Pinchbeck talks with Ralph White, co-founder of the New York Open Center and now of the New Center for Holistic Learning, and Walter Alexander of the Anthroposophical Society of New York, ahead of a month-long seminar on Rudolf Steiner held both at the society's building on West 15th Street and on Zoom. White proposes judging Steiner by his legacy: biodynamic agriculture and its part in the rebirth of organic farming, Waldorf education, the Camphill communities for children and adults with special needs, and roughly six thousand lectures. Alexander notes Steiner's influence on Joseph Beuys, Wassily Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint, and a recent Gagosian piece observing that this influence went largely unattributed. Pinchbeck recalls visiting the Goetheanum at Dornach. The discussion ends on karma, reincarnation and Steiner's spiritual science.
Guest: Ralph White and Walter Alexander
In brief
- Ralph White argues that Steiner should be measured by the institutions his work produced, including biodynamic agriculture, Waldorf schools and the Camphill movement for people with special needs.
- Walter Alexander points out that Steiner shaped modern art through Joseph Beuys, Kandinsky and Hilma af Klint while remaining largely unknown by name, a paradox noted in a recent Gagosian essay.
- Pinchbeck argues that the least known part of Steiner's work, and the focus of the seminar, is his elaborate occult philosophy rather than the practical movements it seeded.
- The participants treat the centenary of Steiner's death as a reason for renewed attention from outside the anthroposophical movement.
- Pinchbeck describes Steiner's self-designation as a spiritual scientist as an attempt to integrate thinking and feeling, treating thought itself as a capacity to be trained.
- The conversation presents a working understanding of karma and reincarnation as something that reduces pressure by placing a single life in a longer arc.
Full text
Today I'm going to be talking with uh Ralph White and Walter Alexander and we are um doing this um seminar monthlong seminar in Rudolfph Steiner that starts on Sunday uh and um it's a little bit unique because we're going to be doing it both um in person at the beautiful Rudolfph Steiner is it what is it called Rsteiner Foundation Rsteiner Institute or Rstein Center? Uh that's the society. It's the anthroposophical society of New York. Yeah. So it's a beautiful old building um which really has the the Steiner vibe. Uh and we'll also have a live Zoom from there. And then on Wednesdays we'll be doing a Q&A session.
Uh which I think we'll just be on Zoom. I don't think we'll be on That's what I'm thinking. Um and uh yeah, we'll create a bit of an internet community for it. Um, so at the moment, well, you know, we're sort of waiting for Walter to find us again, but maybe you want to just talk for a minute about, you know, kind of your um long-term Yeah. relationship with Steiner, why you think he's so valuable and so on, and then hopefully Walter will jump back. Yeah, happy to. Well, I'm really happy that we're able to talk about Rudolph Steiner, really one of the most remarkable figures of the 20th century, who's remain still not as widely known as we might be.
Uh I just came back from Switzerland from actually being at the Gerteanum outside Dornock the the great building in honor of Gerta the the German poet statesman and scientist that uh that Steiner created there there is a center for anthroposical work but yeah I mean if we think of somebody through the legacy hey Walter I was glad you're there I'm just talking a little bit about Rudolph Stein and what he was and uh I was just remarked talking about uh a good way to measure judge people is by the legacy they left and in terms of um the fruits that Rudolph Sun's work has left behind and we think of the biodnamic agriculture the big role in the rebirth of organic agriculture we think of the initiative and h education waldorf schools now worldwide and we can also think of the um the special needs camp villages all over the world uh that deal with children and adults with special needs, not to mention many other areas. So, not to mention the 6,000 lectures on profound spiritual, philosophical, esoteric matters. So, anyway, we're going to the three of us. uh very happy that we we were able to do this Daniel and Walter this partnership in the the new center for holistic learning which is succeeding the open center that I co-ounded many years ago plus Walter Alexander here from the anthroposical society and of course many thanks to Daniel who's the only one with the tech smart to pull this off among the three of us but I'm very glad we're doing it. Uh yeah, so for anybody who's listening and they want to learn about the course, uh it's you can learn learn about at liminal.
news and if you want to join, you can use the coupon code awakening soul uh for 25% off the um the full price. Uh and um yeah, I mean you know you mentioned what you know what what what's very extraordinary about Steiner who was this like Austrian occult visionary who I think lived from like 18 was 60 in 1925 something like that right um you know he had this incredible legacy that continues to this day with the schools and and the agriculture and and and other elements of his um of his legacy but uh and obviously the movement itself anthroposophy but also what most people don't really know about which I think is going to be kind of like the focus for us is his occult philosophy which is incredibly elaborate and incredibly profound and you know I know about it to a certain degree but I think you guys know more about it maybe particularly Walter who maybe Walter you can introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your involvement with Stiner but what you know Walter is in deep in the trenches of the of the stinarian ethos and and worldview and metaphysics and so on so it's going to be fun to I mean I mean you know to to sort of like bandandy this stuff around for for a month with with with you guys. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.
