Drowning in Trivia
– an encounter with the latest book by the prolific writer Luigi Morelli: “Searching for the Spirit of the West” –
This work is extraordinary, and one must complement the author on his efforts in this regard. The “problem”, such as it is, has to do what he didn’t know and thus is missing from his symptomological approach to understanding America, and the general nature and meaning of earthly human social and political life.
As to my method of reading, I soon realized that trying to examine any detailed idea would involve making this “review” the work of months. So what I did was to methodically carefully scan each individual page, so that I could follow the major themes as they appeared.
Morelli is a true believer in what I have come to call “Steinerism”, which is the unjustified religious-like belief that every word of Rudolf Steiner’s can be trusted to be the truth. Morelli also extensively relies on the works of Ben-Aharon, an Israeli, which I have critically reviewed as well. http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/benaharon.html
In addition Morelli refers to the work of the English anthroposophist Terry Boardman.
If there is a shared “problem” for Morelli, Ben-Aharon, and Boardman, it is that they were not born in America. Lacking the American Soul, when they looked inward they saw something radically different from the real nature of peoples who live in the Americas.
On a certain level Morelli’s book reminded me of the works of Sergei O. Prokofieff, and I do not mean that as a complement. At the next link there is a review of Prokofieff’s terrible book on the Philosophy of Spiritual Activity.
http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/Prokofieffbookreview.html
Like that book, this one is a mass of ideas, asserted to be resting of the authority of Rudolf Steiner, yet completely “wrong” in that Morelli appears – as did Prokofieff – to have had no depth personal spiritual experiences of his own. http:/ipwebdev.com/hermit/threshold.html
When Irina Gordienko’s book “Sergei O. Prokofieff: Myth and Reality” appeared, she knew Steiner’s works well enough to see where Prokofieff was borrowing Steiner’s language usages, and then give them an added personal twist. So we get what Prokofieff fancies, buried in an avalanche of Steiner-saids.
As Prokofieff was then the current darling of “leading anthroposophical personalities”, Gordienko’s person was attacked, and efforts made to discredit her. As she had known Prokofieff personally, it was alleged she was a former lover who had attacked him out of spite.
The editor of an English anthroposophical magazine, who had published a story about her book, was demoted for doing that.
She had a remarkable mind, and was a student of topology, a high level mathematical discipline. A couple of years after her book was published, she disappeared, and her body was later found near an isolated roadside in a forest. Apparently she had been hit by a car and killed.
Remember, Morelli was not born in America, but Italy. I will repeat next what I experienced as an Imagination, and wrote of in my critique of Yeager’s book “Fire Borne”.
https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2023/04/30/stillborn-a-review-of-the-book-fire-borne-anthroposophy-in-america/
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“…,.When I was first living in Fair Oaks, California, and participating in the anthroposophical work there, there was to be a special meeting of the Faust* Branch of the Society, to celebrate 35 years of existence. In preparation I gathered stories of those who had been involved, and then meditated on these stories to see what such an overview would achieve. I was then gifted with an Imagination, which is a kind spiritual intercourse where the own spirit, and the deeper spirit co-produce a living image.
The image was divided into two related pictures, one is sketched in blue, and the other sketched in red. I have revisited this teaching over the years, finding deeper and more subtle meanings. The blue image was to the left, the other to the right.
The left imagine was of a man – a European, up off the ground so to speak, and he was surrounded by three acolytes (Americans), also above the ground and looking up adoringly at the one above them. The right image was of a man – another European, sitting on a low brick wall, in the posture of the art work known as The Thinker, by Auguste Rodin.
