When it comes to magic, what is real and what is the provenance of the real, one can only work forwards on the basis of whatever primary thinking intuitions emerge. This is what has emerged, so far:
I assume that real and Good magic was an 'everyday' possibility for people in the remote past, but seems not to be at present. Examples of real Good magic would include Ancient Egyptian priest-magicians who accomplished supernaturally-enabled feats of building and making, the British builders of megalithic monuments, and most recently some reports of some tribal shamans or medicine men.
But magic was not really 'used' in the past, not used to attain human will; rather, men were immersed-in the divine; and insofar as a man conformed to divine purposes, he was able unconsciously to be a conduit or coencentartion of divine powers. This was therefore a kind of channelling, and not of human will manipulation nature (the human mind serving as a channel for divine powers and purposes). I presume that magical rituals were mostly about the mental preparation that made this channelling possible.
As human consciousness, the autonomous, agent self, became stronger through human history; so this magic became impossible. Men were no longer immersed-in the spiritual but stood apart. The spirit world was invisible, imperceptible - only exceptionally and by more and more extreme measures (and finally not at all - many modern people never-and-cannot perceive the spirit aspects of reality).
From about 1500 onwards in The West, Men stood apart from the divine; and from that time attempts at magic were attempts of the self, of 'the ego' to coerce nature, to compel results - they were driven by human desire and will.
And Renaissance magic was ineffective, in terms of its stated goals. Its effects are explained by changing of human minds (the mind of the magician, and the mind of any human subjects) - in a kind of self/ other brainwashing, and also by evil magic done by subordinating the self to serve demonic forces.
Good magic became impossible because Men were (due to the evolutionary-development of human consciousness, in-line with divine destiny) no longer immersed-in God's creation. Men increasingly stood apart from creation, the personal self became differentiated-from the divine; and therefore Men's powers were derived only from Men.
That is the current situation (although it was meant to be a brief and temporary phase - we are stuck-in-it due to wrong human choices; we are stuck in spiritual adolescence - refusing to move on to spiritual maturity. We are stuck because maturity requires each person's explicit choice and wish).
Here and Now, most claims at magic are bogus - in the sense that they are done by convincing the self or other people that magic has-been-done: modern manipulative magic is psychological (and any benefits are a kind of psychotherapy).
Attempts to control reality, to make reality to conform to explicit human wishes, by magical systems such as spells and rituals, are not effective; they do not do what they set out to do by the mechanisms they posit. And what they do do, is not what was intended, nor are the means correctly known.
Rare instances of real Good magic are either done unintentionally, by accident, due to an unpredictable, unplanned, unconscious and momentary alignment of a person's purposes with divine purposes.
Real and evil magic can be done, in a way; but they are not done in conformity with the magician's will; the magician is not controlling supernatural reality, but is being-controlled-by it. When a magician really summons a demon, and some magical consequences ensue; the magician is being manipulated by the demon, not vice versa.
And evil magic can do only what demons can do, what immaterial spirits can do - which seems to be done by acting on minds; tempting, persuading, convincing, via sins. Demons cannot create, cannot affect divine creative activity: creation is solely divine.
The magic of the future will happen insofaras an individual person attains primary thinking, or Final Participation; when someone consciously and voluntarily aligns their thinking with the universal reality of God's thinking - which is creation-in-action.
We may then, as individuals, participate-in the ongoing work of creation. And that is our proper goal now (i.e. theosis) - but especially in post-mortal resurrected life.
When we think In Reality, we must be aligned with divine purposes. We are (or may be) doing real magic in this world, and doing it consciously and purposively; those purposes coming from that which is divine in us (what we inherit as children of God) - but these purposes are not 'devised', the purposes are emergent-from that divine mind in us. That which makes this possible is Love - specifcially love of God (which, for us, is Jesus Christ) and of our divine family, consisting of God's loving children.
Thus any idea of a person 'using' magic to attain human purposes is nonsense. We may participate-in the Good magic that is ongoing divine creation (either unconsciously and immersed-in, or consciously and voluntarily in primary thinking); or we may be used-by the demonic powers in their work of sabotaging and inverting divine creation. Ultimately these are the only two options.