Uh thank you Daniel and thank you Ralph. Uh uh you know I'm u been an anthroposphite some time. Uh I've been the program director facilitator at NYC uh with Dr. down in in Chelsea and uh I um you know the question is why is this moment particularly important 100 years after Steiner's death uh and I think a lot of things you mentioned and I on my list here had forgotten to put in the uh campel movement which is really extraordinary uh which is the care of of children and adults and with special needs But there's been an increase in recognition by nonposifists. Ralph, you're you're kind of hybrid, I would say.
Yes. You've always been one, you know, and and now you've been to the Gertiana what twice? Yeah, twice. The last year. I I think you're I think you're finished, you know. I'm ready to go back. And uh well maybe maybe for people who don't know which is probably most people listening that Gerttonam is a structure that that Rolf Steiner designed uh in Switzerland there's actually like a whole town which has I mean among you know along with being this crazy visionary and and you know having this called philosophy and practice he also explored architecture and design and and arts and so he'd actually designed I think a wooden version of this structure which is kind of like their center maybe the cathedral in a way which burned down during the last years of his life and then he designed this new structure which is made of stone and I also visited it many years ago and I was blown away.
It's um pretty pretty pretty extraordinary. But yeah, Walter, I I turned it back to you. I just want to make sure people have a have a little bit of a context. So anyway um there's been increasing recognition among some non-anthropospheres of Steiner's important role. Um, you know, I mean, for example, recently there was this piece in the Gagosian Gallery uh newsletter. I forget the guy who wrote it. Uh, but uh, you know, he pointed out the important influence that Steiner had on Joseph Boy, Kandinsky, especially Hilda Hilda Alimp. And um but at the end of the article which you know which explored this huge influence in the in the in the modern arts he said the remarkable thing is that no one knows Steiner's name.
How did he how did he have all this influence and yet remain kind of invisible himself. Um and I think that was um you know that's interesting in itself his his his modesty his his humility. Um and now we have this Harvard city school conference in the middle of December. Um uh Daniel Mc Cannan I think is the is the organizer. There's 75 papers being presented. Uh and uh lots of discussion and that's it's a a new moment in a way. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I guess yeah I mean I mean it's um part of my you know fascination with him is you know over the last 50 years or or you know maybe more 70 there's been a huge revival of kind of esotericism in the west and huge interest in eastern metaphysics and Tibetan Buddhism and Sufiism and Cabala and so on.
Uh well I guess that's that's kind of western but um yeah and then kind of like um you know yoga obviously exploded but often it's felt like kind of the the particularly kind of like western like esoteric even esoteric Christian kind of like aspect of of the of the of the sort of tradition has been of less interest to people uh you know and people have been yeah more interested in the east or or or you know the southern you know the the indigenous and so on and for me like I see Steiner And in a way Carl Young as kind of like the great kind of Western European shamans of the 20th century and you know Young is also much I would say better known than Steiner and in some of my writing I've really tried to you know map you know their ideas kind of onto each other and so on. Um you know both of them had a great you know fascination with kind of the uh the imagination you know kind of you know what what what what Steiner you know what Young talked about is like active imagination and you know his red book and so on and then you know Steiner really talking about that we have these like higher centers of cognition uh which he called inspiration you know imagination and intuition I'm not sure if it's in that order but um yeah so so um and Steiner you know really was an incredibly creative and imaginative thinker. Um, and he really, you know, kind of indexed all of his, um, kind of discoveries to his own clairvoyance and his ability to kind of like, you know, see apparently into these kind of other worlds and read the Aashic record and so on. Uh, I'm curious, Walter, like what was your first introduction to Steiner? What what what was it about him that that got you so excited?
I I was in Thanks for the question, Ed. Stop me. Uh I was in a gurgif group in Ccliffe, Long Island, living at the house called the Pinnacle under Heris Papoff who had worked closely with Espensky when Aspensky was in New York. And uh actually we read some lecture by Steiner which I think had no effect on me whatsoever. But at the time I was I was a high school English teacher, public school and there were a couple of people in the group who had had Waldorf training and were Waldorf teachers and when they spoke about education I went it made sense. I was so used to, you know, pedagogical gobblelygook, you know, and uh and just this this sense and also impressed me.
I was a high school high school teacher in Waldorf education. It's not just lip service. The class teacher at the lower grades has has the cred, you know, more than descends to high school. Well, that's important. And then they're just mommies there in the lower school. No, in Waldorf education, it's those it's the teacher who stays with the children in theory still all the way from uh first grade to 8th grade. There's a lot of challenges to it. Now, people want the specialization, but as our friend Eugene Schwarz pointed out, it's really important when the children are going through puberty for the person who's accompanied them from the early grades to stay with them.
and uh he's he's a proponent of really sticking, you know, uh close to that that pattern. But what they what I heard from these guys was uh and gals was uh something that made sense that the child first seven years it's the body that that the human being is incarnating from above into the the stream of physical evolution which is coming from below. And the first seven years it's the it's the body that's really there. The body is the most perfect part of us. And you can through pure force try to teach intellectually in those first seven years. But if you do that, you're stealing from the body.