Near him, either laying on the ground, or leaning against the wall, lay three other figures, also Americans. The man in the air wore the visage of Rene Querido – the head of Rudolf Steiner College, and the siting man wore the visage of Carl Stegmann, who ran a group called the Emerson Study Group, of which I had been a member, and also a writer for Stegmann’s magazine, called America in The Threefold World. These writings included a short article on the question of whether or not the Steiner work was the expected return of Elder Brother, as described in the Hopi Prophecy. My later elaboration of that piece can be found in “The Mystery of the True White Brother”http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/eldbr.html and, “the Songs of a True White Brother” http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/twbhp.html
The last issue contained my first effort at social/political phenomenology: “Listening to the World Song”, which was later elaborated in “Listening to the World Song, part one” – A brief Application of the Principles of Goetheanistic Thinking to the Problems of Human Social and Political Existence: http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/lttwspo.html and “Listening to the World Song, part two” – Macro and micro aspects of the Mystery of Evil in Modern Times, as these play themselves out in the social-political organism of humanity. http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/lttwspt.html
Carl was a retired Christian Community priest – one of the original priests, and had actually meet Rudolf Steiner. He had studied America for years, and published several books and papers on America. Books: “The Other America – The Western World in the Light of Spiritual Science” in two parts. “Ralph Waldo Emerson – Forerunner of the Future”. “The Third Call – Apocalyptic Destiny and Future of America in the Light of Anthroposophy” Also a small paper: “The Time of the Eagles – Gaining a Spiritual Picture of America”.
As far as I know, few American anthroposophists have read these important books.
Rene was an expert in Waldorf Education in Europe. Carl had stood up at an early meeting of the Faust* Branch, and urged the development of a school, where two impulses would be worked upon. One was to be an introduction to Anthroposophy, and the other a place for the study of the Spiritual America.
I’ll skip the details, except to say that Rene was hired to run the introduction section, and the local community sought funds and bought land. One student of Carl’s quit his job and spent a year in England, deepening his studies of Goethean Science. When he returned, the impulse had become solely a center for training Waldorf Teachers, and the America Studies work lay in the dust.
As far as I know, Carl’s works, some still in print, are not studied much at all – which is a deep loss to students of Steiner everywhere in the world. When Carl left at age 85 to return to Europe, he called a meeting of those who had worked with him.
I remember two fundamental aspects. First, he said that the Society had made a big mistake after Steiner died, by looking to find him in his books, instead of the World of the Dead. Second, he urged us to learn to think properly, at which point he gestured with his right hand, and kind of cupped it behind his head. He had coined the term clair-thinking – in his writing, a modification the idea of clairvoyance, the former being something I have been able to achieve.
Later re-studies of this Imagination, revealed that the blue color signified the fact that European Anthroposophy was carried on a fundamentally artistic and feeling connection to the spirit world above, while the red color referred to the fire of will, seeking the spirit on the earth.
Additionally, I came to realize that the soul life of the European had a less dense aspect in the astral body, than was the nature of the American soul. This lack of astral density is what pushed the blue figures off the earth, disconnected from the soil of America.
Steiner, in his work: Geographic Medicine, speaks of the difference in the Doubles of the Americas, from the nature of the Doubles of Europeans. He said that it was crucial for doctors to study this soul phenomena in order the heal. I lived with an anthroposophical doctor for five years, and when I asked her about the study of the Double by doctors in America, she replied it never came up.
[ my main work on the Double is the book here: http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/mysteryofevil.html ] A shorter version I created for the recent MysTech conference, 40 of which were given away at that event. https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2023/06/20/the-mystery-of-the-double-in-the-light-of-the-teachings-of-rudolf-steiner/
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To repeat, a crucial matter is not what is in Morelli’s book, but what has been omitted. His discussion of the riddles of the so-called Mexican Mysteries is again rooted in Steinerism, whose errant thoughts on this subject have been corrected by Stephen Clarke’s work, which can be read here: http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/Clarke5.html
I can’t think of any people in the world who have not been on the wrong end of those who seek wealth and power, which “evils” are the main theme of this book. It makes more sense to me, that if you want to know the Spirit of a place, you don’t look at the elites, but the ordinary people, who must endure these trials.
Most of Morelli’s book is a discussion the historical political and economic aspects of the world, going west from the Ukraine, then coming to rest in the Americas. The amount of detail is extraordinary, such that if he discusses President Roosevelt, we might get pages of material on those surrounding him. The number of included peripheral characters is huge, and this scholarship has to be noticed. Yet, this makes the text’s important themes buried under what are essentially trivial matters.