Friday, 29 June 2018
Wednesday, 27 June 2018
Escaping bad habits of thinking - I dissent from Barfield's advice
That modern Western Man has developed bad habits of thinking is obvious to anyone who has tried to escape them. In a post a couple of days ago, I excerpted a representative analysis of this phenomenon by Owen Barfield, which he concluded by suggesting that the only cure for bad habits was good habits.
Here I ultimately disagree with Barfield; because the essence of the problem is not just the badness of habits, but the dominance by habits - so the cure of bad thinking habits is more along the lines of reducing the habitual element in thinking.
It has proved to be very difficult indeed for individuals to go beyond the point of analysing this problem in their own lives, to giving general and effective advice (or training) about what to do next. For example, Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield thoroughly understood the nature of the problem; but Steiner - in my view - became sidetracked into system-building, and movement-building; and in more than a century his anthroposophical movement has got nowhere in achieving Steiner's original goals for a new consciousness.
Barfield made no claims to expertise in this matter, and always pointed to Steiner as the authoritative source of guidance - yet Steiner's specific guidance (for example in How to Know Higher Worlds, 1904-5) has a long track record of failure, and indeed even in principle seems clearly insufficient and prone to unwanted consequences.
My understanding is that the reason for this difficulty is that, when to comes to going where we want to go (which Steiner sometimes terms Pure Thinking, Barfield terms Final Participation and I have called Primary Thinking) - then habits are the enemy, and there is no such thing as a 'good' habit.
My understanding of this is rooted in the simplifying idea that (very briefly put) what we are trying to do it to attain a conscious version of the spontaneous and intutive state of young children or simple hunter gatherers. That is, our goal is a life in which the present moment is intuitively comprehended; and therefore all a life without much in the way of strategy, complex social systems, plans or routines.
I am aware that there is an inevitable, indeed irreducible, element of strategy, system and plan in any life - I regard the matter as one of polarity in which there are valid distinctions that cannot be made into division (i.e. we can validly distinguish between stability and change, but these are abstractions, and in life neither can be produced in a pure form; because life is 'developmental', and development is a process that necessarily includes stability and change).
However, my point is that any increase in the habitual, organised, systematised, strategic, planned elements of life will thwart our goals. Final Participation cannot be implemented by a flow-chart. And the attempt to organise, to drill, to proceduralise; has been a trap into which person after person, organisation after organisation, institution after institution has fallen over the past couple of centuries during which the need for a development in consciousness has been known.
If not, then what? First, we need to be careful that the form of the question does not simply lead us back into error. The demand for general advice, for general guidance, often contains an implicit demand for 'a system'. When the objective is to live from our real and divine Self, in harmony with God's creation; then any explicit, communicable external and objective system is going to be wrong - since it must be a simplified, partial and distorted version of God's creation.
When we align-with and participate-in the on-going reality of creation this is exactly-Not about implementing pre-decided plans. It is about love as the basis for working-with God in our family-business. Coming into this business with a set of plans developed before we joined, when we were lesser people (as we are now) would be harmful - and indeed simply does not happen.
(Love makes possible creation, love sustains creativity - and the family is the true metaphysical principle of reality.)
To join with the work of creation (which is the nature of Final Participation, of Primary Thinking) requires that we are not of that way of thinking - it is not that this is a test or exclusion criterion - but that Final Participation just-is a setting aside of the abstract models, plans and schemes, rules and protocols that Man has developed over the past several thousand years of 'civilisation' in his state of increasingly alienated consciousness.
(That Rudolf Steiner developed a massive, complex system of abstract distinctions and protocols, and a huge international social organisation - with and elaborate headquarters, a bureaucracy, multiple branches and specialities; is a measure of how far Steiner fell-away-from the clarity and purity of his original insights.)
When we are stuck in bad habits, based on false metaphysics; we need to correct our metaphysics: that is vital. If we are materialists, we need to stop; if we are not Christians, we need to start. But this of itself will not induce the desired changes - the nature of our situation tends to lock us into falsehood and error... bad habits.
We may have insight and be born again as believer-in Jesus; but for our-selves to become more divine (i.e. theosis; which is what Final Participation is about - the divine mode of thinking) we cannot achieve by drilling ourselves into some new habit: it is habits-as-such that are agents of our alienation.
