Vol. I, Issue no. I, summer 1997
**Outlaw Anthroposophy – the journal: This is the original journal passed out at the Ann Arbor conference in the summer of 1997. Two essays: The Study of Rudolf Steiner’s Lecture Cycles and the Problem of Cognition: musings on the epistemological swampland of the Anthroposophical Movement; and The Anthroposophical Society: is it a living social form?; as well as, a Readers Poll asking the 25 questions you have always wanted to be asked about the anthroposophical movement. These two essays were later translated into German by Lorenzo Ravagli, at his request, and published in the journal: Jahrbuck fur anthroposophische Kritick 1998. The Lecture Cycle essay concerns a specific problem, namely whether the reading of a text is knowledge, in the senses of the epistemology (science of knowing) upon which Anthroposophy is founded. My conclusion is that, in general, reading is not “knowledge”, from which certain conclusions, about whether Anthroposophy in any way “lives” in Study Groups, follow. The social form essay concerns the obvious, and in concluding that the Society is not “living”, explores how that has come to be.
OUTLAW (rebel) ANTHROPOSOPHY
Vol. II, Issue no. I, Winter 2024
another declaration of independence: spiritual science with passion – light and heat
Birthing the Future – the Next Hundred Years of the Anthroposophical Society.
Once upon a Time there came to be a Place in Space, called: the Earth. More of a state of mind, than anything else. To use the term Womb is not inaccurate, although we need to grasp the ideal, and not the physical. A Womb is a place of magical growth, warmth and peace, yet this state gets sacrificed for the Life of the Biography.
Pagan (Zen) Anthroposophy
– a fable –
the members of the A. Society have done considerable wonders – there is, however, more to do, which is to optimize how we present the works of the Steiner spirit to the world – to get better at it.
http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/ZenA.html
I’ve done the heavy lifting. Scouted the territory. Carefully drawn new maps. Revealed a Way to get Steiner better known in the whole world. Made possible a healthy direction for the emerging new civilization. Use it or loose it. The Source sees another direction – the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature, is the Autumn Michaelic Festival pointed to by Steiner. The Culmination Idea is to create an annual Spring Festival, centered on Earth Day, when environmental lawsuits are filed where the Planet is the named plaintiff. The Anthroposophical Society will find its true next hundred years task in being involved in, and perhaps leading, the work of remembering the Goddess Natura in a scientific fashion.
Such involvement means nothing more than sharing what has been thought in me … after confirming it yourself … and then taking up – as friends of the spirit once named Steiner, the works of the Goethean scientists … along with study groups on Steiner’s GA-2: “Goethe’s Theory of Knowledge.”
Or not. “Not” just means the end of civilization, with the result that the life sphere is in ruins, and the Mother is dusting off the plans She made before guiding Atlantean civilization to magically
disappear into myth. Welcome to:
Orphaned in Steiner Land – an esoteric comedy. We are actors in a Play rendered by a Mad God. Stuck in our own movie, star, writer, director, critic … “you are me and I am you and we are all together” the Beatles … “all the love you’ve been giving has all been meant for you” the Moody Blues. Welcome to the Circus.
If it wasn’t so tragic, it would be funny. The Anthroposophical Society is not on the Earth in America. Not grounded. And, this is not surprising.
Time to come down from pie in the sky (the three Chakras above the heart, and learn to muck around in the dirt (the three Chakras below the heart). To understand, recall Steiner: “Karma will hold sway”. There isn’t a problem, that some self-honesty can’t address. That there are problems, … no worry, these are signs of life, which is never meant to be easy.
Dear friends of Rudolf Steiner, and other creatures of the Moonlight, dancing to the songs of the Holy Mother-Earth Mother … although … Steiner’s Verse for America is lacking – connection. He was not born in the Americas. Better short version: “We dream America; We sing Her Shadow and Her Light; we dream America, and America Dreams us” Long version: “Bye, Bye miss American Pie”.
I am going to do some Zoom gatherings. A year ago Andrew Linnell and I discussed me doing such “presentations”, and the material next below is what I offered to him in an email. By the way, nothing came of it. ~!~!~!!~!~!~!~!??
“Webinar Idea
Thank you for the opportunity.
An overall title?: “Eternity in the Now, some brief explorations”
#1. Title: “Introduction to the Hermetic Science (Magic) of the Ancient Egyptians” Description: One of the aspects of human history is that ancient people were aware of the Divine, and their Mysteries remain as true today, as they were true in the past. Same divine powers, just different names used today. A second crucial fact is that those earlier Mysteries all had very definite ideas as to the Divine Feminine aspect. Spiritual Science, via Rudolf Steiner, only mentions these matters in passing. Whether it is the Hermetic Science of the Ancient Egyptians, or the Kabbalah of the Hebrews, or the Cosmology of the natives of the Americas, the Mother Aspect is crucial to having a complete spiritual picture of the Macrocosm, which must include knowledge of the Goddess Natura.
#2 Title: “Understanding the Present Crisis of Humanity – the Dying and Becoming of Western Civilization” Description: What is happening on the Earth Realm today can best be understood if we appreciate the social and political phenomena as – from the point of view of Love – entirely focused on the Individual Biography. What we worry over today, whether wars, or philosophies, or religions, or sciences, is just secondary effects of the primary event – the growth in this moment of the spirit and the soul of the individual human being, via their biography, in the Holy School of Hard Knocks and Shared Pain.
#3 Title: “Simple Qualitative Physics”, or what does it mean that behind every aspect of reality modern science investigates, there stands the action of Comic Beings. Description: We have Gravity because of a Divine Attribute. We have Electromagnetism because of a Divine Attribute. We have Life and Light because of a Divine Attribute. We have Rogue Weather and Climate Change because of a Divine Attribute. The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse have a Rider.
