>http://www3.kumc.edu/diversity/ethnic_relig/eid-al-adha.html
> >
> >I used to wonder about a group of numbers that came
> >about in my dream about ten years ago when I first
> >began my spiritual research with Rudolf Steiner's
> >work. And the numbers were 5457. And all these
> years I
> >just held that in my mind as a wonder to what they
> >meant. Looking at my life now and considering the
> >importance I put upon the Towers coming down I had
> to
> >wonder if what my numbers were pointing to was 911.
> To
> >me this date was the date of the emergence fully of
> >the Feminine Divine for our time. I thought that
> the
> >Towers went down and something came up. And to me
> that
> >was She. Looking back to where they went, a land
> that
> >is called the Land of the Mothers, I can have a
> feel
> >for the numbers that have an S in them. Six being
> one
> >of them and Seven being the other. I can see the
> >importance of what happened here on the 11th but
> there
> >on the 12th. Interesting sign. And today we have
> >another interesting sign of this man of Iraq who
> was
> >killed today on the holiest festival of the Islam
> >calandar.
> >
> >d
>
>
>
>


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

Dottie wrote:

>How appropriate that Bush would find himself, and those with him,
>under a bunker as a 'whirlwind' passed by the day of Saddam's
>execution in the threat of a hurricane.

Fascinating occult stuff. Bush is actually asleep during Saddam's
execution. In other words, Bush is on the other side of the threshold
at the very moment when Saddam's demons are released there to roam
the streets of Baghdad and the rest of the world, as we're still
living under the increasing influence of Sorat's third strike (of 1998).

As a note of interest, the pistol Saddam had when he was dug up from
his hole in the ground by US forces in December 2003, this pistol is
now in Bush's private possession, as his treasured trophy.

Tarjei

Dottie wrote:

>You know I'm not shocked by much from this administration however I
>was quite shocked they moved so quickly. But then this morning I was
>thinking of why they moved so quickly and I came to two thoughts:
>one the democratic party was coming into control of the Houses and
>they want to make sure they took care of business before who knows
>what could've happened, and two, to break the backs of the Islamists
>on a day of great reverence to their Holy Teacher. What a disgrace
>is all I keep thinking.

I think the issue at hand goes a little deeper, Dottie. Rather than
breaking the backs of the Islamists, they're appealing to their worst
instincts. It's the Islamists who are dancing with the Noseless One,
celebrating death and revenge. Remember that the primary channel for
Sorath's third strike is a certain element present within Islam, just
like Sorath's second strike in the 14th century came through a
similar element then present within Catholicism. By staging and
directing the events of history in such a manner that peaceful
Muslims who happen to be victims of Saddam's brutality, are made to
dance in the streets to celebrate the noose with joy and gunfire, the
endeavor is made to expand this destructive and death-loving element
within Islam through which Sorath is currently operating.

Just some of my thoughts,

Tarjei

Hey Tarjei,

This death loving element might be saved somehow,
somehow by something that lived within Saddam Hussein
and also that which showed its face even in the end: a
confrontational aspect that has some spark of an
ancient nobility. And maybe in this instance, as that
also with Ben Ladin, it is shown when standing up to
the dragon that pulled them to their farthest fall:
America. It seems to me that it is America, the
destructive element within this countrie's mores that
was enticing those other elements that live in the
Eastern part of the world.

I think somehow it is forgotten that Iraq was
considered the one country over there where women had
some sort of basic human rights to live a life of
equality in the educational, financial and political
streams. What I am saying is not okaying whatever he
might have done, but if I look at this objectively I
see something else peeking out from underneath that
speaks of a new ideal within the Eastern world of
Islamists: in a way he was considered an anti Muslim
for his secular stance against the hardliners. It
seems to me that in many ways he sought to follow the
man who is considered the father of many of the little
now independent nations: Salandin.

So, in his death I think his desire to keep a united
Iraq, which is in one of the most vilotale areas of
the Mid East, will resonate within the hearts of many.
He fought to maintane some sort of freedom from the
hard core right of the various countries around him
and those who were in the pockets of the American
administrations of yesteryear. (I am thinking 'what
havoc the Bushes have reaked on our society as a
whole, what havoc.) I think Sadar has to be taken out.
If not he will do the worst work of the noseless one
yet.

All in all, I think America is the one that must be
watched. It is this country that is wreaking such
havoc around the world in the name of Christ, not only
in this administrations but many before it. The work
the men of america are doing on behalf of the noseless
one is decimating the world and nobody is standing up
to the corporate babylon that is taking place. I'll
never forget reading a few years back that 'thank
god,now Iraq too will have mastercard and visa'. As if
it was a tragedy they did not have this plastic card
of the devil. It was also funny to hear of how the
Iraqis just didn't get that they had to pay the money
back on time:) I thought that was just beautiful.
Until of course people start to lose their homes,
their cars, and end up slaves to the dollar just as
this country is.

I can better understand how it is that the Rastas call
America the Devil itself. I get it now when I look at
the corporate and person greed that has turned this
countrys hopes and greatness on its head: greed is
winning out across the board. Companies are being
given the right to monopolize the phone industry, the
television industry, the communications industry, just
in tune with the police state that we have become. I
imagine it has been building but it is here and now.

I am thinking that this Whore of Babylon is this
machine that is eating up everything in its way and
making sure that we instill the need of bigger and
better in the hearts of every american and then onto
the peoples of the worlds. It seems to me that I can
see America as the Frodo trying to do away with the
evil of the world, only to be eaten up by the very
thing it had promised to protect and bring forth. Sam
has been marginalized by the big fat foot of those who
were sworn to protect him but also succumbed. And to
me this is where Anthroposophy comes in: it must be
the bridge that can share with others how it is
through sacrafice and dedication to the Christ message
of Love overcomes all when in the fire we transform
ourselves to a higher understanding versus turning to
the status quo of that which looks us in the face
everyday.

Anthroposophy has a task it seems to be more than just
people studying here and there. It is a process of
initiation that works to sow the seeds for the future.
Our present is already here but the future remains to
be seen. It is our task to become initiates to the
best of our ability while we are here. To not consider
that this is truly our task is to not understand what
Rudolf Steiner worked so hard for in his lifetime. It
is through our willingness to make the time to do our
excercises, to burn in the fire of brotherhood,  to
work towards becoming coworkers with those in the
spiritual worlds, to truly take up the work of Michael
to the best of our ability, that we make ourselves
worthy of the greatest teachings of our times brought
forth by Rudolf Steiner. Failure seems to be an option
that I don't think we can afford at this point in
time.

And what failure is to me is that we do not find the
seriousness of the situation and what it requires of
us right now. To continue on without a committment to
truly working this path out in a more awake to the
world way is a tragedy that  must not befall those of
us who choose to make ourselves ready come what may.
I'd rather die like Saddam Hussein, with the veil
removed, than to die with it covering my eyes when in
all reality it was my choice to begin with. But I
failed to see that it was mine to make. I let that
which is smallest in me have its say. That is what I
see is our responsibility to the great teachings of
our times: waking up to the highest part of ourselves
that has chosen to be a part of this effort on behalf
of mankind.

My thoughts,
Dottie




--- Tarjei Straume <straume@...> wrote:

> Dottie wrote:
>
> >You know I'm not shocked by much from this
> administration however I
> >was quite shocked they moved so quickly. But then
> this morning I was
> >thinking of why they moved so quickly and I came to
> two thoughts:
> >one the democratic party was coming into control of
> the Houses and
> >they want to make sure they took care of business
> before who knows
> >what could've happened, and two, to break the backs
> of the Islamists
> >on a day of great reverence to their Holy Teacher.
> What a disgrace
> >is all I keep thinking.
>
> I think the issue at hand goes a little deeper,
> Dottie. Rather than
> breaking the backs of the Islamists, they're
> appealing to their worst
> instincts. It's the Islamists who are dancing with
> the Noseless One,
> celebrating death and revenge. Remember that the
> primary channel for
> Sorath's third strike is a certain element present
> within Islam, just
> like Sorath's second strike in the 14th century came
> through a
> similar element then present within Catholicism. By
> staging and
> directing the events of history in such a manner
> that peaceful
> Muslims who happen to be victims of Saddam's
> brutality, are made to
> dance in the streets to celebrate the noose with joy
> and gunfire, the
> endeavor is made to expand this destructive and
> death-loving element
> within Islam through which Sorath is currently
> operating.
>
> Just some of my thoughts,
>
> Tarjei
>
>


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

"Moreover, Zarathustra insists that thought, word and
deed must be combined into a single unity. The Good
Thought, must be expressed in Good Works, and both
translated into Good Deeds.

Hence the Motto of the Religion: Humata, Hukhta,
Huvarashta. The good thought, conceived in the mind,
must be spoken so that others may hear it, and then
embodied in action so that others may benefit. In the
happiness of those around him, man finds his own
happiness. So every Zoroastrian is urged to perform as
many good deeds as he can throughout his earthly life.
There is no other Salvation for him except in the good
deeds he performs on earth."

Dottie:

I was thinking, I was thinking that Anthroposophy is
not supposed to lead to itself rather it is supposed
to lead to Christ. Just as the Magdalene does not lead
to her, it leads to her image in the spiritual worlds,
Anthroposophia, Who then leads onwards to the Christ.

I find that in our inertia, unbeknownst to us, we stop
at Anthroposophy, just as those searching for
understanding within the Magdalene's story, stop at
her. It's not understood that she is an example, a
leader on the way to deeper understandings and
therefore deeper resposibilities to that which we say
we are touched by: Christ.

