I just listened to your recent post: “Hierarchy in the Evolution of Consciousness.” It was very interesting and provocative. Somehow, we seem to keep coming back to the topic of racial hierarchies don’t we. I would like to offer a few additional thoughts to the ongoing conversation, but since my response was too long for this comment section, I posted it to my Substack page: https://newworldstory.substack.com/
Hi Everett. Wow, that essay is an embarrassment of riches! There are so many conversations to pull out of that. Thanks for sharing the link.
I particularly loved this statement:
"If the world determines to find the means to cure racism once and for all, then it must first find a way to contend with the fear upon which racism feeds."
In this context, and with my particular interests/questions, I'll riff on the following.
It concerns me that folks who love and revere the work of Steiner can either,
1) Don't even know that he has stated explicitly why only white skinned people will be able to unite fully with the Christ for the next couple thousand years, how this explains why all other colored skin MUST remain behind, so that if white people achieve their mission they can impregnate all other skin colors with The Christ, allowing the next phase of evolution to proceed in a healthy manner.
2) Of the small amount of us Anthroposophists who know Steiner's explanation, the majority say, A) "We must not assume we understand what he means." or B) "He was a man of his times..."
3) Most importantly, the TINY group of Anthroposophists who are at least willing to acknowledge that it seems that Steiner's clairvoyant perceptions could be subject to errors, will read Steiner's core books on methodology and basic spiritual reality with utterly no concern that the very same methodological blind-spots that Steiner had (which does not mean he was only wrong about everything he said) could very well be showing up in his basic suggestions for development.
In other words, if the person who makes the first telescope has utterly no conception that the lens isn't perfect, and if his students unthinkingly accept this premise, they will make the exact same telescopes their teacher has taught them to make.
And I don't understand why Anthroposophists - especially those who are comfortable noticing that Steiner's lens was not at all perfect -- aren't making that the most exciting and important of Anthroposophical conversations. Instead, more study groups where we visualize Old Saturn and feel the depth of imagining such images.
That last line is a bit too snarky! :) But...doesn't it seem 1000 times more interesting and relevant to begin struggling to comprehend what was actually going on in Steiner's experience?
I mean...Steiner literally describes the clairvoyant experiences he had that PROVED to him the cause of the color red supposedly causing bulls to go wild. What was happening? I have no doubt he saw images and had to work carefully to understand them. And I have no doubt he was very very wrong. And, is this crazy to say, I have no doubt the same kind of honest error could have been taking place when he worked with his experiences around Old Sun and Moon. What is the value of meditating upon incorrect conclusions and images? If we mediate upon his comments regarding bulls, I think we simply reinforce both incorrect ideas and bad habits of cognition. Would it be the same regarding Old Sun, black skin, and any other conclusions/images that we are not directly working with ourselves?
This is why I am not a huge fan of how, in Occult Science, he stresses that one of the best starting points is for the reader to grasp the truth (as in logical coherence) of his accounts from the beginning. Yes, we already know that if somebody has strong reasons to believe in something, they will tend to 'see' it down the road, confirmed both in their direct and indirect experiences.
I love what you've added here to the conversation Jeff. Your point about a flawed lens is extraordinary. How in the heck can I see the world using someone else's glasses? The beautiful thing about anthroposophy is that we can develop our own lenses. If fact I think we're supposed to. Steiner's instructions in that regard have shown themselves to be immensely valuable. His insights and directions for meditation, concentration, and visualization (i.e. lens forming) have passed the test in my experience. Thanks for you thoughts!!
Don't you think, so far, that we are developing 'our own lenses' upon his template? In other words, where is the confusion, disagreement, curiosity, and criticism that would lead us to look at how Steiner's blind-spots show up in his recommendations? Also, if we have members of our community who are have different experiences, discovering that they experience the basic clairvoyant experiences differently that Steiner, where are they? I imagine they'd follow Steiner's lead and be comfortable speaking publically...
As you can tell, I'm suspicious that there has been clairvoyant development in the ways Steiner said would be essential to the movement, and that he expected to begin happening in larger numbers through the last century.
Everett you said:
"His insights and directions for meditation, concentration, and visualization (i.e. lens forming) have passed the test in my experience."
I wonder exactly what you mean by this. Because what I've found is that many of us have experienced the fluidity of perception and thought that comes with doing the concentration and meditation exercises regularly. We all tend to be comfortable talking about the phenomenology of these changes in how we experience cognition and perception.
But I'm talking about the first stages of higher vision that Steiner says are absolutely critical to a spiritual science, not merely the kinds of experiential flexibility that come with a regular practice (which certainly help in terms of Goethean science). In other words, Steiner talks about the first step in objective 'higher seeing' relating to our capacity to consciously and intentionally and, most importantly, objectively observe the etheric body of a seed/plant. He gives great details of what this is like once it becomes and actual capacity. That's not to mention to the more complex development of the very early stages of higher vision.