Given that we are the microcosm, all the features we describe, such as Ahriman, Lucifer, Sun Demon, Azuras, …. from God to Gnomes, are attributes of us. The Deep Mysteries of the Eighth Sphere and the Third Force will become observable by all, as well as the ongoing aspects of the Return of the Moon. <[ perhaps include my blog address: https://thecollectiveimagination.com ]>”
~!~!~!~!!@#E??>
I have observed recently the increase in Steiner-related Zoom meetings, many from the periphery. I don’t want my offerings to have a conflict with others. This leads me asking to be listed in the ASIA website Calendar, as well asking of others that they share the announcement of my presentations with their existing email lists.
If my past history with the Society is any indication, I will not end up on the Calendar, or be told what dates to avoid, or be included as an announcement in a relevant email list, or have an article published in the ‘being <mostly> human.’ In any event, below is the link to the three planned Zoom-Conversations. Let me know if there is to be a conflict.
There will be no charges or fees or inducements, or prizes required. Thank you’s takes the form of sharing. Humiliating commentary welcome. “Are we having fun yet?” In community,
Joel A. Wendt
7 pm EDT Moonday 3/18/24 item #1 Title: “Introduction to the Hermetic Science (Magic) of the Ancient Egyptians”
7 pm EDT Moonday 3/25/24 item #2 Title: “Understanding the Present Crisis of Humanity – the Dying and Becoming of Western Civilization”
3/31/24 Easter
7pm EDT Moonday 4/1/24 (April Fools Day) item #3 “Simple Qualitative Physics, or what does it mean that behind every aspect of reality modern science investigates, there stands the action of Comic Beings.”
Zoom Link:
A ROAD NOT YET TAKEN
One of the ways the Mystery teaches humanity is through individuals that the Spirit World is willing to support.
A secondary problem is that when a particular human spirit is not received, by those for whom it is meant, that Source leaves the messenger – the GateWay as it were – which is experienced by such an individual as a kind of death.
A third nuance is to realize that all the works of all the sages, and gurus , and masters, and initiates, and shamans fail to even begin to offer what appears through poetic and musical genius (Mozart, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, and Calvin & Hobbes, for example).
Among initiates, Tomberg had just begun to give his lectures on the Apocalypse, when he was asked to leave the A. Society. At this point he had to leave that work unfinished – those for whom these revelations were intended, no longer were open minded enough.
The spirit world has multiple communities, who support different kinds of change. There is occurring an alteration in the stream of thought I experience. Another “door” to knock upon …
This death of connection does lead to new life for the messenger, … in Tomberg’s case he went on to join the Catholic Church, after writing his overlooked masterwork – during World War II: “The Art of the Good – the Regeneration of Fallen Justice”.
I have brought to the A. Society a work of many decades. For example, I have created a fully developed Goethean Science of the Social and Political Sphere of Human Life. I have also seen how to deal with the Culmination Event, although at this time the Aristotelians refuse to listen.
According to Steiner, if the Aristotelians don’t integrate the work of the Platonists (initiates in the Feminine Mysteries) the coming civilization will become ruins.
Will someone please explain to me why this is not the central task of the Society in the present?
This logic-knot is oddly driving me toward the more mystical aspects of Catholic Religion – the Mysteries of the Holy Mother – Earth Mother. At some point the question comes: Is the A. Society a viable community for sharing the Steiner spirit’s works? What should I tell others about the Society?
The raw truth is that the leadership over the years has failed to “practice” the epistemological aspects (the New Thinking) of “anthroposophical” spiritual “science”, and with the endless quoting of Steiner as an authority, the Society has become a religion – a belief system.
The members and friends know little about Steiner’s science of knowing, as a deed. These same folk know little about Goethean Science – again as a deed, … yet can quote from Steiner’s lectures and books at the drop of a hat.
A major flaw is to imagine that the Michaelic Impulse is carried only by the
A. Society. Another aspect of limited thinking is to not appreciate that there is also a more earthly impulse. For example: “She has the whole world in His Hand”.
Imagine the following scenario. Steiner called our attention to the Bodhisattva incarnations of the future Maitreya Buddha. This means that in almost every century, this “unusual individuality” is incarnate.
Without question Steiner’s work is crucial to the future of civilization. Many thoughtful anthroposophists have speculated on this individual becoming connected to the Society at some time, in the past, present, or future. I appear to be this legendary phantom – if there is proof, of a sorts, that is in my works – don’t study them, you won’t know*. I say that this way, because right from the start we have to understand that what the sages of the East, and the initiates of the Center, have said about this “imaginary” figure is mistaken, raised to the level of myth.
{*https://www.lulu.com/shop/joey-and-joel-wendt/the-mystery-of-the-maitreya-buddha/paperback/product-7kygzj4.html?page=1&pageSize=4
Just consider the “literature” available today. Indian sages talk about this great and lofty being, the Maitreya. Books exist telling us what this mythical creature will teach. Really? How do you know that if it hasn’t been done yet? One group in the East thinks that this “incarnation” will be the fifth and final Buddha. Meanwhile, Steiner sees this personality as the seventh of twelve Buddhas, who orbit the Sun, … and so forth …
The person is not the name.
Steiner also sez – if recollection serves – something on the order of “he will be the great teacher of the Christ Impulse in the Age of the Consciousness Soul”. Keep in mind these “reports”, from sages and initiates, are colored by their assumption that they know already what is to be the goal of human evolution – such as Enlightenment and Initiation. The East remembers the Past, and tends to seek that former ideal. The Center tries to illuminate the Present, while the West births the future.
The view of many “spiritual” teachers is that all are born incomplete, when “compared-with” these mythologies, and ought to be improved following certain teachings, which they – the teacher – are prepared to provide.
Anthroposophists propagate the view that there is a higher nature the individual needs to find. Must every human being seek that “road”? My experience is that there is only one Way, and that is the one we Author ourselves as individuals. Emerson was of the view that we lose our spiritual core, if we place Our Mind in orbit around that of an-”Other”.
Tomberg had an interesting take – I paraphrase: This “Bodhisattva-Maitreya spirit” would seek to be a very down to earth human, and from this human nature and thinking, find a way to join that thinking with the higher cosmic thinking potential in us all. http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/SacramentalThinking33x.html
Steiner also said that this entity will not incarnate in the normal way, but will take over the ethereal, astral, and physical bodies of another, around their thirty-first year.