Without putting blame, as I really don't think its
about blaming rather its about how can we as
individuals be as responsible to that image of our
very selves that lives within the spiritual worlds as
those great teachers of man who walked before us? What
does it mean to give up the riches and follow Christ?
Does it mean to give up worldly things? Hardly. But
what it does seem to mean for me is that I must find
the balance and to be without attachments yet fully
engaged. It's almost as if the positive and the
negative help to balance out as I walk towards,
shaking in my boots, a deeper committment to what it
means to be an initiate in the world.

I have been thinking about how people will say 'oh
this is not the time and that is not the time and yada
yada ya. And then I think of Eve in the Garden who
took that damn! apple and dared to be like her Father
in Heaven. All the while Adam was content to be where
he was just watering those damn plants. We get that
some beings were itching to come down before their
time hence some greater problems occurred for them
than if they had waited. I can imagine
Anthroposophists hearing that story and thinking 'see,
that's right, got to make sure the right time is the
right time and yada frieken:) yada. Discernment.
Discernment of the signs of the times is important
right now. A very powerful sign has just been given
about our inner states and who and what is willing to
fight for them. If we fail to make a move now, a
greater committment to individual responsibilities to
our spiritual companions, and no I'm not talking about
thanking them or acknowledging their presence, I'm
talking about doing what it takes to begin a real
process of actively working with those who work on
behalf of mankind, which means transforming our organs
into organs of perception so that we might be ready
and able to be of a greater service than what our
physical capabilities are at the present moment.

A bomb has just been thrown and I think a stand has to
be made or at the very least contemplated by each of
us that so desire to be of service to the call of
Michael. A stand for pledging to do our best to wake
up to ourselves and what we do and think in our daily
lives. What are we beholden to is a good question to
ask ourselves individually. I think it's a good
question.


My thoughts,
Dottie

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

Dottie wrote:

>This death loving element might be saved
>somehow, somehow by something that lived within
>Saddam Hussein and also that which showed its
>face even in the end: a confrontational aspect
>that has some spark of an ancient nobility.

That confrontational aspect he displayed at the
end also has a very chilling, dark and ominous
quality. We're talking about a man who, every
time he was about to do something exceptionally
gruesome to someone, like having them boiled
alive or torn slowly to pieces, went into a
familiar fit of ticks, closing and rolling his
eyes and trembling all over, as though possessed.
If it was ancient nobility, it was like that of
Nero or Caligula, or like Idi Amin whose favorite
pastime was watching his adversaries being eaten by crocodiles.

It's in this context one should understand Saddam
Hussein's last minute "nobility" when he stared
intently at each of his present opponents as if
to identify and memorize all the individuals
involved in his execution. The spiral of gruesome
vengeance and cruelty continues beyond the
threshold. It's the likes of Saddam Hussein who
are most useful to the Dark Lodges and the Fallen
Gods they serve when such people die, because
they become the slaves of the Dark Lodges after
death, especially after a death like that of
Hussein, following a very angry and hostile
exchange of insults and curses between the
parties involved, maximizing the power of hatred.

>And maybe in this instance, as that also with
>Ben Ladin, it is shown when standing up to the
>dragon that pulled them to their farthest fall: America.

Osama bin Laden never stood up to any dragon the
way I see it. He kept running around the Middle
East trying desperately to get a following on the
local level somwewhere, and when that didn't
work, he began bragging about attacking and
destroying the West to get admirerers and
disciples. And he did get a small following,
which has been grossly exaggerated by US
propaganda. He's been a big mouth and a big
bankroller, but no commander-in-chief for any
organization in the sense that the US has
portrayed it. The so called cells are all rogues
in charge of their own agendas, and bin Laden has
just been pretending to take credit for
everything. But standing up to the Dragon? bin
Laden? No way. Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Hussein and
bin Laden - they're all hatched from the Dragon's eggs.

>It seems to me that it is America, the
>destructive element within this countrie's mores
>that was enticing those other elements that live
>in the Eastern part of the world.

True, but that's because the dominant Dark Lodges
are in the West. This third "666"-strike by Sorat
is indeed being channelled through Arabic Islam,
and this is the part of the equation that I found
missing in Bradford's posts on the subject,
probably because attributing evil to the Arabs is
too right wing and mainstream politically.
Nevertheless, itøs there, although it's
controlled, manipulated, and directed by the
political West, which is under the immediate control of the Lodges in question.

>I think somehow it is forgotten that Iraq was
>considered the one country over there where
>women had some sort of basic human rights to
>live a life of equality in the educational, financial and political streams.

That must have been prior to the 1950's then,
because that's when the Iraqis lost control of
their countries to hostile powers, which were
increased manifold after Saddam Hussein's
takeover in the 1970's. His was a regime of
absolute horror, fear, terror, cruelty, evil, and
ruthlessness. There was nothing noble about
Saddam Hussein's regime, *except* that he kept
the palaces, museums, libraries, and other
cultural treasures intact; they have now been
vandalized and destroyed by the US military. The
trrops have vented their frustration and hatred
on Iraqi property as well as on civilians, and they need to get out yesterday!

>What I am saying is not okaying whatever he
>might have done, but if I look at this
>objectively I see something else peeking out
>from underneath that speaks of a new ideal
>within the Eastern world of Islamists: in a way
>he was considered an anti Muslim for his secular
>stance against the hardliners. It seems to me
>that in many ways he sought to follow the man
>who is considered the father of many of the
>little now independent nations: Salandin.

Saddam Hussein sought to follow Joseph Stalin. He
was his role model. He had no interest in
anyone's well-being except his own: His own
power. At the end, through his trial, he seemed
to identify himself with Iraq, just like Adolf
Hitler identified himself with Germany. Well,
Hitler also had something "ancient noble" about
him, I assume, just like Mussolini. And yet, the
allies did the right thing by crushing them, for
the simple reason that they didn't do so under
false pretences; they were being attacked.
Hussein did attack Quwait, but he did not
threaten the rest of the world. They claimed he
did, and they also tried to claim Iraqi ties to
9-11, while the only reason they invaded was the
oil. That's the most expensive oil we've ever
seen, and therefore, the entire adventure would
be a comedy of errors if it weren't so ugly and bloody and awful.

Frankly, I see no redeeming or endearing
qualities in Saddam Hussein. Hitler remains a
favorite of mine because he's every actor's
dream. Clicking his heels, admiring himself in
the mirror before going onstage for a rally and
all that. I've seen some nice portrayals of Idi
Amin too, although not the latest. What's the fun
of playing Saddam? I guess Hollywood will think of something soon.

>So, in his death I think his desire to keep a
>united Iraq, which is in one of the most
>vilotale areas of the Mid East, will resonate within the hearts of many.

That's like saying Hitler desired to keep a
united Germany-Austria and that this resonated
within the hearts of many German speakers in Europe.

>He fought to maintane some sort of freedom from
>the hard core right of the various countries
>around him and those who were in the pockets of
>the American administrations of yesteryear.

He fought any challenge to his power and his
rule, from right or left, hard or soft core, just
like Joseph Stalin. And he used the same methods.
By immediately executing generals who questioned
his order to invate Quwait, by executing his own
sons-in-law for treason, by sometimes executing a
whole bunch of people for no reason at all and
without warning, he became feared, and not even
hard core right wingers could compete with that.
(He even invented non-existent plots against
himself as an excuse to kill a long list of people he wanted dead.)

>I'd rather die like Saddam Hussein, with the
>veil removed, than to die with it covering my
>eyes when in all reality it was my choice to begin with.

Why not die like Joan of Arc instead, or like the
apostle Paul, or like Christ? Or like Martin
Luther King or Gandhi? Or Anne Frank? Who wants
to walk in Saddam Hussein's footsteps? He chose
to die without the hood, but he was no "Isis
Unveiled" holy mystery. He was Ahriman's puppet
on a string, just like Hitler, Stalin, Kol Pot, and Idi Amin.

Executing Saddam Hussein was primitive, macabre,
and obscene, but it doesn't make him a martyr
with all kinds of noble and redeeming qualities.

Tarjei

--- dottie zold <dottie_z@...> wrote:

> Anthroposophy has a task it seems to be more than
> just
> people studying here and there. It is a process of
> initiation that works to sow the seeds for the
> future.
> Our present is already here but the future remains
> to
> be seen. It is our task to become initiates to the
> best of our ability while we are here. To not
> consider
> that this is truly our task is to not understand
> what
> Rudolf Steiner worked so hard for in his lifetime.
> It
> is through our willingness to make the time to do
> our
> excercises, to burn in the fire of brotherhood,  to
> work towards becoming coworkers with those in the
> spiritual worlds, to truly take up the work of
> Michael
> to the best of our ability, that we make ourselves
> worthy of the greatest teachings of our times
> brought
> forth by Rudolf Steiner. Failure seems to be an
> option
> that I don't think we can afford at this point in
> time.

Hi, Dottie, It would be very nice if we were all to
become initiates - but what about the meanwhile? One
of the more immediate ideas to emerge from
anthroposophy is the threefold (tripartite) society.
If such a thing could be somehow brought about in
Iraq, the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds could live and let
live in freedom - or in Palestine/Israel. In both
cases, unfortunately,
religious fanaticism has engendered such a degree of
hate that it seems impossible. Closer to home:
liberation of education from political domination.
Frank




Frank Thomas Smith
http://SouthernCrossReview.org

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

Frank:
> Hi, Dottie, It would be very nice if we were all to
> become initiates - but what about the meanwhile?

Hi Frank,

I think its the understanding of what we do today that
will affect our tomorrows. To me, and I have felt this
for a long time and would say it from time to time,
Anthroposophy is an initiatic path. It is a path where
we are developing our organs into organs of
perception. It is through the hear and now that we are
able to do this. We can not do this, or so it is said,
when we are in the spiritual worlds, unless of course
we may be initiates of a very high order that have
already developed working relations, conscious working
relationships with the Spirits of Harmony and Wisdom.

