Broken Souls

Broken Souls

In my daily digital New York Times today, there was another story of a mass shooting, only four dead this time.

From one point of view, we also have serious drug problems, not just in America, but in many other places. Still … we Americans are appalled at the destruction of lives that followed the oxycodone epidemic, which has now become a fentanyl epidemic.

Alcoholism is still a major problem, and now that Marijuana is legal, the misuse of that substance will increase.

Many people, with these kinds of issues, are residents of the lower economic classes. Often unemployed and under educated, methamphetamine had become the escape of choice, especially in rural areas. Heroin and cocaine are “useful” as well, for a life with few options.

In the upper classes, your dealer will deliver to your home and/or office, you don’t need to find the right street corner.

A lot of folks think we need more laws, others less. Control the guns. Imprison drug users, as well as the dealers. Law enforcement is too often in the service of drug cartels. Courts of Justice also can be bought.

The Covid Mystery made clear that major social communities, such as the politicians, the corporations, and the News Media, are not very useful – all of them in love with money and power, and the truth be damned.

We have entered an era where the government is forcing folk to take a medicine they do not want. Teachers and nurses (the latter know where the bodies are buried) are being denied work unless they are vaccinated. In addition, via the lock downs, and other draconian rules, many of the young, as well as adults, are showing one or another form of PTSD.

A question often not asked enough – with regard to voluntary drug use, is: Why are so many people so needy and undisciplined? Do parents fail? Do schools fail? Do religions fail in their duties as well? Every addict, and mass murderer, is a Broken Soul, and the pandemic has created more.

My view is that if we want to heal something in the social life, we need to think in new ways. For Steiner fans this means the threefold social organism. Is that actually doable? Or, … is it just another fantasy to salve our own dismay?

When I began my Goethean studies of the Social-Political Organism of humanity, it was clear to me that a lot of folks offering their version of “solutions” didn’t actually see what social reality was doing. There were clearly observable currents in these modern seas of social chaos. If we don’t perceive those, we will guide our ship of a solution – often against, or across – these powerful social/spiritual “force streams”.

After 81 years of life, I’ve seen a lot of change in the social world, whether in the Cultural Sphere, the Political Legal Sphere, or the Economic Sphere. Most of these changes have been for the worse.

In a Goethean spiritual social science, it is crucial to behold in the imagination changes over time. It isn’t just what is “wrong” today, but what is the history of that “wrongness”. What is its tale/story? Where are we headed? A principle perception is that we are living in the Dying and Becoming of “Western” Civilization.

Another observation/perception I called: the Primal Paradox. From the individual human point of view there is much that is wrong, or unhealthy, in social life; while for the Mystery our existence is perfect.

This idea has come, over the years, to be expressed this Way: We are all the right people, in the right place, at the right time.

The world is exploring a difficult stage in the evolution of consciousness, … one where we can author the true and the good out of our own being. In our life we are co-participants in the nature of social-political existence, with each of us free to act within the reach of our own will, while – as Steiner puts it: Trusting the Future. My version: leave the Big Picture to the Big Picture folk – trust and have faith in Them, for they have – placed Their Trust in us.

When I was writing a long essay called: “Waking the Sleeping Giant: the Mission of Anthroposophy in America” [ http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/wkslg.html ], I did a review of how the Threefold Social Organism was appearing – in the life of humanity – over time.

For example, around the time of the ancient Egyptians, the cultural or religious life gave order to societies. The priests guided this realm, out of the mysteries, and via initiation rites. As the Greeks, and then the Romans appeared, the former cultural life divided into two, a Cultural Sphere and a beginning Political-Legal Sphere. The main phenomena was the coming to the fore – as an organizing principle – of the Ideas of the State on the one hand, and of the Citizen on the other. The evolution of this Sphere continued over the course of the newly born “Western” Civilization.

The Cultural Sphere itself inwardly threefolded, into religion, art, and science. When this happened, this lessening of the control via the Cultural Life (the Mysteries), and the arrival of the State and the Citizen, social forces for the Cultural Sphere no longer needed to “manage” as much as it did before. This freed Cultural Life is what we see in the extraordinary beauty of the Greek Civilization, which the Romans absorbed.