As a human being, I am pretty fed up with the A. Society. I’ve devoted decades of my life to the “work”, and been basically rejected. I even have to wrestle with hurt feelings sometimes, and my ears tingle with the echos of gossip. Although, … Mary Stewart Adams recently said that the Society needed to open up to other voices.
Recall from above the idea of “Sources”. While people might think I have a huge ego – I don’t blame them – the fact of the matter is that my skill is as a student. I am more of a hermit, and an esoteric librarian (you should see my wizard’s “cave”), than a preacher or teacher. I am a nexus – great genius from many others has come my way, and become integrated with my world view. Meanwhile the most important figure in the “myth” is the one who lives in the body for about thirty-one years. The sages and initiates saw only outsides, and that in terms of their own “system” of thoughts and teachings.
My body-brother Joey was an innocent, and a deep empath. His role in our collective dance was to receive the world into his soul, and to feeling spirit-pain for all the “confusion”. http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/Joey.html [Joey’s signature above, and my signature below
He left me with three riddles: What is evil? (my incarnation as Socrates) Why is Christianity so lost? (my incarnation as St. Matthew), and what has happened to America (George Washington and Clara Barton).
This idea of the B-M – in the present – needs to be seen in this context, which is that I read a lot of books. Many of the best of them came … and … What happened to America? (my incarnations as George through the authorship of Divine Providence. I have not succeeded with all that I have tried learning, but please keep in mind that my life had years of visions and encounters with such as the Holy Mother, the Son, the Father, Jehovah, and some Thrones – at Their initiative. Like all of us, my spirit wanders in a cosmic pinball game. We get up in the morning – from leaving the body – and are then shot into the next day’s game.
I’ve become familiar with such minds as Steiner, Tomberg, Franz Bardon, Owen Barfield, George Adams, Catherine MacCoun, Stephen Clarke, the Moody Blues, Liz Montgomery, Rudolf Hauschka, Erst Lehrs, Wolfgang Shad, Albert Einstein, Tom Cowan (Medicine’s Einstein), … I suspect the reader of this will recognize me as an eighty-three year old book lover that has traveled some odd paths. I also became a scientist of the soul and spirit.
Fortune (Divine Providence – the Mother) and Fate (the Artist of Karma – the Son) gifted me with riches, in spite of the fact I am a normal flawed – intoxicated with Mother’s medicine that grows like a weed – human being – riding the same waves as the rest of us.
GateWay, remember. These riches do not belong to me, and I am not their author. I am, however, a kind of a curator of ideas, and my writings are the museum.
Steiner speaks of the “not I” in thinking. To the extent I reflect consciously on this “state”, another reason “I” am not there is that this serves the “Sources”. Think on your knees, sez Tomberg. It thinks in me, sez Steiner. Even when we think we are alone, we never are alone, sez Wendt. And, the choice of what to express is fully ours. The Source does not compel so much as It – as the Wind in the soul – serves the yearnings of the own heart’s mind. We come to experience the fullness of Presence, and the presence of Fullness – as the Wind in the Soul. This reality does not tell us what to do or what to think. It does, however, supply extra-strength – a form of Love – in our life of trials.
Right now the Sources nearest me are preparing to withdraw, as regards any future role for me in the A. Society. I’ve reached the limit of reaching out. All the same, I think the A. Society will end up liking it better if I am inside our community – tending those gardens, rather than outside explaining to the world the weaknesses of the Religion of Steinerism, and the problems and damages caused to American Anthroposophy by “Spiritual Imperialism” (the vain belief of emigrating Steiner experts, explaining our soul life as if that should be just like theirs) .
There is Steiner lore, … saying that he was standing on a hill near Dornach, looking down at their work, and said to his companion Georg Unger senior: “We might have to come back at the end of the Century and destroy this place.”
I seek connection with other American Steiner students, and often receive the “cold shoulder”. Not always, but far more than necessary. For example I belong to a Steiner Facebook group, which only allows posts that have been vetted by one of the “administrators”. My posts never get past that gatekeeper. No replies. No interactions. Hard to keep certain fires burning in such a social environment. Even if no one ever contacts me personally, or reads my stuff, or buys my books … and,PLEASE TAKE UP THE TASK TO INTEGRATE THE ARISTOTELIAN WAY, WITH THE PLATONIST WAY …
Meanwhile, happy new year, and welcome to the end of the world …
For the Shaman’s Law Firm, https://thecollectiveimagination.com/shamans-law-firm/
Nino Baldachi, chief legal strategist … aka: Lazy Bear, aka: White Eagle
Something in my soul is dying, in part because my heart is ignored by an institution that I have served since 1978. The problem may lie in KARMA
Where is the dissonance? Why am I a problem? Because I serve the truth more? A gadfly? The fool who sees that the clothes do not have an emperor. This necessity has been the same, going all the way back to the late ‘90’s, when I published a small journal called: “Outlaw Anthroposophy”. Its two main articles were: “The Study of Rudolf Steiner’s Lecture Cycles, and the Problem of Cognition – musings on the epistemological swampland of the Anthroposophical Movement” & “The Anthroposophical Society: Is it a living social form?”
I got a friend to pass 23 copies out at a national conference, and later learned that the attendees were advised to be on the lookout for a “subversive” document.
If GA-2 and GA-4 are worked with successfully, we learn how to unite experience with thinking, or percept with concept, and thereby acquire “knowledge”. Most of the time, we produce concepts and ideas (complexes of concepts) from reading Steiner – that is thinking and concepts are at play. Yet, without the encounters that Steiner had – that is the experiences and percepts, we can only get “understanding” from reading.