So now is the meantime and we need to get our groove
on. And you know, I get for some it may seem like I am
saying 'you have to do this' and that may seem like
there is no freedom of choice and someone is pushing
something onto another. However I do not say it from
that place. I do say what I say to those who dare to
think they are on this/an initiatic path of spiritual
development as a person who says they are interested
in developing these capacities or at the very least
can see that this would be a good thing.

And to me what that looks like is doing a good
contemplation about where one stands today in the
world and how they are doing on this initiatic path
according to their own hopes and desires. Those that
say 'well you can't do that because yada yada ya...'
can just continue to think that way. Others that want
to seriously consider where they stand and if they
like where they are standing and if not then what can
be done to make an improvement of where one finds
oneself at this point in the story.

Frank:
One
> of the more immediate ideas to emerge from
> anthroposophy is the threefold (tripartite) society.
> If such a thing could be somehow brought about in
> Iraq, the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds could live and
> let
> live in freedom - or in Palestine/Israel.

See, I think it is in bringing this forward but also
the inner developement of yourself. To me on some
level they are one and the same and on another level
they are separate: one is of this world and the other
is finding a way to work with the spiritual world on a
conscious awake manner. They may both be leading to
the same place but one seems to require also some
diligent work and committment to the personal
initiatic path through the exercises and
contemplations of one's place in spiritual
development.

Today we are our own teachers. The lie of this world
keeps us running back and forth with little time to
really commit to the development of these organs. To
me this is a really big part of Anthroposophy and
Rudolf STeiner's greatest gift: these exercises and
arts that were brought forth by him are those very
things that not only help us to live a better life in
the here and now, and to have a greater impact on the
world, but also they develop the inner organs into
organs of perception. Nobody can do it for us. Each of
us individually has to see and admit what our ture
hopes are for ourselves in this world and the one to
come: will we have used this valuable time here on
earth, and what little we have left, to develop
ourselves to such a capacity that we are able then to
be of a greater service when we return in the future?
And mostly I have to say alot of this is what I am
posing to myself: am I really committed past being a
good girl and working well in the world and creating
things here and there? I mean these things are nice
and they do create a nicer world or zone where I live
but there seems to be this other thing that is
requiring my attention and it is this committment or
hope that I can be of greater service in another way
that will impact my own physical body and spiritual
body when I return as well as now. So its kind of two
fold.

I am thinking with the threefold society we have to
consider that it has not even taken full force within
our own personal lives let alone out in teh wider
world. For example there was a friend of Bradfords who
said he had threefolded his life, that one can do this
at their own house and in their own relationships. And
I realized I don't know enough about this to even know
whether or not I am doing it. And if I am it is surely
unconscious.

I think alot of times newcomers come in and although
these things have been spoken of for a long time, they
have no idea what the hell! three folding is. And with
the largess of Rudolf Steiner's work it would seem it
would naturally not be the first thing they might
meet. (Of course that depends on what ones interest
was when coming into contact with Anthroposophy or the
works of Rudolf Steiner.)

So, Frank, how does one threefold ones life? What are
the practical manners in which this can be done. Can
you write and article, or have you written an article
about this? If so can you pass it onto us? And then
maybe we can get it into the World News For Members
and then the News For Members here in the States and
then maybe we can see if the Society might not
consider making this an initiatve in the branches that
we become aware of it in our working with one another
and also those who work with us in the purchasing and
business relationships and so forth.

So, how does three folding work for the middle east?

Also, now just because we are doing this good work
doesn't mean we still do not have to have a very
strong committment to our inner work. As
anthroposophists of the past tend to keep their things
secret a new day is upon us that instead of being kept
secret people can little by little vent these things,
those that are couragious enough and little by little
we can all support one another in the efforts. I mean
there are so many little possibilities that can happen
that can really help this moment of change that is
upon us. And has been I imagine for a bit.

Frank:
In both
> cases, unfortunately,
> religious fanaticism has engendered such a degree of
> hate that it seems impossible. Closer to home:
> liberation of education from political domination.

But that's okay. We first have to do it here and while
we are doing it here we can also begin a blueprint of
how that can work there as well. For me I am handling
the religious aspect. I am working, and have been
since finding Rudolf Steiner's work on being the
bridge. And the work and research I am doing, although
it may look like a mess to everyone else, is really
finding where the underpinnings of our faith are
rooted in the exact same places. But nobody seems to
know this except the Rabbis and others who might have
decided to see this. I mean there are many who get a
feeling for it and can say it here and there but to
make a decision to use it for some good is something I
am committed to. It just takes time I guess and more
time. And I am still supposed to be working on
developing my organs into organs of perception. It's
just as important as any physical work I do on behalf
of making a difference in the world.

Happy New Year friend,
Dottie

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

--- In anthroposophy_tomorrow@yahoogroups.com, Tarjei Straume
<straume@...> wrote:
>
>
> "A Hanging" by George Orwell (August 1931)
>
> http://southerncrossreview.org/36/hanging.htm
>
> "It was about forty yards to the gallows. I
> watched the bare brown back of the prisoner
> marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with
> his bound arms, but quite steadily, with that
> bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens
> his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly
> into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced
> up and down, his feet printed themselves on the
> wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who
> gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly
> aside to avoid a puddle on the path.
>
> "It is curious, but till that moment I had never
> realized what it means to destroy a healthy,
> conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside
> to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the
> unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short
> when it is in full tide. This man was not dying,
> he was alive just as we were alive. All the
> organs of his body were working – bowels
> digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails
> growing, tissues forming – all toiling away in
> solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing
> when he stood on the drop, when he was falling
> through the air with a tenth of a second to live.
> His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey
> walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw,
> reasoned – reasoned even about puddles. He and we
> were a party of men walking together, seeing,
> hearing, feeling, understanding the same world;
> and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us
> would be gone – one mind less, one world less."
>
> Uncle Taz commenteth:
>
> Of course I'm aware that Saddam Hussein was a
> mass murderer, a brutal demagogue building his
> power base on fear and terror, responsible for 2
> million dead Iraqis during 35 years, a madman
> with Stalin as role model, whom he emulated down
> to periodic purges and mass executions and so on.
>
> And yet, the utter obscenity of the death penalty
> and the sickness of the noose won't go away.
> We're looking at a man in good health, seemingly
> in incomprehension when the noose is placed
> around his neck. My concern is less for the
> convict in this case, and probably in most other
> cases, but for the souls of the executioners with
> their faces always well hidden, and the souls of
> all the individuals involved in the process. And
> those who dance in the streets with the Invisible
> Noseless One, cherring for freedom, death, joy,
> and revenge, and American reporters sharing their
> joy. It's a victory for those who say they love
> death more than their adversaries love life,
> namely the bin Ladens, the Bushes, the Cheneys,
> the military brass, etc.  Like I said before,
> there's no such thing as pro-life in politics,
> but pro-death? Oh yes indeed, death is cheered
> with celebratory gunfire, dancing in the streets
> and champaigne, hosted by the Invisible Noseless One.
>
>  From a political perspective, the US helped
> Saddam Hussein to power and gave him the chemical
> weapons he used against his own people, and now
> they're celebrating his execution for crimes they
> put him up to in the first place. In other words,
> who are hanged and who celebrate the hangings all
> depends upon who the victors and the losers
> happen to be. Reversely, Saddam Hussein and his
> Baath Party cohorts and half-brothers and in-laws
> and so on would be celebrating the hangings of
> Bush, Cheney, and Rummy. But the executioners
> with their faces well hidden would be the same,
> and the Invisible Noseless One would be dancing with anyone willing
to join in.
>
> Grim greetings,
>
> Tarjei


"Oh, yes, you got a fine sister, She warmed my blood from cold,
Brought my blood to boiling hot To keep you from the Gallows Pole,
Your brother brought me silver, Your sister warmed my soul,
But now I laugh and pull so hard And see you swinging on the Gallows
Pole

Swingin' on the gallows pole!"

If we remove the dogmatic order following impulse from the idea
of "thou shalt not kill", what do we have left?

Better yet, how bout we just keep the order following impulse in
there? where does that leave all the holy steam rollers that pave the
way and roll out the blood-red carpet for the copropate clones
parading the "american way"?

Do stupidity and insanity have anything in common? Weel, my non-
scientific guess would say that they lack a certain synaptic
connection in the memory department.

"We the people" cant seem to get the fact that we created people like
Hussain. Or allowed the population of East Temor to get slaughtered
by a worldly business partner. Or trained the terrorists in
Nicaragua, and funded Bin-ladin. And I wont even get me started
on "the war on drugs" cause I might start planning some of my own
killing sprees.

Bahh...I give up! I'm just gonna make this my new home page and buy
the song and listen to it till all this concern that I have for the
idea of LIFE gets bitten out of my ass and goes away after my ability
to THINK gets lost in my rightous belief in "freedom" and "terror".

http://d21c.com/AnnesPlace/Proud.html

good-by cruel world!

Mike

screw Waldorf education! you can find all the educational themes needed
for the new world order right here:

http://www.teach-nology.com/themes/social/america/

I particularly got a bang out of how were supposed to teach our kids
about terrorism.