Somehow we are to be impressed by the scale of it all, yet I found that it essentially had the quality of inflating the principle ideas, by giving so much time to the supporting cast.
Morelli does an excellent bit of work in developing the ideas living in Alcoholics Anonymous, as well as the conversational styles of the Quakers and others. However, he ignores the American Cultural Life*, (except for a use of the Wizard of Oz as a metaphor for economic duplicity) when he ignores the America of the 1960’s, as well as the artistic influences of music and film-making. Yeager’s work at least paid attention to Rock ‘n Roll, as well as Hip Hop, aka: Rap.
*[https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2022/11/06/four-giants-of-american-culture/ ]
Some years ago I listened to an interview on Terry Gross’s Fresh Air, an NPR program, where she interviews the poet laureate of England, which included a discussion of the works of Bob Dylan**. She asked him whether there was any current voice, of the same depth, and he replied Eminem.
Another common feature of this work is that all that Morelli sees as evil, is laid at the feet of Ahriman. Not realizing that that very “judgment” can only lead to folly. Much is made of the Idea of Christ’s Return in the Ethereal, which Morelli seems unable to describe as an experience. Yet, the key to that experience involves practicing Judge Not, because the surface of any social phenomena is just that … it is not the depths. http://ipwebdev.com/stgfr5.html
Many anthroposophists have a fixation on this Ahriman spirit, blaming him it whatever, for any social phenomena they don’t like. Since Steiner had an odd relationship to the Feminine Mysteries, anthroposophists do not yet see She is being remembered all over the world. If they did, they would see that She rules these darker spirits, and keeps them in check. They are not actually “evil”, but rather are negative (causing decay) or positive (causing creation). In addition to positive and negative processes, there exists a mediating neutral process, which functions as a balancing feature between the two extremes.
I have also read Morelli’s book on the riddle of the Aristotelians and the Platonists. Morelli is of the view that in our present this is a matter of the difference in the philosophies of Aristotle and Plato. If one were to do a search of the Steiner Archive for the terms “Goddess Natura”, the relevant material is found there.
https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA238/English/APC1957/19240912a01.html
Steiner indicated that there were two groups of wisdom teachers, that did not usually incarnate in the same age. Yet, around the ninth century the two met at Chartres, and would do so again on the cusp between the 20th Century and the 21st. Steiner will have reincarnated along some others of his students who had been present in the early 20th Century, and had been co-workers of his at that time.
They would be the Aristotelians.
The Platonists, on the other hand, had been connected to the Feminine Mysteries, in which Plato and his teacher Socrates had been initiates. Steiner went on to assert that if the co-working of this small group of wisdom teachers did not succeed in finding a unified approach, a good future for human civilizations would be unlikely.
At this point in time, folk such as myself, Stephen Clarke, and Catherine MacCoun – devotes of the Feminine Mysteries – are excluded from anthroposophical undertakings.
My friend Liz Mackenzie wrote this (it is part of a larger letter on the significance of the appearance of Pluto: https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2023/01/16/more-liz-aka-barbara/ )
“ … Having heard the call to Earth issued by RS that Platonists and Aristotelians would need to meet on Earth at the end of the 20thc. we were on our way and in varying degrees of closeness to the Earth when it was eclipsed.
Why would we need to meet? So that the Percept of the Christ Times, represented by the Platonists who were on earth at the Time, and the Concept of the Christ Times, represented by the Aristotelians who were in the spiritual world at the Time, would come together and the Full Reality of the Living Christ, the concept and percept as per The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity would meet as living beings on earth and would enable a great advance in human understanding of the Living Cosmic Christ. … “
I have not given up on the Anthroposophical Society, although Catherine and Stephen have. I just recently created a book on the Mysteries of the Mother, which I dedicated to the Youth Section of the Anthroposophical Society in America, and 14 copies were sent to their recent summer gathering via the Steiner Library in Hudson, NY..
They are the future, and I hope that this connection will do that for which Steiner wished – the creation of wisdom involving both Christ and the Mother, or as I like to frame it: She has the whole world in His Hands.
Fake Ancient Alien Theorist Foolishly Visits the Collective Imagination 