Starman, sorry about that comment at the end of my last message. That wasn't a
very thoughtful comment.

I just wanted to let you know that you did not address any of the concerns of
the 911truth movement (which is comprised of both Democrats and
Republicans)except for the idea that the buildings were brought down by
controlled demolition. You can find the concerns at the 911truth.org. But let me
ask you a few things here. How many world trade center buildings fell on 9/11?
I've asked this to hand full of people I know and most say two. If you said two,
you are wrong. Three world trade center buildings collapsed that day. WTC
building 7, located one block from the Twin Towers was not hit by any airplane,
but collapsed at 5:20 that evening. One block, same day, no airplanes, no
mention of this anywhere in our brave country but on the above mentioned
website. Also, there is a lot of controversy raised by very respected engineers
that the buildings could have fallen the way they fell by any other means but
controlled demolition. And when you hear these engineers describe why it's
implausible that they fell by any other means on the videos available on the
website you can not believe that there isn't a single bit of discussion on the
matter in our media. Never has been.

You went to great lengths to describe how evil the backward fundamentalist
muslims are. Starman, I never disagreed with you on that. I won't disagree with
you about how evil Suddam Hussain was either. And I won't disagree with you on
the idea of this country being in grave danger either. What I don't believe is
that a never-ending multi-trillion dollar military campain that utilized
outright lies to justify itself is the answer.

I don't know anything about these other JFK, holocost,and moon conspiracies, and
that you woud attribute those to me is unfair. I'm not a whacko, a rumy, or a
egotist, as you imply. I just don't agree with you.