Mike

--- In anthroposophy_tomorrow@yahoogroups.com <mailto:anthroposophy_tomorrow%40yahoogroups.com> , Tarjei Straume
<straume@...> wrote:
>
>
> "A Hanging" by George Orwell (August 1931)
>
> http://southerncrossreview.org/36/hanging.htm
>
> "It was about forty yards to the gallows. I
> watched the bare brown back of the prisoner
> marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with
> his bound arms, but quite steadily, with that
> bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens
> his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly
> into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced
> up and down, his feet printed themselves on the
> wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who
> gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly
> aside to avoid a puddle on the path.
>
> "It is curious, but till that moment I had never
> realized what it means to destroy a healthy,
> conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside
> to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the
> unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short
> when it is in full tide. This man was not dying,
> he was alive just as we were alive. All the
> organs of his body were working – bowels
> digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails
> growing, tissues forming – all toiling away in
> solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing
> when he stood on the drop, when he was falling
> through the air with a tenth of a second to live.
> His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey
> walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw,
> reasoned – reasoned even about puddles. He and we
> were a party of men walking together, seeing,
> hearing, feeling, understanding the same world;
> and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us
> would be gone – one mind less, one world less."
>
> Uncle Taz commenteth:
>
> Of course I'm aware that Saddam Hussein was a
> mass murderer, a brutal demagogue building his
> power base on fear and terror, responsible for 2
> million dead Iraqis during 35 years, a madman
> with Stalin as role model, whom he emulated down
> to periodic purges and mass executions and so on.
>
> And yet, the utter obscenity of the death penalty
> and the sickness of the noose won't go away.
> We're looking at a man in good health, seemingly
> in incomprehension when the noose is placed
> around his neck. My concern is less for the
> convict in this case, and probably in most other
> cases, but for the souls of the executioners with
> their faces always well hidden, and the souls of
> all the individuals involved in the process. And
> those who dance in the streets with the Invisible
> Noseless One, cherring for freedom, death, joy,
> and revenge, and American reporters sharing their
> joy. It's a victory for those who say they love
> death more than their adversaries love life,
> namely the bin Ladens, the Bushes, the Cheneys,
> the military brass, etc.  Like I said before,
> there's no such thing as pro-life in politics,
> but pro-death? Oh yes indeed, death is cheered
> with celebratory gunfire, dancing in the streets
> and champaigne, hosted by the Invisible Noseless One.
>
>  From a political perspective, the US helped
> Saddam Hussein to power and gave him the chemical
> weapons he used against his own people, and now
> they're celebrating his execution for crimes they
> put him up to in the first place. In other words,
> who are hanged and who celebrate the hangings all
> depends upon who the victors and the losers
> happen to be. Reversely, Saddam Hussein and his
> Baath Party cohorts and half-brothers and in-laws
> and so on would be celebrating the hangings of
> Bush, Cheney, and Rummy. But the executioners
> with their faces well hidden would be the same,
> and the Invisible Noseless One would be dancing with anyone willing
to join in.
>
> Grim greetings,
>
> Tarjei

"Oh, yes, you got a fine sister, She warmed my blood from cold,
Brought my blood to boiling hot To keep you from the Gallows Pole,
Your brother brought me silver, Your sister warmed my soul,
But now I laugh and pull so hard And see you swinging on the Gallows
Pole

Swingin' on the gallows pole!"

If we remove the dogmatic order following impulse from the idea
of "thou shalt not kill", what do we have left?

Better yet, how bout we just keep the order following impulse in
there? where does that leave all the holy steam rollers that pave the
way and roll out the blood-red carpet for the copropate clones
parading the "american way"?

Do stupidity and insanity have anything in common? Weel, my non-
scientific guess would say that they lack a certain synaptic
connection in the memory department.

"We the people" cant seem to get the fact that we created people like
Hussain. Or allowed the population of East Temor to get slaughtered
by a worldly business partner. Or trained the terrorists in
Nicaragua, and funded Bin-ladin. And I wont even get me started
on "the war on drugs" cause I might start planning some of my own
killing sprees.

Bahh...I give up! I'm just gonna make this my new home page and buy
the song and listen to it till all this concern that I have for the
idea of LIFE gets bitten out of my ass and goes away after my ability
to THINK gets lost in my rightous belief in "freedom" and "terror".

http://d21c.com/AnnesPlace/Proud.html

good-by cruel world!

Mike

 

Bahh...I give up!

Mike

Looks like "Bush Jugend" to me.

Tarjei

Mike H wrote:

>screw Waldorf education! you can find all the educational themes needed
>for the new world order right here:
>
>http://www.teach-nology.com/themes/social/america/
>
>I particularly got a bang out of how were supposed to teach our kids
>about terrorism.

Mike H wrote:

>"We the people" cant seem to get the fact that we created people
>like Hussain. Or allowed the population of East Temor to get
>slaughtered by a worldly business partner.

With US approval and support (of the Indionesian govt and their plan
to attack East Timor) during the reign of president Gerald Ford, who
is honored this week for his honesty and integrity and so on. Well,
Ford was a likeable fella and a nice soul, I think, the problem with
politics, especially with the extremely powerful office of the
presidency, is that it corrupts just about everybody who gets in
touch with it (including the Kennedys! - see "The Dark Side of
Camelot" by Seymour Hersh). Ford strengthened and immunized the
executive branch and the CIA against scrutiny and oversight; he had
Cheney and Rummy onboard, and although he denies that any deal was
made for the pardoning of Nixon, there seems to be a memo leaked
about Alexander Haig talking to Ford one week before Nixon resigned,
Haig telling Ford that Nixon is losing his marbles in the Oval
Office, but if Ford promises to pardon him, he may be persuaded to resign.

Ford doesn't strike me as a deliberate liar, but as someone who
conveniently forgets details - you know, the clumsy football player
who couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. I think pardoning
Nixon was a nice decision, but they should have been upfront about
the deal and that it was because Nixon was going nuts. Who knows,
otherwise they might have hanged the poor fella for his genocidal
Christmas bombing or something.

I expect we'll hear more about the leak of this memo (the Haig-Ford
deal on the Nixon pardon) in the near future.

Anyway, the James Brown funeral looked and sounded like a real blast,
a celebration of his LIFE. That man was so full of life, with an atom
bomb in his belly, that no other kind of goodbye would be appropriate.

Tarjei

snip
>
>So, Frank, how does one threefold ones life? What are
>the practical manners in which this can be done. Can
>you write and article, or have you written an article
>about this? Snip
>
>So, how does three folding work for the middle east?
>
snip