This is why we cannot rely on any organisation, any system, any abstract scheme, strategy or plan of training. Why we must take personal responsibility for our theosis. Why we need to become attuned to the actualities of the existing situation, to develop aware intuition as the basis of life.
The aimed-at state - as I said - is much like that of the child or hunter gatherer, a life in which memories and aspirations all find integrated expression in the present. However, the child is passively immersed-in living and unconscious of it - he may be an instrument of God, but never a co-creator.
Our aim, by contrast, is to be consciously participating with life, with God (our Heavenly parents) and his grown-up children (our older brothers and sisters); and this is done by-and-in our thinking.
Here I ultimately disagree with Barfield; because the essence of the problem is not just the badness of habits, but the dominance by habits - so the cure of bad thinking habits is more along the lines of reducing the habitual element in thinking.
It has proved to be very difficult indeed for individuals to go beyond the point of analysing this problem in their own lives, to giving general and effective advice (or training) about what to do next. For example, Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield thoroughly understood the nature of the problem; but Steiner - in my view - became sidetracked into system-building, and movement-building; and in more than a century his anthroposophical movement has got nowhere in achieving Steiner's original goals for a new consciousness.
Barfield made no claims to expertise in this matter, and always pointed to Steiner as the authoritative source of guidance - yet Steiner's specific guidance (for example in How to Know Higher Worlds, 1904-5) has a long track record of failure, and indeed even in principle seems clearly insufficient and prone to unwanted consequences.
My understanding is that the reason for this difficulty is that, when to comes to going where we want to go (which Steiner sometimes terms Pure Thinking, Barfield terms Final Participation and I have called Primary Thinking) - then habits are the enemy, and there is no such thing as a 'good' habit.
My understanding of this is rooted in the simplifying idea that (very briefly put) what we are trying to do it to attain a conscious version of the spontaneous and intutive state of young children or simple hunter gatherers. That is, our goal is a life in which the present moment is intuitively comprehended; and therefore all a life without much in the way of strategy, complex social systems, plans or routines.
I am aware that there is an inevitable, indeed irreducible, element of strategy, system and plan in any life - I regard the matter as one of polarity in which there are valid distinctions that cannot be made into division (i.e. we can validly distinguish between stability and change, but these are abstractions, and in life neither can be produced in a pure form; because life is 'developmental', and development is a process that necessarily includes stability and change).
However, my point is that any increase in the habitual, organised, systematised, strategic, planned elements of life will thwart our goals. Final Participation cannot be implemented by a flow-chart. And the attempt to organise, to drill, to proceduralise; has been a trap into which person after person, organisation after organisation, institution after institution has fallen over the past couple of centuries during which the need for a development in consciousness has been known.
If not, then what? First, we need to be careful that the form of the question does not simply lead us back into error. The demand for general advice, for general guidance, often contains an implicit demand for 'a system'. When the objective is to live from our real and divine Self, in harmony with God's creation; then any explicit, communicable external and objective system is going to be wrong - since it must be a simplified, partial and distorted version of God's creation.
When we align-with and participate-in the on-going reality of creation this is exactly-Not about implementing pre-decided plans. It is about love as the basis for working-with God in our family-business. Coming into this business with a set of plans developed before we joined, when we were lesser people (as we are now) would be harmful - and indeed simply does not happen.
(Love makes possible creation, love sustains creativity - and the family is the true metaphysical principle of reality.)
To join with the work of creation (which is the nature of Final Participation, of Primary Thinking) requires that we are not of that way of thinking - it is not that this is a test or exclusion criterion - but that Final Participation just-is a setting aside of the abstract models, plans and schemes, rules and protocols that Man has developed over the past several thousand years of 'civilisation' in his state of increasingly alienated consciousness.
(That Rudolf Steiner developed a massive, complex system of abstract distinctions and protocols, and a huge international social organisation - with and elaborate headquarters, a bureaucracy, multiple branches and specialities; is a measure of how far Steiner fell-away-from the clarity and purity of his original insights.)
When we are stuck in bad habits, based on false metaphysics; we need to correct our metaphysics: that is vital. If we are materialists, we need to stop; if we are not Christians, we need to start. But this of itself will not induce the desired changes - the nature of our situation tends to lock us into falsehood and error... bad habits.
