Bruce wrote:
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Dear Tom.
I was somewhat distressed to hear you say that truth is no longer important
for us who are living in the 5th Post Atlantean Cultural Epoch. It appears
to me that you either have not studied Steiner's material in any great
detail, or you are deliberately attempting to distort it. In either case,
it seems that you are doing a disservice to Anthroposophy. Please don't
treat Anthroposophy in such a light, cavalier manner. It doesn't put either
of you in a particularly favorable light.
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Dear Bruce,
Again, I must remind you to answer the question that Pontius Pilate put to Jesus Christ: "What is Truth?" According to Rudolf Steiner, this is the essential question of the Intellectual Soul Age, the Graeco-Roman epoch,which ended in 1413 AD.
If you read the "Metamorphoses of the Soul" lecture cycle, you will read how Anger (God's wrath) educates the Sentient Soul; Truth educates the Intellectual Soul; and "religious devotion" (who knows ther exact German here?) educates the Consciousness Soul.
Consider also that we inherit a "Cosmos of Wisdom" and are supposed to build out of it a "Cosmos of Love."
When I say that truth is no longer important to us now, I mean it in the sense that the stars are not important to us in the daytime. The stars are like the truth we inherit from that Cosmos of Wisdom; when the sun shines (and I also mean the sun as the "star" of the Archangel Michael), the stars disappear from view; they are no longer important to our day consciousness.
What becomes more important than the truth is the BEING who may or may not be fully conscious of that truth. Perhaps I shouldn't say then that truth in unimportant; I should rather say that truth is irrelevant.
Now, Bruce, I must admit that your criticism of me would have been valid
while Rudolf Steiner was alive, but it is out of date today, especially
since we have seen a full "Platonic Day" of 72 years duration go by since
Steiner's death.
(Recall that 360 x 72 = 25,920 years as the full "Platonic Year.")
The significance of this time span is that conditions change on the earth. As a rule of thumb, humans incarnate twice within an epoch of 2,160 years ("Platonic month"), once as male and once as female in order to gain new experiences with the ever changing conditions on earth. What we have seen in the 72 year span from 1925 to 1997 is the movement of the vernal equinox point one full degree in its precession through the background of the fixed stars.
So what has changed in the last 72 years? One of the things is certainly our whole concept of just what "truth" is. Consider that in the year Steiner died, Heisenberg was formulating his Uncertainty Principle. In 1931, Kurt Goedel published his Incompleteness Theorem in Mathematical Logic. All the discoveries in modern physics since Steiner died all point to the necessity of us revising what we mean by truth.
From your post, Bruce,your concept of truth is certainly very much exclusively intellectual. What is my evidence? Twice in your short message, you force a categoricall imperative of strictly bivalent logic. You demanded twice that I consider truth as you do, i.e. truth as an "either-or" proposition. That kind of truth is completely intellectual, brain-bound, Ahrimanic. But its redemption is that such a materialistic view of truth is actually being utilized by Ahriman in the realm of the computer. Therefore, you no longer need to believe in the old bivalent logic of intellectual truth (logic of "excluded middle"). Ironically, by channelling this kind of truth into the mechanization of our cosmos by artificial intelligence, Ahriman has actually given us the freedom to look beyond the mere bivalent logic that you still espouse. By mechanizing this intellecual truth, Ahriman allows us to pursue the logic of the heart--- and thus help us avoid the Luciferic trap of mechanizing our moral imaginations and moral intuitions.
But the logic of the heart starts when we begin to realize that the operative principle is not "either-or," but, rather "both-and." The reason for this change has to do with the fact that the heart mediates between the head and the metabolism. The opposites of the cold "polar" head and the hot "tropical" metabolism are mediated or balanced by the heart-lung circulation system. But for the heart to mediate properly, it must at least recognize the equality of the opposites. The brain/ head/nervous system does not need to do this. The head can live easily in the "either-or" bivalent logic because it does not need to reconcile opposites. The head can arbitrarily declare what is good; what is evil, but such conclusions have no referent to reality, which lies in the little sprouting "heart-brain" that we are all creating. In the logic of the heart, opposites must be given equal ontological status.