Social and Anti-Social Forces in the Human Being - Lecture Rudolf Steiner
The times themselves speak clearly enough, demanding that we should apply to
the conditions and activities of these times those feelings and modes of
thinking which we have acquired from our studies of Spiritual Science. Not
only do outward circumstances speak clearly, but our conceptions of
Spiritual Science also justify us in a certain way, especially in what we
have to say today. In many if our basic ways of looking at the world, we
have started from one fundamental fact of human evolution, from the fact
that this evolution is accomplished by successive stages of which the most
important and most related to us began with the great Atlantean Catastrophe,
namely this Post-Atlantean Epoch. Four periods of it have passed by, while
we are now living in the Fifth Post-Atlantean Period. This period of
development, which began in the 15th century of our Christian era, is the
one which we can designate as the period of the Spiritual or Consciousness
Soul. Other soul forces have been especially evolved in other periods of
civilization. In our civilization which has followed the Greco-Latin
civilization from the first half of the 15th century, humanity must
gradually develop the Spiritual Soul. The preceding period, which commenced
in the 8th century B.C. and finished in the 15th century A.D., was
pre-eminently the period in which humanity developed the Intellectual or
Mind Soul.
Now we need not give a full description of these cultural stages, but we
will particularly look at what is a peculiarity of our age — this age which
has comparatively few centuries behind it. Each age lasts on average about
2000 years. Therefore much remains to be done in this period of the
Spiritual Soul. The task of humanity — of civilized humanity in this age of
the Spiritual Soul — will be that of laying hold of the whole human being
and making him entirely dependent on himself, of lifting into the full light
of consciousness much of that which in earlier periods man felt
instinctively and judged instinctively.
Many present difficulties and much that is chaotic around us in our era,
become quite explicable when one knows that the task of our era is to raise
that which is instinctive to the plane of consciousness. What is instinctive
in us happens to a certain degree by itself, but to achieve a conscious
result one must make an inward effort, above all, to begin to think truly
with one's whole being. Man tries to avoid this, he does not willingly take
a conscious part in the shaping of world conditions. Here is a point over
which many are indeed deceived today. Men today think the following: Well,
today we live in the period of the development of thought. People are proud
of the fact that there is more thinking nowadays than in the past. But this
is an illusion — one of the many illusions in which humanity lives today.
This comprehension on which people pride themselves today is mainly
instinctive. Only when the instinctive nature which has appeared in the
evolution of humanity and which so proudly speaks of thought — only when
this instinctive nature becomes instead an active element, when the
intellect does not depend merely on the brain but springs from the whole
man, when it is separated from rationalism and is lifted to the plane of
Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition — only then will that gradually
emerge which seeks to emerge in the Fifth Post-Atlantean Period, the period
of the Spiritual Soul. That which meets man today and which is clearly
indicated even in the worldly thought of the present epoch is something
which one continuously needs to mention the appearance of the so-called
Social Question.
But he who has earnestly studied our anthroposophically oriented Spiritual
Science will easily perceive that the essential impulse in the shaping of
the social order (whether belonging to the State or not) must come from that
which human beings can develop out of themselves, as it is this which
regulates the relationship between people. Everything which the human being
develops out of himself naturally corresponds to certain impulses which are
ultimately found in our soul and spirit life. If one looks at the matter
this way, one is able to ask: Must attention not then be directed above all
to the social impulses or to the social instincts, movements or forces
emerging in human nature? We can, if you like, call these social impulses,
social drives; but we must keep in mind that they should not only be thought
of as mere unconscious instincts since when we speak of social instincts
today, we must take into account that we live in the age of the
Consciousness Soul and that these drives seek to press up into
consciousness.
Now, if these things are to count for us, then we must find social impulses
which seek to become reality. But in so doing we must recognize the terrible
one-sidedness of our age, which should not of course be deplored, but which
should be looked at calmly because it has to be overcome. Man has such a
great inclination in our day to look at things one-sidedly. But a pendulum
cannot swing from the central point out to one side without also swinging
back to the other. Just as little as a pendulum can swing to one side only,
can social impulses of men be expressed by only one side. This is because
the social impulses are quite naturally opposed by anti-social impulses in
the human being. Precisely because one finds social impulses or drives in
human nature, one also finds the opposite. This fact must above all be
considered.
The social leaders and agitators, for example, live in the illusion that
they need only spread certain ideas or need only appeal to a class of man
who is willing and disposed (provided ideas are there) to help forward the
social impulse. It is an illusion to act in this way, for in so doing one
forgets that if social forces are working, then anti-social forces are also
present. What we must be able to do today is to look these things straight
in the face without illusion. It is only from the viewpoint of Spiritual
Science that they can be looked at straightly without illusion. One is
tempted to say that people are sleeping through the most important thing of
all in life when they do not begin to look at life from the viewpoint of
Spiritual Science.
We must ask ourselves: What is the relation between people with regard to
social and anti-social forces? We need to see that the relationship between
people is fundamentally a complicated matter. When one person meets another,
I would say we must look into the situation radically. Meetings of course
point to differences which vary according to specific circumstances; but we
must fix our eyes on the common characteristics, we must clearly see the
common elements in the meeting, in the confrontation between one person and
another. We must ask ourselves: What really happens then, not merely in that
which presents itself to the senses, but in the total situation, when one
person stands opposite another, when one person meets another? Nothing less
than that a certain force works from one person to the other. The meeting of
one with another leads to the working of a certain force between them. We
cannot confront another person in life with indifference, not even in mere
thoughts and feelings, even though we may be separated from them by
distance. If we have any kind of relation to other people, or any
communication with them, then a force flows between us creating a bond. It
is this fact which lies at the basis of social life and which, when
broadened, is really the foundation for the social structure of humanity.
One sees this phenomenon most clearly when one thinks of the direct
interchange between two people. The impression which one person makes on the
other has the effect of lulling the other to sleep. Thus we frequently find
in social life that one person gets lulled to sleepiness by the other with
whom he has interchange. As a physicist might say: a “latent tendency” is
always there for one man to lull another to sleep in social relationships.
Why is this so? Well, we must see that this rests on a very important
arrangement of man's total being. It rests on the fact that what we call
social impulses, fundamentally speaking are only present in people of our
present day consciousness during sleep. You are, in so far as you have not
yet attained clairvoyance, really only penetrated by social forces when you
are asleep, and only that which continues to work out of sleeping into
waking conditions works into ordinary waking consciousness as a social
impulse. When you know this, you do not need to be surprised when your
social being seeks to lull you to sleep in your relationship with others. In
the relationship between people the social impulse ought to develop. Yet it
can only develop during sleep. Therefore in the relationship between people
a tendency is shown for one person to dull the consciousness of the other so
that a social relation may be established between them. This striking fact
is evident to one who studies the realities of life. Above all things, our
interchange with one another leads to dulling the consciousness of one
another, in the interests of a social impulse between people. Of course you
cannot go about continually asleep in life. Yet the tendency to establish
social impulses consists in, and expresses itself by, an inclination to
sleep. That of which I speak goes on subconsciously of course, but it
nevertheless actually penetrates our life continuously. Thus there exists a
permanent disposition to fall asleep precisely for the building up of the
social structure of humanity.
On the other hand, something else is also working. A perpetual struggle and
opposition to falling asleep in social relationships is also present. If you
meet a person you are continuously standing in a conflict situation in the
following way: Because you meet him, the tendency to sleep always develops
in you so that you may experience your relationship to him in sleep. But, at
the same time, there is aroused in you the counter-force to keep yourself
awake. This always happens in the meeting between people — a tendency to
fall asleep, a tendency to keep awake. In this situation a tendency to keep
awake has an anti-social character, the assertion of one's individuality, of
one's personality, in opposition to the social structure of society. Simply
because we are human beings, our soul-life swings to and fro between the
social and the antisocial. And that which lives in us as these two forces,
which may be observed between people communicating, can from an occult
perspective be seen to govern our life. When we meet social arrangements and
structures in society, even if these arrangements seem far-fetched from the
seemingly wise consciousness of the present, they are still a manifestation
of this pendulum between social and anti-social forces. The national
economist may reflect upon what credit, capital and interest are. Yet even
these things which make for regularity in social transactions are only
outward swings of the pendulum between social and anti-social forces. The
person who seeks to find healing remedies for these times must intelligently
and scientifically connect with these facts. For how is it that social
demands arise in our time? Well, we live in the age of the Spiritual or
Consciousness Soul in which man must become independent. But on what does
this depend? It depends on people's ability during our Fifth Post-Atlantean
Period to become self-assertive, to not allow themselves to be put to sleep.
It is the anti-social forces which require development in this time, for
consciousness to be present. It would not be possible for mankind in the
present to accomplish its task if just these anti-social forces did not
become ever more powerful; they are indeed the pillars on which personal
independence rests. At present, humanity has no idea how much more powerful
anti-social impulses must become, right on until the 30th century. For men
to progress properly, anti-social forces must develop
In earlier periods the development of the anti-social forces was not the
spiritual bread of humanity's evolution. There was therefore no need to
establish a counter-force. Indeed none was set. In our day, when a person on
his own account, for his individual self, must evolve antisocial forces,
which are evolving because man is now subjected to this evolution against
which nothing will prevail, there must also come about that with which man
resists them: a social structure which will balance this anti-social
evolutionary tendency. The anti-social forces must work inwardly so that
human beings may reach the height of their development. Outwardly, in social
life, structures must work so that people do not totally lose their outer
connections in life. Hence the social demands of the present. They can in a
certain sense be seen as the demand for a justified outer balance to the
inward, essentially anti-social evolutionary tendency of humanity in the
Fifth Post-Atlantean Epoch.
From this you can see that nothing is accomplished by seeing things in a
one-sided way. As men live nowadays, certain words (I will not say ideas or
feelings), certain words have certain values. The word “anti-social” arouses
a degree of antipathy. It is considered as something evil. Very well; we
perhaps need not trouble ourselves whether it is considered good or bad,
since it is quite necessary. Be it good or bad, it is connected with the
necessary tendencies of evolution in our time. It is simply sheer nonsense
to say that the anti-social impulses must be resisted, for they cannot be
resisted. One must grasp the essential inner development of mankind in our
time, understand the evolutionary tendency. It is not a matter of finding
prescriptions for resisting the anti-social forces; but of so shaping, of so
arranging the social order, the structure, the organization of that which
lies outside of the individual, that a counter-balance is present to that
which works as anti-social force within human beings. Therefore it is vital
for our time that the individual achieves independence, but that social
forms provide a balance to this independence. Otherwise neither the
individual nor society can develop properly.