We may have insight and be born again as believer-in Jesus; but for our-selves to become more divine (i.e. theosis; which is what Final Participation is about - the divine mode of thinking) we cannot achieve by drilling ourselves into some new habit: it is habits-as-such that are agents of our alienation.
This is why we cannot rely on any organisation, any system, any abstract scheme, strategy or plan of training. Why we must take personal responsibility for our theosis. Why we need to become attuned to the actualities of the existing situation, to develop aware intuition as the basis of life.
The aimed-at state - as I said - is much like that of the child or hunter gatherer, a life in which memories and aspirations all find integrated expression in the present. However, the child is passively immersed-in living and unconscious of it - he may be an instrument of God, but never a co-creator.
Our aim, by contrast, is to be consciously participating with life, with God (our Heavenly parents) and his grown-up children (our older brothers and sisters); and this is done by-and-in our thinking.
Bad habits of thinking - excerpted from History, Guilt and Habit
One of Owen Barfield's best books is a four volume collection of public lectures published in 1979, called History, Guilt and Habit. The following I have excerpted and edited from the lecture entitled The Force of Habit, given in Vancouver, 1978.
**
What we perceive is inseparable from how we think - and from this many consequences follow...
One of them is discovering how differently mankind as a whole used to think in the remote past: the thoughts themselves were images rather than concepts. And this entails that the world they lived in then, was different from the world we live in today.
They perceived images rather than thought them - what we perceive as things, they perceived as images...
The difference between an image and a thing lies in the fact that an image presents itself as an exterior expressing or implying an interior, whereas a thing does not. When what begins by being an images becomes, in the course of history, a mere thing; we are justified on describing it as an idol. And a collective state of mind which perceives only things, and no images, may thus fairly be described as idolatry.
The world we perceive around us today is no longer a world of images, no longer an exterior expressing an interior, but simply a brittle exterior surface... which is not, however, the surface of anything.
Thus the quality of the world we live in is determined not only be what we perceive, but what we fail to perceive.
But this world of outsides with no insides to them, which we perceive around us and in which we dwell, is not something unshakably and unalterably given, but is the product of the way we collectively and subconsciously think. It is correlative to our mental habit.
It is this cut-offness, this imprisonment, to which many problems of today can be traced. For instance, the growing prevalence of mental disease, and the uneasy sense of guilt that has come to pervade our society and - still more - our sociology.
How much of this is really prison-sickness? Of course not many people actually think of themselves as in prison. They only feel it.
They feel it because virtually everything that is thought and written today - from science to literature and criticism, from sociology to aesthetics, from theology to politics, and in politics from extreme right to extreme left - is thought and written on the walls of that prison.
**
What we perceive is inseparable from how we think - and from this many consequences follow...
One of them is discovering how differently mankind as a whole used to think in the remote past: the thoughts themselves were images rather than concepts. And this entails that the world they lived in then, was different from the world we live in today.
They perceived images rather than thought them - what we perceive as things, they perceived as images...
The difference between an image and a thing lies in the fact that an image presents itself as an exterior expressing or implying an interior, whereas a thing does not. When what begins by being an images becomes, in the course of history, a mere thing; we are justified on describing it as an idol. And a collective state of mind which perceives only things, and no images, may thus fairly be described as idolatry.
The world we perceive around us today is no longer a world of images, no longer an exterior expressing an interior, but simply a brittle exterior surface... which is not, however, the surface of anything.
Thus the quality of the world we live in is determined not only be what we perceive, but what we fail to perceive.
But this world of outsides with no insides to them, which we perceive around us and in which we dwell, is not something unshakably and unalterably given, but is the product of the way we collectively and subconsciously think. It is correlative to our mental habit.
It is this cut-offness, this imprisonment, to which many problems of today can be traced. For instance, the growing prevalence of mental disease, and the uneasy sense of guilt that has come to pervade our society and - still more - our sociology.
How much of this is really prison-sickness? Of course not many people actually think of themselves as in prison. They only feel it.
They feel it because virtually everything that is thought and written today - from science to literature and criticism, from sociology to aesthetics, from theology to politics, and in politics from extreme right to extreme left - is thought and written on the walls of that prison.