Ruman O'Duinn

--- In steiner@yahoogroups.com, Durward Starman <DrStarman@...> wrote:
>
>
> ******* I knew this would happen as soon as I started talking about politics
again.  But this time I'm not going to just say, okay discussion of politics is
off-topic. There are just too many people trying to study esoteric things who
have the most irrational so-called "thinking" about current events. I'm tired of
not responding to it.  I'm also tired of the disrespectful attitude that is
epidemic in our times, so forgive me "Rumy" if I take you to task about "Rudy"
Steiner, this list, and your contribution to it.
>    You are not  "compelled" to speak about conspiracy theories, you want to
speak about them because everybody loves a soapbox ---because we are in a very
egotistical time, by which I mean we're supposed to be developing the ego. But
what needs to happen to ordinary ideas is that they need to be raised up through
working with anthroposophy, otherwise you have no clear ideas about the mundane
events you observe.
>     I can suggest two books and two videos.  The first book is "What Went
Wrong" by Bernard Lewis, a professor emeritus of Middle Eastern studies at,
which is an excellent overview of the stagnation of the Islamic intellectual
world and how the anti-modern Wahhabi Islam developed in response to our Western
world advancing beyond and therefore militarily defeating the Arabs 200 years
ago, when they had a religion that said that they had all the truth and infidels
had nothing to teach them.  The second is "Hatred's Kingdom"  about Saudi Arabia
and how, since the 1920s, it has used its oil wealth to fund the anti-modern,
anti-western madrassas and mosques in Pakistan and all over the world. This has
been going on since long before the creation of Palestine,  and long before the
United States of America had any involvement in the Middle East.  The two videos
are the film "Obsession"  and Geert Wilders'  film "Fitna"  which he did after
the Moslems killed his fellow filmmaker and friend Theo van Gogh in Holland. 
You can see and hear the Moslem "imams"  preaching clearly and openly that they
will take over the United States, take over the United Kingdom, impose their
traditional tribal Sharia law,  abolish freedoms, impose restrictions on all
women, kill all Jews and homosexuals and on and on and on.   Western people who
try to have a reasonable, moderate opinion of Islam all need to watch these
films and hear direct from their mouths what these people want,  in order to
break out of the  ethnocentric delusion that all their hatred has been caused by
the United States, that all we have to do is stop supporting Israel and they
will like us, etc. etc. etc.  That is a fantasy.
>     As Steiner said repeatedly, we have to have realistic thinking first in
order to understand what comes from higher worlds. All right, I don't know how
many times I have to repeat this as I've been saying it for eight years
unnecessarily, but here we go again. Number one, there is no truth to the
anti-Semitic rumor that no Jews were in the World Trade Center towers, having
been warned beforehand; hundreds of Jews (as well as Arabs,  for that matter)
were killed there.  Number two: it's completely false that the towers were
demolished by explosives.  You can get any number of films for yourself and see
that the buildings began collapsing in the exact floors that the planes crashed
into, meaning that, if they were destroyed by pre-planted explosives, people who
somehow got into the World Trade Center and planted those explosives (without
being seen doing it) must have known exactly what floors the planes would crash
into in advance, which is an absurd stretch of imagination (not even considering
the plane that crashed into the Pentagon and the one that was probably headed
for the White House which the passengers caused to crash beforehand ---  there
was no pre-planted explosives in those cases),  and moreover if the buildings
were to be destroyed by explosives, why would anyone bother to hijack planes and
fly them into the buildings? If the purpose was a Reichstag Fire strategy, of a
staged event to encourage people to support a military counteraction, that
could've been accomplished by just using bombs to bring the buildings down and
blaming it on bin Laden,  so these people with way too much time on their hands
who try to say the buildings were demolished by explosive charges are being
completely irrational.  [I was there, teaching in New York City, the first time
the buildings were bombed in 1993:  it was a well-known goal of the Wahhabi
Muslims for decades to destroy them.]
>     Therefore, the buildings were definitely destroyed by the planes that
crashed into them. Number three: we have security camera videos of the 19
hijackers getting on board the planes;  we have the airlines' flight lists
showing who was on board, real people whose husbands and wives know they went on
those planes and died.  Anyone who tries to say those people didn't really board
the planes and didn't really die on those planes  has to maintain an enormous
conspiracy involving hundreds of people faking security camera video tapes,  all
of which has been kept secret for eight years from massive investigations.  So
there's no rational dispute about who was on those planes. Number four: the
hijackers were 19 Saudis and Egyptians who were all Wahhabi Muslims, members of
Al Qaeda, who left behind numerous documents saying what they intended to do
such as Mohammed Atta's will,  and we have Osama bin Laden on tape with mullah
Omar immediately after the crashes talking about how they planned them  and how
he was confident the buildings would actually collapse from the jet fuel because
he had a background in construction work in his family. We also have the open
confession from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind here in the US, about to
be tried in New York City.
>     Respond to that with concrete, rational thoughts.
>     What I've seen for the past eight years are two kinds of irrationality
among Americans: first, antigovernment feelings pressure people to look for our
government behind every event which happens, without recognizing that this is
being ethnocentric, denying that there are forces and events in the world which
have nothing to do with us. It's a sort of hidden egotism that subconsciously
feels that we are so powerful that we have to be the people causing everything
that happens. [ The war of Islam against the entire world goes back to the sixth
century and has nothing to do with the United States of America that has only
existed for three centuries.  The hatred of the United States comes about
because of our power and success, making us the most visible representative of
the Western world;  actually, the humiliation of the Arabs was at the hands of
the French and the British who were the colonial powers, not the US, and the
real holy war began after the aggressively atheist Soviet Union invaded
Afghanistan in 1979.  in other words, we are under attack because we are the
greatest Western power while secondary attacks are underway against England,
France and Russia. ] The second kind of irrational thinking is related to the
first, namely an inability to advance one's ideas to grasp new geopolitical
realities. For people who formed their world of ideas during the Cold War, the
reality of a worldwide violent war led by a dark ages religion  is just not
digestible,  does not compute.  We call them "September 10th thinkers" or people
stuck in the 20th century.
>     Besides the facts of the attacks by Al Qaeda, I'll address the other
things you've mixed in here.  First, thankfully you left the name George Bush
out of your screed which is so much like the ones I've been hearing for eight
years, but those diatribes were all directed against him and making him out to
be a villain. Okay, both President Clinton and Hillary Clinton, as well as
numerous leading politicians in the 1990s, also believed that Saddam Hussein was
pursuing nuclear and biological weapons.  Intelligence was saying  so to all the
countries, not just the US. The reason why was that, as we now know, he went to
great lengths to convince everyone he was doing so so that they would fear his
power, particularly Iran  which was also pursuing them (and is now succeeding). 
I bring up George Bush because this kind of argument has always been made by
liberal Democrats to attack Bush, so, okay, now that your boy is president, if
this was all just a conspiracy, why is he continuing to search for bin Laden and
send more troops to Afghanistan?  He has access to all the intelligence now. 
And why did Tony Blair agree with who was responsible and agree to send troops
to Iraq and Afghanistan?  You want to sell people on the idea that it was a
conspiracy by George Bush and the prime minister of England?  So where are all
the tell-all books by people revealing the conspiracy now that both of them are
out of power? How come Pres. Obama hasn't revealed it?  Why is he keeping troops
in Iraq and sending more troops to Afghanistan? Why did he confront
fundamentalist Islam in his speech in Egypt about its anti-Semitism and the
support of the Arab masses for Al Qaeda and their hatred of the modern Western
world? Is he part of the conspiracy? This is absurd.
>     There's lots that could be said here about the mysteries and initiation.
In ancient Greece they were the greater mysteries and the lesser mysteries. The
lesser mysteries involve learning to use your reason and intelligence correctly
and govern your emotions, and you had to pass through that before you will be
ready for the greater mysteries.  if you think people here on this list such as
myself have nothing to communicate to you  about such matters unless we are
"intelligent" enough in your judgment -- -- -- meaning we agree with your
conspiracy theories, which I've dissected above -- -- --  then that's your loss.
>    As to the relevance  to Steiner and anthroposophy: see his prediction about
the demonic forces becoming active in 1998 which I posted earlier. Let's just
put it very simply: our modern Western world is the result of the Christ-Impulse
working in the world, raising us up from the more primitive levels most of us
were at 2000 years ago. This is the source of our art, music and advanced
technology such as you are looking at right now.  But there are opposing forces
working against the powers which draw us up:  the Marxism that has been spread
all over the Western world for 150 years now and which teaches us to hate the
free actions of human beings and our civilization created by them, the 
environmentalist movement that has been taken over by the same socialists, using
the "global warming" hoax as an excuse to gain power, the backward
fundamentalist religions  which in a variety of forms  also want to gain power
and eliminate all freedom, etc.  What forces are upward drawing and which are
evil can be recognized by their fruits. Look at the fruits of Hitler, Stalin,
Osama bin Laden.  Here in the US, ignore the hyperbole and propaganda from
liberal Democrats, stuck in their pre-2001 world of ideas.  This is a worldwide
war and has nothing to do with the CIA or whatever US politician somebody wants
to rant about.  The attacks on us, just like the attack on Madrid, London, the
bombing in Bali,  are very real parts of it.  They were not staged by the United
States government.  Oh yes, and, by the way, Paul McCartney didn't die,  JFK
isn't in a nursing home in Florida, the moon landings were not faked, and the
Holocaust did happen.      Q.E.D.
>  Next subject?
> Starman
>
>
>
> To: steiner@yahoogroups.com
> From: rayofdarkness@...
> Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:15:43 -0500
> Subject: RE: [steiner] different approaches to anthroposophy
>
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> Starman,
>    Greetings, I am a new member who has been sort of lurking for the past few
weeks. I haven't been able to fit myself into any spiritual group very cleanly
but currently I'm sort of a neo-pagan with an interest in my Irish heritage. I
found Rudy Steiner searching for as much information as I could find on
something called 'the hibernian mysteries'. I'll try to pick your brain on that
later. I write today because I am compelled to speak out about your statements
about conspiracy theories. It is hard for me to understand how any thinking man
can accept what our country is doing, has been doing over the past decade in the
Arab world, as it is presented to us by the media. Was the individual who the
day after Colin Powell's speach to the U.N. expressed doubts about the presence
of WMD's in Iraq a conspiracy theorist? He probably would have been considered
one if we hadn't found out first hand that there were not. Of course there are
backward,racist, violent 'bad guys' in the arab world, but aren't there a few of
those over here as well? You're doing exactly what they'd hope you'd do; fear
them and ignore the fact that the U.S. has literally assaulted reason and logic
with it's disgraceful foreign policy.
>
>  I agree that conspiracy theories are dangerous to the mind when a person
doesn't maintain an measure of emotional detatchment to them. No one should
assume something as serious as Americans conspiring to have 3000 of it's
citizens murdered in order to justify a multi-billion dollar military campain to
be true with out addequate proof.  And there isn't adequate proof that this
happened, so no one should be believe that with any emotional investment. But a
thinking person can't help but notice that it was just that event that has
fueled a foreign policy that is in many ways bizarrely illogical. What we are
doing could never have been accepted had it not been for sept.11. And we are,
hippocritically and arrogantly, a country completely
unconcerned(unquestioning)about why sept.11 happened in terms of our actions in
THEIR land, and how it could have happened in terms of the events that went down
that day, and how we can truly prevent it from happening again. There is one
answer for each of those questions and it is answers given to us by the
government (on sept.11 bizzarely enough), relayed by the media without an
significant debate, and wholeheartedley accepted by all those brave americans
who don't want the stigma of being a conspiracy theorist. Again, the answers to
all of those questions today are the same one's given to us by the government on
the day of the event! And if you don't just except that you are a conspiracy
theorist? You have that much faith in our media?
>
> Anyway, I have found the small amount I have read of Steiner to be
fascinating, and I'd like to know what you guys know about the 'hibernian
mysteries'. But if you guys aren't smart enough to see through the con job this
country is pulling over on the world I'll always question the fruits of
anthroposophical methods.
>
> Rumann O'Duinn
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Ray Dunne
> Sent: 12/15/09 08:18 PM
> To: steiner@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: RE: [steiner] different approaches to anthroposophy
>
>  ******* I believe Dr. Steiner's remark about the philosophical path being the
most difficult for men in our time was in the exact same place where he said it
was the safest path -- -- -- the exact place escapes my mind right now, but
perhaps another member of our group could quote it.
>
>    He did indeed say that his Philosophy of Freedom would outlive all of his
other works.  I put this remark in the same category  as something he said when
he was giving an early cycle of lectures: he started out his first lecture of it
by saying he was happy to come to that city to do a course of lectures based on
his spiritual scientific research, but then qualified it by saying that, in
another sense, he was a little let down by the fact that HE had to come to the
city to give the course of lectures, because anyone who REALLY READ his book
Theosophy could give the same lectures.  What he referred to is that vigorous,
living thinking is the use of the human spirit in man, so that anyone really
reading his books with will in their thinking will experience what is described
in them.  I can testify that this is true. The unfortunate reality that many
anthroposophists don't make the breakthrough to spiritual knowledge likewise
testifies that they simply don't really have living thinking or have the
beginnings of it but don't have enough confidence in it and themselves.  The
"Philosophie der Freiheit" enables any thinking being to become aware of his
human spirit and become able to act in freedom, provided he can TRULY read and
think the book, and that's what he meant by its importance.
>     Connected with this unfortunate reality that many anthroposophy lists
can't reach firsthand knowledge, is the somewhat silly overvaluing of the first
class of the school of spiritual science.  My first class teacher, Hans Gebert, 
was honest enough to confess up front that the Doctor said the mantras would
lose their power if anyone outside the school read them,  but he knew that
during the war the Gestapo had them, and so trying to pretend everything was
still the same as it was in 1924 was absurd.  My feeling about it is the same as
any old traditions that people with very little insight into the origin of the
traditions keep going,  like the Catholic Church for instance, that it's very
easy to find things to criticize about them,  but on the other hand the people
have a good motivation, that of attempting to preserve something they sense was
of great value.  I have known many students of spiritual science who have gone
very far on the path through reading the basic books, or through Eurythmy, 
through being Waldorf school teachers and other ways. They all work -- -- if you
put enough work into them.
>
>     In order for spiritual science to have any meaning to people today,  it
has to evolve, and it does.   No Waldorf school teacher is just following
indications by Steiner chapter and verse every day in the classroom;  every
artist developing watercolor painting, eurythmy,  music etc.,  is just repeating
what Steiner said in his lectures in the 1920s;  and wholly new branches  of
anthroposophy have come into existence since Steiner's time such as the Camphill
villages for the retarded which, as a further evolution, have taken up the
Christian Community Church impulse.  Either it will continue to evolve or it
will degenerate into just a personality cult and die out, like Blavatsky's
movement did and so many others do.  But the Doctor knew this danger and created
something that was capable of evolution to offset it.  That's why the emphasis
on the arts.
>    Dr. Steiner said that the previous World-Age had to wrestle with the
mystery of Death, and this is why the image of the crucified and resurrecting
God was placed before us; our age is meant to wrestle with the mystery of Evil.
One contribution he made towards understanding this mystery is where he said
that anything which would be good in its right time and place, if it is held
over, frozen in time, preserved into a later age, will become a force for evil
-- -- -- as the Catholic Church was a specter of ancient Rome.  Well, this also
applies to spiritual science, that it must not be frozen in its old form,
because when it is, it loses its goodness and vitality.
>    A very sad example of this is how people repeat remarks Steiner made in
Germany in the 1920s about the English-speaking peoples dominating economics and
politics.  It was quite natural to express opinions this way in that time and
place, where the British Empire had utterly crushed the country of Germany in
the aftermath of the first world war, the background of which was the economic
competition between England and Germany.  To talk about the world being
dominated by the Anglo-American forces TODAY is simply absurd, and becoming more
absurd with each decade of the rise of China and India economically. In fact, in
one of his lectures shortly before his death, he pointed out an observation by a
thinker of the times that the economic center of gravity of the world had
already shifted from Europe to the Far East. It provides a dismal example of why
the Doctor did not want his lectures written down,  that so many alienated,
self-hating Westerners still quote such things from the 1920s to justify their
ridiculous conspiracy theories ascribing all world events to Freemasons, the CIA
and George Bush (or whomever). The rise of China after its  "century of
humiliation" by foreign powers, the conflict between East and West represented
by murderous Islam, the growth of economic power in India, Japan, and the
oil-producing countries -- -- -- all that has happened since Steiner's voice was
silenced, and which of course he would've taken into account in his opinions on
world affairs, is ignored, leading to a wholly unrealistic thinking incapable of
grasping anything that is really happening before one's eyes. I've known people
who call themselves anthroposophists who believe the insanity of people like
Michael Moore, denying that the Muslim religion really is on the warpath against
the West, trying to blame it all on a CIA conspiracy or something else that
prevents one from confronting the reality of events in the 21st century (which
Steiner predicted).  In fact, here in America, most of the people I meet in the
anthroposophical movement are Marxists, with completely unrealistic thinking
incapable of grasping the simplest economic or political realities (none of
which fit into neat, grandiose conspiracy theories).
>    I don't like to bring up politics, but it is an elementary basic of
spiritual science that one has to train one's own thinking to be realistic in
relation to everyday facts of the physical world, otherwise one will carry the
same exaggerated, fantastical thinking with one when one enters the spiritual
world, resulting only in hallucinations and no definite knowledge.  A few years
ago, when I was at the Goetheanum,  Christopher Budd gave a few lectures on
economics that were very insightful, and I was so distressed at hearing the
warped thinking of people  talking about the subject in the audience afterwards,
that at the beginning of his next lecture I asked him if he would just remind
his audience that Dr. Steiner was completely against socialism and the
government taking over the economy, and he gladly did so (since it's true), but
he had some mighty irritable-looking faces in the audience as he poked their
sacred cows.  It's been absolutely amazing to me how many people try to justify
all their preconceptions by seizing upon one or another quote from Dr. Steiner
about things in the 1920s or earlier.  Just imagine how successful Waldorf
schools would be if they kept applying unchanged what Steiner said about
children going through puberty at the age of 14, when over the past century it
has happened at a younger and younger age!
>     The true relationship of an anthroposophist to the Anthroposophical
Society is not supposed to be one of  "What can I do for the society?",  but
rather, "My spirit leads me to do such and such in the world; how can the
society support my efforts?"  That's what Dr. Steiner called the "reversed
cultus" of our times.  As individuals come into the world and associate
themselves with this movement, they make it evolve into something new.  I know
many of the leaders of the movement, and they are always looking for the next
direction of evolution.
> Starman
>
>
>
> To: steiner@yahoogroups.com
> From: peter.lam41@...
> Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:38:13 -0800
> Subject: [steiner] different approaches to anthroposophy
>
>
> Thanks very much Starman for your prompt, comprehensive response on this
subject.  I missed your 'post' until today because being new to Yahoo it got
left in my 'spam' folder.  What you have said helps me try for a new orientation
towards certain concerns.  I was aware that the philosophical approach
(epistemological plus ethical I suppose one could say) has been described as the
safest or surest one - and I believe der Doctor said the most appropriate to our
age - I am not sure about it being the most difficult.  Any source for the
latter?  There is also the report that, when asked what he would be remembered
for in a thousand years time, the Dr said:  The Philosophy of Freedom,
everything else would be forgotton.  I think that came from Walter Johannes
Stein.  Another concern is that in the Society, to be a dinkum anthroposophist
seems to entail participation in the 'first class'; whereas if these are all
valid paths as you explain, taking the philosophical or one of the other ones
you mention should be on a par with that of the 'lessons'.  As it is, the
arrangement with the 'lessons' (and the 'sections') within the School of
Spiritual Science seems very much to be wanting to stay with where the good Dr
left off in 1924/25, rather than moving ahead, as you have also pointed out one
should expect to do.  I think someone has suggested new forms for working with
anthroposophy about every 5-10 years would be consistent with what happened in
the Dr's life time.  I don't know how well this subject fits within 'steiner
group' but any comments would be of interest.  PS: "dinkum" is an Australian
term, perhaps not used elsewhere, it means variously: authentic, genuine,
reliable, or on the level.
>
>
> Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. Sign up now.
>
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> _________________________________________________________________
> Hotmail: Free, trusted and rich email service.
> http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/171222984/direct/01/
>