You're going to have consequences later. Uh you're going to have abnormality. Well, we won't use that term. But first seven years is the development of the physical body. The next seven years is the the uh the the life body, the aeric body. And then only after 14 um then then you have the intellectual development that gets indicated and then the the fourth seven years that's when the real the e the real ego starts to come in. So this is a picture of we're trying you know we're trying to come into this physical world and it's a gradual process and the teacher's job is to be uh you know a handmaidaiden to that and in the courses on education he stretches these teachers it's a calling you know it's a spiritual calling and and they need to really be attuned to or try to be attuned to the incarnating soul.
So yeah, I mean that's like I think a very important aspect of Steiner's kind of paradigm, you know, his his his teaching. He really did believe in reincarnation. And I think he actually said somewhere that the mission of his life on earth was to bring the knowledge of reincarnation back to the west and that somehow we developed like monotheism and and you know Christianity replaced like you know the sort of pagan mystery school traditions. we lost this idea of like reincarnation or what used to be called the transmigration of souls and so on and um you know my understanding is that Steiner uh believed that um yeah that not only do human beings reincarnate again and again but also the earth itself uh reincarnates and that we're currently in from his perspective the the fourth incarnation of the earth and I got very fascinated with this when I was writing my book about meamerican prophecies uh 2012 the return of ketwa or we publish it as Ketle returns where I discovered that a lot of these indigenous cultures speak in very similar ways like the hopes say that we're in the fourth world and we're we're sort of on the cusp of the of the shift to the fifth world or the the the Aztecs talk about the age of the fifth sun and the age of the sixth son and we're we're you know exiting the age of the fifth son now entering the age of the sixth son and you know Steiner also associated these different incarnations of the earth with these different bodies so he so as you as you mentioned Steiner believed that you know, we didn't just have, you know, we we had we had a number of bodies right now. We have like a the physical body, the etheric body or the life body, which is like the the energy body.
Then we also have the the astral body. Uh and um and we have finally the the eye or the ego. So, we're at a point where we have these four bodies and um yeah, when we go to sleep at night, I think Snder talked about how the um the eye and the astral body detach from the physical body and the athereic body and they go off and they visit these different astral worlds and get sort of replenished by that that that you know the knowledge from the from the astral worlds and those experiences and so on and that's what we remember as dreams in a certain sense and yeah I mean Steiner also believed that um you know we were approaching this next incarnation of the earth and we were actually in the process of developing I think a new body if I if I remember correctly. I don't know Ralph do you know anything about the the new body that that we're disco that we're developing now according to Steiner. Well I think he's see you know we're we're developing the sensient soul in the future you know we really need to develop our feeling self to uh to a higher level but that maybe is something that Walter could speak more about.
But yeah, I think you painted a very clear picture there of uh S's understanding of the subtle bodies and um of the one you know and I think it is correct that uh he did feel certainly that one of his most important missions was to return a correct and scrupulous understanding of kra and reincarnation to the west. uh it's not as if it belongs exclusively to Hinduism and Buddhism but uh it's an inral part of the western esoteric tradition you know of course he saw himself as part of a long lineage of deep people initiates you could call them those who had known the deeper mysteries that had been celebrated in places like Deli and other mystery centers uh in antiquity so yeah I mean Stein had I I'd have to I have to say we were just talking about it at the Geonum of Peter Sal this remarkable contemporary writer and scholar of uh of Steiner but you know Steiner's uh detailed portrayal of the journey of the soul between death and rebirth which of course makes no sense unless you consider that we have those four bodies that you mentioned. It's extremely beautiful, extremely deep and I I think the most comprehensive account we yet have of what takes place after death. So that he certainly felt that was incredibly important. I mean I mentioned at the outset the tremendous practical legacy he left in agriculture education etc.
But you know most of his 6,000 lectures between 1901 and 1924 or 25 when he died were devoted to these profound spiritual esoteric matters. You know answers. So yeah all of that we've gotten some great questions coming in and we're going to go into all these questions in depth during the monthlong seminar. Um and hi hi Emmy. Hi hi hi Cliff Krillic. Uh so so Emmy asks what are the keystones of Steiner's understanding of Christianity and its role. So Steiner I don't think he started out as a Christian but through this esoteric exploration that he was making he ended up becoming sort of a esoteric Christian and he began to recognize that from his perspective in terms of this evolutionary journey that that humanity is on in the in the spiritual sense uh Christ's incarnation represented for him like the sort of crucial threshold which was like the full kind of instantiation of the eye or the ego you know which was sort of the separate the separate self or the separate individuality which is actually the big gain for this incarnation of the earth and you know so when Christ says you have to leave your father you know your brothers and sisters or whatever to follow me he's sort of saying that you have to go through this path alone and you know before that you know in like you know maybe indigenous cultures or more archaic cultures there was a little more of a sense of like like a group soul or a lot of like you know group connectivity and it became much more of the sort of the sort of individuality kind of like hardened at that point.