This is further proven by reading the introductions to “Theosophy” “and Occult Science: an Outline”, where the word “understanding” is used over and over again, but not “knowledge”. Now many Steiner students do gain from reading the lectures. The “understanding” – to introspection – is in between “knowledge” and “belief”. It is an excellent practice to look at the “understanding” we have of Steiner’s teaching, and ask our own inner judgment if the concepts and ideas are a belief or knowledge.
There is nothing “wrong” with any of us, whatever our skills at thinking in an awake fashion. If, for example, we take a paragraph of a lecture and try to self-perceive the described materials – that is we try to recreate in our own understanding and imagination what Steiner has described, there can be a result. The concepts riding in on the text can feel enriched. Some times we discover previously missed connections, among the various sub-ideas on the page.
Just keep in mind that deepening the concepts or ideas woven around – say the Bodhisattva incarnations of the future Maitreya Buddha – is not the same as what Steiner experienced. The key for all of us is in the application of the will to self knowledge. We don’t just read to read, we read to become more inwardly aware of that which we first learned to do instinctively.
For example, … when reading the text GA-2 [Goethe’s Theory of Knowledge], at each sentence and paragraph we pause and confirm by self observation. Simple. The book points a finger, and we then take a look.
The most curious aspect is that some people will react negatively to my demonstration of the curse that goes with becoming a messenger. I’m not the only messenger by any means, … we live in an age where all manner of Predictions and Fables are coming true.
Imagine the library of genius, who is not a specialist, but a generalist. Read and take account of over 40 books, and several hundred essays, a couple dozen short stories, one novel, some mostly long poems, and a screen treatment. https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2023/03/15/artists-studio/
Think I brag? It is a poor artisan that doesn’t recognize their own skills.
the gift of the word
[ best results if read aloud, with an occasional rush of words,
or have someone else read, and listen only ]
Speech, / Words, letters, sounds, / heard by both the inner ear and the outer.
Letters, sounds, words, / linked invisibly to ideas and thoughts.
Ideas, thoughts, letters, sounds, words, / a woven tapestry of meaning,
carried by Speech, / sometimes with grace, / but most often just carelessly.
Meaning, / a weaving of thoughts, sounds, words, letters and ideas,
spoken into the air and left there, / abandoned.
Words, spoken and heard. / Meaning intended. / But what is heard?
That which is heard is also intended. / Two intentions, two purposes, two meanings.
How difficult then communication, / suffering as it does the contrary pulls of multiple intentions, purposes and meanings.
I speak, you listen. / I mean, you grasp. / Somewhere in this delicate dance of words, sounds, letters, thoughts, ideas and purposes; / understanding is sought after.
Perhaps. / Sometimes.
Voice. / Speech reveals the unspoken. / Anger, fear, pride, arrogance, true humility.
The ear of the heart hears what is hidden in voice.
Posture, gesture. / Speech is more than sound. / The eye hears things the ear cannot, just as the ear sees things the eye cannot.
One mind. / Two minds. / Speech a bridge of woven light between two minds, and sometimes, although rarely, / between two hearts.
Speech, rich and full of flavor, / a light bridge, / joining two separate beings.
Speech denatured, / No sound, no gesture, no posture, no voice.
Speech reduced to lines of dark on light. / Written. / A treasure map in code spilled across a page
Words, letters, ideas, thoughts, sounds, / reduced to marks upon a parchment. / Speech dying.
Yet, / even in death, murdered by pen or pencil mark, / some essence of Speech still.
Meaning embalmed. Understanding buried. / Until read.
Reading. / Words, sounds, letters, thoughts, ideas, meaning, purposes, intentions,
Speech resurrected in the silence of another mind.
Speech. / Light bridge dying into print, / reborn when read in the inner quiet of another soul.
Speech, / The Spoken Word. / Writing, / The Word entombed. / Writing read, / The Word resurrected.
That this is so, / that human beings live in such an exalted state having Speech, this is Grace.
The spoken word, the written word. / Things so ordinary, so taken for granted, so pregnant with possibility.
The emptiness between two souls is always / chaste, virgin, pure, / waiting for Grace, for the bridge of light, / for Speech.
The Gift of the Word, originally called Speech, was written on
Epiphany, Jan. 6, 1997, in the evening, in about a third of an hour.
{Above is cut and paste art due to extension tremors. The bead-work below was done over twenty-five years ago, when hands and eyes were more “functional”.
“Familiar Spirits and the Education of a Shaman”
Outlaw Anthroposophy, vol. 3
limited edition
April 1st – Fools Day – 2024
Salamanders In the Ashes
– with a dash of hope and spiced with magic –
Schadenfreude
Spiritual Folly in Dornach, and Ann Arbor
Via Wikipedia
“Researchers have found that there are three driving forces behind schadenfreude – aggression, rivalry, and justice.
“Justice, in its broadest sense, is the concept that individuals are to be treated in a manner that is equitable and fair.[1]
“A society in which justice has been achieved would be one in which individuals receive what they “deserve”. The interpretation of what “deserve” means draws on a variety of fields and philosophies, like ethics, rationality, law, religion, equity and fairness. The state may be said to pursue justice by operating courts and enforcing their rulings.”
Via Rudolf Steiner
archive gave zero hits when I put in Schadenfreude
I have to admit to all the feelings noted above. I have always been “aggressive” and now I am upping the ante. My spiritual research has always been a “rival” to the Anthroposophical Society “in” America. This paper then delivers justice, and I am happy to do so, because Dornach and Ann Arbor are asleep.
Most everyone knows this “joke”, or “folly”. A flood is coming, and the neighbor of the fool offers him a ride her car. “No thanks, God will take care of me. As the water rises around his house, a boat comes by offering help. Again he declines, with “not a problem, God will take care of me”. Next he is sitting on the roof of his home, and a helicopter comes by. He declines the aid, – “don’t worry, God will save me”.
He drowns, which is not a particularly easy passage from life. He meets God in heaven and complains about why God didn’t save him. God replies: first I sent you a Car, then a Boat, and finally a Helicopter. What more did you want?
NOW!
Apply the history of the Anthroposophical Movement as a character in the above tale, namely the man who was disappointed in God’s gifts.