When you say that his direction have passed the test for you, do you mean that you have personally experienced shifting to a stage where you can reliable observe the etheric plant?
Because when we have even just two living Anthroposophists who have made it to that stage (which Steiner clearly expected by now), then, per Steiner's comments, these people can and should be demonstrating their objectivity by sharing their observations in real time so as to not only extend anthroposphical research but to learn about this first stage of higher seeing more directly via actual shared observations.
I think I was unclear as to what I meant when I talked about 'lenses'. One thing that I know Steiner did well was that he presented a meditational path that transforms daily consciousness from the finished-thoughts and finished-perceptions of 'normal' life into the capacity to experience and stay with the living activity of cognition.
Thanks for chatting, especially on a subject that doesn't get much chat :)
What I meant when I said Steiners instuctions passed the test of my experience is that my practice has demostrated results that allow me to see--and surprisingly hear--vibrant qualities of living things that are not accessible to my eyes and ears. Respectfully, beyond that words fail me.
Ah, thanks. Yes, I fully understand that. It seems to me that nearly all paths that have a fairly grounded leader/teacher/starting point, give practices that open people up. And that is massively important.
I guess my questions about Steiner are more specifically about his statements regarding the necessity of the anthroposophical movement fostering the development of the first stages of objective clairvoyance as he describes it in his core books.
Rumi, Steiner, et., al. are incredible teachers who offer rich practices that open up our experiences to the Living Song that is the comos.
Great chat. I wonder if it might be more true to imagine what Steiner called hierarchical beings as unique shapes and movements of the will of God as opposed to entities with their own sources of will.
I almost imagine it as if a being were watching an acrobat flip around and the being could only see certain joints on the acrobat, causing it to look as if they were watching several beings moving in a coordinated way. That being would describe these supposedly separated beings as if they had their own centers of will and needs and strategies. Whereas, with better more accurate perception, the being would see the acrobat as a whole and then be radically re-understanding these aspects of its multiplicity.
As I read Occult Science I more and more wonder if the descriptions of the hierarchies have this filter being applied to them.
Ashton's question of what would we have heard out of the mouth of an Asian Steiner is brilliant? It gets at the questions I have been trying to open up for some time.
I know one quick answer would be this: an Asian Steiner would observe and understand the same facts as Steiner; so he would not disagree with anything Steiner said about the necessity of all races being held back until the white human achieves his mission.
But, I'd love to think that Ashton's question could be taken more deeply. IF an Asian Steiner had different experiences and interpreted those different experiences via a different methodology than Steiner did....what might we expect AND what does that suggest about how we read and work with the Steiner we have?
How can we ever get to a point where we have good reason to tread very lightly? I'm not talking about the obvious stuff like Steiner comments about white skin or his errors about bulls. I'm talking about the much more slippery stuff where he is simply telling us how to imagine the origins of what we see before our eyes...
Matt asks if Steiner is specific about races in terms of 'better and worse.' I think it is important to say Yes, in that Steiner is pointing out that the Earth WILL NOT make it's next step unless enough white people develop in a certain way. WE must just see that Steiner is clear on this. AND YET: he isn't saying this out of hatred. I'm not sure why it can't just be that simple. If Steiner explained why only blue eyed people could develop in the morally correct way that would allow Earth to survive, this doesn't mean he hates people with other eye colors. But, if we think he is wrong and if we think his ideas could have horrid effects on people taking them seriously, I think it helps to keep things as true and simple as possible. There is no avoiding the fact that he believed each race has a period of time in which it has to be the leading edge of development. Right? To me the more interesting questions is, what could have caused him to think this OTHER THAN simply that he was correct?
The differences are massive between the transformations necessary to do Goethean observations/research and to achieve the first stages of clairvoyance.
We all know that nearly all of the great Goethean research involves none of the perceptions supposedly acquired at even the first stage of clairvoyant development.
And we certainly know folks who have some kind of clairvoyance but who aren't at all skilled in observing and seeing in a Goethean way.
What I have found in my Anthroposohical life is that those of us who have worked diligently with the core exercises have been able to at least step our toes into Goethean perception/cognition.
When we talk about having made objective changes via Steiner's exercises, it seems we are pointing to those capacities rather than what Steiner clearly marks as the first stages of acquiring objective etheric vision.
There may be a subtle conflation between these two kinds of transformation.
I don't see signs that Anthroposophy is developing the latter. And, if that is true, I wonder if people think it matters. If people think it matters, I wonder where we can find those anthroposophical discussions. Methodology is fun!