And um Oh, Walter, you just you just uh just dis disappeared into the into the into the ether or maybe the asteroid. I'm not sure which. Um uh you'll be back in a second, but yeah, I understand that, you know. So So that that's to answer that. I know. Walter, do you want to elaborate on that a little bit in terms of Steiner's Christian Christian understanding? We can't hear you right now. Try it again. No, still still no sound. No sound. Um but um yeah, I mean it gets very elaborate in terms of how Steiner understood early Christianity and and Christ's incarnation and all the forces around it.
Um you know, we we'll get into some of that. I mean um as I said, Walter is much deeper in that um you know, in in those matters than I am. Um but um in terms of the uh reincarnation, what part of a human gets carried into another life? That's also a very interesting and deep question for Steiner. um he uh yeah he he he basically he wrote a series of books called karmic relationships and I think it's both this you know these different bodies all reincarnate but it can happen in different ways like he talked about sometimes like somebody between you know death and rebirth these these sort of other angelic orders or spirits would maybe copy like your etheric body and suddenly like you know hundred people would have your etheric body in the next incarnation or your astral body and so on.
Uh but then he also saw these kind of one-to-one correspondences like in in those books he tracked kind of like if you get into Tibetan Buddhism uh you have these uh you know llamas who know you know who they were in the last cycle in the last cycle like the Daly Lama if you watch the film Kunda that Martin Scorsesei did and so Steiner believed that that was also happening in the western modern western civilization but we just didn't know it because we'd lost our understanding of it or our belief in it and so he in his books he would track he would take somebody like Frederick Engles or um um you know Gerta and he would show who that you know who that individuality had been in earlier incarnations and how they th those different incarnations and helped them gain certain like soul capacity or skills which then they needed for their for for their next kind of kind of bigger incarnation in a way. Um, let's see. Uh, yeah. And so, so, Walter, when you were at Gertennium just now, were there was there any insight about the contemporary Steiner world? Um, uh, what what you discovered when I was there?
Uh, insight. Yes. You know, I mean, they're very aware that uh, at least within the Germans, within Germany, it's Steiner continues to be something of a controversial figure. um his work is immensely widespread but there's still there's a need to really stand up for Steiner. there have been some quite uh difficult attacks on him and his integrity over the years of course whereas we know he was back in 1922 in Munich he was attacked by the protonazis but of course there were plenty of people who did not feel good about Stein from uh elements conservative elements within the Catholic Church to the protonazis to other esoteric groups who felt that he was revealing too much of the deep wisdom of humanity.
So, uh, you know, I think there's an awareness of needing to really stand up for, uh, Steiner's enormous integrity and spiritual depth and beauty, um, while acknowledging that, uh, there's some residue. You know, you can't go through the German speaking world in the 20th century without controversy. And, um, so I think that's what I picked up. But you know the the other feeling you get from the this impressive uh building the Gertano after named after Gerta the the great German poet dramatist the author of Fen comprehensive kind of genius in the German speakaking world before there was a Germany in Vimar when it was a collection of princely states you know you get a sense of um how international it has become the anthroposophobical doctors who meet from all over the world. The uh the Waldorf teachers speak from all over the world.
It's uh anthroposophical medicine. We I visited the very beautiful lightfilled clinic of Vita Vegman who was Rudolph Steiner's closest colleague and he he encouraged her to become a medical doctor in the early 20th century when that was rare for a woman. Uh she has a very beautiful uh Edveman clinic uh in Asa on the shores of Laggo Major next very close to where Yung the we mentioned young here were Eronos the the wonderful retreat centers on Lag Majori where Yung met with all kinds of extraordinary people. Joseph Campbell we would know but uh Gerson Scholam the great cabbell is DT Suzuki the Zen master on and on and um Mia Eliadi from the whole shaministic world. So uh yeah it's um Mhm.
that's R St. he's a remarkable man. Yeah, I mean um you know and one thing we'll talk about in in in our seminar, you know, there's also a lineage that helps understand Steiner and you mentioned Gerta and the Gertennium. Uh so Steiner actually, you know, apparently he had this extraordinary visionary capacity from early childhood. I mean the sense one gets as a psychedelic you know person like myself who's on Iawaska you know DMT so many times that when Steiner closed his eyes it was like he was on an Iaska journey and he would see into these other worlds and and you know these beings and the spirits of the dead would visit him and so on.