The flood is the dying and becoming of Western Civilization. The house is the Society Steiner the – initiate – built. After his death, the Michaelic Impulse lost certain qualities, as the Society fell to fighting among themselves.
In the midst of these social wars over the esoteric garment of Rudolf Steiner (check out American Steiner library – “Some Events between 1925 and 1935”) the Mystery then sent another messenger, the driver of the Car: Valentin Tomberg. Nope, said the Society – we’ve got all we need of that initiation stuff. Libraries of books and such … the words of Steiner adored, and the members treat his every word as holy writ.
The flood continued. Another Great War, and the Society devolved into chaos. Afterwards, peace among leading personalities was made, on the “social level”. The failure here was to not realize this re-connecting needed direct initiate support, to form the needed connection to the Michaelic Stream.
Earth existence needed additional initiates and, the Society after WWII had Barfield, Adams, Kuhlewind (the Boat), but the winners of the re-connection practiced quoting, instead of self development. By the time I met the Society in 1979, rule by in-groups had became the norm.
Steiner had told them that an unusual event would happen … namely the Culmination. He expected the arrival of the Helicopter, a small group initiate wisdom teachers who were devotees of the Goddess Natura.
While the Society slept in its castle of books, the Mystery sent more “initiates” in its direction. Mackenzie (who has crossed)*, MacCoun, Wendt, and Clarke. The term “initiates” itself doesn’t really cover the skill sets the Mother included. Folk who had had not just Son initiations (Lesser and Greater Guardians), but Mother initiations (the warmth of luminous darkness) generate as well, that which can be labeled shamans.
The Society needs to Die … and Become, if it wants to ride the rising seas of change. That which clings too much to form will fracture. {when I returned to the Faust Branch in America in 2005 after 21 years, I found the same exact kind of meetings run by the same people. We also know that Rudolf Steiner College, where the “Faust” branch met, failed.
What mind thought that “Faust” was a suitable name to use … a Character not of America in the first place? The same kind of minds, that while drawing Americans into their folly – Dr. Christa and Rene Q. – told members that Americans were under the influence of Ahriman. Really?
Steiner didn’t predict the “60’s”, which was a Dionysian – luciferic – Festival on the worlds Stage, releasing just that music needed to drive the ahrimanic in the soul into the needed balance. The Son gives us Rock and Roll, and the Mother gives us the Covid Plague as a global initiation Rite for all of humanity.
In the genius of musicians and other artists, we have primal powers greater than all the sages, initiates, and shamans. “I am the Lord of the Dance said He.”
When I moved to Fair Oaks in 1983, I was struck by the fact that the language of the ‘60’s was absent. I had lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 14 years, and not only was that a shock, but nobody ever offered backyard barbecues or cocktail parties.
Instead when we (for example) gathered for Christmas, we were taught carols in German, none of which were familiar. At a conference “Conversation in America” I used the term “American Culture”, and the European sitting next to me said: “What culture?” A Dutch anthroposophical doctor observed to me one day: “Americas were very different outside our gatherings. Inside they leave something at the door”. [my observation: Our pragmatism was being replaced by idealism] There are thousands of examples.
The quoting of RS has led to a religion I named Steinerism. The invasion of central European anthroposophists I named Spiritual Imperialism.
Some other significant details:
There is an organization which calls itself: “The Anthroposophical Society in America”. Part of the history of this group is that what was born in Central Europe spread. After WWI, groups sprang up all over America. To make a subtle but crucial point, take out the “in”, and replace it with “of”. The Anthroposophical Society is not “of” America.
Recently in Society Zoom meetings, the America Verse was offered, as well as Eurythmy. Steiner was not “of” America. A better verse (mine – I was at least born in America): “We dream America. We sing Her Shadow and Her Light. We dream America, and America Dreams us”
A deeper and truer “verse”, is the song “American Pie”. It is known among Country and Rock musicians, as the greatest song ever. It is not only of service to the Zeitgeist, but when musicians traveled the world and give concerts, they discovered that if they did a cover of this song, even in the local language, the whole audience sings the refrain, with the band, and in English.
“So bye, bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
And them good ole boys were drinking whiskey’n rye
Singin’ this’ll be the day that I die
This’ll be the day that I die”
Each chorus is separated by three or more verses (over a dozen altogether), of which the last are here:
I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away
I went down to the sacred store
Where I’d heard the music years before
But the man there said the music wouldn’t play
And in the streets, the children screamed
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken
And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died
So, we have a Society that was sent a Car, a Boat, and a Helicopter by the Mystery, that is now isolated and wondering what had gone amiss. Steiner had predicted a million anthroposophists. That Waldorf, and Biodynamics, and Camphill, and Anthroposophical Medicine, and Goethean Science were nurtured in the wake of Steiner’s incarnation, does not mean that the “Society” has survived. At best it is on life support, and could use a life giving “blood” transfusion.
Actually these needed friends are here, because we are in the Age of Michael. It is just that a major aspect of His work had to shift its center in America to the environmental movement, via the Bioneers. Itself, the Society mostly supports its own endeavors.
In some sense – given that attention is paid to the fact that Steiner’s Spiritual Science is a system with its own language – the Society tends to be a “closed” system.
The Society, by placing Steiner on a pedestal, makes the Society uninhabitable for many truly Michaelic souls. Michael is the ultimate eclectic. Here are some of the former incarnations active during the cusp between the Second and the Third Millennium, besides Aristotle: Hermes, Abraham, Solomon, Socrates, St. Matthew (and many of the disciples, given that we are in the Second Becoming of Christ in the Realm of Living Though), the Raphael-Novartis spirit, George Washington, and Clara Barton.
The Society, through the flaw of exclusion, misses being united in the right way with V. Tomberg and F. Bardon. It is like a three legged man dancing on just one foot. In the same way that the three patriarchal monotheisms are really one religion – in Spirit, Steiner and Tomberg and Bardon are a unity – Steiner even spoke of the number three, as an expression of Michael Intelligence.
