The Magic of Individual Political Spirituality
In the Light of Rudolf Steiner’s Teachings Regarding the Threefold Social Organism
The first key-idea is “threefold”. The story is told that once Steiner began to see threefoldness everywhere, he waited seventeen years before first beginning to publish this material in the book: Riddles of Philosophy.
Primal phenomena follows these laws. In the most ancient times the world was seen as Father and Mother and Son, yet all one … a Unity. The names varied all over the world, but the principle (see next) was the same.
Christian tradition speaks of the Holy Spirit as an essential part of
the Trinity, but this was a mask over the more fundamental role of
the Mother, who is the Many, while the Father is the One. The Mother
– as an Idea in the cultural West – has gone into … waiting,
for when the three monotheism buried/ruined/destroyed the Goddess
Religions, with Grace She Surrendered. The Earth Religions were
being subsumed everywhere, and their pagan, magical, and mystical
natures grew mostly silent and hidden, for these were powers that in
the coming Age of Science&Technology would have overwhelmed the
world, if rediscovered in/via the wrong hands.
According to Liz MacKenzie’s spiritual research: Ahriman’s “success with Nietzsche prompted an attempt to incarnate in the Centre within the German language where he would have appeared as the Double of Christ, that is to say, humanity would have experienced him as Christ whilst Sorat replaced Lucifer. To be more spiritually scientifically precise, Ahriman, Lucifer’s karma, tried to free himself from Lucifer and hence from Christ, the Lord of Karma, and incarnate as a pseudo Lukan child. He would have possessed extraordinary magical powers so that it would have been virtually impossible for any majority to have distinguished him clearly and, given that the Theosophical Society was confused on this issue of The Second Coming, very great danger for humanity was in process. This attempt in the Centre was prevented by RS incarnating Anthroposophy into the German language through the German language Archangel and Michael, the Time Spirit.…
… “Since he had failed to conquer the world from the Centre, he would have to now work from the West, the only unconquered directional. Spiritual/cultural North, South, East and West (represented by RS. Marie Steiner. Ita Wegman and Elizabeth Vreede in this undertaking) had prevented his incarnation in “magical/religious/spiritual form” in the Cultural Centre; he would have to incarnate in politico/economic form, that is to say he would have to work from out the politico/economic spheres from the West since he was prevented from working as a Mystic from out the Centre.”
Ahriman then appears as the American Karl Rove. See “Rovism” https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2019/07/19/rovism/ and “Overcoming Rovism” https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2019/07/22/overcoming-rovism/ for details.
Many people are justly worried over the effects the American Empire has had upon the world, and as the Third Millennium began, Rove/Ahriman was resting comfortably in the White House, as an aide to George Bush.
As
a natural outgrowth of Rovism, we get Donald Trump, and the politics
of lying becomes farce. What is true? What source can be trusted?
Are Facebook, Google, and the NSA helping or hindering humanity?
If
we understand Steiner’s Threefold Social Organism idea, we have in
the upper vertical of the totality, the Cultural Sphere, and at the
opposite pole, the Economic Sphere. In the middle then is the
Political-Legal Life. In my work: Threshold Problems in Thinking the
Threefold Social Order, [
http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/thpts.html
]
I develop the idea that similar to the sub-threefolding of Cultural,
which is Science, Art, and Religion, and the sub-threefolding of the
Economic Life, which is Production, Distribution, and Consumption,
the middle Sphere also has a sub-threefolding: State, Media, and
People.
We
can make a venn diagram of the three spheres, in a kind of triangular
form, with the three overlapping in the center. The individual human
being is in the “center” of that idea/relationship, given
that we participate in all aspects of the social organism
Why
then
a form of upper,
middle, and lower – the
three spheres one on top of the other?
Theses features are mirrors of the organic nature of the human
organism. The realm of thinking, in the nerve-sense system, the
realm of will in the metabolic-limb system, and the realm of feeling
in the heart/lung rhythmic system.