But he realized as a little child that actually nobody else around him had this ability. So he kind of shut up about it. But apparently he found one old gardener who possessed this kind of second sight or clairvoyance. And he could talk about that the gardener was was an illiterate sort of peasant. But he realized that somehow it had become like an adivistic capacity that maybe a lot more people had had it in previous epochs of human development, but he just, you know, for whatever reason had this capacity um that um uh that really wasn't generally available. So, so, so then he decided not to speak about it when he was young and he waited until he got a doctorate in in in philosophy and he had a he got a job researching and studying Gerta's science papers.
uh and Gerta's approach to science which was very much a um kind of like trying to put the subjective experience of the human being back into science and and recognizing that kind of like what are you going to your output of of scientific experiment or a development of a technology is going to be based on your you know your your your ideological set and setting Walter is coming back um so um yeah so that's all very fascinating and you know beyond that we go back to like Jacob Boem who was a mystic and you know kind of a grippa who who was a who was a magus um you know kind of uh Basil Valentinius the Gnostic tradition I mean I think it's um you know when you read Steiner when I encountered him uh during my own like psychedelic you know initiatory crisis it seemed like kind of like out of nowhere I couldn't believe that somebody thought like this it was just so amazing and went in so many directions and you know but it was interesting later on to discover the sort the sort of lineages behind him, you know, Swedenberg and you know, Jacob Boe and and Gerta and so on. Um, Walter, welcome back. We've gotten some questions, which is always a good sign. Um, let's see. Daniel, you're aware of the cultural and political scene.
I would love to have your opinion of Steiner's three-fold social order. So, I actually have always meant to go back and and dig into that more. Walter, do you want to you want to speak to that a little bit? I can say very little. uh it's tends to be um it's not a formula at the most basic level you would say it's a restructuring of society so that you have a complete separation of the three spheres of rights, economics and culture. Culture includes religion and education and all that rights of course is law and courts and all that. uh and the economics is the economics. What we have now as you know is economics, economics and economics.
But from this three-fold social order, the principles are complete freedom in the cultural sphere, um complete um equality in the right sphere and then in the economic sphere. Get ready, brotherhood. Now that sounds to be uh pie in the skyish, but remember that Steiner was in no way a utopian. But it was really saying that until we recognize that all money, all money represents value in the sense of labor, of work, meaningful work that that someone does. And so an appreciation has to change. Now right now there are lots of experiments going on in various places. I mean the you know the B corporation uh as an example and and other experiments but and then there's there's there's differences with respect to to land use which I think there are many people have rethought the the idea of money becoming congealed and being an abstract entity that people can kind of store and not use that was not part of the of three-folding.
No, thank you, Walter. Yeah. Yeah, I can't say more, but that's that's We have a wonderful question, one that's definitely always on my mind from Emmy. And Emmy, I really hope you're going to take the seminar because you're you're killing it with your questions here. Uh, but she writes, uh, there was a pipeline of Christians to MAGA to, you know, following Trump and so on via Jordan Peterson who often quotes Young and uses the Bible to explore psychological concepts behind human behavior. I'm wondering what role Young and Steiner's Christianity can have as a new pipeline that doesn't lead to Christian nationalism or you know white supremacy and so on but rather opens to a more complex Christian ideology or maybe the theophony would be would be a word that we could think about there.
Either of you want to give that one a shot or uh uh Ralph you have yeah you have yes it well you know one of the things that Steiner would say is that fundamentalism in any form whether it's Christian Jewish Buddhist you name it is a regressive force when he spoke about the contrary powers we would have to deal with in the 20th 21st century religious fundamentalism was one of them so he certainly doesn't identif ify what happened 2,000 years ago with any specific religion or any specific church. It is this is a universal human phenomenon that he would see through gazing the spiritual insight into the evolution of humanity. But I think yes, I think it's it's essential now for us to find a kind of holistic spirituality that doesn't fall into the Christian nationalism, the dominionism, the regressive outlook of um of so many not all but so many evangelicals and their mistaken view of um of what Christianity is. So, uh, yeah, I think Steini would say it's time to reconnect with the mystery. He called it the mystery of Goltha.
We're still figuring out the mystery of what happened 2,000 years ago in the Middle East, although it's obviously related to universal love and freedom. But uh yeah he would say that it's time for a a a holistic the early years of Christianity before it was established as the imperial religion by Constantine it was a gnostic it was a myst he sometimes calls it a mystery Christianity the figure of Christ was not the crucified figure on the cross it was if you go to the Roman catacombs it was Christ as the um as Orpheus as the shepherd with the good uh and a young man in a shepherd's tunic carrying carrying a lamb on his shoulders. So he would say, "Yes, it's time for a a reinvigorated multicultural non progressive Christianity that is aligned with all the world's spiritual traditions. Yeah. And I would say um yeah, more of a you know kind of um initiatory.