Thursday, 14 June 2018
Albion and the Collective Conscious
On the one hand I can't rid myself of the conviction that Albion - the ideal of England, and of the island of Britain - is a reality; because at times it is experienced as absolutely solid, palpable, 'obervable'; something I can rest-upon and build-from...
On the other hand, I am of the conviction that all institutions are corrupted and net-evil; and therefore Albion is not represented by any group, system, organisation, or anything of that kind. Allegiance cannot - or should not - be given to any actually-existing institution...
So where is it? What is the actual location? There are two answers: one only semi-true but easily understood; the other wholly-true but hard to express.
The semi-true idea is that Albion is found, from time to time, in some specific people, places and things.
The wholly-true idea is that Albion is a truth that cannot be found in the material world because - while real - it is an immaterial, a spiritual, reality.
What kind of thing might Albion be? A partial answer - en route - could be something like the idea that Albion is an archetype of the 'Collective Unconscious'; which should mean that it has an objective reality, accessible universally; being something that exists in a realm independent of individual minds (Not arbitrary, Not a product of wishful thinking)...
But... the idea of Collective Unconscious is actually insufficient and incoherent, because a Collective mind that is Un-conscious means that it cannot be known directly, but can only be known by inference and implicitly.
Yet, without direct knowing, we cannot really know. Because then everything is secondary, incomplete, subject to distortion, incommunicable with accuracy and confidence... If the Unconscious is primary, then life is just a kind of delusion; each person most-likely having a different delusion.
So, if Albion is really-real, as I feel is the case; then Albion is a part of the Collective Conscious; an immaterial/ spiritual realm that is objective and universal and also directly knowable by each person. In fact, that is exactly what reality actually-is; since the sensory perceptible realm is Not knowable, but changes and is different for each person.
Albion is real to those who know it directly - and consciously know that they know it. Not despite, but because it is in the immaterial Collective Conscious; Albion is as solid as reality itself.
And what we personally happen to perceive (see, hear, touch, smell, taste), at this moment, in the flux of everyday experience; is irrelevant to that reality.
Note: The Collective Conscious is an idea taken from Owen Barfield - who described it as an unfortunate and absurd paradox that the Collective Un-conscious had gained some currency and support before (and without) any concept of the Collective Conscious... It is, indeed, stange to suppose that would could infer the presence and content of an Un-conscious, without first having direct and conscious knowledge of the actual existence of such a realm. Yet among the metaphysical confusions of modernity, such non-sense goes unnoticed and unremarked...
On the other hand, I am of the conviction that all institutions are corrupted and net-evil; and therefore Albion is not represented by any group, system, organisation, or anything of that kind. Allegiance cannot - or should not - be given to any actually-existing institution...
So where is it? What is the actual location? There are two answers: one only semi-true but easily understood; the other wholly-true but hard to express.
The semi-true idea is that Albion is found, from time to time, in some specific people, places and things.
The wholly-true idea is that Albion is a truth that cannot be found in the material world because - while real - it is an immaterial, a spiritual, reality.
What kind of thing might Albion be? A partial answer - en route - could be something like the idea that Albion is an archetype of the 'Collective Unconscious'; which should mean that it has an objective reality, accessible universally; being something that exists in a realm independent of individual minds (Not arbitrary, Not a product of wishful thinking)...
But... the idea of Collective Unconscious is actually insufficient and incoherent, because a Collective mind that is Un-conscious means that it cannot be known directly, but can only be known by inference and implicitly.
Yet, without direct knowing, we cannot really know. Because then everything is secondary, incomplete, subject to distortion, incommunicable with accuracy and confidence... If the Unconscious is primary, then life is just a kind of delusion; each person most-likely having a different delusion.
So, if Albion is really-real, as I feel is the case; then Albion is a part of the Collective Conscious; an immaterial/ spiritual realm that is objective and universal and also directly knowable by each person. In fact, that is exactly what reality actually-is; since the sensory perceptible realm is Not knowable, but changes and is different for each person.
Albion is real to those who know it directly - and consciously know that they know it. Not despite, but because it is in the immaterial Collective Conscious; Albion is as solid as reality itself.