… meanwhile the Mystery sends another Messenger, a bodhisattva incarnation of the future Maitreya Buddha. Oh, what would the Society do? Sleep and dream, or unite and live.
Isn’t Karma a Bitch.
“Are we having fun yet?”
I have written over 40 books, more than 700 essays, dozens of short stories and poems, as well as a novel and a screen treatment. I love the Rudolf Steiner spirit (It is on to other deeds).
To wrap this up, let me go into a meditation on the deeper relationships between the American and the Central European soul life.
Steiner had a lot to say about the threefold nature of the realm of the soul: East, Center, and West. So did Tomberg. Early on – during being a member, I wondered if the Society had ever brought to full consciousness that in America two very different soul natures were interacting. Both “sides” were asleep. Having reviewed many versions of the “Newsletter”, all the way back to the 20’s, I never saw the riddle asked.
In Challenge of the Times, RS sez that English speakers are instinctively in the Consciousness Soul in their Life of Rights. In lectures to the workman, he states {?indicates?} that Europeans have to be taught Anthroposophy in a spirituals way, while the Americans have an instinct for their particular version. Americans’ Way is similar, but different.
The Heart of the Mystery.
When I was first in Fair Oaks in the mid-80’s, there was coming a 35th anniversary of the Faust Branch. I was mainly involved in the Emerson Study Group, overseen by Carl Stegmann. This group knew something most others did not. Around 1976, at a branch meeting Carl had stood up and proposed the creation of an institution which was to have two parts. One was an introduction to Anthroposophy, and the other would serve as studies of the Spiritual America.
Folks began to organize. Land was found, as was money. One member of the study group, moved for a year to England, to study more deeply Goethean Science (at great sacrifice). When he returned, the America Studies part had disappeared completely, and Rene Q. was the head of a Waldorf Teacher Training institute, that was to become the fated Rudolf Steiner College.
As I prepared for the 35th anniversary gathering, I sat at my altar (my study desk), recreated in my imagination all the stories I had heard of the history of that branch, during which I was gifted with an Imagination. This is a clairvoyant experience, where our riddles are met by Higher Beings, and together we create the “picture”.
The Imagination consisted of 6 figures, expressed in beautifully drawn red and blue colored figures, that were suggested in amazingly efficient gestures of line and color. It shimmered (with life?).
On the left, was a European figure (it had a visage hinting at Rene). It was up in the air, and below it were three American figures, looking up adoringly. The whole group was off the ground.
On the right, another European figure (it looked a bit like Carl), who was sitting on a half built brick wall in the posture of Rodin’s “The Thinker”. The American figures were sitting against – or lying near – other aspects of the barely completed wall.
I have meditated on the Imagination many times over the years. The blue (feeling) color represented the artistic in the soul, while the red (will) the inventive in the soul.
The cause of the ungrounded aspect is that the astral density in the Americas is quite different from that in Europe. Where we are born determines the nature of the Double, and Steiner has indicated that sages in Europe routinely traveled to North America, while the Americas were forgotten, and they did so because the Double in America was sufficiently stronger.
“Subterranean forces possess the American body – a geographical force, not a spiritual force. They chain man to the earth. Something from the human head streams toward magnetic and electric currents, neutralizing them – this is the human will. What overcomes these dependencies, which are part of karma, so that our inner life (if not our outward form) can come to freedom? The answer: the Mystery of Golgotha.” (paraphrase of R.S. long discussion lecture 1,Anthroposophical Life Gifts.
“The time will one day come when this American woodenman, which actually everyone is still – when he begins to speak. Then he will have something to say very similar to European Anthroposophy*. One can say that we in Europe develop Anthroposophy in a spiritual way; the American develops it in a natural way.”R.S. lecture to workmen 3 March 1923.
As a result, the astral (psychic) body of Europeans is unable to connect to the Land (geology – see: Geographic Medicine) in the right Way. Another why: We are inwardly not the same as the Central European, and failing to recognize this has led to much harm.
For a journey into a deeper understanding See “Event and Aftermath – the Creation of Love through Crisis”; and, “a song of Entombment in the Key of Lent”, as well as: “The Mood of Easter in the Light of our individual Logos Nature”. https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2023/05/17/the-mystery-of-the-social-world-of-humanity/
A Palm Sunday meditation
Suppose what we hear in the News is just noise in the real System … in Theosophy RS writes that we live in the Era of Consciousness Soul. In our time there are Eight Billion spirits sharing the Mother’s Nurturing Life Sphere, and if karma and reincarnation is true, we all volunteered to experience the Christ’s Arts of Karma. From the standpoint of initiations in both the Mother’s Way, and the Son’s Way, the Individual Biography is Holy (RS: man is the religion of the gods).
Goethean social phenomenal studies reveal that alongside where Steiner gives us the seven year stages point of view, there is an additional Way to See, as seen from the Mother’s View. The biography has qualitative experiences: Birth; Innocence; the Beginning of Self Awareness; the Change or Rite of Adolescence; next the Fool as we Experiment with Our Experience. This Evolves into the Search for Our own Humanity. Life proceeds, Surrender and Acceptance lead to the Sage. Then Death.
Similar Goethean social studies reveal that Karma is mostly Played out with Intimates, such as family, neighbors, lovers, jailers, co-workers, and genuine “karmic” meetings . An excellent vision of this process is revealed in the Seven Stages of the Passion of Christ: Washing the Feet( Learning Serve the Others in Our Story); the Scourging (Our Interments throw verbal Stones at our soul); the Crowning Thorns (our intimates refuse to honor our thoughts); Carrying the Cross (trying to do the good and the true)*; the Crucifixion (our soul’s impulses nailed to the cross of another’s will); the Entombment (the experience of the inability to apply our will to something we care about); and the Resurrection (in the soul life).
These do not have to happen in order, and can be repeated. It is the soul and spirit that takes this biographical journey, not the physical body.