I mean, you know, the the current um, you know, Christianity, the the mainstream evangelical type is really about an indoctrination structure where you're supposed to, you know, have faith. You know, you're saved, quote unquote, by having in Christ divinity. Whereas for Steiner and other esoteric thinkers like Gerf, that's not really the point. Christ is more like like a model of how to walk the path. And actually that that statue in the gartanium that you mentioned um Steiner also writes about these different kind of like you know you could call them beings or you know St. Paul called them powers and principalities. These kind of energies that work on the human being all of the time.
And um he identified two of them. He kind of took in the in the you know the the reductive you know Bible uh as it was you know reduced you know you know when when it was made mainstream was talks about you know the devil or Satan but but but Steiner kind of you know kind of like expands that as these different forces that work on us all the time. And two of the main ones that he identified were the arommonic and the luciferic. Uh and so um you know Lucifer is a is actually the the you know the root meaning of that is lightbringer. So in some ways Lucifer is a very positive spur to human development.
And in fact I think Steiner had a magazine that he called Lucifer nosis. So Lucifer is this force that kind of like pulls us up towards like beauty and genius and but also can make us very arrogant and hotty. You know, psychedelics can be very luciferic. A burning man can be luciferic. I mean, you know, somebody like Rembo, you know, was like a luciferic kind of artist or whatever. Sort of, you know, maybe possessed by a spirit of genius in a way. Then you have this other force which is the arommonic, which as much as the luciferic is kind of pulling us up and away from the earth.
the arommonic is pulling us down towards kind of minerality, sterility, technology, in a sense, you know, death, um, extinction. And, um, you know, Steiner felt that, you know, Christ was showing us the path between these opposing forces. And also Steiner believed that, you know, after his death, potentially in this period that we're in now, there was going to be an a sort of, you know, event in humanity, spiritual history that he talked about as the incarnation of Aramman. Uh, and that actually that that that being of rational empiricism, pure calculation, like pure technological materialism was actually going to, you know, kind of incarnate in our human realm. And and it does feel and Walter, I'm curious what you think.
It does feel like we're we're you know, we're heading towards something like that. It feels like a very Arammonic time right now. This is uh this is Arammon's time. Uh you know, there's no certainty. Some say reincarn he's incarnating at the west. He's already here. Uh he may be a youth, but it's at this this is this is Arman's day and not for uh and for a reason. is because these opposing forces are here for us to overcome them. We have to uh we have to meet these challenges and and the the temptations are towards either you know you can talk about uh and Steiner talks about moral technology.
Now that may mean moral use of technology but it also refers to to technology that's connected to man's being. you know, he talked about in in ablian times, you know, human beings had control over life forces and it was in part, you know, that's in the Old Testament, the abuse of those forces that led to the downfall of of Atlantis. Yeah, Walter, let me let me just explain for a second because not everybody may understand that that so basically Steiner as I understand it believed that humanity had existed not only in these different worlds but in these kind of different states of of consciousness and sort of state dimensions in a weird way. And so he talked about Atlantis and Lamoria, but the way he talked about it was not in a very literalistic way. Maybe like Graeme Hancock would say there was like a pre-existing you know Atlantis that had like columns and you know you know big structures and so on.
It was more like almost like a different state of of being a more kind of subtle level of consciousness where you know we had different capacities and somehow we you know developed to a certain point and and then we sort of lost control of that situation or there was a deviation or something and and and then a collapsed back into this you know more physicalized or materialized form. Would you say that is true? Yeah that's good. I mean atlant it was in the middle of Atlantis that we began to have a body that in some way resembled the one we have now. Before that the earth was still more pliant.
Uh we were we were not incarnated in the way we are now. Individuality was not uh a possibility. Uh and um but we were still in contact with real life forces and could and could wield them. uh there were vehicles, there were structures, but the intelligence was not incarnated individually. You know, this is something I'm excited to explore during the the seminar. It's kind of like um you know, there there's that thing where, you know, for many people, if not most people, Steiner just becomes like too woo, you know, like uh it begins to feel too like woo woo. somebody who has like a rational, you know, kind of empirical mindset is going to say, "Oh, that's just like too freaky for me.
I have no idea what they're talking about." And, you know, for me, I I find so much resonance with Steiner, even when he gets very esoteric, even though sometimes I take it almost as as a mythopoetic uh kind of a thing or or a um you know, so but but I but I but I in I mean, I don't know. How do you you know do I mean do you do you experience this through your own kind of like you know direct clairvoyant encounters with Steiner's thought or or vision? One of the things we'll be exploring in our you know I think it's the second session is the evolution of consciousness which is such an important concept because you know we have the false view that cavemen looked out into the world and saw plants and trees and animals the same way we do and saw the same colors whereas for Steiner there's a gradual incarnation into a solid earth. uh before that there were times when nature still had will in it. I'm going to talk about that you know to some extent uh on Saturday.