We can now see three
reflected analogues, this way:
Science ~!~!~!~State ~!~ !Production;
Art ~!~!~!~!~!~!Media ~!~!Distribution
Religion ~!~!~! People ~!~!Consumption
To feel/see/know this organization of phenomena in the right way … that is to sense the Art of it, we could see Media, as the heart of the heart of the social organism.
Trump, Rove’s Rosemary’s baby, is giving the heart of the heart of America, a heart-attack, through seeking to drive the truth from Media.
Not many read my article on Threshold Problems in Thinking the Threefold Social Order, but Terry Boardman did, and he wrote this, in an essay called: The Idea of the Threefold Society at the Dawn of the Third Millennium, which was first published in the book: The Future is Now: Anthroposophy at the New Millennium.
“In his lectures to the West-East Congress in Vienna 1922, Rudolf Steiner spoke of Europe-Asia as ‘the problem’ of modern times and Europe-America as ‘the solution’. By this he meant that Europeans were preserving the dessicated remnants of an ancient Asian spirituality in the dusty abstractions of their intellectual, political, and religious systems. The future lay rather with the will to create out of nothing. And this willingness he saw in the youthful energies of the Americans. It is no surprise therefore to learn that it is an American anthroposopher, Joel Wendt, who has articulated best this need for Anthroposophy to enter the belly of the Media. Wendt has written: (13)
“What else have politicians, terrorists, single interest groups, businesses etc. been fighting to control and manipulate? Within Media the People come to common (equalized) self knowledge and mutual understanding. Within Media the idea of the State and of the rights and duties of citizenship come to common form. Media shines light on the activities of the State, and media personalities (with varying degrees of consciousness and moral integrity) believe they act thus for the People. However we turn our thinking, if we remain pictorially descriptive of the dynamics of social life as these actually play themselves out in the political-legal sphere we will come to the perception of the threefoldness of State-Media-People.
“It is a risk, Wendt says, to enter this realm, but a risk that should be taken, a nettle that should be grasped if the Media serpent is not to continue merely to slide in the dust.
From Malcolm X
“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses. …This is the press, an irresponsible press. It will make the criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
For students of Rudolf Steiner there can be a dilemma, given that he said that politics is not the business of the Anthroposophical Society. This meant that the Society was not to form a collective political decision about anything, … to not take “positions”, or appear to the public to be partnered, with any political party.
In practice this has caused a number of people who know Steiner to become parts of various “green” or environmentally favorable parties.
Then
there is the threefold social order Idea itself, … how is that Idea
to
be brought to the world?
Here is Steiner from one of the
lectures collected under the title: “Threefolding as
a
Social Alternative”, given in Oxford
(here
I am paraphrasing): that the time had passed for the application of
the threefold social order in central Europe, but that even so, this
idea could still be fruitful in Russia and America (if appropriately
restated), and that for the West, time did not matter so much because
much could still be done for the right ordering of the three spheres.
What did he mean: the time had passed?
If
we remember the historical
context
for these Ideas to appear, they were laid out after World War I, in a
brief moment when there was a lot of social chaos. Once the old ways
had reasserted themselves, the ripe cusp had passed by … for
Central Europe.
If we think into this situation in a
living way, we might begin to realize that social life has many
organic qualities. It is essentially alive. As something alive it
is born, grows, becomes, undergoes metamorphosis, and dies.
In my long long essay (offered in the mid-90’s in five parts to the American Newsletter, with no reply that it was even received) “Waking the Sleeping Giant – the mission of Anthroposophy in America” among other kinds of living thoughts, I offered the view that if we look at history in the right way, we can see the slow&natural emergence – of the Threefold Social Order/organism – over time.
This capacity to appear, and grow and change, has to do with the effect of the human being naturally imposing his own soul nature on the life that surrounds him. In point of fact, the appearance of Media as the middle of the itself threefolded political legal sphere, most dynamically came about when the printing press arrived, and oral culture began transforming on its own, as more and more people became able to read. An instance worth a thousand (after Goethe) is what happened when the Bible was translated into various languages other than Latin. There is no wider awareness of Luther’s 95 Theses (in 1517), without Gutenberg’s Bible (1450, more or less).