And what we personally happen to perceive (see, hear, touch, smell, taste), at this moment, in the flux of everyday experience; is irrelevant to that reality.
Note: The Collective Conscious is an idea taken from Owen Barfield - who described it as an unfortunate and absurd paradox that the Collective Un-conscious had gained some currency and support before (and without) any concept of the Collective Conscious... It is, indeed, stange to suppose that would could infer the presence and content of an Un-conscious, without first having direct and conscious knowledge of the actual existence of such a realm. Yet among the metaphysical confusions of modernity, such non-sense goes unnoticed and unremarked...
Saturday, 9 June 2018
Linking Steiner's 1918 prophecy with the Fourth Gospel
Barfield tells us that we ought to strive for higher consciousness - for Final Participation. I am convinced: I agree. But why is it so difficult for us to attain a higher form of consciousness? Why - if this is what God wants us to do - is success so rare and brief?
The reason is that the higher consciousness is a divine form of consciousness, and to participate in it we must be in-accord-with divine creation... and not many people are.
Especially given that we must consciously be in accord with divine creation - and also aware of it, and actively choosing it from our true selves (our souls). (This cannot be something unconscious or passive - because the divine is always conscious, always active and purposive.)
Many traditionalists find this line of thinking to be un-Christian, if not anti-Christian; so it is necessary to link it with Jesus. The best source on Jesus is the Fourth Gospel.
In the Fourth Gospel, aside from Jesus himself, the best example of a God-aligned Man is the author of the Gospel, the beloved disciple himself - if we agree that the author is the resurrected Lazarus. The Gospel itself is the product of exactly the kind of divine consciousness that we seek.
A serious question - though - is to do with mortal versus post-mortal life. Clearly we can look-forward to a divine consciousness if we are believers in Jesus as the Son of God and the Good Shepherd who (if we will follow) will lead us to life eternal, with divine qualities that are 'symbolically' depicted throughout the Fourth Gospel.
But why suppose that we ought to aim at divine consciousness in mortal life? And why suppose that our failure to do would be responsible for the most extreme sins of modern life, as Rudolf Steiner recognised in a great prophetic statement of a century ago.
Well, perhaps because that is a theme throughout the Fourth Gospel, a Second Message; if that is what is implied by (for example) the conversation with Nicodemus about being born-again, or the conversation with the Samaritan woman about living water, or the discussion after feeding the five thousand about labouring for that meat which endureth into everlasting life.
It seems that there is a core/ minimal requirement for salvation: believing that Jesus is the Son of God and loving, therefore having faith, in him; so we may follow him through death to Heavenly life everlasting.
This core message is about salvation, and refers to our state after death and resurrection - but it is not about what we should do in this mortal life. Salvation is attainable by anyone who has these core convictions (believes-in and believes-on Jesus), and only by them. However, this gives no guidance for our worldly-motivations during this earthly existence.
However, there is also this Second Message - focused not on salvation but on theosis, on divinisation or sanctification - and this second message is about what we should work-for and strive-for during mortal life. What should motivate us. The answer is that we should strive to attain a new way of thinking and being that is aligned with the divine.
In other words, we ought-to strive for a higher consciousness, by aligning our thinking with the divine and by participating in the work of creation, even before death and during earthly mortality.
And if or when we do not strive for higher consciousness - there will be bad consequences (as we see all around us).
The reason is that the higher consciousness is a divine form of consciousness, and to participate in it we must be in-accord-with divine creation... and not many people are.
Especially given that we must consciously be in accord with divine creation - and also aware of it, and actively choosing it from our true selves (our souls). (This cannot be something unconscious or passive - because the divine is always conscious, always active and purposive.)
Many traditionalists find this line of thinking to be un-Christian, if not anti-Christian; so it is necessary to link it with Jesus. The best source on Jesus is the Fourth Gospel.
In the Fourth Gospel, aside from Jesus himself, the best example of a God-aligned Man is the author of the Gospel, the beloved disciple himself - if we agree that the author is the resurrected Lazarus. The Gospel itself is the product of exactly the kind of divine consciousness that we seek.