In order for the individual biography to face the trials of the Consciousness Soul Era, that biography must be isolated from any nearby social or religious influences, in how she seeks the true and discovers the good on her own. The CS Era then requires world-wide chaos in individual lives to enable the choices that can be made.
Sometimes the “choices” are narrow, if one is in prison or at war. Still, it is not the place, but the time.
With the beginning of the Copernican Revolution, Western Civilization began its dying into a new becoming. Religion was over run with two other “religions”: materialistic natural science – man is only matter, no spirit or soul; and the religion of free market capitalism.
Under the tutelage of She who has the whole world in His Hands (see paintings: Madonna and
Child; and the Pieta), we endure the Four Horseman: Conquest, Famine, Plague, and Death. She is their Rider, in Her role as Divine Providence. COVID was humanity going through a Rite of Initiation, overseen through Her. Climate Changes, Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and all of the alleged “bad guys” (Sorat, Ahriman, Lucifer, and friends), are ruled by Her.
An introduction to my Goethean social studies is here: https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2023/05/17/the-mystery-of-the-social-world-of-humanity/
Go here to discover the Heart of the Return of the Mother, from being forgotten: https://thecollectiveimagination.com
http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/artofgod.html
Outlaw (rebel) Anthroposophy Vol. 4
The Crucifixion of Rudolf Steiner’s Legacy,
by the out of touch Anthroposophical Society
In the spiritual life of humanity, Anthroposophy has a special place. Yet, Steiner’s true legacy is being devoured by the follies living in the Anthroposophical Society.
What has been modeled by Society “leadership” is skill at quoting his words. In a certain sense the Society is similar to a department at a university, with all the infighting and hungers to be in charge typical of that kind of social form. Meanwhile, the “leadership?” acts all nice and cuddly in the various publications.
They had their “initiate”, yet have managed to actually not follow him at all. Ignoring where he started, and presented to us as the New Thinking – see GA-2, Goethe’s Theory of Knowledge, and GA-4, The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. Many systems of meditation are taught in the world, while the unique characteristic of Anthroposophy is the New Thinking.
Much has happened in the world since Rudolf Steiner passed. Perhaps the most important aspect was not the wars or the technology.
A great worldwide spiritual festival appeared, which was called the “60’s”. In the age of Ahriman’s incarnation, the Holy Mother – Earth Mother, in Her role as Divine Providence generated a Dionysian Rite, as a counter-pole to the influence of too much head, and not enough heart.
There were many threads woven into this tapestry. I will following just one, which was: What happened in the arts of Music, a world-wide language of the heart. We named this Way: (Sex, drugs, and) Rock ‘n Roll.
It arose in America, and began with a fusion of the earthly and sexual nature of the African peoples who had been forced to live as slaves, and the romantic songs of the many White peoples and Yellow peoples (who also came as slaves). Peoples from the Four Directions – East and West, and North and South, had been emigrating to America for many many of decades, leading to this Place becoming the People of Peoples.
Already living in the Americas, where there remained living many ancient and still viable Ways, … these invading foreign cultures arrived, many of which came with ravenous appetites for gold and other treasures. Many others came fleeing their religious oppression in the cultures of their birth.
This “Rock ‘n Roll caused people to awaken something asleep in their own soul. How people danced their dances changed, and revealed latent powers of the human will. The influence of Old World culture was being replaced with something New.
This music had great power of soul, as well. It flew past all political borders, and became known everywhere, often hated by established religious authorities. One of the freedoms that came with this change, was that the young more and more defied their own culture and traditions. A kind of gap arose between past and future social rules. The young started to ignor their elders, leading toward the end of what Steiner had called: the “Group Soul”.
Among the other gifts, of this Rite, was to awaken memories of what it means to live close to the natural world. The Hippies, with their communes tried hard, but many failed.
Though this began in America, it soon passed everywhere in the world and each of those cultures adapted the form Rock ‘n Roll to their own shared life of soul. It was if a message had been sent, was received, and then answered. Among students of this change, the answer was collectively named: World Beat.
As these world-wide musical gifts arrived among the poor and the inner city Black Peoples in America, they responded with a style called Hip Hop. A significant aspect of this change was that to do this form, one needed only rhythm and rhyme. The great classical music of the Old World, with its huge orchestras and complex musical forms and operas, was replaced by a new Way, that was the essence of music simplified. All one needed was an upturned five gallon plastic tub, a stick, and a cardboard “dance floor”, giving us then “break dancing”.
Unavoidably, Hip Hop music acquired darker impulses, and we get then “gangsta rap”.
One form of response was called Reggae Music, which was born in the hills of Jamaica, where African people had come to live, after freeing themselves from the slavery that had brought them to this Island Paradise. These artists inverted the basic “Rock ‘n Roll” beat with a slightly less raucous form, and the exaggerated movements of dancing to Rock, became more languid and slow.
A great musical genius arose: Bob Marley. In America, the money making producers tried to keep Reggae off their radio play lists, with the result that Americans didn’t really notice his beautifully religious and wise political songs. While Michael Jackson had better press, when Bob Marley and the Wailers toured the world, they drew far greater audiences.
For example, when Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, their celebration of this special Day included a concert by Marley and company, where the audience was over two million. His first song was called: “Natural Mystic”.
The whole World remains in musical conversations, and today all peoples have Hip Hop groups of unique cultural promise. For example there is a Hip Hop group made up of Israelis and Palestinians. There is a group of Germans, with many tattoos making us think of motorcycle gangs, yet what they sing about is religious and socially deeper. The Russian soul gave us the revolutionary: “Pussy Riot”
Another thread in this cultural tapestry is film, which deserve its own Tale. Meanwhile, many alleged anthroposophists do Eurythmy, but not Rock, or Reggae, or Hip Hop; and frequently assert there is something wrong about “movies”.
There is a Teaching Tale about a man expecting a flood to come. A neighbor offers the man a ride in his car, but he replies: That will not be necessary, God will save me. Later, when the waters are flowing by, and he is sitting on his porch, out of the way, a boat with three men in it comes by and offers to help. Not necessary he says, God will save me. Finally, he is sitting on his rooftop, and large helicopter appears with four people it, and their offer to help him he again refuses, asserting that God to save him.