Starman,

   Greetings, I am a new member who has been sort of lurking for the past few weeks. I haven't been able to fit myself into any spiritual group very cleanly but currently I'm sort of a neo-pagan with an interest in my Irish heritage. I found Rudy Steiner searching for as much information as I could find on something called 'the hibernian mysteries'. I'll try to pick your brain on that later. I write today because I am compelled to speak out about your statements about conspiracy theories. It is hard for me to understand how any thinking man can accept what our country is doing, has been doing over the past decade in the Arab world, as it is presented to us by the media. Was the individual who the day after Colin Powell's speach to the U.N. expressed doubts about the presence of WMD's in Iraq a conspiracy theorist? He probably would have been considered one if we hadn't found out first hand that there were not. Of course there are backward,racist, violent 'bad guys' in the arab world, but aren't there a few of those over here as well? You're doing exactly what they'd hope you'd do; fear them and ignore the fact that the U.S. has literally assaulted reason and logic with it's disgraceful foreign policy. 

 I agree that conspiracy theories are dangerous to the mind when a person doesn't maintain an measure of emotional detatchment to them. No one should assume something as serious as Americans conspiring to have 3000 of it's citizens murdered in order to justify a multi-billion dollar military campain to be true with out addequate proof.  And there isn't adequate proof that this happened, so no one should be believe that with any emotional investment. But a thinking person can't help but notice that it was just that event that has fueled a foreign policy that is in many ways bizarrely illogical. What we are doing could never have been accepted had it not been for sept.11. And we are, hippocritically and arrogantly, a country completely unconcerned(unquestioning)about why sept.11 happened in terms of our actions in THEIR land, and how it could have happened in terms of the events that went down that day, and how we can truly prevent it from happening again. There is one answer for each of those questions and it is answers given to us by the government (on sept.11 bizzarely enough), relayed by the media without an significant debate, and wholeheartedley accepted by all those brave americans who don't want the stigma of being a conspiracy theorist. Again, the answers to all of those questions today are the same one's given to us by the government on the day of the event! And if you don't just except that you are a conspiracy theorist? You have that much faith in our media?

Anyway, I have found the small amount I have read of Steiner to be fascinating, and I'd like to know what you guys know about the 'hibernian mysteries'. But if you guys aren't smart enough to see through the con job this country is pulling over on the world I'll always question the fruits of anthroposophical methods.

Rumann O'Duinn

  

----- Original Message -----

From: Ray Dunne

Sent: 12/15/09 08:18 PM

To: steiner@yahoogroups.com

Subject: RE: [steiner] different approaches to anthroposophy

 

******* I believe Dr. Steiner's remark about the philosophical path being the most difficult for men in our time was in the exact same place where he said it was the safest path -- -- -- the exact place escapes my mind right now, but perhaps another member of our group could quote it.

   He did indeed say that his Philosophy of Freedom would outlive all of his other works.  I put this remark in the same category  as something he said when he was giving an early cycle of lectures: he started out his first lecture of it by saying he was happy to come to that city to do a course of lectures based on his spiritual scientific research, but then qualified it by saying that, in another sense, he was a little let down by the fact that HE had to come to the city to give the course of lectures, because anyone who REALLY READ his book Theosophy could give the same lectures.  What he referred to is that vigorous, living thinking is the use of the human spirit in man, so that anyone really reading his books with will in their thinking will experience what is described in them.  I can testify that this is true. The unfortunate reality that many anthroposophists don't make the breakthrough to spiritual knowledge likewise testifies that they simply don't really have living thinking or have the beginnings of it but don't have enough confidence in it and themselves.  The "Philosophie der Freiheit" enables any thinking being to become aware of his human spirit and become able to act in freedom, provided he can TRULY read and think the book, and that's what he meant by its importance.

    Connected with this unfortunate reality that many anthroposophy lists can't reach firsthand knowledge, is the somewhat silly overvaluing of the first class of the school of spiritual science.  My first class teacher, Hans Gebert,  was honest enough to confess up front that the Doctor said the mantras would lose their power if anyone outside the school read them,  but he knew that during the war the Gestapo had them, and so trying to pretend everything was still the same as it was in 1924 was absurd.  My feeling about it is the same as any old traditions that people with very little insight into the origin of the traditions keep going,  like the Catholic Church for instance, that it's very easy to find things to criticize about them,  but on the other hand the people have a good motivation, that of attempting to preserve something they sense was of great value.  I have known many students of spiritual science who have gone very far on the path through reading the basic books, or through Eurythmy,  through being Waldorf school teachers and other ways. They all work -- -- if you put enough work into them.

    In order for spiritual science to have any meaning to people today,  it has to evolve, and it does.   No Waldorf school teacher is just following indications by Steiner chapter and verse every day in the classroom;  every artist developing watercolor painting, eurythmy,  music etc.,  is just repeating what Steiner said in his lectures in the 1920s;  and wholly new branches  of anthroposophy have come into existence since Steiner's time such as the Camphill villages for the retarded which, as a further evolution, have taken up the Christian Community Church impulse.  Either it will continue to evolve or it will degenerate into just a personality cult and die out, like Blavatsky's movement did and so many others do.  But the Doctor knew this danger and created something that was capable of evolution to offset it.  That's why the emphasis on the arts.

   Dr. Steiner said that the previous World-Age had to wrestle with the mystery of Death, and this is why the image of the crucified and resurrecting God was placed before us; our age is meant to wrestle with the mystery of Evil. One contribution he made towards understanding this mystery is where he said that anything which would be good in its right time and place, if it is held over, frozen in time, preserved into a later age, will become a force for evil -- -- -- as the Catholic Church was a specter of ancient Rome.  Well, this also applies to spiritual science, that it must not be frozen in its old form, because when it is, it loses its goodness and vitality. 