In earlier periods there were tribes and classes. Our age strives against
this. Our age is no longer able to divide people into classes but must
consider them in their totality and create social structures which take this
totality into account. I said yesterday in my public lecture that slavery
could exist in the Greco-Latin Period; one was the master, the other the
slave. Then men were divided. Today we have as a remnant just that which
disturbs the working-man so much, namely that his power to work is sold; in
this way something belonging to him is organized from outside. This must go;
it is only possible to organize socially what does not integrally belong to
the human being, such as his position or the function to which he is
appointed, in short, something which is not an inner part of the individual.
All this which we acknowledge with regard to the necessary development of
social democracy is really so, and must be so understood.
Just as no man can claim to do arithmetic if he has never learned his
multiplication tables, so too he cannot claim to discuss social reforms and
the like when he has never learned those things which we have just
explained: namely, that socialism and anti-socialism exist quite concretely
in the way described. People in some of the most important positions in
society, when they begin talking about present social demands, often appear
to those who know, as individuals who wish to begin building a bridge over a
rushing stream without having the mast elementary knowledge of mechanics.
They may well be able to put up a bridge, but it will collapse at the first
opportunity. It seems with social leaders or with those who look after
social institutions, that their plans will be shown to be impossible; for
the things of reality demand that we work with them, and not against them.
It is therefore tremendously important that those things which form the
backbone of our anthroposophical thought and consciousness should one day be
taken seriously.
One of the impulses which ensoul us in the sphere of our anthroposophical
movement is that we, in a sense, carry into the whole of man's life that
which most people apply only to youth. We sit on the “school-bench” of life
long after we have become grey. This is one of the differences between us
and others, who believe that at the age of 25, or sometimes 26, when they
have finished lazying about with their education, that they are ready for
the rest of life — at most there may still be some amusing additions to
one's education.
But when we approach the very nerve of Spiritual Science, we feel that the
human being really must continue to learn throughout his whole life if he
wishes to tackle the tasks of life. It is vital that we should be permeated
with this feeling. If we do not get rid of the belief that people can master
everything with the faculties they have developed up to their 20th or 25th
year, that then one only has to meet in Parliament or some other forum to
decide all affairs — as long as we do not get rid of this view, we shall
never be able to establish healthy conditions in the social structure of
mankind.
The study of the reciprocal relation between the social and the anti-social
is extremely significant for our time. Just this anti-social tendency is of
the utmost importance to understand because it must make itself felt and
must be developed in us. This anti-social spirit can only be held in balance
by the social. But the social must be nursed, must be consciously cared for.
And in our day this becomes truly more and more difficult because the
anti-social forces are really in accord with our natural development.
The social element is essential; it must be cherished. We shall see that in
this Fifth Post-Atlantean Period there is a tendency to take no notice of
the social in merely acting naturally. Rather it must be acquired
consciously in working with one's soul forces, while formerly it was felt
instinctively in man. What is necessary and must be actively acquired is the
interest of man in man. This is indeed the backbone of all social life.
It almost sounds paradoxical to say today that no clear conception of the
so-called difficult ideas of economics can be gained if the interest of one
for another does not increase, if people do not begin to compare the
illusions which have sway in social life with present realities. One who
really thinks about it recognizes the fact that simply by being a member of
society one is in a complicated relation to others. Imagine that you have a
$5 note in your pocket, and you make use of this $5 note by going shopping
one morning, and you spend the full $5. What does it mean that you go out
with a $5 note in your pocket? The $5 note is really an illusion — it is
worth nothing in reality (even if it is metal money. At this point I do not
want to discuss the theories of the Metalists and the Nominalists with
regard to money; but even if it is metal money, it is still an illusion and
of no real worth). Money is namely only a ‘go-between’. And only because in
our day a certain social order exists, an order belonging purely to the
State, therefore this $5 note which you have spent in the morning for
different items is nothing else than an equivalent for so many days of
labour of so many men. A number of men must have completed so many days of
work, so much human labour must have flowed into the social order — must
have crystallized itself into merchandise — in order for the apparent worth
of the bank note to have any real value, but only at the command of the
social order. The bank note only gives you the power to call into your
service so much labour, or to put it another way, to command its worth in
work. You can picture it in your mind: There I have a bank note, which
assigns to me, according to my social position, the power over so many men.
If you now see these workmen selling their labour hour by hour, as the
equivalent value of that which you have in your purse as the $5 note, then
you begin to get a picture of the real facts.
Our relationships have become so complicated that we no longer pay attention
to these things, especially if they do not concern us closely. I have an
example which easily clarifies this. In the more difficult considerations of
economics, in the areas of capital and interest and credit, things are quite
complicated; so that even university professors and political economists,
whose position should mean possession of adequate insight, really have no
knowledge. Thus you can see that it is necessary to look at things correctly
in these areas. Of course we cannot immediately take in hand the reform of
the national economy, which has been forced into such a helpless condition
by what is nowadays taught as political economy. But we can at least ask
with respect to national education and other such matters: What must be done
so that social life and forms are consciously established in opposition to
anti-social forces? What is really required? I said that it would be
difficult in our time for people to develop sufficient interest in each
other. You do not have sufficient interest if you think that you can buy
yourself something with a $5 note and do not remember the fact that this
brings about a social relationship with certain other human beings and their
labour-power. You only have an adequate interest when in your picture you
are able to substitute for each apparent transaction (such as the exchange
of goods for a $5 note) the real transaction which is linked with it.
Now, I would say that the mere egoistic, soul-stirring talk of loving our
fellow-men and acting upon this love at the first opportunity, that this
does not constitute social life. This sort of love is, for the most part,
terribly egoistic. Many a man is supported by what he has first gained
through robbing his fellow-men in a truly patriarchal fashion, in order to
create for himself an object for his self-love, so that he can then feel
nice and warm with the thought, “You are doing this, you are doing that” One
does not easily discover that a large part of the so-called love of doing
good is a masked self-love. Therefore, the main consideration is not merely
to think of what lies nearest to hand, thereby enhancing our self-love, but
to feel it our duty to look carefully at the many-sided social structures in
which we are placed. We must at first lay the foundations for such
understanding. Yet few today are disposed to do so.
I would like to discuss one question from the viewpoint of general
education, namely: How can we consciously establish social impulses to
balance those anti-social forces which are developing naturally within us?
How can we cultivate the social element, this interest of man in man, so
that it springs up in us — going ever further and deeper, and leaving us no
rest? How can we enkindle this interest which has disappeared so pitiably in
our age, the age of the Spiritual Soul? In our age true chasms have already
been created between people. Men have no idea about the manner in which they
pass one another by without in the least comprehending each other. The
desire to understand the other in all his or her uniqueness is very weak
today. On the one hand, we have the cry for social union; and on the other,
the ever-increasing spread of purely anti-social principles. The blindness
of people toward each other can be seen in the many clubs and societies
which people form. They do not provide any opportunity for people to get to
know one another. It is possible for men to meet one another for years and
not to know each other better at the end than they did at the beginning. The
precise need of the future is that the social shall be brought to meet the
antisocial in a systematic way. For this there are various inner soul
methods. One is that we frequently attempt to look back over our present
incarnation to survey what has happened to us in this life through our
relations with others. If we are honest in this, most of us will say:
Nowadays we generally regard the entrance of many people into our life in
such a way that we see ourselves, our own personalities, as the center of
the review. What have we gained from this or that person who has come into
our life? This is our natural way of feeling. It is exactly this which we
must try to combat. We should try in our souls to think of others, such as
teachers, friends, those who have helped us and also those who have injured
us (to whom we often owe more than to those who, from a certain point of
view, have been of use to us). We should try to allow these pictures to pass
before our souls as vividly as possible in order to see what each has done.
We shall see, if we proceed in this way, that by degrees we learn to forget
ourselves, that in reality we find that almost everything which forms part
of us could not be there at all unless this or that person had affected our
lives, helping us on or teaching us something. When we look back on the
years in the more distant past to people with whom we are no longer in
contact and about whom it is easier to be objective, then we shall see how
the soul-substance of our life has been created by the people and
circumstances of the past. Our gaze then extends over a multitude of people
whom we have known in the course of time. If we try to develop a sense of
the debt we owe to this or that person — if we try to see ourselves in the
mirror of those who have influenced us in the course of time, and who have
been associated with us — then we shall be able to experience the opening-up
of a new sense in our souls, a sense which enables us to gain a picture of
the people whom we meet even in the present, with whom we stand face to face
today. This is because we have practiced developing an objective picture of
our indebtedness to people in the past. It is tremendously important that
the impulse should awaken in us, not merely to feel sympathy or antipathy
towards the people we meet, not merely to hate or love something connected
with the person, but to awaken a true picture of the other in us, free from
love or hate.
Perhaps you will not feel that what I am saying now is extremely important —
but it is. For this ability to picture the other in oneself without love or
hate, to allow the other individual to appear again within our soul, this is
a faculty which is decreasing week by week in the evolution of humanity. It
is something which men are, by degrees, completely losing. They pass one
another by without arousing any interest in each other. Yet this ability to
develop an imaginative faculty for the other is something that must enter
into pedagogy and the education of children. For we can really develop this
imaginative faculty in us if, instead of striving after the immediate
sensations of life as is often done today, we are not afraid to look back
quietly in our soul and see our relationships to other human beings. Then we
shall be in a position to relate ourselves imaginatively to those whom we
meet in the present. In this way we awaken the social instinct in us against
the anti-social which quite unconsciously and of necessity continues to
develop. This is one side of the picture.
The other is something that can be linked up with this review of our
relations to others. It is when we try to become more and more objective
about ourselves. Here we must also go back to our earlier years. Then we can
directly, so to speak, go to the facts themselves. Suppose you are 30 or 40
years of age. You think, “How was it with me when I was ten years old? I
will imagine myself entirely into the situation of that time. I will picture
myself as another boy or girl of ten years old. I will try to forget that I
was that; I will really take pains to objectify myself.” This objectifying
of oneself, this freeing of oneself in the present from one's own past, this
shelling-out of the Ego from its experiences, must be specially striven for
in our present time. For the present has the tendency towards linking up the
Ego more and more with its experiences.
Nowadays man wants to be instinctively that which his experiences make him.
For this reason it is so very difficult to acquire the activity which
Spiritual Science gives. The spirit must make a fresh effort each time.
According to true occult science, nothing can be done by comfortably