Nature still had will in it. We experience and this is and you know indigenous cultures native cultures they didn't they didn't go around you know giving multiple choice saying you know a little running bear behind that tree there is a a spirit or this that it was still experience the the remnants of that kind of consciousness was still there and it made sense to them that go up to the eagle's nest gave you a power when you came back with that eagle feather what the theory was something they still felt in their in their bones And it's one of the reasons why you could say the indigenous peoples didn't invent stuff. They weren't about to invent a steam engine or or the like because they were still nature things were still alive to for us. And this I wanted to go back to this. We're in the consciousness co soul age uh which follows the intellectual soul and the sentient soul.
And for us the outer world is pretty much dead. We don't that we accept we incarnate into this world and there's just solid stuff out there and we you know our senses give it pictures but the life behind them uh is not there for us but of course for Steiner those capacities can be cultivated and and that's part of what Steiner brought was was these practices but the console age is an age in which we are refining and transforming the astral body which our emotional life and for for people in general in this consciousness soul age started in the 1400s goes to 2200. We've got a part of us that's transformed that we're present too. We have thoughts that are alive. We can think we have control of our attention and we have the other parts the darker darker parts that still need a lot of work you know which is the egoism the narcissism the greed all that stuff but but the task of this time is that transforming of the astral body is going to be transformation of of the life body the ether body and then the next one will be the transformation finally of the physical body at which point beings will actually be creators will have control but a lot of a lot of um moral development has to take place in the meantime.
No, very very beautiful. Very well said. Yeah. I mean I I wanted to mention by the way if new people have t tuned in um you you can uh go to liinal. news uh and read about the course and what we're doing every week. Uh and you can use a coupon at the checkout awakening soul for 25% off the seminar. I hope you guys will join. Uh, it's going to be super fun. And yeah, personally, like I just feel like, you know, yeah, you mentioned greed and all that stuff. I mean, we're definitely in we're definitely seeing massive projections of like the worst of human nature right now.
And um, you know, so it feels like a very precious time to really, you know, go into a thinker like this. And um yeah, I guess I also wanted to talk about, you know, we only have a few minutes left kind of like for me actually um I was surprised by and you know once again we we'll keep sort of like rotating around kind of like how do you um kind of square these like crazy in a way visionary you know kind of like you know ideas that Steiner has about you know the the nature spirits and the Buddha incarnating on Mars and you know the many bodies that Christ had and stuff with a sort of modern n you know rational kind of like way of being in the world and you know there there's some thinkers who helped me a lot with that one one of them is William Orwin Thompson and his way of approaching Steiner I found to be extremely uh powerful um but yeah I mean so you know Steiner also you know he kind of he kind of let laid out the table for his future work in his first book this dissertation philosophy of freedom which was actually a kind of reputation I think a very successful reputation of Kantian dualism. And Steiner actually defined himself as a monistic idealist which is essentially this idea that that you know the consciousness not anything physical or material is the underlying ground of reality the under underlying nature of being which is also what you know eastern metaphysics talks about like Tibetan Buddhism talks about primordial awareness and everything sort of like arising from this ground of the of this uh you know primordial awareness. So it and you know then he layers onto that in a sense you know a kind of animism or pans psychism aware of these forces behind everything in nature and these sort of angelic and elemental beings who kind of like sculpt and kind of like emanate you know these different these different aspects of reality and so on. And then he elaborates on top of that these these evolutionary cycles you know how humanity was you know so different in in previous uh stages of development and how we'll be very different again in future stages and gives a kind of necessity to understanding you know where we're at now and and you know with all the difficulties that we're facing.
So he kind of like I I feel that for me he was the primary thinker who kind of restored kind of meaning and purpose and and kind of like a sort of centrality of of an understanding of of you know what it means to be human and why we're we're going through all this uh this sorus as you might say. That's great, Daniel, but I want to add one little piece to it, which is human consciousness, and remember a lot of Nobel Prize winning physicists agree with this. Human consciousness is central to the whole evolution of the cosmos. The idea that, you know, some have said, "Oh, yeah. Wouldn't it be great if humanity disappeared because the earth would be so much better off?" No.
No. There there's no out there. You know, that's the dualism. There's the spiritual world there's no separation of inner and outer. There has to be uh complete knowledge there. And so the picture is one in which we are essential to the the the cosmos and our interplay with spiritual beings is essential not only to us but to them. And and this picture of the evolution of consciousness is important because it's showing why we're in this particular pickle right now where the whole thing we why did the spiritual world have to die out for why do we have to go through this period of of desolation and and of course the reason why Walter why tell me why I can tell you why.