   A very sad example of this is how people repeat remarks Steiner made in Germany in the 1920s about the English-speaking peoples dominating economics and politics.  It was quite natural to express opinions this way in that time and place, where the British Empire had utterly crushed the country of Germany in the aftermath of the first world war, the background of which was the economic competition between England and Germany.  To talk about the world being dominated by the Anglo-American forces TODAY is simply absurd, and becoming more absurd with each decade of the rise of China and India economically. In fact, in one of his lectures shortly before his death, he pointed out an observation by a thinker of the times that the economic center of gravity of the world had already shifted from Europe to the Far East. It provides a dismal example of why the Doctor did not want his lectures written down,  that so many alienated, self-hating Westerners still quote such things from the 1920s to justify their ridiculous conspiracy theories ascribing all world events to Freemasons, the CIA and George Bush (or whomever). The rise of China after its  "century of humiliation" by foreign powers, the conflict between East and West represented by murderous Islam, the growth of economic power in India, Japan, and the oil-producing countries -- -- -- all that has happened since Steiner's voice was silenced, and which of course he would've taken into account in his opinions on world affairs, is ignored, leading to a wholly unrealistic thinking incapable of grasping anything that is really happening before one's eyes. I've known people who call themselves anthroposophists who believe the insanity of people like Michael Moore, denying that the Muslim religion really is on the warpath against the West, trying to blame it all on a CIA conspiracy or something else that prevents one from confronting the reality of events in the 21st century (which Steiner predicted).  In fact, here in America, most of the people I meet in the anthroposophical movement are Marxists, with completely unrealistic thinking incapable of grasping the simplest economic or political realities (none of which fit into neat, grandiose conspiracy theories).  

   I don't like to bring up politics, but it is an elementary basic of spiritual science that one has to train one's own thinking to be realistic in relation to everyday facts of the physical world, otherwise one will carry the same exaggerated, fantastical thinking with one when one enters the spiritual world, resulting only in hallucinations and no definite knowledge.  A few years ago, when I was at the Goetheanum,  Christopher Budd gave a few lectures on economics that were very insightful, and I was so distressed at hearing the warped thinking of people  talking about the subject in the audience afterwards, that at the beginning of his next lecture I asked him if he would just remind his audience that Dr. Steiner was completely against socialism and the government taking over the economy, and he gladly did so (since it's true), but he had some mighty irritable-looking faces in the audience as he poked their sacred cows.  It's been absolutely amazing to me how many people try to justify all their preconceptions by seizing upon one or another quote from Dr. Steiner about things in the 1920s or earlier.  Just imagine how successful Waldorf schools would be if they kept applying unchanged what Steiner said about children going through puberty at the age of 14, when over the past century it has happened at a younger and younger age! 

    The true relationship of an anthroposophist to the Anthroposophical Society is not supposed to be one of  "What can I do for the society?",  but rather, "My spirit leads me to do such and such in the world; how can the society support my efforts?"  That's what Dr. Steiner called the "reversed cultus" of our times.  As individuals come into the world and associate themselves with this movement, they make it evolve into something new.  I know many of the leaders of the movement, and they are always looking for the next direction of evolution.

Starman

---

To: steiner@yahoogroups.com
From: peter.lam41@yahoo.com
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:38:13 -0800
Subject: [steiner] different approaches to anthroposophy

 

Thanks very much Starman for your prompt, comprehensive response on this subject.  I missed your 'post' until today because being new to Yahoo it got left in my 'spam' folder.  What you have said helps me try for a new orientation towards certain concerns.  I was aware that the philosophical approach (epistemological plus ethical I suppose one could say) has been described as the safest or surest one - and I believe der Doctor said the most appropriate to our age - I am not sure about it being the most difficult.  Any source for the latter?  There is also the report that, when asked what he would be remembered for in a thousand years time, the Dr said:  The Philosophy of Freedom, everything else would be forgotton.  I think that came from Walter Johannes Stein.  Another concern is that in the Society, to be a dinkum anthroposophist seems to entail participation in the 'first class'; whereas if these are all valid paths as you explain, taking the philosophical or one of the other ones you mention should be on a par with that of the 'lessons'.  As it is, the arrangement with the 'lessons' (and the 'sections') within the School of Spiritual Science seems very much to be wanting to stay with where the good Dr left off in 1924/25, rather than moving ahead, as you have also pointed out one should expect to do.  I think someone has suggested new forms for working with anthroposophy about every 5-10 years would be consistent with what happened in the Dr's life time.  I don't know how well this subject fits within 'steiner group' but any comments would be of interest.  PS: "dinkum" is an Australian term, perhaps not used elsewhere, it means variously: authentic, genuine, reliable, or on the level.

---

Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection. Sign up now.

Durward, may I ask does the sand get into your eyes or do you keep them closed?

It is my understanding the Muslim people hold their morals highly.  They are
extremely moral people.  If one digs deep enough one might find where the
extremist element comes from, those that stir up trouble and unrest on purpose
in the Middle East for their own agenda.

The morals of the Muslim people compared to the western people are 100 fold.

Your concept of 666 is surprising considering you call yourself to be an
anthroposophist an astrological one as well.

You talk about knowledge of higher worlds, art, eurythmy etc etc  without
addressing the most fundamental fact of life.  Truth.

As you stated eloquently yourself:

`I don't like to bring up politics, but it is an elementary basic of spiritual
science that one has to train one's own thinking to be realistic in relation to
everyday facts of the physical world, otherwise one will carry the same
exaggerated, fantastical thinking with one when one enters the spiritual world,
resulting only in hallucinations and no definite knowledge.'


Or are your opinions swayed by that institution – the Jewish Vatican –who
obviously want to place the so called anti-christ on their throne …  of which
the one sits already.