Greetings Urphänomen.
I just listened to your recent post: “Hierarchy in the Evolution of Consciousness.” It was very interesting and provocative. Somehow, we seem to keep coming back to the topic of racial hierarchies don’t we. I would like to offer a few additional thoughts to the ongoing conversation, but since my response was too long for this comment section, I posted it to my Substack page: https://newworldstory.substack.com/
Hi Everett. Wow, that essay is an embarrassment of riches! There are so many conversations to pull out of that. Thanks for sharing the link.
I particularly loved this statement:
"If the world determines to find the means to cure racism once and for all, then it must first find a way to contend with the fear upon which racism feeds."
In this context, and with my particular interests/questions, I'll riff on the following.
It concerns me that folks who love and revere the work of Steiner can either,
1) Don't even know that he has stated explicitly why only white skinned people will be able to unite fully with the Christ for the next couple thousand years, how this explains why all other colored skin MUST remain behind, so that if white people achieve their mission they can impregnate all other skin colors with The Christ, allowing the next phase of evolution to proceed in a healthy manner.
2) Of the small amount of us Anthroposophists who know Steiner's explanation, the majority say, A) "We must not assume we understand what he means." or B) "He was a man of his times..."
3) Most importantly, the TINY group of Anthroposophists who are at least willing to acknowledge that it seems that Steiner's clairvoyant perceptions could be subject to errors, will read Steiner's core books on methodology and basic spiritual reality with utterly no concern that the very same methodological blind-spots that Steiner had (which does not mean he was only wrong about everything he said) could very well be showing up in his basic suggestions for development.
In other words, if the person who makes the first telescope has utterly no conception that the lens isn't perfect, and if his students unthinkingly accept this premise, they will make the exact same telescopes their teacher has taught them to make.
And I don't understand why Anthroposophists - especially those who are comfortable noticing that Steiner's lens was not at all perfect -- aren't making that the most exciting and important of Anthroposophical conversations. Instead, more study groups where we visualize Old Saturn and feel the depth of imagining such images.
That last line is a bit too snarky! :) But...doesn't it seem 1000 times more interesting and relevant to begin struggling to comprehend what was actually going on in Steiner's experience?
I mean...Steiner literally describes the clairvoyant experiences he had that PROVED to him the cause of the color red supposedly causing bulls to go wild. What was happening? I have no doubt he saw images and had to work carefully to understand them. And I have no doubt he was very very wrong. And, is this crazy to say, I have no doubt the same kind of honest error could have been taking place when he worked with his experiences around Old Sun and Moon. What is the value of meditating upon incorrect conclusions and images? If we mediate upon his comments regarding bulls, I think we simply reinforce both incorrect ideas and bad habits of cognition. Would it be the same regarding Old Sun, black skin, and any other conclusions/images that we are not directly working with ourselves?
This is why I am not a huge fan of how, in Occult Science, he stresses that one of the best starting points is for the reader to grasp the truth (as in logical coherence) of his accounts from the beginning. Yes, we already know that if somebody has strong reasons to believe in something, they will tend to 'see' it down the road, confirmed both in their direct and indirect experiences.
I love what you've added here to the conversation Jeff. Your point about a flawed lens is extraordinary. How in the heck can I see the world using someone else's glasses? The beautiful thing about anthroposophy is that we can develop our own lenses. If fact I think we're supposed to. Steiner's instructions in that regard have shown themselves to be immensely valuable. His insights and directions for meditation, concentration, and visualization (i.e. lens forming) have passed the test in my experience. Thanks for you thoughts!!
Don't you think, so far, that we are developing 'our own lenses' upon his template? In other words, where is the confusion, disagreement, curiosity, and criticism that would lead us to look at how Steiner's blind-spots show up in his recommendations? Also, if we have members of our community who are have different experiences, discovering that they experience the basic clairvoyant experiences differently that Steiner, where are they? I imagine they'd follow Steiner's lead and be comfortable speaking publically...
As you can tell, I'm suspicious that there has been clairvoyant development in the ways Steiner said would be essential to the movement, and that he expected to begin happening in larger numbers through the last century.
Everett you said:
"His insights and directions for meditation, concentration, and visualization (i.e. lens forming) have passed the test in my experience."
I wonder exactly what you mean by this. Because what I've found is that many of us have experienced the fluidity of perception and thought that comes with doing the concentration and meditation exercises regularly. We all tend to be comfortable talking about the phenomenology of these changes in how we experience cognition and perception.
But I'm talking about the first stages of higher vision that Steiner says are absolutely critical to a spiritual science, not merely the kinds of experiential flexibility that come with a regular practice (which certainly help in terms of Goethean science). In other words, Steiner talks about the first step in objective 'higher seeing' relating to our capacity to consciously and intentionally and, most importantly, objectively observe the etheric body of a seed/plant. He gives great details of what this is like once it becomes and actual capacity. That's not to mention to the more complex development of the very early stages of higher vision.