A serious question - though - is to do with mortal versus post-mortal life. Clearly we can look-forward to a divine consciousness if we are believers in Jesus as the Son of God and the Good Shepherd who (if we will follow) will lead us to life eternal, with divine qualities that are 'symbolically' depicted throughout the Fourth Gospel.
But why suppose that we ought to aim at divine consciousness in mortal life? And why suppose that our failure to do would be responsible for the most extreme sins of modern life, as Rudolf Steiner recognised in a great prophetic statement of a century ago.
Well, perhaps because that is a theme throughout the Fourth Gospel, a Second Message; if that is what is implied by (for example) the conversation with Nicodemus about being born-again, or the conversation with the Samaritan woman about living water, or the discussion after feeding the five thousand about labouring for that meat which endureth into everlasting life.
It seems that there is a core/ minimal requirement for salvation: believing that Jesus is the Son of God and loving, therefore having faith, in him; so we may follow him through death to Heavenly life everlasting.
This core message is about salvation, and refers to our state after death and resurrection - but it is not about what we should do in this mortal life. Salvation is attainable by anyone who has these core convictions (believes-in and believes-on Jesus), and only by them. However, this gives no guidance for our worldly-motivations during this earthly existence.
However, there is also this Second Message - focused not on salvation but on theosis, on divinisation or sanctification - and this second message is about what we should work-for and strive-for during mortal life. What should motivate us. The answer is that we should strive to attain a new way of thinking and being that is aligned with the divine.
In other words, we ought-to strive for a higher consciousness, by aligning our thinking with the divine and by participating in the work of creation, even before death and during earthly mortality.
And if or when we do not strive for higher consciousness - there will be bad consequences (as we see all around us).
Thursday, 7 June 2018
Could Rudolf Steiner have become a Professor?
Rudolf Steiner looking 'Professorial'...
I always wondered why Rudolf Steiner did not (so far as I know) try to become a Professor; since the scholar's life would probably have suited him a lot better than being the leader of first Theosophical then Anthroposophical Society groups - and lecturing (on every topic under the sun) to the general public.
But as I consider the matter, I do not think a German Professorship would have been a possibility for Steiner - although I suspect that, if he could have developed sufficient proficiency in the English language, he would have walked-into a Professorship in the Anglosphere.
The first difficulty was that Steiner's editorial work on Goethe's scientific writings was controversial, and criticised for being insufficiently scholarly (lacking the usual scholarly 'apparatus'). Another problem was that Steiner was awarded his PhD from Rostock, which (I gather) was among the couple of least prestigious ('lowest standard') universities in Germany.
Then he did not proceed to work on his higher/ post Doctoral 'Habilitation' thesis - which was necessary to teach in a German university as a Privatdozent (an unpaid position occupied while waiting/ hoping for a 'call' from the Ministry of Education to occupy a Chair). Steiner also lacked the private income or family backing, as well as the network of upper class supporters, needed to take this long-slow-risky career path.
Steiner's PhD was published in 1892 (Truth and Knowledge) and his magnum opus, the work of his heart, Philosophy of Freedom in 1994 - but both failed to attract approval, or even interest.
On the other hand, Steiner's qualifications and publications were extremely good by the standards of UK and US universities, and in that sense he could surely have obtained an academic job there, or in many other places other than Germany (which was without question the premier university system in the world, at that time).
But I presume Steiner either could not or would not move from the Germanic nations - he was consequently unable to make a living, despite trying a few careers. When the chance for paid lecturing came along, he grabbed it and made a great success of it.
Nonetheless, intellectually and spiritually speaking, I would have to regard it as a mis-step when Steiner allied with the Theosophical Society, and began to generate spiritual science in accordance with Madam Blavatsky's channelled revelations... He made a further error in getting 'mixed up with politics' from 1918, with his 'Threefold Society' ideas...
I think it took Steiner until 1924, and after he became terminally ill, before he began to rework his ideas in some very interesting (incomplete, not followed-up) directions in the Autobiography and Anthroposophical Leading-Thoughts/ Anthroposophical Guidelines...
A subject to which I will return soon, I hope.
But I regard it as a matter for regret that Steiner was, in a sense, 'forced' to make-a-living by becoming a spiritual leader - it would have been better for him if he could have remained a Dichter und Denker (poet and thinker) - a scholar-intellectual.
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