--- In steiner@yahoogroups.com, Durward Starman <DrStarman@...> wrote:
>
>
> ******* Sorry, Caryn, you've tried this before. I have no interest in
conspiracy theories. There are lots of political groups online where you can
discuss such things if you wish. They have nothing to do with Steiner or
anthroposophy--- except perhaps as an example of just the kind of thing I wrote
about below, namely people stretching some remarks the Doctor made about
European Masons in the 1920s to buttress their conspiracy theories now, in our
21st century, in a completely different time and place.
>
>
>
>    Specifically, the idea that the 19 Saudis and Egyptians flying the planes
into buildings for Bin Laden's Al Qaeda was actually a Western (CIA? Jewish?)
conspiracy belongs with Holocaust denial and people arguing we really didn't
land on the moon. There is no evidence that it was anything other than what it
clearly was, an attack on Western economic power by anti-modernist Wahabi
Islamists. I have seen no evidence at all, in 8 years, of it being a 'Reichstag
Fire' strategy, a staged event to cause the West to hate the Muslim world---
instead all available evidence points the opposite way.
>
>
>
>    The only relevance to Steiner is his forecast of demonic powers (666)
beginning to attack the world in 1998, which he connected to Islam. I can
re-post those remarks if anyone wants to talk realistically about radical Islam
and its war on mankind.
>
> -starman
>
>
>
>
>
> To: steiner@yahoogroups.com
> From: carynlouise24@...
> Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:02:25 +0000
> Subject: [steiner] Re: different approaches to anthroposophy
>
>
>
>
>
> Greetings Durward and Peter; apologies for interrupting your discussion but if
I may bring in a thought for consideration.
>
> `I know many of the leaders of the movement, and they are always looking for
the next direction of evolution'
>
> But this is a very simple answer: Truth.
>
> We are in the age of developing the consciousness soul and it does surprise me
that the leaders of the movement and many who call themselves anthroposophist
have not grasped this simple fact.
>
> The silence on 9/11 from the anthroposophists is questionable. There is enough
evidence too shine light on this happening.
>
> And yet there seems to be an ostrich position taken by burying ones head in
the sand. And of course this makes it worse.
>
> Looking at this event from a distance we see the ruthless engineering behind
it was to attack innocent people and with this stir up racist hate.
>
> One cannot wonder why there is an anti-west feeling in the east. But this is
also engineered. `Race against race, hate against hate' .
>
> The churches are hopelessly inadequate to come forward with the truth so all
the talk about values and traditions mean zero.
>
> This is the evil that has come upon our times the inability for any decent and
moral leader to speak the Truth about 9/11.
>
> Instead they hide behind the over used phrased `the Islamic threat'.
>
> I have said this before; for America to regain her dignity she should speak
the truth, with all the implications this involves, and for America to be
respected throughout the world she needs to take a moral stand and own up to the
truth, sooner rather than later, else the anti-feelings will infester and why
should the unrighteous prince of this world receive credit when people in the
west and in the east are dying because of the inability to speak the truth.
>
> The Hierarchies are only too willingly to help but they can only do so if men
approach the truth in willingness imbued with moral feeling.
>
> Every epoch has its lesson to learn and this lesson is the Consciousness Soul.
>
> Your thoughts on this are appreciated.
>
> Caryn
>
> --- In steiner@yahoogroups.com, Durward Starman <DrStarman@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > ******* I believe Dr. Steiner's remark about the philosophical path being
the most difficult for men in our time was in the exact same place where he said
it was the safest path -- -- -- the exact place escapes my mind right now, but
perhaps another member of our group could quote it.
> > He did indeed say that his Philosophy of Freedom would outlive all of his
other works. I put this remark in the same category as something he said when he
was giving an early cycle of lectures: he started out his first lecture of it by
saying he was happy to come to that city to do a course of lectures based on his
spiritual scientific research, but then qualified it by saying that, in another
sense, he was a little let down by the fact that HE had to come to the city to
give the course of lectures, because anyone who REALLY READ his book Theosophy
could give the same lectures. What he referred to is that vigorous, living
thinking is the use of the human spirit in man, so that anyone really reading
his books with will in their thinking will experience what is described in them.
I can testify that this is true. The unfortunate reality that many
anthroposophists don't make the breakthrough to spiritual knowledge likewise
testifies that they simply don't really have living thinking or have the
beginnings of it but don't have enough confidence in it and themselves. The
"Philosophie der Freiheit" enables any thinking being to become aware of his
human spirit and become able to act in freedom, provided he can TRULY read and
think the book, and that's what he meant by its importance.
> > Connected with this unfortunate reality that many anthroposophy lists can't
reach firsthand knowledge, is the somewhat silly overvaluing of the first class
of the school of spiritual science. My first class teacher, Hans Gebert, was
honest enough to confess up front that the Doctor said the mantras would lose
their power if anyone outside the school read them, but he knew that during the
war the Gestapo had them, and so trying to pretend everything was still the same
as it was in 1924 was absurd. My feeling about it is the same as any old
traditions that people with very little insight into the origin of the
traditions keep going, like the Catholic Church for instance, that it's very
easy to find things to criticize about them, but on the other hand the people
have a good motivation, that of attempting to preserve something they sense was
of great value. I have known many students of spiritual science who have gone
very far on the path through reading the basic books, or through Eurythmy,
through being Waldorf school teachers and other ways. They all work -- -- if you
put enough work into them.
> >
> > In order for spiritual science to have any meaning to people today, it has
to evolve, and it does. No Waldorf school teacher is just following indications
by Steiner chapter and verse every day in the classroom; every artist developing
watercolor painting, eurythmy, music etc., is just repeating what Steiner said
in his lectures in the 1920s; and wholly new branches of anthroposophy have come
into existence since Steiner's time such as the Camphill villages for the
retarded which, as a further evolution, have taken up the Christian Community
Church impulse. Either it will continue to evolve or it will degenerate into
just a personality cult and die out, like Blavatsky's movement did and so many
others do. But the Doctor knew this danger and created something that was
capable of evolution to offset it. That's why the emphasis on the arts.
> > Dr. Steiner said that the previous World-Age had to wrestle with the mystery
of Death, and this is why the image of the crucified and resurrecting God was
placed before us; our age is meant to wrestle with the mystery of Evil. One
contribution he made towards understanding this mystery is where he said that
anything which would be good in its right time and place, if it is held over,
frozen in time, preserved into a later age, will become a force for evil -- --
-- as the Catholic Church was a specter of ancient Rome. Well, this also applies
to spiritual science, that it must not be frozen in its old form, because when
it is, it loses its goodness and vitality.
> > A very sad example of this is how people repeat remarks Steiner made in
Germany in the 1920s about the English-speaking peoples dominating economics and
politics. It was quite natural to express opinions this way in that time and
place, where the British Empire had utterly crushed the country of Germany in
the aftermath of the first world war, the background of which was the economic
competition between England and Germany. To talk about the world being dominated
by the Anglo-American forces TODAY is simply absurd, and becoming more absurd
with each decade of the rise of China and India economically. In fact, in one of
his lectures shortly before his death, he pointed out an observation by a
thinker of the times that the economic center of gravity of the world had
already shifted from Europe to the Far East. It provides a dismal example of why
the Doctor did not want his lectures written down, that so many alienated,
self-hating Westerners still quote such things from the 1920s to justify their
ridiculous conspiracy theories ascribing all world events to Freemasons, the CIA
and George Bush (or whomever). The rise of China after its "century of
humiliation" by foreign powers, the conflict between East and West represented
by murderous Islam, the growth of economic power in India, Japan, and the
oil-producing countries -- -- -- all that has happened since Steiner's voice was
silenced, and which of course he would've taken into account in his opinions on
world affairs, is ignored, leading to a wholly unrealistic thinking incapable of
grasping anything that is really happening before one's eyes. I've known people
who call themselves anthroposophists who believe the insanity of people like
Michael Moore, denying that the Muslim religion really is on the warpath against
the West, trying to blame it all on a CIA conspiracy or something else that
prevents one from confronting the reality of events in the 21st century (which
Steiner predicted). In fact, here in America, most of the people I meet in the
anthroposophical movement are Marxists, with completely unrealistic thinking
incapable of grasping the simplest economic or political realities (none of
which fit into neat, grandiose conspiracy theories).
> > I don't like to bring up politics, but it is an elementary basic of
spiritual science that one has to train one's own thinking to be realistic in
relation to everyday facts of the physical world, otherwise one will carry the
same exaggerated, fantastical thinking with one when one enters the spiritual
world, resulting only in hallucinations and no definite knowledge. A few years
ago, when I was at the Goetheanum, Christopher Budd gave a few lectures on
economics that were very insightful, and I was so distressed at hearing the
warped thinking of people talking about the subject in the audience afterwards,
that at the beginning of his next lecture I asked him if he would just remind
his audience that Dr. Steiner was completely against socialism and the
government taking over the economy, and he gladly did so (since it's true), but
he had some mighty irritable-looking faces in the audience as he poked their
sacred cows. It's been absolutely amazing to me how many people try to justify
all their preconceptions by seizing upon one or another quote from Dr. Steiner
about things in the 1920s or earlier. Just imagine how successful Waldorf
schools would be if they kept applying unchanged what Steiner said about
children going through puberty at the age of 14, when over the past century it
has happened at a younger and younger age!
> > The true relationship of an anthroposophist to the Anthroposophical Society
is not supposed to be one of "What can I do for the society?", but rather, "My
spirit leads me to do such and such in the world; how can the society support my
efforts?" That's what Dr. Steiner called the "reversed cultus" of our times. As
individuals come into the world and associate themselves with this movement,
they make it evolve into something new. I know many of the leaders of the
movement, and they are always looking for the next direction of evolution.
> > Starman
> >
> >
> >
> > To: steiner@yahoogroups.com
> > From: peter.lam41@
> > Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:38:13 -0800
> > Subject: [steiner] different approaches to anthroposophy
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks very much Starman for your prompt, comprehensive response on this
subject. I missed your 'post' until today because being new to Yahoo it got left
in my 'spam' folder. What you have said helps me try for a new orientation
towards certain concerns. I was aware that the philosophical approach
(epistemological plus ethical I suppose one could say) has been described as the
safest or surest one - and I believe der Doctor said the most appropriate to our
age - I am not sure about it being the most difficult. Any source for the
latter? There is also the report that, when asked what he would be remembered
for in a thousand years time, the Dr said: The Philosophy of Freedom, everything
else would be forgotton. I think that came from Walter
> > Johannes Stein. Another concern is that in the Society, to be a dinkum
anthroposophist seems to entail participation in the 'first class'; whereas if
these are all valid paths as you explain, taking the philosophical or one of the
other ones you mention should be on a par with that of the 'lessons'. As it is,
the arrangement with the 'lessons' (and the 'sections') within the School of
Spiritual Science seems very much to be wanting to stay with where the good Dr
left off in 1924/25, rather than moving ahead, as you have also pointed out one
should expect to do. I think someone has suggested new forms for working with
anthroposophy about every 5-10 years would be consistent with what happened in
the Dr's life time. I don't know how well this subject fits within 'steiner
group' but any comments would be of interest. PS: "dinkum" is an Australian
term, perhaps not used elsewhere, it means variously:
> > authentic, genuine, reliable, or on the level.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________________________
> > Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection.
> > http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141665/direct/01/
> >
>
>
>
>
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Hotmail: Free, trusted and rich email service.
> http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/171222984/direct/01/
>

Greetings Durward and Peter; apologies for interrupting your discussion but if I
may bring in a thought for consideration.

`I know many of the leaders of the movement, and they are always looking for the
next direction of evolution'

But this is a very simple answer:  Truth.

We are in the age of developing the consciousness soul and it does surprise me
that the leaders of the movement and many who call themselves anthroposophist
have not grasped this simple fact.

The silence on 9/11 from the anthroposophists is questionable.  There is enough
evidence too shine light on this happening.

And yet there seems to be an ostrich position taken by burying ones head in the
sand.  And of course this makes it worse.

Looking at this event from a distance we see the ruthless engineering behind it
was to attack innocent people and with this stir up racist hate.

One cannot wonder why there is an anti-west feeling in the east.  But this is
also engineered. `Race against race, hate against hate' .

The churches are hopelessly inadequate to come forward with the truth so all the
talk about values and traditions mean zero.

This is the evil that has come upon our times the inability for any decent and
moral leader to speak the Truth about 9/11.

Instead they hide behind the over used phrased `the Islamic threat'.

I have said this before; for America to regain her dignity she should speak the
truth, with all the implications this involves, and for America to be respected
throughout the world she needs to take a moral stand and own up to the truth,
sooner rather than later, else the anti-feelings will infester and why should
the unrighteous prince of this world receive credit when people in the west and
in the east are dying because of the inability to speak the truth.

The Hierarchies are only too willingly to help but they can only do so if men
approach the truth in willingness imbued with moral feeling.

Every epoch has its lesson to learn and this lesson is the Consciousness Soul.

Your thoughts on this are appreciated.