remaining in one's position. One forgets things and must always be
cultivating them afresh. This is just as it should be because fresh efforts
need to continually be made. He who has already made some progress in the
realm of Spiritual Science attempts the most elementary things every day;
others are ashamed to pay attention to the basics. For Spiritual Science,
nothing should depend on remembering, but on man's immediate experience in
the present. It is therefore a question of training ourselves in this
faculty — through making ourselves objective — that we picture this boy or
girl as if he or she were a stranger at an earlier time in our lives; of
bestirring ourselves more and more, of getting free of events, and of being
less haunted at 30 by the impulses of a 10 year old. Detachment from the
past does not mean denial of the past. We gain it in another way again, and
that is what is so important. On the one hand, we cultivate the social
instinct and impulses in us by looking back upon those who have been
connected with us in the past and regarding our souls as the products of
these persons. In this way we acquire the imagination for meeting people in
the present. On the other hand, through objectifying ourselves we gain
possibilities of developing imagination directly. This objectifying of our
earlier years is fruitful insofar as it does not work in us unconsciously.
Think for a moment: If the 10 year old child works on unconsciously in you,
then you are the 30 or 40 year old augmented by the 10 year old. It is just
the same with the 11, the 12 year old child and so on. Egoism has tremendous
power, but its power is lessened when you separate the earlier years from
yourself and when you make them objective. This is the important point on
which we must fix our attention.
The following pre-condition for social activity must be made clear to those
people who raise social claims in unreasonable and illusory fashion:
Understanding about how man can develop himself as a socially creative being
must first be present in this period, when anti-social forces are growing
ever stronger as part of human evolution.
What will then have been achieved? You will discover the whole meaning of
what I have now explained if you consider the following: In 1848 there
appeared a social document which continues to work into the present day in
radical socialism, and in Bolshevism. It was the Communist Manifesto of Karl
Marx, which contains ideas which rule the thoughts and feelings of many
working men. Karl Marx was able to dominate the labour world for the simple
reason that he wrote and said what the working man thinks and understands,
as a working man. This Communist Manifesto the contents of which I do not
need to explain to you, appeared in 1848. It was the first document, the
first seed in what has now borne fruit, after the recent destruction of
opposing movements. This document contains one slogan, one sentence which
you will often find quoted today by most socialist writers: “Workers of the
world, unite!” It is a sentence which has run through many socialist groups.
What does it express? It expresses the most unnatural thing that could
possibly be thought today. It expresses an impulse for socializing, for
uniting a certain mass of people. On what is this uniting, this union, to be
built? Upon its opposite, upon the hatred of all those who are not members
of the working class. This associating, this banding together of people is
to be brought about through splitting up and separating mankind into
classes. You must ponder this, you must think about the reality of this
principle which is a genuine illusion, if I can use this expression, and
which has been adopted in Russia, now in Germany and the Austrian countries,
and which will eat its way further and further into the world. It is so
unnatural precisely because, on the one hand, it shows the necessity of
socializing, but on the other it builds this socialization out of the
anti-social instinct of class hatred, and class opposition.
However, these things need to be considered from a higher perspective,
otherwise we shall not get very far; above all, we shall not be able to
participate in the healthy development of mankind in the present. Nowadays
Spiritual Science is the only means of seeing things truly in their
totality; it is the only means for understanding our time. Just as one is
adverse to entering into the spirit and soul foundations of man's physical
constitution, so one also avoids, out of fear and lack of courage, studying
those things in social life which can only be understood out of the Spirit.
People are afraid, cover their eyes and put their heads in the sand like
ostriches when they are confronted by real and important things. Of what
does human interchange in fact consist? As we have seen, it consists of one
person trying to put the other to sleep, while the other tries to resist and
stay awake. This is the archetypal phenomenon of social science in Goethe's
sense. This archetypal phenomenon points to something which mere material
thinking cannot grasp; it points to that which can only be understood when
one knows that in human life one is not only asleep during sleep — when we
slumber along for hours, oblivious to the world — but the same applies to
daily waking life, where the same forces which lead to sleep and wakefulness
also play into the social and anti-social forces of man. All thinking about
social forms can bear no fruit if we do not make the effort to take these
things into account.
With this in mind, we must not be blind to the events taking place in the
world, but must carefully watch what is coming to pass. What, for example,
does the socialist of today think? He thinks that he can invent socialist
slogans and call to men from all countries — “Workers of the world, unite!”
and by so doing, establish a sort of international Paradise.
This indeed is one of the greatest and most fatal illusions. People are not
abstract, but concrete. Fundamentally, the human being is individual. I have
tried to make this clear in my Philosophy of Freedom, in contrast to the
relativism of Neo-Kantianism and socialism. Men are also different according
to their groupings over the world. We will discuss one of these differences
so that we may see that it is not possible to simply say: — “You begin in
the West, and carry out a certain social system, then you go to the East and
then home again, as if taking a world tour.” But the attitude of taking a
world journey lives in those who wish to spread socialism over the whole
earth. They look upon the earth as a globe on which they, by starting in the
West, can eventually arrive in the East. But people on the earth are
different — and exactly in this difference dwells an impulse which is the
motive force of progress.
You can see how, in this way, provision is made for the Consciousness Soul
through birth and heredity. This actually comes to expression in the
English-speaking people of today. They are organized for the Consciousness
Soul through their blood, their birthright, and their inherited faculties.
Because the English-speaking peoples have been especially prepared for the
cultivation of the Consciousness Soul they are, in a way, representatives of
the fifth Post-Atlantean period. People are thus differentiated according to
where they live and how they are constituted.
The Eastern peoples must effect and represent the true development of
humanity in another way. Beginning with the Russian people, and passing on
to the people of the Asiatic countries — one finds an opposition, a revolt
against the instinctive elements natural to the evolution of the
Consciousness Soul. The people of the East wish to save the soul treasure of
intellectuality of the present age for the future. They do not want it to be
mixed with experience, but wish to liberate and preserve it for the next
period. During this period, a true union can take place between the human
being and the evolved Spirit Self. Thus, if the characteristic force of our
present period is in the West, and can indeed be best cultivated as a
quality among the English-speaking peoples, the people of the east, out of
their national inheritance, seek to prevent the coming-to-pass in their
souls of that which is most characteristic of the present period — so that
it may develop in them as a germ for the following period, which begins with
the 30th century. From this we can see the fact that certain laws prevail in
human life, and in human evolution. In the realm of nature people are not
surprised that they cannot burn ice, that a regular law underlies this
phenomenon. But with the social structures of humanity, people fancy that
the same social form, based on the same social principles, can, for example,
be made to work in Russia, as in England, Scotland, or America. This is
impossible, for the whole world is organized by underlying principles so
that one cannot simply create identical forms at will all over the globe.
This is a point which we must not forget.
In the Central European countries there is a middle condition of affairs.
There, it is as if one were in a balanced condition, between the extremes of
the East and the West. Looked at in this way, we see the Earth population
divided into three parts. You cannot say: “Workers of the world, unite!” For
the workers are of three sorts, are three varieties of people. Let us look
at the people of the West again. We find a special disposition, a special
mission for all who speak English by nature (single cases may be different)
— a disposition for the cultivation of the Consciousness Soul. This
disposition expresses itself in not detaching from the soul its
characteristic quality of intelligence, but connecting this intelligence
naturally, instinctively, with events in the world. To naturally, even
instinctively, place oneself in the life of the world as a consciousness
soul individual is the task of the English-speaking people. The expanse and
greatness of the British Empire rests on this quality. Indeed herein lies
the original phenomenon behind the expansion of the British Empire — that
which is hidden in the impulses of its people exactly coincided with the
inner impulses of the age. In my lectures on the European folk souls, you
will find what is essential in this matter. Much is contained in this series
of lectures which were given long before the war, but which provide material
for judging this war-catastrophe objectively (see Note 1).
Now, the very capacities connected with the evolution of the Consciousness
Soul give the English-speaking peoples a special genius for political life.
One can study how the political art of dividing society and creating social
structure has spread from England to those countries where things have
remained backward, where the remnants of the fourth Post-Atlantean period
have remained. This influence has spread even to the division of Hungarian
society, to this Turanian member of the European peoples. It is only from
the English heritage that a foundation for the political thinking of the
fifth Post-Atlantean period can come. The English are specially suited to
the realm of politics. It is of no use to pronounce a judgment on these
things, the necessities of the case alone do so. One may feel sympathy or
the opposite — that is a private affair. Objective necessity determines the
affairs of the world. It is important that these objective necessities shall
be clearly placed before us at this time.
Goethe, in his Legend of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, has treated
the forces of the human soul as three members, or forces; Power, Appearance,
and Knowledge or Wisdom — or, as the Bronze King, the Silver King and the
Golden King. Many remarkable things are spoken of in this legend, regarding
the governing relationships which are being prepared for the present and
which will live into the future. We can point out that what Goethe
symbolizes by the Bronze king, the force of Power, is that which spreads
over the world through the English-speaking peoples. This is necessary
because the culture of the Consciousness Soul coincides with the special
qualities of the British and American peoples.
In the Central European countries, which are not in such a state of chaos,
there is an unmistakable equilibrium between the Leaning of the intellect
toward the Consciousness Soul, and the desire to be free from it; there,
sometimes one prevails, sometimes the other. None of the Central European
nations is really suited for political life. When they desire to be
political, they are disposed to lose contact with reality. Whereas the
political thinking of the Anglo-American nations is firmly anchored in the
soul, in the Central European countries, it is not, for the second soul
force dominates — Semblance and Appearance. However, the people of the
Central European countries manifest an intellectuality of special
brilliance. Compare anything that the English-speaking people have to say
about the nature of thinking — and you will find the thoughts strongly
linked to solid earth-realities. But if you take the brilliant feats of the
German mind — you will find that they are more an aesthetic shaping of
thoughts, even if the aesthetic shaping has a logical form. It is especially
noticeable how one thought leads to another so that thoughts of value appear
in dialectical form, shaped by an aesthetic will. If one wishes to apply
this to solid earth-realities — if one wishes by this means to become a
politician — then one easily becomes untrue; one easily falls into a
so-called dreamy idealism which seeks to establish united kingdoms, with
decade-long calls for unity — but in the end sets up a mighty State by
force. Never before has there been such a contrast in political Life as the
one between the dream of unity in 1848 and that which was really established
in 1871 (see Note 2). There you see the swing of the pendulum, the shift
from that which really strives for aesthetic form, which can become untrue,
an illusion, a dreamy picture when one wishes to apply it to politics. Here,
there is simply no disposition for politics. When the Central European
people become politicians they either dream or they lie. I should add that
these things must not be discussed with sympathy or antipathy in order to