The State, at the time of the founding of Western Civilization, was originally twofold, for only back then did the idea of the “citizen” arise, … details are in the long long essay: http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/wkslg.html
The point for us moderns is to realize that the era of social chaos, into which we now descend, is ripe with opportunity to take the next step – in the growth of the social organism – consciously. The question is “how”.
Remember, much can be done for the right ordering of the three spheres. What does this have to do with the situation in America?
One of the actions, ordinary thinking finds hard to do, is to set aside antipathy and sympathy, so as to be able to think phenomenologically. We observe what the social is itself doing. We listen to the song of the world, and do not judge it. True knowledge requires love of the object of knowledge.
In
shaman school (I was led there by the Mother&Son), we learn that
if something exists, it has been approved all the Way up Jacob’s
Ladder, and all the Way down into the oldest powers of the Earth.
Not liking something, in the sense of wishing it did not exist,
doesn’t work. Looking more carefully at what we do not like in the
social, offers
an opportunity to
make a conscious effort to redeem what appears there in thought. An
act that has to be done on purpose. See my “pragmatic moral
psychology” [ http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/stgfr5.html
]
Trump
exists,
and that event demands our careful consideration.
To Socrates (one of my spirit guides) the situation is farce, for the Gods&Goddesses always interfere, generally for our benefit (we being children of the divine). They multitask on levels we can not imagine. There are no accidents, and everything has a purpose, or better yet: it’s story.
In my political works I describe the situation in modern America as involving the natural death of the system of political parties. They have no viability anymore, being filled from within with the forces of death, that arrive as the fruit of an intellect untamed by the heart.
Now
America is a place not much understood among the Steiner folk, who
quite naturally (themselves), like to hate the evil empire. During
this cusp – on the birth of the Third Millennium – that has to go
with the dying into a new becoming of Western Civilization, most folk
will be looking to see who to blame. There is a saying out of
Japanese culture: “Don’t fix the blame, fix the problem”.
Stop
complaining. Read the Signs of the Times, and Act.
Mass media is owned by the dark, body and soul. What the world’s peoples need is better stories, stories that help them see what is going on, in a spiritually more healthy way. At the same time, they have no desire to be told to think Steiner. Their problems are far more immediate.
Here’s
what I wrote at the end of my: “Threshold Problems in Thinking the
Threefold Social Orders”:
“Recall
that when the civic form at the founding of the Greek civilization
began to relieve the cultural life of certain social-order
responsibilities,
the forces formerly devoted to this task became freed, and the
cultural life flowered with great creativity. In the present moment
the economic life, formerly carried more within the political, is now
outside it, in fact infecting the political-legal dynamics and
distorting them. There is of course no predicting how events will
proceed, yet it seems clear to me that this historic moment is
pregnant with certain kinds of potential. Just as there is great risk
of a further fall into materialism, so as well there is much
possibility for spiritual transformation. If we do not blind
ourselves with a kind of threefold dogma (for example, that the first
need is to free the spiritual cultural life), but instead truly
perceive the actual dynamics. then as far as I am able to hold in
pictorial thought, the
ripe moment lies in bringing moral trans-formative forces to the
thinking active within the Media, to bring a song to life just here
in the heart of the heart of the social organism.”
Not the song of Steinerism and threefolding, but the song of the world itself, mirrored back to it, through the medium of stories that redeem all, and yet touch the heart without judgment. The A. Society membership has a lot of potential, but only if they learn, as Steiner himself advised, in “Inner Aspects of the Social Question”: “ … to listen to the Christ Impulse in the Thinking of the Other”.
Even Trump has a human story. Who will dare to tell it?
Still, … the title used the word Magic
The Magic of Individual Political Spirituality
In the Light of Rudolf Steiner’s Teachings Regarding the Threefold Social Organism
… why is that?