Caryn



--- In steiner@yahoogroups.com, Durward Starman <DrStarman@...> wrote:
>
>
> ******* I believe Dr. Steiner's remark about the philosophical path being the
most difficult for men in our time was in the exact same place where he said it
was the safest path -- -- -- the exact place escapes my mind right now, but
perhaps another member of our group could quote it.
>    He did indeed say that his Philosophy of Freedom would outlive all of his
other works.  I put this remark in the same category  as something he said when
he was giving an early cycle of lectures: he started out his first lecture of it
by saying he was happy to come to that city to do a course of lectures based on
his spiritual scientific research, but then qualified it by saying that, in
another sense, he was a little let down by the fact that HE had to come to the
city to give the course of lectures, because anyone who REALLY READ his book
Theosophy could give the same lectures.  What he referred to is that vigorous,
living thinking is the use of the human spirit in man, so that anyone really
reading his books with will in their thinking will experience what is described
in them.  I can testify that this is true. The unfortunate reality that many
anthroposophists don't make the breakthrough to spiritual knowledge likewise
testifies that they simply don't really have living thinking or have the
beginnings of it but don't have enough confidence in it and themselves.  The
"Philosophie der Freiheit" enables any thinking being to become aware of his
human spirit and become able to act in freedom, provided he can TRULY read and
think the book, and that's what he meant by its importance.
>     Connected with this unfortunate reality that many anthroposophy lists
can't reach firsthand knowledge, is the somewhat silly overvaluing of the first
class of the school of spiritual science.  My first class teacher, Hans Gebert, 
was honest enough to confess up front that the Doctor said the mantras would
lose their power if anyone outside the school read them,  but he knew that
during the war the Gestapo had them, and so trying to pretend everything was
still the same as it was in 1924 was absurd.  My feeling about it is the same as
any old traditions that people with very little insight into the origin of the
traditions keep going,  like the Catholic Church for instance, that it's very
easy to find things to criticize about them,  but on the other hand the people
have a good motivation, that of attempting to preserve something they sense was
of great value.  I have known many students of spiritual science who have gone
very far on the path through reading the basic books, or through Eurythmy, 
through being Waldorf school teachers and other ways. They all work -- -- if you
put enough work into them.
>
>     In order for spiritual science to have any meaning to people today,  it
has to evolve, and it does.   No Waldorf school teacher is just following
indications by Steiner chapter and verse every day in the classroom;  every
artist developing watercolor painting, eurythmy,  music etc.,  is just repeating
what Steiner said in his lectures in the 1920s;  and wholly new branches  of
anthroposophy have come into existence since Steiner's time such as the Camphill
villages for the retarded which, as a further evolution, have taken up the
Christian Community Church impulse.  Either it will continue to evolve or it
will degenerate into just a personality cult and die out, like Blavatsky's
movement did and so many others do.  But the Doctor knew this danger and created
something that was capable of evolution to offset it.  That's why the emphasis
on the arts.
>    Dr. Steiner said that the previous World-Age had to wrestle with the
mystery of Death, and this is why the image of the crucified and resurrecting
God was placed before us; our age is meant to wrestle with the mystery of Evil.
One contribution he made towards understanding this mystery is where he said
that anything which would be good in its right time and place, if it is held
over, frozen in time, preserved into a later age, will become a force for evil
-- -- -- as the Catholic Church was a specter of ancient Rome.  Well, this also
applies to spiritual science, that it must not be frozen in its old form,
because when it is, it loses its goodness and vitality.
>    A very sad example of this is how people repeat remarks Steiner made in
Germany in the 1920s about the English-speaking peoples dominating economics and
politics.  It was quite natural to express opinions this way in that time and
place, where the British Empire had utterly crushed the country of Germany in
the aftermath of the first world war, the background of which was the economic
competition between England and Germany.  To talk about the world being
dominated by the Anglo-American forces TODAY is simply absurd, and becoming more
absurd with each decade of the rise of China and India economically. In fact, in
one of his lectures shortly before his death, he pointed out an observation by a
thinker of the times that the economic center of gravity of the world had
already shifted from Europe to the Far East. It provides a dismal example of why
the Doctor did not want his lectures written down,  that so many alienated,
self-hating Westerners still quote such things from the 1920s to justify their
ridiculous conspiracy theories ascribing all world events to Freemasons, the CIA
and George Bush (or whomever). The rise of China after its  "century of
humiliation" by foreign powers, the conflict between East and West represented
by murderous Islam, the growth of economic power in India, Japan, and the
oil-producing countries -- -- -- all that has happened since Steiner's voice was
silenced, and which of course he would've taken into account in his opinions on
world affairs, is ignored, leading to a wholly unrealistic thinking incapable of
grasping anything that is really happening before one's eyes. I've known people
who call themselves anthroposophists who believe the insanity of people like
Michael Moore, denying that the Muslim religion really is on the warpath against
the West, trying to blame it all on a CIA conspiracy or something else that
prevents one from confronting the reality of events in the 21st century (which
Steiner predicted).  In fact, here in America, most of the people I meet in the
anthroposophical movement are Marxists, with completely unrealistic thinking
incapable of grasping the simplest economic or political realities (none of
which fit into neat, grandiose conspiracy theories).
>    I don't like to bring up politics, but it is an elementary basic of
spiritual science that one has to train one's own thinking to be realistic in
relation to everyday facts of the physical world, otherwise one will carry the
same exaggerated, fantastical thinking with one when one enters the spiritual
world, resulting only in hallucinations and no definite knowledge.  A few years
ago, when I was at the Goetheanum,  Christopher Budd gave a few lectures on
economics that were very insightful, and I was so distressed at hearing the
warped thinking of people  talking about the subject in the audience afterwards,
that at the beginning of his next lecture I asked him if he would just remind
his audience that Dr. Steiner was completely against socialism and the
government taking over the economy, and he gladly did so (since it's true), but
he had some mighty irritable-looking faces in the audience as he poked their
sacred cows.  It's been absolutely amazing to me how many people try to justify
all their preconceptions by seizing upon one or another quote from Dr. Steiner
about things in the 1920s or earlier.  Just imagine how successful Waldorf
schools would be if they kept applying unchanged what Steiner said about
children going through puberty at the age of 14, when over the past century it
has happened at a younger and younger age!
>     The true relationship of an anthroposophist to the Anthroposophical
Society is not supposed to be one of  "What can I do for the society?",  but
rather, "My spirit leads me to do such and such in the world; how can the
society support my efforts?"  That's what Dr. Steiner called the "reversed
cultus" of our times.  As individuals come into the world and associate
themselves with this movement, they make it evolve into something new.  I know
many of the leaders of the movement, and they are always looking for the next
direction of evolution.
> Starman
>
>
>
> To: steiner@yahoogroups.com
> From: peter.lam41@...
> Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:38:13 -0800
> Subject: [steiner] different approaches to anthroposophy
>
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> Thanks very much Starman for your prompt, comprehensive response on this
subject.  I missed your 'post' until today because being new to Yahoo it got
left in my 'spam' folder.  What you have said helps me try for a new orientation
towards certain concerns.  I was aware that the philosophical approach
(epistemological plus ethical I suppose one could say) has been described as the
safest or surest one - and I believe der Doctor said the most appropriate to our
age - I am not sure about it being the most difficult.  Any source for the
latter?  There is also the report that, when asked what he would be remembered
for in a thousand years time, the Dr said:  The Philosophy of Freedom,
everything else would be forgotton.  I think that came from Walter
>  Johannes Stein.  Another concern is that in the Society, to be a dinkum
anthroposophist seems to entail participation in the 'first class'; whereas if
these are all valid paths as you explain, taking the philosophical or one of the
other ones you mention should be on a par with that of the 'lessons'.  As it is,
the arrangement with the 'lessons' (and the 'sections') within the School of
Spiritual Science seems very much to be wanting to stay with where the good Dr
left off in 1924/25, rather than moving ahead, as you have also pointed out one
should expect to do.  I think someone has suggested new forms for working with
anthroposophy about every 5-10 years would be consistent with what happened in
the Dr's life time.  I don't know how well this subject fits within 'steiner
group' but any comments would be of interest.  PS: "dinkum" is an Australian
term, perhaps not used elsewhere, it means variously:
>  authentic, genuine, reliable, or on the level.
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> _________________________________________________________________
> Hotmail: Trusted email with powerful SPAM protection.
> http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141665/direct/01/
>

          THE DAYS OF THE WEEK: 

Monday,  December 14th. Moon Sagittarius Tycho Brahe born 1546. 

Tuesday,  December 15th. Moon Sagittarius. St. Ignatius. 

Wednesday,  December 16th. Moon Capricorn. New Moon. Ludwig van Beethoven born 1770. Wilhelm Grimm died 1878.

--- On Sun, 12/13/09, Robert Mason <robertsmason_99@...> wrote:

> From: Robert Mason <robertsmason_99@...>
> Subject: Fw: New chapters
> To: "Anthro Now" <anthroposophy_now@yahoogroups.com>
> Date: Sunday, December 13, 2009, 1:25 PM
>
>
> --- On Sun, 12/13/09, Lochmann-Verlag <willy.lochmann@...>
> wrote:
>
> > From: Lochmann-Verlag <willy.lochmann@...>
> > Subject: New chapters
> > To:
> > Date: Sunday, December 13, 2009, 8:19 AM
> > There are two more chapters of
> > "crisis of civilisation" on the web: Chapter 8
> > & 9. With best regards, Willy Lochmann
> >  
> > http://www.lochmann-verlag.com/englischetexte.htm
> >
>
>
>
>

        THE DAYS OF THE WEEK: 

Monday,  December 7th. Moon Virgo.   First German railroad opened 1835.

Tuesday,  December 8th. Moon Virgo.  Festival of the Conception of Mary (Remembrance of the conception without sin of Mary through her mother Anna).  Herbert Spencer died 1903.

Wednesday,  December 9th. Moon Libra. Poet Milton born1608.

 *  M A N T R A  # 3 4  *

Geheimnisvolle das Alt-Bewahrte
Mit neuerstandnem Eigensein
Im Innern sich belebend fühlend:
Es soll erweckend Weltenkräfte
In meines Lebens Aussenwerk ergiessen,
Und werdend mich ins Dasein prägen.