This Political Legal life itself developed over the course of “Western” Civilization, and between the two poles of State and Citizen, their arose a middle element: Media. All this was made possible by the development of the printing press.

Some details here: “Threshold Problems in Thinking the Threefold Social Order”: http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/thpts.html

Since the printing press, Media itself has evolved, leading us step by step to the “smart phone”.

The Economic Sphere first appears when trading empires link the various nation states into massive forms of commerce. Keep in mind Steiner’s view, that there is only one “World” Economy, and the ideas of different States having individual economies is a fantasy.

This Sphere also is inwardly threefolding, into production, consumption, and distribution. Leaving us with: Religion, Art, Science; State, Media, Citizen, and Production, Consumption, and Distribution.

Keep in mind, however, that the Economy is still evolving, although we also need to recognize that “Western” Civilization is floundering.

One of the more interesting Ideas I encountered in Steiner was given to the doctors, when he advised that it was crucial to strengthen the rhythmic aspect of the heart and lungs, in order to promote healing.

Does this mean that if we want to gain traction in placing limits on certain excesses in the Economic Sphere, we first need to enliven the Sphere of Rights?

It is also crucial to realize that this set of ideas, differentiating the Three Spheres, is not reality. Reality is the Whole, not just any of the Parts.

Part of modern Reality is the Religion of Scientific Materialism. It is a yoke on the spirits of humanity, and must be addressed.

This is a helpful way to view the situation. Steiner, and his inspired Goethean scientists, have produced work that resolves the problem by adding to our understanding of Matter, a science – as well – of Spirit.

This evolution of science comes at particularly unique moment in human evolution. We are on the cusp of the Third Millennium, the Second Becoming of Christ (the Maker) in the Realm of Living Thought, and the remembering of the Holy Mother – Earth Mother.

She, who has the whole world in His Hands, is of the wild, the magical, and the mystical. She is Rogue Weather, the rider of the Four Horseman, and Gate of Death, and Divine Providence – for starters. The Father is/was the One, and the Mother is the Many – She is in All.

The Covid Mystery is a designed – by Them (Fate/Karma & Fortune/Providence), to be – a world-wide Rite of Initiation. The spectre of Death increased dramatically, and the pandemonium of our public response gave the whole world a “time out” for reflection.

Layered, into the Social Whole, is something called the Law. On a wider scale, there are two kinds of Courts. The official, and limited Courts, and the more wild Court of Public Opinion.

If the Anthroposophical Community wants to make a real, and precise, effort to evolve the Threefold Social Organism, it will recognize – for many reasons – that this Court of Public Opinion is an element of Media, and that Media is the heart of the heart of the Social Organism.

To evolve the Law, Tomberg has given us a remarkable work. Not easy to read, for its demands we develop our thinking. Get and read the book: “The Art of the Good”, which is about the degeneration and the redemption of the Law.

It is through the combination of these various ideas, and having been a lawyer (at one time licensed to practice in Montana and Colorado, and having been a clerk on the Montana Supreme Court, following graduating from Law School with the high A in the evidence course) … I could see the possibility of challenging scientific

materialism in Courts of Law, as a means of reaching the Courts of Public Opinion.

To what spiritual purpose? If a Corporation can be a Person before the Law, then certainly a Planet can be a Person before the Law. Details here:
https://thecollectiveimagination.com/shamans-law-firm/

The Nature of the War Against Humanity, and the Role of the Multinational Corporation

The title to this medication was Broken Souls. In today’s world are there any people, who are not on some level broken? Expectations, wishes, dreams, never realized. A daily dose of woe, in the school or hard knocks and shared pain.

Steiner fans into “threefolding” need to look up from their Steiner reading, and observe the speech of the world. It tells a story of a need for forces of human will to be applied directly into the Sphere of Rights, and its heart: Media.

But what message? Steiner? No, the message is about Holy Mother – Earth Mother, a Planet that should have just as much recognition as a Person, as is claimed for the soulless corporation.