Steiner predicted that not only would folk begin to be able to meet Christ in the Ethereal (the realm of thought) starting around 1933, he also predicted that at the end of the 20th Century, some individuals he described as Platonists would gather with folk – including Steiner – who had been around at the beginning of the Century, and were to return at the end … these folk double-dipping incarnations in the same Century, … Steiner called them: Aristotelians.
He said that the two groups had “karma” to work out, and that this gathering (which he called the Culmination) needed to go forward in the right way, otherwise the Third Millennium would be a disaster. My article on this is here: [ http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/Culmination.html ]
I
was there, so was Steiner wearing a different name, and enjoying a
biography of quiet pleasures … family, children, aging, and the
normal ups and downs in relationships.
Basically there was
an internet discussion group, the Ark, which lasted from about 1997
to 2003. The group had been originally called: Anthroposophy, then
Anthroposophia, However, those venues suffered from flame wars and
trolls (folks who show up just to make havoc – often posting well
intoxicated), so the Ark was created, and had a moderator with
absolute power to boot anyone who did not want to take the questions
being faced seriously.
Some of us had been (and still were) involved in the anti-Waldorf wars, such as Dan Dugan’s “Waldorf Critics” discussion (use the term cautiously here) group.
Many people there on the Ark were having direct spiritual experiences of one kind or another, and these are fundamentally intimate, so having a venue where it was safe to speak from the heart was essential. At the same time, we had no idea that this was the “Culmination”, and that if it did not go well, then the consequences for humanities future would be dire.
Many there loved Steiner and Anthroposophy, while at the same time not finding the Anthroposophical Society to be anything other than people who gained prominence via their ability to quote Steiner, as well as the “political acumen” to win friends and influence people. At one point I compared the A. Society to a department in a University, with all the normal infighting and struggles over who gets money for what pet-project of theirs being put forward. All very polite on the surface, but very messy and territorial as well. Mostly, just human.
On the Ark we shared deep and provocative thoughts, all the while struggling with the world conditions of decay that were everywhere. A story …
Catherine MacCoun, easily the most gifted in a certain way, shared with us in the fall of 2000, that Christ had invited her to go to Morocco (she spoke French), where she was to experience Ramadan among the Islamic folk there. When hanging out in cafe’s, she took up conversations with many men there, for she was a striking blond American. Eventually they saw how sincere she was, so invited her to spend the month of Ramadan in the women and children’s compound of a large extended family.
On her return, and reconnecting to the Ark, she began to write what she was calling her Ramadan Diaries, which included this remarkable idea. Christ’s social teaching had not been able to incarnate when He was here in the physical (Greeks, Romans, Jews didn’t have the right stuff, yet), so this work rose in a kind of hyperbolic arc with Christ no longer incarnated, … still these social Ways were then able to come down via the Archangel that inspired Mohammad.
I have written – in detail – elsewhere, of the underlying truths that generated the three patriarchal monotheisms, which are not separate events, but parts of a single whole. See: “Tiger Saucy tells of some overlooked features of the true story of religions.” [ https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2019/11/08/tiger-saucy-tells-of-some-overlooked-features-of-the-true-story-of-religions/ ]
Anyway, when 9/11 happened in 2001, we on the Ark understood why Christ encouraged Catherine to make her journey. Having also been “encouraged/asked” myself by Christ on more than one occasion, let me say He just shows you stuff. Stuff in you, stuff in the world. This knowledge becomes part of you, and then you have to freely choose to follow a trail of spiritual breadcrumbs, that has you going off into territories unknown and unpredictable.
The Platonists – at the Culmination – were folk to whom the word pagan could be applied. Their Ways including the magical&mystical sides of spiritual development, which Steiner – with good reason – had discouraged while he was alive.
The “Magic of Political Spirituality” is about what those – who were devotees/shamans of the Holy Mother – can offer to the further understanding of the dynamics of social threefolding in an Age of Social Chaos.