Mysteriously what is preserved of Old
With newly-arisen Self-Being
Within me I feel enlivened:
It shall let flow awakened World-Power
Into my Life's outer work
And transforming me, make my imprint in Existence.

An interpretation of this week's mantra:
Throughout the Fall our Self-Consciousness grows. Last week, this inner
self-awareness grew to the point that we felt detached completely from the
world, and saw it, without our soul's participation on it, as an icy, dead
wasteland---and that all we create detached from the world would likewise be
dead. Now, we find within this new growing self-consciousness, in a
mysterious way, all our precious treasure of experience again come to life,
and thus the World's power now consciously flows into the deeds of life in
such a way that the self can imprint its nature onto the world.

        THE DAYS OF THE WEEK: 

Monday,  November 30th. Moon Taurus.  1756 The Physicist Chladni born.

Tuesday,  December 1st. Moon Gemini. Full Moon.    Longinus.

Wednesday,  December 2nd. Moon Gemini.  Cortez d. 1547.

I do not want the entire group seeing these photos.Because some may recognize
me.
Here's the link:
http://ckle.zoomshare.com/files/photos.htm

Enjoy babe :)

 *  M A N T R A  # 3 3  *

So fühl ich erst die Welt,
Die ausser meiner Seele Miterleben
An sich nur frostig leeres Leben
Und ohne Macht sich offenbarend,
In Seelen sich von neuend schaffend,
In sich den Tod nur finden könnte.

So feel I first the World,
That without my Soul's Living-With it
As but a frozen empty Life
And without Power is revealed,
In new shaping out of the Soul,
In itself alone, can only find Death.

        THE DAYS OF THE WEEK: 

Monday,  November 23rd. Moon Aquarius.  Clemens (the companion of Paul).

Tuesday,  November 24th. Moon Pisces. First Quarter. 1632 Spinoza born.

Wednesday,  November 25th. Moon Pisces. 1814 the Physicist J. R. Mayer born.

   This week's verse describes how these will-forces are now strong enough for the outer world to
connect with us (it is 'lent' to us), so that we gain clear insight into the Destiny (karma) events in our lives.                                        

        THE DAYS OF THE WEEK: 

Monday,  November 16th. Moon Scorpio. New Moon. Edmund (King of England).

Tuesday,  November 17th. Moon Sagittarius. 1875 Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society.

Wednesday,  November 18th. Moon Sagittarius. 1789 Daguerre, the inventor of photography, born.

        THE DAYS OF THE WEEK: 

Monday,  November 9th. Moon Leo. Last Quarter. Day of Remembrance of 40 Martyrs, who because they refused to participate in a Feast to pagan gods, were murdered by the Langobards.

Tuesday,  November 10th. Moon Virgo. 1483 Luther born. 1759 Schiller born.

Wednesday,  November 11th. Moon Virgo. St. Martin's Day.

        THE DAYS OF THE WEEK: 

Monday,  November 2nd. Moon Taurus. Full Moon.  Festival of All Souls (since 1020 as a Catholic Festival established).

Tuesday,  November 3rd. Moon Gemini. Malachi (the Prophet).

Wednesday,  November 4th. Moon Gemini. 1493 Columbus landed in Guadaloupe.

I wrote the following text a week ago, but
haven't had a chance to post it before now.
It was an invitation to a discussion, but
now it seems that I won't be getting event
the little time online that I normally get.
So I won't be engaging in any discussion,
but you can take this as a think piece or
discuss it without me. RM
***

Now I've had a little while to look over Jeff
B.'s forwarded file of the first part of the
translation of Bondarev's book on *PoF*.  And I
have to say *look over*, for I surely haven't
read it all yet, even though it amounts to only
the beginning of Bondy's huge book.  I would
despair of reading that book even in I had it in
English; I suppose I might need the better part
of a year to work through it. So, for now, about
all I can offer are some of my impressions on
starting to approach the book. -- Perhaps if
others are also starting into the book, we could
compare our impressions?

And I said *impressions*; for me, I might have
said *whimpers of frustration*.  As I said
before, I got the feeling that the book is a
work of genius, and I still have that opinion,
but now I really get the feeling that this is a
*foreign* genius at work -- so foreign that my
mind strains and fails at trying to work my way
into the thoughts of such a genius.

I'll try to explain what I mean by *foreign*. --
This fragment, in Jeff's Word document, is 155
pages long (big pages), but Bondy doesn't
actually start into his close analysis of the
text of *PoF* until page 139.  The pages leading
up to that point are filled mostly with Bondy's
own philosophical foreplay, as it were.  And it
is this philosophy that is so foreign to me.  It
is foreign in a geographical sense, but not only
that; it is foreign in a cultural sense, and
more, in the sense of the mode of consciousness
that is producing the thoughts.  For Bondy seems
to be what the Brits, and by derivation we
Americans, would call a "Continental"
philosopher.  Those of us who have had at least
a brush with academic philosophy in the English-
speaking world will probably have at least a
glimmer on what that term implies.

I'll try to explain a little more. --
Generalizing broadly (and hence somewhat
inaccurately in some cases, but that can't be
avoided when giving just brief impressions), the
philosophical consciousness in the English-
speaking world might be called "nominalistic"
and "sense-bound"; the term *classical British
empiricism* isn't used for no good reason.  (And
of course, it wasn't for no good reason that
Francis Bacon -- who was, as Steiner tells us,
the reincarnated Haroun al Rashid, the main
opponent of Aristotle, who was a previous
incarnation of our very same Steiner -- himself
was a Brit.)  In America this quality is even
intensified; America is, after all, the home of
so-called philosophical "pragmatism".

So, the kind of philosophy that was most in
vogue some 40-odd years ago when I passed
briefly through an American university (very
briefly; if you'd blinked, you would've have
missed me) was "sense-bound"; one might even say
*earth-bound*.  That was during the afterglow of
the heyday of so-called "ordinary language
philosophy", but the atmosphere of modern
"British empiricism" was also ambient.  (The
latter seemed to be in the form of a modified,
patched-up "logical positivism", which itself
had its heyday in 1930s Vienna, but nevertheless
wasn't "Continental" in the sense that I am
using here; it was really more of a transplanted
British empiricism, but that's another story.)
There were differences between "ordinary
language philosophy" and the modernized
empiricism, but they were joined at least in
mutual incomprehension, and even derision,
toward the kind of philosophy that was prevalent
on the "Continent" (of Europe), both in the
present and the recent past.  (And this, 40-odd
years ago, was in the heyday of
"Existentialism", and before the advent of
"post-modernism", "narrative theory", etc.)
Texts from philosophers such as Heidegger or
Sartre might be used as paradigmatic examples of
"philosophical nonsense", for instance.  And
classical "German Idealism" (Fichte and Hegel
especially) was as much or even more
uncomprehended and incomprehensible.

Hegelianism had a vogue in the upper strata of
British philosophical academia in the 19th
Century, but modern, "serious", philosophy was
considered  to have had its start early in the
20th Century when Bertrand Russell and George
Moore rebelled against the prevalent Hegelianism
at Cambridge.  That anomalous British
Hegelianiam was regarded as it were an
embarrassing, perverse lapse between the
classical British empiricism from Bacon through
Hume (let's not talk about Reid now) and the
modern empiricism that began and was exemplified
in Russell, and that lapse was mostly passed
over in silence, and John Stuart Mill seemed to
be almost the only Brit in the 19th Century
worth mentioning.  (Actually, there was in
Russell a little spark of "Realism" in the
Scholastic sense, or "ontological Platonism",
but let's not talk about that now either; I'm
painting the picture in broad strokes here.)

Now, what was so "foreign" in the Continental
thinkers was their practice of using words and
concepts that couldn't readily be nailed down
somewhere in the physical-sensory world.  (One
might object that *physical* and *sensory* are
not equivalent concepts, but I'm allowing myself
to be sloppy with my broad strokes; I'm trying
to present more of a feeling-attitude than a
conceptual analysis.)  And they used such
concepts not in mathematics, which is allowed in
modern empiricism, but in places that . . .
well, seem impossible to "place".  For example,
when Heidegger speaks of *Dasein* (*being-
there*) or the *Nichts* (the *nothing*), or even
the *Nichts* that *nichtet* (*nots*)-- the
average British or American thinker can't do
much but screw up his face and smirk, or laugh
out loud, and shake his head from side to side.
And neither can he do much with German Idealism,
especially Hegel and his "Absolute" and all
that; it's just incomprehensible.  He regards it
as a kind of philosophical sickness that needs
therapy.

Of course, the educated British or American
philosopher will have read the Greeks (Plato and
Aristotle especially, but they're ancient
history) and the "Continental Rationalists"
(Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, but they're
still "history") and Kant (who was "awakened"
from his "dogmatic slumbers" by Hume, so
whatever might be worthwhile in Kant is really
British) -- and he has probably gritted his
teeth and struggled through a survey of modern
Continental currents (e.g. Schopenhauer,
Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, maybe a little Sartre) -
- but all these amount to unavoidable, even
irksome, obligations if one is to be "cultured".
"Serious" philosophy, the kind "one does", must
be "analytic":  there's logic and there's the
empirical, the physical-sensory; that's all
that's real; all the rest is fluff and nonsense.
-- I might be exaggerating a little, but not a
whole lot; and this picture might be somewhat
distorted by my subjective peculiarities, but
not entirely.