When you say that his direction have passed the test for you, do you mean that you have personally experienced shifting to a stage where you can reliable observe the etheric plant?
Because when we have even just two living Anthroposophists who have made it to that stage (which Steiner clearly expected by now), then, per Steiner's comments, these people can and should be demonstrating their objectivity by sharing their observations in real time so as to not only extend anthroposphical research but to learn about this first stage of higher seeing more directly via actual shared observations.
I think I was unclear as to what I meant when I talked about 'lenses'. One thing that I know Steiner did well was that he presented a meditational path that transforms daily consciousness from the finished-thoughts and finished-perceptions of 'normal' life into the capacity to experience and stay with the living activity of cognition.
Thanks for chatting, especially on a subject that doesn't get much chat :)
What I meant when I said Steiners instuctions passed the test of my experience is that my practice has demostrated results that allow me to see--and surprisingly hear--vibrant qualities of living things that are not accessible to my eyes and ears. Respectfully, beyond that words fail me.
Ah, thanks. Yes, I fully understand that. It seems to me that nearly all paths that have a fairly grounded leader/teacher/starting point, give practices that open people up. And that is massively important.
I guess my questions about Steiner are more specifically about his statements regarding the necessity of the anthroposophical movement fostering the development of the first stages of objective clairvoyance as he describes it in his core books.
Rumi, Steiner, et., al. are incredible teachers who offer rich practices that open up our experiences to the Living Song that is the comos.
Great chat. I wonder if it might be more true to imagine what Steiner called hierarchical beings as unique shapes and movements of the will of God as opposed to entities with their own sources of will.
I almost imagine it as if a being were watching an acrobat flip around and the being could only see certain joints on the acrobat, causing it to look as if they were watching several beings moving in a coordinated way. That being would describe these supposedly separated beings as if they had their own centers of will and needs and strategies. Whereas, with better more accurate perception, the being would see the acrobat as a whole and then be radically re-understanding these aspects of its multiplicity.
As I read Occult Science I more and more wonder if the descriptions of the hierarchies have this filter being applied to them.
Ashton's question of what would we have heard out of the mouth of an Asian Steiner is brilliant? It gets at the questions I have been trying to open up for some time.
I know one quick answer would be this: an Asian Steiner would observe and understand the same facts as Steiner; so he would not disagree with anything Steiner said about the necessity of all races being held back until the white human achieves his mission.
But, I'd love to think that Ashton's question could be taken more deeply. IF an Asian Steiner had different experiences and interpreted those different experiences via a different methodology than Steiner did....what might we expect AND what does that suggest about how we read and work with the Steiner we have?
How can we ever get to a point where we have good reason to tread very lightly? I'm not talking about the obvious stuff like Steiner comments about white skin or his errors about bulls. I'm talking about the much more slippery stuff where he is simply telling us how to imagine the origins of what we see before our eyes...
Matt asks if Steiner is specific about races in terms of 'better and worse.' I think it is important to say Yes, in that Steiner is pointing out that the Earth WILL NOT make it's next step unless enough white people develop in a certain way. WE must just see that Steiner is clear on this. AND YET: he isn't saying this out of hatred. I'm not sure why it can't just be that simple. If Steiner explained why only blue eyed people could develop in the morally correct way that would allow Earth to survive, this doesn't mean he hates people with other eye colors. But, if we think he is wrong and if we think his ideas could have horrid effects on people taking them seriously, I think it helps to keep things as true and simple as possible. There is no avoiding the fact that he believed each race has a period of time in which it has to be the leading edge of development. Right? To me the more interesting questions is, what could have caused him to think this OTHER THAN simply that he was correct?
The differences are massive between the transformations necessary to do Goethean observations/research and to achieve the first stages of clairvoyance.
We all know that nearly all of the great Goethean research involves none of the perceptions supposedly acquired at even the first stage of clairvoyant development.
And we certainly know folks who have some kind of clairvoyance but who aren't at all skilled in observing and seeing in a Goethean way.
What I have found in my Anthroposohical life is that those of us who have worked diligently with the core exercises have been able to at least step our toes into Goethean perception/cognition.
When we talk about having made objective changes via Steiner's exercises, it seems we are pointing to those capacities rather than what Steiner clearly marks as the first stages of acquiring objective etheric vision.
There may be a subtle conflation between these two kinds of transformation.
I don't see signs that Anthroposophy is developing the latter. And, if that is true, I wonder if people think it matters. If people think it matters, I wonder where we can find those anthroposophical discussions. Methodology is fun!