accuse or to acquit. Rather, they must be said, because on the one hand they
correspond with a need, and on the other with a tragedy. These are things
that we must heed.
And if we then look to the East, things are quite different again. We have
seen that the German, if he wants to be political, falls into a dreamy
idealism or, at its worst, into untruth. The Russian on the other hand
becomes ill or actually suffers a death if he desires to be political. This
may seem strange, yet a Russian person has a constitution which creates a
disposition towards disease, towards death, with intensive political
involvement. The Russian Folk Soul has absolutely no affinity with that
quality in the English and American Folk Soul which creates a political
capacity. But because of this, the East has the task of carrying the
intellect separated from its natural connection with the world of sense
experience into the future age of the Spirit-Self.
One must therefore know how different abilities are spread among the people
of the earth. This becomes visible in many areas. You have, for example,
heard about the supersensible experience called “The Meeting with the
Guardian of the Threshold”. There are marked differences in this meeting
with the Guardian. Where this meeting, this initiation, is effected entirely
independent of nationality, then it is objective and complete. But when this
initiation occurs through special groups or societies connected with a
particular people or nation, then it is one-sided. The English-speaking
peoples are those who, when not guided by higher spiritual leaders but by
their own Folk Soul, are especially suited for bringing to the Threshold
those spiritual beings who surround and accompany us in this world of
Ahrimanic spirits, and whom we take with us when we approach the
supersensible world, if they have developed a certain liking for us. They
then lead us primarily to an experience of the power of sickness and death.
You will therefore hear it said by the greater number of Anglo-Americans
initiated into the super-sensible Mysteries, that the first more important
event in their cognition of the supersensible world is the encounter with
those powers expressing sickness and death. They learn to know this as an
external, outward experience.
If you turn to the Central European people what will you find, when those
who are being initiated are not taken out of their nation and raised to
universal humanity, but when the Folk Spirit co-operates with them? Then the
first important experience which comes to our notice is a conflict between
those spiritual beings who belong to higher worlds, to the other side of the
Threshold, and certain other beings who are here in the physical world, on
this side of the Threshold but who are invisible to ordinary consciousness.
The Central Europeans will first become aware of this conflict. The
experience of this conflict makes itself felt to the genuine seeker after
truth in the Central European countries as a being penetrated with the
powers of doubt. One becomes acquainted with all the powers of
“many-sidedness”. In Western countries, there is a stronger inclination to
be satisfied with exact truth; whereas in the Central European countries
there is a tendency to immediately see the other side of the question.
There, in the searching for truth, one trembles in the balance. Everything
has two sides. One is regarded as a Philistine in Central Europe if one
ventures a one-sided opinion. But this causes tragic suffering when nearing
the Threshold. We must pay attention to this struggle which takes place at
the Threshold, between spirits which belong only to the spirit world, and
those belonging to the world of sense — this struggle which conditions all
that calls forth doubt in man, this vacillation with regard to the truth. It
is this experience of doubt which creates the European need to be trained in
the truth — in philosophy — so as not to fall prey so easily to the
generally recognized impulses of truth in society.
When you turn to the Eastern countries — and the Folk Soul acts a sponsor at
the initiation — then one primarily experiences the spirits that work upon
human egotism. One sees all that gives rise to human selfishness. The
Westerner who approaches the Threshold does not see this. Instead, he sees
the spirits that permeate the world and humanity with sickness and death in
the broadest sense, as injurious, destructive and degrading for humanity.
The Neophyte of the East, however, sees all that comes forward to tempt man
as selfishness. Therefore, the ideal which proceeds from Western initiation
is making men healthy and keeping them healthy, and giving mankind the
possibility of healthy development. In the East, on the other hand, there
springs up, as instinctive knowledge in connection to a religious
orientation toward initiation, a feeling of one's own insignificance when
faced with the sublime powers of the spiritual world. The man of the East,
when meeting the spiritual world, is shown how selfishness may be cured, and
egotism destroyed because of its dangers. This is even expressed in the
external character of people from the East. Much of the Eastern character
which is inexplicable to people from the West arises precisely from what is
expressed at the Threshold of the spiritual world.
So we can see the differences in human qualities when we look at the inner
development, the inner shaping of the psycho-spiritual development of
humanity. It is important to keep this clearly in mind. In certain occult
circles of the English-speaking people who were under the guardianship of
the Folk Spirits, prophetic sayings could be found during the second half of
the 19th century which referred to the things we have been discussing,
things which are happening today. Think of what could have happened if the
people of Europe, with the exception of those speaking English, had not
stopped up their ears and blindfolded their eyes, so that their attention
was directed from the truth of these things. I will tell you of a formula
which was frequently repeated during the second half of the 19th century.
The following was said: — “The State must be abolished in Russia, so that
the Russian people may develop, for in Russia social experiments must be
carried out, which could never be done in Western countries”. This might
seem unsympathetic to non-English ears, but it contains a high degree of
wisdom and insight. And he who can connect himself with these things so that
he can believe in their efficacy as impulses in whose realization he can
take part, this person is truly of the present age (see Note 3). Those who
do not see the reality of these forces set themselves against the time.
These matters must be clearly understood. It was, of course, the inevitable
lot of Central and Eastern Europe to block their ears and blindfold their
eyes to occult facts; to give no heed to them, to work on lines of
mysticism, abstract teaching, and abstract intellectualism. But we are now
in a time when this must cease. Pessimism and despair must not be created by
such contemplations as these. Rather force, courage, and the will to help is
needed. In this sense we should always remember that we do not work against,
but rather with the issues of our time — out of the spiritual scientific
impulse of the Anthroposophical Movement. Let us see to it that we do not
sleep away our opportunities. Spiritual Science can lead us to the conscious
cultivation of social faculties. It can, for example, show us the forces at
work in the human being when he is free from the body, what he is
experiencing between going to sleep and awaking. But more importantly it can
give us a direction in conscious waking life for developing social
capacities. We of course cultivate the powers most necessary for our age
when we are consciously thinking about those things which can only
forcefully penetrate into our soul during waking hours. We could not
develop, we would be powerless, if we only had to evolve during sleep. It is
for our waking life that the following is therefore important.
Two powers are working in the present. One is the power which since the
Mystery of Golgotha has worked in different metamorphoses through the
ensuing periods of earth evolution as the Christ Impulse. We have often said
that just in our age a reappearance of the Etheric Christ will take place.
This reappearance of the Christ is indeed not far off. That He is coming
again is no cause for pessimism, nor should it give rise to a nebulous
longing and a desire for soul-warming, self-seeking, theosophical theories.
The Christ Impulse has various forms, but in His present form He wishes to
help humanity realize that spiritual wisdom now being revealed by the
spiritual world. This wisdom wants to be realized and the Christ Impulse
will be a help in this realization. It is on this realization that all
depends. At this critical moment humanity is faced with a momentous
decision. On the one side stands the Christ Being, calling us of our own
free will to do what we have been speaking about today, to consciously and
freely receive the social impulses which can heal and help humanity. Freely,
to receive them. Therefore, we do not unite ourselves on those levels where
hatred forms a foundation for love as in the cry, “Workers of the world,
unite!” But we unite by striving to realize the Christ Impulse, by doing
those things which are the will of Christ for this age.
Opposed to this will stands the adversary who is called in the Bible “the
unrighteous Prince of this World”.He makes his presence known in various
ways. One of these ways is to take those forces which allow us as free
beings to serve that which we have been talking about today, to take this
force of free will and to place it at the service of the physical. This
adversary, the Prince of this world, has various instruments; for example,
hunger and social chaos. By this means, through external compulsion, and
physical measures, the force of free will is subverted to the service of
apparent necessity. See how humanity today shows that it will not of its own
free will turn to a truly social life, and to a recognition of true progress
for mankind. It wishes to be compelled. And yet, this compulsion has not
even led people to make the basic distinction between the Spirit of the
supersensible world, the Christ Spirit and the adversary, the unrighteous
Prince of this world. Look at this situation and see if this does not
explain why in so many places today men oppose and struggle against the
acceptance of any true spiritual teaching, against true spiritual deeds, and
against Spiritual Science. They are possessed by the unrighteous Prince of
this world.
Now think for a moment; think how you of your own free will turn to
spiritual life; think humbly of yourselves, but also earnestly and strongly
as the missionaries of the Christ-Spirit today, who have to combat the
unrighteous Prince of this world, who lays hold of all those who
unconsciously allow themselves to use forces out of the future to realize
their own aims. If you think of yourselves in this light there is no room
for pessimism — indeed it leaves you no time for a pessimistic view of the
world. It will of course not shut your eyes and ears to that which has
happened, sometimes in a terrible manner — and which is tragic to behold in
its true form. But you will preeminently keep the following before your
souls — “I am, in any case, called to look at everything without illusion; I
must be neither pessimistic nor optimistic, so that forces may awaken in my
soul which give me the power to aid the free development of the human being,
to contribute to human progress in the place and situation where I am”. Even
if the faults and tragedies of the age are very visible to Spiritual Science
this should not be an incitement to pessimism or optimism, but rather a call
to an inner awakening so that independent work and the cultivation of right
thinking will result. For above all things, adequate insight is necessary.
If only a sufficient number of people today were motivated to say, “We
absolutely must have a better understanding of things”; then everything else
would follow. It is just in regard to social questions that there is a need
to consciously strive for insight and understanding. The development of the
will activity is planned for, it is coming. If we in daily life would only
wish to educate ourselves about social issues, and develop new social ideas,
then (according to an occult law), each of us would be able to take another
human being along. Each one of us can therefore work for two if we have the
will. We could achieve much if we had an earnest desire to acquire insight
at once. The rest would follow. It is not so bad that not many people can do
much about the situation of society today, but it is incredibly sad if
people cannot at least make up their minds to become acquainted with the
social laws of Spiritual Science. The rest would follow if serious study
would take place.
This is what I have desired to communicate to you today regarding the
importance of knowing and recognizing certain things about the social
situation of the present, and how such a recognition can lead to a life
impulse for the future. I hope we will again have the opportunity of
speaking together about the more intimate aspects of Spiritual Science.
________________________________________
Note 1:
Rudolf Steiner, The Mission of Folk-Souls. Rudolf Steiner Press, London,
1970.
Note 2:
The reference is to the distinction between the dreams of the German
revolution of 1848 and the creation of the German Empire of 1871 by the
Prussian State.
Note 3:
Here and in other references to Russia in this lecture, Rudolf Steiner
appears to be referring to the political attitudes and behaviour of Germany
and Austria toward Russia during the time of the Russian revolution when the
actions of the central powers certainly strengthened the hands of the
Bolsheviks against more moderate social democratic forces.

_________________________________________________________________
Advertisement: Amazing holiday rentals?
http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eninemsn%2Erealestate%2Ecom\
%2Eau%2Fcgi%2Dbin%2Frsearch%3Fa%3Dbhp%26t%3Dhol%26cu%3DMSN&_t=758874163&_r=HM_Tx\
t_Link_Holiday_Oct06&_m=EXT