My basic point is that the kind of consciousness
-- typical on the "Continent", and especially in
the German world --- that produces philosophical
thinking not tied to the logical-empirical is
really "foreign" to the typical philosophical
consciousness in the English-speaking world, and
especially to the typical U-S-American.  And I
am very much a U-S-American in consciousness,
though perhaps not so typical, and especially
not so much since my ongoing encounter with
Anthroposophy.  I surely didn't understand *PoF*
the first time I read it, but gradually (with
help from Kühlewind and from Otto Palmer's
collection of Steiner-saids about *PoF*) I came
to understand (so I allow myself to believe, at
least) what Steiner meant by *pure thinking*,
*living thinking*.  And more importantly, I
learned how to *do* it, and of course "doing" is
very typically "American".

And of course Steiner was very much within the
tradition of German Idealism, and often was at
pains to explain it and uphold it.  Indeed,
during the First World War he wrote a book (*The
Riddle of Man*) defending German Idealism "with
his life's blood".  But he was not merely
"within" that tradition; he was its culmination
and rose above it to the plane of universality.
And that universality comes through in *PoF*;
it, for me, even as difficult as it is, is more
accessible than Teutonic Idealist philosophy;
e.g. Hegel especially.  For in *PoF* thinking
reaches a culmination where it passes from
"philosophy" to something else.  (Bondarev
quotes RS:  "The age of philosophy has been
fulfilled.")  This "something else" is
Anthroposophy; indeed, the title of the final
chapter of Steiner's *Riddles of Philosophy* is
"From Philosophy to Anthroposophy".  For in the
"living thinking" as is taught in *PoF* one is
not merely "thinking about" whatever; one is
*doing* something definite ("intuitive
thinking"), and this "doing" is experienced.
And such experience is as "empirical" as you can
get, though it is not sensory experience.  We
might call the *PoF* thinking *supersensory
empiricism*.

And now my point is that the "empiricism" of
*PoF* thinking is relatively easy to grasp for
this naturally empiricist U-S-American, because
I can do it; I can experience it ("relatively"
as compared to Hegel, Heidegger, etc., I mean).
I'm talking about myself of course, but I would
like to hope that I could generalize to
observation to "Anglophones" in general, and *a
fortiori* to U-S-Americans in general.  For
Anthroposophy is not merely German, or Central
European, or even "Continental", but it is
"universal human".  Anthroposophy offers all of
us, even hard-headed Americans, the opportunity
to rise above the limitations of our *Volk*
nature to the plane of the "universal human", to
the status of a "free spirit", through the
essence of our human-ness experienced in
thinking.

So, what does all this have to do with
Bondarev's book? -- What's so frustrating to me
about this book isn't his treatment of *PoF* as
such; again, in Jeff's fragment he barely starts
his analysis of *PoF* itself.  My difficulty is
with Bondy's 138-page run-up to that analysis.
That run-up seems to me to consist mostly (not
entirely) of the most incomprehensible sort of
"Continental philosophy".  Again:  so far I have
only scanned through it, not read it closely;
it's just so hard to read.  Bondy sweeps through
the history of philosophy from the ancient
Greeks to the present, and in the present
especially employs the kind of non-sensory
concepts that are so foreign to the mind that
lives in the English language and archetypal
consciousness.

Holy unintelligibility, Batman; there's Fichte
and there's Heidegger; there's Husserl and even
Bondy's favorite unknown (to us) Russian,
Nikolai Lossky; there's lots of Kant in his most
"transcendental" aspects; and there's Hegel,
Hegel, and more Hegel.  There're concepts such
as *immanence*, *otherness*, *panlogism*,
*ideal-realism*, *intuitivism*,
*phenomenological*, *trans-individual subject*,
*illusionism*, *hierarchical personalism*,
*voluntarist*, *intentionality of
consciousness*, *absolute givenness*,
*recreationism*, *Dasein*, *Wesen*,
*Bedingtheit*, and so on.  And more:  there's
the most abstract, abstruse, theology of the
Trinity.  And so on. --

So, the question for me is this:  Am I having
such a hard time because I'm stuck in the
English language and English-American *Volk*
characteristics while Bondarev is writing in the
Russian language and from the Russian *Volk*
characteristics, after taking his concepts
(mostly) from the German language and *Volk*
characteristics?  Or is it because I'm under-
educated or maybe just plain dim?

I think that it might be easier for me to accept
that I'm a member of an inferior race, or at
least a mentally impaired race, than to accept
that I'm just plain stupid. -- Well, what do you
think?  Do any Continental Europeans reading
this email have the same kind of difficulties
working through *this* book of Bondy's?
(*Crisis* [*Kreuzung*] isn't nearly as hard to
read.)  Is *anyone* having as much trouble as I
am?

But maybe I am making it sound harder than it
really is?  Bondy, after all, does seem to be
familiar with the "Western" philosophy of
science, and he does work mainly on themes that
should already be familiar to Anthros,
especially *beholding* (*Anschauen*) and
Goethe's familiar (or what should be familiar)
"power of judgment in beholding" (*anschauende
Urteilskraft*). -- But I'm still having a lot of
trouble with it.  Maybe it's just hard to
understand a genius?  But again, Bondy's
*Crisis* book isn't so hard to understand.  So I
really do have to wonder whether much of my
trouble comes from the fact that Bondy's mind is
Russian and my mind is American.  The Russian
*Volk* character is, so Steiner tells us, at the
opposite pole of the trichotomy West-Middle-East
from the American *Volk* character -- the
Russian being the more naturally "spiritual" and
the American being the more naturally
"materialistic".  And here we have a Russian who
has taken concepts mostly from the "Middle"
(German) language and mind into his Russian
language and mind and written this book in
Russian.  And then the Russian has been
translated back into the German language, and
then translated into English.  And more, we have
the complication that this particular Russian
was born in the deepest abyss of Stalin's
hellish tyranny, educated in "dialectical
materialism" in the Ahrimanic (or Asuric) Soviet
state educational system, and lived most of his
life under the pervasive censorship and terror
of the Soviet system.  Only in the last twenty
years or so has he been living (off and on?) in
the Middle (Switzerland) near the headquarters
of the Dornach Society, where he has not been
welcomed with open arms. -- Really, I do have to
wonder whether my difficulties are due not only
to my own inadequacies but maybe also to more
general differences of *Volk* character and
language.

And again, I haven't even yet read all the text
that I have, and I haven't seen the diagrams.
Bondy is often a pictorial thinker, and I would
expect that the diagrams would help a lot.
Still I have understood that his philosophical
ponderings are leading into a deep, close
analysis of *PoF*, and that this analysis
deserves much work and attention.  For instance,
he portrays *PoF* as a great Mystery Drama:

>>. . . . the "Philosophie der Freiheit" is
experienced by anyone who really begins to
understand it, as a Mystery Drama, whose main
hero is the new Dionysos-Prometheus who battles
with all that has become, for the sake of
individual evolution and the overcoming of
inherited sin.  But the Mysteries pursued, at
all times, the goal of bringing about in the
participant catharsis, moral purification.  In
the case at hand catharsis of the soul is
absolutely essential, in order to eradicate
everything that disturbs pure thought and
beholding.<<

More, he outlines a sevenfold process of
dialectics, beyond the familiar threefold
dialectics of Hegel (thesis-antithesis-
synthesis).  He understands this sevenfold
dialectic as "musical" (the seven major notes of
the scale leading to the octave), and he sees
this sevenfold dialectic process as running
throughout the text of *PoF*.  And in this
fragment he starts to show this sevenfoldness in
*PoF* line by line.

>>. . . . the riddles of the "Philosophy of
Freedom", a book written according to the laws
of the sounding word; the latter determine in it
the character of thinking, of the development of
the ideas.  Consequently, they have in the book
their "melodies" and "harmonies", which one can
raise into the light of consciousness.  All this
must be borne in mind from the beginning if we
are to be able to experience with our sense of
thought the character of the thinking in the
"Philosophy of Freedom", when we begin to regard
the work as a collection of practical exercises
which contribute to the development of the power
of judgment in beholding.<<

And he does seek to show how *PoF* is a book of
world-historic, even cosmic, significance -- how
it helps us to grasp and fulfill Man's essential
task at this moment of cosmic evolution.  This
aspect has social implications reaching back
into his previous book that we have in English:

>>. . . . the crisis of culture and civilization
has its roots in the crisis of knowledge.<<

So, I do verily wish to understand how, for
instance, he came to discern this sevenfold
dialectic and how he found it in *PoF* . . . and
maybe even how his philosophic-epistemological
mind works.  I'll be working on it, slowly . . .
and it might help to get some cross-
fertilization from others who are also working
on it.

Bondarev says:

>>[RS] wrote the 'Philosophy of Freedom'
(Spiritual Activity) at the crossing-point of
the philosophy of pure thinking and the
esotericism of thinking; it is, one could say,
written with morphological thinking. This
phenomenon is quite unique and it is so
difficult, for this reason, to find a relation
to it.  The present work is an attempt to remove
some of the difficulties on the path to a
mastery of this qualitatively new thinking,
which forms the central core of Anthroposophical
methodology.<<

Robert Mason

 *  M A N T R A  # 2 9  *

        THE DAYS OF THE WEEK: 

Monday, October 26th. Moon Aquarius. Thaddeus (found in Matthew's Gospel).

Tuesday, October 27th. Moon Aquarius. Sabina.

Wednesday, October 28th. Moon Pisces. Simeon and Judas (relatives of Jesus). 1704 John Locke died. 1466 Erasmus of Rotterdam born.