In anthroposophy, that logic is the recognition of the co-reality and co-equality of the opposites: "light and dark," and "good and evil." In theological terms, that recognition of co-equality is the spiritual stream known as Manichaeanism. Anthroposophy in this form is Manichaeanism "come of age." What St. Augustine had to fight against as a heresy in the 3rd Century AD, is now the fruition of anthroposophy in our century and beyond.
As an example, Goethe's color theory follows the logic of the heart; whereas Newton's color theory follows the logic of the head. It is not that Newton's theory is wrong, any more than your intellectualization of anthroposophy is wrong, Bruce; rather, the logic of the heart (where the day-radiant spiritual sun shines) now eclipses the logic of the head (where the night-absorbent "fixed stars" shine).
If I may conclude this post with more historical spiritual observations, consider the two pairs of figures that Rudolf Steiner tells us represent the essence of the 4th and 5th Post Atlantean epochs.
I already mentioned Pontius Pilate.The other figure is Oedipus.They represent the impulses to truth that characterize the Graeco-Roman epoch (747 BC - 1413 AD)
As Pontius Pilate asks Christ: "What is truth?" so does Oedipus struggle to solve the riddle of the Sphinx, thus finding its truth.
In the 5th epoch, that of our own Consciousness Soul Age, the two figures are Mephistopheles and Parsifal. Mephisto pairs with Oedipus, while Parsifal pairs with Pilate.
Oedipus represents the Luciferic pursuit of bivalent intellectual truth which Ahriman-Mephistopheles has now succeeded in mechanizing into modern electronic technology. I suppose I ought to add in Faust here, but I'd rather that you, Bruce, identify with the character of Faust as he makes the pact with Mephistopheles to leave behind his academic studies and go out and experience all that life has to give--- outside of the head. That is your challenge now as an anthroposophist in 1997. You have a much greater advantage now than Faust did precisely because Ahriman-Mephistopheles has mechanized so much of the head intelligence, thus freeing you up to develop the logic of the heart --- if you choose in freedom to overcome the mechanizing of your moral life that Lucifer still tempts you to mechanize.
Parsifal represents the 5th epoch answer to Pilate's 4th epoch question. The simple naive "pure fool" Parsifal might shrug at Pilate's question and answer with a question of his own: "Say what, Pilate?"
But let us not just look at Parsifal in his 9th century incarnation; rather consider Parsifal in his pending late 20th Century incarnation. For Parsifal is the reincarnation of Mani, the founder of Manicheanism and opponent of St. Augustine, and Parsifal, according to Rudollf Steiner, will reincarnate NOW as the figure who will lead the decadent intellectualized remnant of anthroposophy into the world-wide life forces of the New Manichaeanism as Parsifal-Mani comes of age in the early 21st century. (See Bernie Lieveghood's book "The Battle for the Soul.")
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>Please don't >treat Anthroposophy in such a light, cavalier manner. It doesn't >put either of >you in a particularly favorable light.
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Bruce, I hope to convince you that I am treating anthropopsophy in both a very dark and serious manner. In fact, I hope that you will one day say to me: "Tom, you've managed to put both anthroposophy and yourself in a particularly favorable darkness."
You see, anthroposophy as it stands (its "default condition" as it were) is entirely "Lucifer Gnosis." It is the light wisdom of Lucifer. By itself, without our activity, anthroposophy is pure light. But pure light is completely invisible and completely useless for us who live in the physical world. We incarnated human beings are beings of BOTH darkness AND light; of BOTH evil AND good. And it is the will activity of putting the light of anthroposophy into the darkness of Ahriman's world that is the activity we might call the "Christ Impulse."
You know the old saying: "Better to light a candle than curse the darkness?"
Cheers!
Tom