He dies by drowning. When he meets God he complains, and God says: I sent you a car, then a boat, and finally a helicopter, all of which you refused.
Apply this Tale to the Anthroposophical Society. The flood is the Steiner predicted WWII, and the Mystery lent the Society Valentin Tomberg (the neighbor), and we know how that turned out. After the Chaos of WWII passed, the Society rebooted itself on the social level, but without an “initiate”, the connection to the Michael Mysteries could not arise. Meanwhile, the Divine Mystery lent them the boatmen: Owen Barfield, Georg Kuhlewind, and George Adams Kaufmann, who were pushed to the periphery by the lovers of Steiner said.
Then comes the Culmination, on the cusp of the Third Millennium. It occurred on an internet discussion group called the Ark, from the years 1997 to 2003. I was there, as well as three others, all of us on the path to becoming initiates. Steiner’s “spirit” was there as well, just as he said he would be. https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2023/12/03/the-mystery-of-the-culmination-event/
None of us knew we were the Culmination, and nor did Harvey Bornfield know he had been Steiner. I saved some of his emails, and made a book of them. They are extraordinary.
http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/HarveyBornfield.html
The four of us baby initiates included Stephen Clarke, who has united Kabbalah with Native American Cosmology. Catherine MacCoun who united Christian and Tibetan Alchemy. As to myself, I have united the ancient Egyptian Hermetic Science with Spiritual Science.
The thread here is that these are still viable teachings of the Spirit, although from the past, which allows me to write on my main internet page: “finding the way to the future, through the gateways of the past”
The fourth, Liz Mackenzie, was represented on the Ark via my posting of her work to my blog. She has passed, and was closer to the Michael Stream than the three of us. She was a sore in the backside of the Society, when Prokofieff was canonized.
Catherine’s book “On Becoming as Real Alchemist” is available on Amazon. Stephen’s work on Sacred Geometry is on my book store (there are actually four volumes of his works), and his research on where Christ went on Saturn Day – between His Death, and Resurrection, is remarkable.
Liz’s works, such as I was able to save, is also on my bookstore as: Scottish Spirit on Fire. https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/joelwendt “Aesthetics of Economics and The Scottish Masonic Tradition In the Light of The Folk Spirits … A Meditative Study”; and “The Shepherd’s Fire”
On the Ark, we generally agreed that Steiner was remarkable, although capable of being mistaken. The problem was the Society. Can anything be done?
There is an apocryphal Tale, of Steiner, and the elder Unger, looking at the great building from a distance, where Steiner is alleged to have said “We may have to come back and destroy all this.”.
Liz wrote this, which is in “the Shepherd’s Fire”, and is not for the faint hearted: https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2022/12/15/the-burning/
That the Society tends to exclude other Ways, only reveals that a man with one leg will not get very far climbing up a hill. The Mystery sent three major initiates to Europe. Franz Bardon (the reincarnated Hermes), Valentin Tomberg (the reincarnated Solomon).
Steiner (a Spiritual Scientist) revealed the Mystery of Thinking; Tomberg (essentially a Christian Mystic) the Mystery of Feeling; and, Bardon (a Christian Magician) the Mystery of Willing. By itself the Society cannot achieve what the Michael Mystery requires. It is to be found today in America, in the group the Bioneers (pioneers in the age of biology). https://bioneers.org It is fully Michaelic. Folks all over the world participate. Members of aboriginal Ways are ever present.
To make this clear: the Society is like an inbred family with each generation becoming less able to take up the tasks that Steiner gave to us. The human beings, who are members and friends, have their own karma
In America, where it has been said that the business of America is business, a riddle arises: Are we in the Cultural Sphere, or the Economic Sphere? What can the Society create that competes in the large market for spiritual knowledge. Meanwhile, all manner of folk are involved in the “daughter” movements, but don’t much attend branch meetings or the occasional study groups. Those gatherings are often full of Steiner-quoting elderly people.
A matter, of some spiritual insanity, is the fact that anthroposophists don’t study Goethean Science. Read and study the lectures, but why bother reading and studying: “Man or Matter”; “The Nature of Substance – spirit in matter”; “Man and Mammals”; “The Plant” (2 vol.); “Poetic Diction”; “Sensitive Chaos”; “Physical and Ethereal Spaces”; “The Art of God – an actual theory of Everything”; “The Way of the Fool”; “Space and the Light of Creation” (chapters: Radiation of Space, Music of Number, Burden of Earth and Sacrifice of Warmth); “Universal Forces in Mechanics”; “The Essentials of Nutrition”; “Speakers Meaning”; “Saving the Appearances”; …
Can the Society be saved? Should it be saved? What if we, in America, left the Cultural Sphere and entered the Economic Life? Should we rely on gift money? The first Waldorf School was financed by an already existing business.
The Society needs fresh spiritual “blood”, if it is not to die. A study group and or branch can offer classes to the public, introducing not just Steiner, and Goethean Sciences, but any of the four personalities in the Helicopter.
Then there is the Lawsuit Rite for the Spring, on Earth Day … which comes from my heart. Each Earth Day lawsuits are to be filed in various courts of law, naming as defendants apex predator multinational corporations, whose wealth depends upon destroying the life sphere of the planet, while killing human beings everywhere with toxic vaccines.
In these suits the named plaintiff is the Planet. “If a corporation can be a person before the law, then certainly the Planet can be a Person before the Law.” Details are here: https://thecollectiveimagination.com
At one moment Steiner apparently said: “Karma will hold sway.” That is the state of the
Society today … a locus of Karma, but not “yet” a place devoted to the spiritual truth. The treating of everything Steiner said as real and true, has made of Anthroposophy a religion, instead of a science.
For additional insights: https://thecollectiveimagination.com/2024/03/22/outlaw-rebel-anthroposophy/
Fake Ancient Alien Theorist Foolishly Visits the Collective Imagination 