Ceremony&Rite. In his lectures in Awakening to Community, in #6, Steiner speaks of the “reverse cultus”, which is a Rite where the group ascends into the world of spirit together, through living conversation. The opposite kind of Rite is what is in the Christian Community, where the spirit is invited down into the community.
Human political life has a tendency to rhythmic processes, such as regular elections. In effect these are Rites in which the Spirit of a people&nation can be renewed. That said it is necessary to focus on the situation in America, because the empires of heartless commercialism (multi-national corporations) have there – in America – a weakness: This is the idea which was born when the Colonies threw over the English influence, via a bloody war, that ended up with a document that begins: “We the People … do ordain and establish … “, and which ends, in the 10th Amendment: “Powers not delegated … are reserved … to the People.”
In America the citizen is the sovereign. The means the Americans have the potential to drive a stake right through the heart of the social vampires lurking in the Halls of Commercial Banking.
To the extent that the Divine Mystery guides historical events, They do not make matters easy. In the Age of the Consciousness Soul, where people are learning how to bring alive the moral out of themselves, this crash and burn of Western Civilization is a stew pot of crisis and choice.
That’s how it works in the Fifth post-Atlantean cultural Epoch. That’s why there are billions who have chosen to incarnate at this cusp. That is why America seems to so many to be horrible dangerous on the one hand, and a place of dreams where one is free from the chaos elsewhere.
There is a tendency, for abstract thinking driven by antipathy, to mistake the noise for the music.
Each single biography is the focus of Love, which is able to work from outside of time and space. The times reek with hard choices, for real spiritual growth is neither easy, nor universal. There is only the individual’s Way.
Anthroposophists
have been gifted with much wisdom. They/we are the stewards of this
wisdom. At this moment the Aristotelians (who value the names and
categories of all the parts – witness Steiner’s 6,000 lectures on
many single aspects of the Divine Mystery – a necessary task on the
cusp between the Intellectual Soul and the Consciousness Soul) …
these speakers of Spiritual Science, are being asked by the
Platonists (who are devotees of the Mother), to notice that one
effect of Steiner’s works, is to establish Goethean Science.
The
presently existing texts of Goethean Science, if viewed as a whole,
establish scientifically that the Earth-planet is a living Cosmic
Being, known to antiquity as “the Mother”.
Tragically, through an excess of Steiner-said, the Anthroposophical Society is frozen in time, in the past of when there was the great teacher – the amazing wizard Rudolf Steiner – that lived among us. Who, by the Way, pointed a serious finger at Goethe (his first two books were about Goethe), pointed a finger at the Return of the Christ in the Ethereal, and pointed another finger at the Platonists, who would add to the Return of the Christ, the understanding that the Mother is/has always been among us as well.
She has the whole world in His Hands.
Some years ago, Stuart Weeks asked me to do some research on Dennis Kucinich. In the thinking that I did, inspired by this work, I wrote: “Celebration and Theater – a People’s Art of Statecraft” [ http://ipwebdev.com/celebration/ ]
All over the world, folk are divided, in large part because it is advantageous for power&wealth to keep us weak and divided. In America, this situation has become very acute given the arrival of Trump&Friends. Yet, that very fact leads to noticing that the power of the sovereign citizen in America is to use arts of Celebrate and Theater to end the divisions. How?
In my Social and Economic Rebellion***, I describe how we gain “separation” from the influence of the selfish, by throwing a party and inviting our neighbors whose life trials are exactly like ours, in spite of whatever political theology within which we have become entangled. We have children. We have poverty. Our marriages are at risk. Our health issues are severe. We have real life issues in common. For some details: https://thecollectiveimagination.com/why-the-trump-voter-is-the-single-most-crucial-political-phenomena-of-our-time/
Yet, there has to be the choice to step across the divisions. Again, leave aside the noise and listen to the actual music of the World’s Song. Or as Steiner might have put it: leave aside the non-essential for the true essential.
Fake Ancient Alien Theorist Foolishly Visits the Collective Imagination 