One you'll find out if you come to the work oh yeah should I tell him or should I say all right make that a cliffhanger. We'll make that a cliffhanger. I'll give you half of it. I'll give you half of it. One half of it is um freedom. When you were in earlier stages of humanity's development and the gods were real to you and you felt their pleasure or wrath and you felt that the winds were alive beings and all that, you were nothing. You the spiritual world was overwhelming. you your individuality was still up in the group soul, you know, had not really incarnated. And so, in a way, the whole thing had to be dumbed down for us to develop our our our own being uh so that we could really become what we're meant to become.
We were overwhelmed. So, that's half. The other half we get on Saturday. That's Yeah. I mean, um go ahead. Well, Ralph, go ahead. Yeah. I just had a few thoughts before we sign off. Uh you I think it's important for us to realize that Steiner is an enormous thinker. He's got one of the biggest minds I've ever come across and it will take it takes a long time to fully absorb the massive scope of what he has to offer. It's important to he doesn't expect anybody to buy into any kind of ideology. He says he says do not swallow hookline and sinker. some of his insights from the spiritual world.
He says, "Subject everything to the four critical capacities of your intellect bit by bit and make it your own." And he doesn't want to be any kind of a guru. He just says he's your spiritual or our spiritual friend. So I think it's important that people, you know, this big picture is something you can come to bit by bit, piece by piece as it progressively makes more sense. But I don't think people should feel that they have to uh embrace any particular uh world view or ideology. I think they can come he he's a thinker of extraordinary rigor and knowledge. Remember you see he is a Ph D in philosophy and he was trained in math and physics in Vienna.
So you're dealing with a brilliantly comprehensive mind that's extremely philosophically and scientifically rigorous and is at the same time attuned to some of the profound pictures of human evolution and higher worlds that Walter was talking about there. Can I throw in another 25 cents worth? Throw in 50 cents. Oh, we'll go for 50. I mean on the one hand Steiner he he went to the equivalent of MIT in Austria. Uh he was trained as a scientist and and a you know an engineer. Um but he said that so he stressed ordinary thinking that you know clear uh intelligible logical think absolutely essential. On the other hand, he said our ordinary thoughts are the corpses of the thinking that we experienced in the spiritual world before we incarnated and we need to develop our thinking again towards again living thinking or what he also called heart thinking.
Uh that's important to to grasp at it. It's does it's not it's not super AI thinking. It's uh you know Gayorg Koulan developed the term cognitive feeling. It's a knowing, you know, it's a knowing that includes both the the heart and and and the concept. Um, and uh, maybe we can explore that more, but that's essential. Well, he gave his verses. No, they they weren't you weren't meant to they're not there to be explained. Yeah. But but he would give ver verses and it was kind of like try this on like you went to you went to uh Barney's you know said try on this jacket you know try this thought and see where living with it will take you because his ideas are of that nature that you're not it's it's not um if you're going to stick with logical thinking you're gonna you're going to be stuck with uh with Arman.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean I think it's uh you know for me it's really important because it's like a lot of people I know who are in the sort of you know Burning Man transformational culture you know yoga and all this stuff there they you know there's a kind of often there's a kind of rejection of the intellect because people went to college and they they they when they look back they were like what was all that you know these stupid courses it all seems kind of meaningless but I I think yeah I mean you know what we're kind of saying here is that you know Steiner is I mean he called himself a spiritual scientist um you know but really was about yeah uniting in in a proper integrative way you know mind and heart you know and understanding that the you know our our thinking is is is also a spiritual tool and capacity that we need to hone um you know in in the same way we might hone our body in in yoga not that I do that right now but I should um you know so um yeah so I mean I think that's very important let's see this one comment here we're about to about to check out I think for today but um some kind of right understanding of karma and rec reincarnation is helpful to creating less pressure and bigger picture. Steiner gets that it's a peacemaker move. The heart continues.
The thinking gets composted. Um yeah, that's that's that's a nice way of looking at it. But I really I hope you guys who joined us today and I'm going to put this up in my newsletter. Hopefully a lot of people will will get a chance to to listen. Um yeah, I hope you guys will, you know, join this seminar. I think we're gonna have a great time. And if you are in New York or anywhere nearby, you can come in person to the uh anthroposophy center and join us. 138 West 15th Street. Yeah, that's like I think we're coming. We're doing 2 p. m. What is it?
Uh, no, 4 p. m. 4 p. m. 4 p. m. 4 p. m. 4 to 6. This time I have to leave like super on the dot at 6 or something, but later on we can we'll be able to linger more and have dinner after and stuff like that, you know. Um, all right. Yeah. Thank you guys. Mary Stewart Adams will be joining us on on Saturday. Oh, amazing. I can't wait to meet her. That'd be awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you guys. Bye. See you Saturday. Bye.
Automatic transcript, lightly edited for readability. Originally published on the Liminal News channel.