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Hi James. If you look at the myths regarding Loki's spawn, namely The Midgard Serpent, Fenris Wolf and Hel in relation to what Steiner says about Lucifer and Ahriman in The Mission of the Individual Folk Souls GA 121 (11. Nerthus, Freyja and Gerda. Twilight of the Gods. Vidar and the new Revelation of Christ) you might discover an interesting wrinkle in the story :) rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA121/English/RSP1970/19100617p02.html

Interest ing comment! I would be interested toknow of anyone doing it in the Buddhist direction? Any recommedations?

Also Matthew 11 is interesting as supporting evidence: 11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12 From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence,[d] and violent people have been raiding it. 13 For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. 14 And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. 15 Whoever has ears, let them hear.

@@TheExceptionalState Matthew 17: 9-13 9 And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying: Tell the vision to no man, till the Son of man be risen from the dead. 10 And his disciples asked him, saying: Why then do the scribes say that Elias must come first? 11 But he answering, said to them: Elias indeed shall come, and restore all things. 12 But I say to you, that Elias is already come, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they had a mind. So also the Son of man shall suffer from them. 13 Then the disciples understood, that he had spoken to them of John the Baptist" We do live in the time after the son of man was risen from the dead. We assume this meant that this teaching would have been the dogma of the churches and this revelation was for the fathers of the church's time. It seems that this mystery was withheld until we matured into the mystery.

Dreams are our souls communicating to us the experiences of the soul when the blinding impressions of the infinite senses have been muted. As we deepen our relationship to this core (cuore/heart) we can also begin to experience the spirit world communicating from the other infinite side.

Read the PhD

@@TheExceptionalState ...✝️

I fully agree. Space-time is in God, but not God. John 14:11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me John 14:20 On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you.

I hope to be doing a video or article on Are's statement soon. There is a thread on Facebook with him and I where we look at his sources and he corrects his statement. If you are on FB I can send you the thread.

@@TheExceptionalState Thank you, if you are there as Exceptional State, I'll find you and say hello Angus and Jeff.

Angus Hawkins

Angus Hawkins Hi Are. I would like to understand better where in particular in the book (I have the German version, probably like yourself) you are getting the idea from that " the great pain and suffering that Rudolf Steiner experienced when he realized that the path into the spiritual world that he had offered, and perhaps himself opened, was subsequently shut due to his followers’ lack of commitment. Did Steiner say that he "perhaps opened the path"? Did Steiner say that this path was shut? I have only skimmed the book so able grateful if you have any pointers to recommend. BTW I am one of those anthroposophist's that meditates. Are ThoresenAuthor Angus Hawkins 228-229-230-231-232-233-243-244-245-247-248-257-268 Angus Hawkins Thanks Are. Would you agree with an initial observation that I made, namely that Ehrenfried Pfeiffer is a key player in this story? And that it is also important to know about his life, experiences and book "Ein Leben für den Geist"? Are ThoresenAuthor Angus Hawkins may be, I don't know Angus Hawkins Hi Are Thoresen I have now read pages 220-268 that you referenced. It is certainly a sorry tale that is told about the relationship between the Vorstand and Steiner. Nevertheless, I found no statements that indicated that the path to initiation was closed. The nearest the book comes to with regards to that idea is that Steiner's return will be required for a deepening of the anthroposophical impulse (Teil XII p243-244 "bleiben verhüllt" does not mean closed, it means "remain veiled"). I find nothing in here that indicates the path of the "Philosophy of Freedom" or "How to Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds" is closed. Instead we only read about Steiner's disappointment that nobody, despite all Steiner's efforts, was capable of achieving such a level of clairvoyance. Are ThoresenAuthor Angus Hawkins no, the Michael path is to my knowledge not closed ......... it is just quite difficult ..... I guess ...... I tried to sit and watch the so called Michael path for several weeks some time ago, and SOME individuals could walk it, so I concluded that it was not closed. In the book I mentioned Steiner said that the path would be closed in the autumn of 19214 if not used. Seems that I have to read that book again to find the place ........ Angus Hawkins Are Thoresen I would also like to thank you for encouraging me to read about the events towards the end of Steiner's life. It adds yet another interesting dimension to the omnipresent forces that prefer to see humanity devolve rather than evolve. Are ThoresenAuthor Angus Hawkins yes, and I will also use this conversation to thank Dr. Rose for making me aware of that the Michael path is not closed or shut. Thank you both.

@@TheExceptionalState Thank you Angus. I was reading on Are's FB to find it, and there, it's painful to read the comments and objections without the openness and specificity you carefully bring to the discussion. When Ari talked about the "closing" of the Michael path, he likened it to an untrodden forest path grown over. I understood it from the traditional Aboriginals in Australia who keep the Songlines open by going Walkabout. Additionally, my own thoughts were that while the 9,8,& 7 Hierarchy could still assist, they've done it all before already, and for humans to have an expectation that we can just pass the responsibility up the line was as unlikely as Christ returning in a physical body a second time, if you get my drift. Anyway, since a lot of us are in our, shall I say "mature" years, unlikely to commit terrorist acts, making a space was something we could do. I dowse the environment and was keen to not rely on rods for ley lines, stressed places etc. I might reserve judgement and "watch" this space. Thank you for going to the trouble to reply so extensively. We are all walking each other home.

Spoken in the truest spirit of a naive realist (as described in the video)

@@TheExceptionalState Thought is always in a hurry to see the end product a God or savior or heaven and yet only those willing to observe and learn from the process not the process written in a book of scriptures, the process of life, nature unfolding now, because life is always happening now, right where one is standing, writing the real scriptures now, not in or of the past, but in the now

That is the message of the gospels

@@alxartzen Sight without thinking is blind

@@alxartzen also in the video, a projection methinks.

If you are familiar with Steiner and his language I can recommend: The Mystery of the Trinity It is online here:rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA214/English/AP1991/MysTri_index.html

@@TheExceptionalState thanks, I'll check that out

Jeff, you mentioned how the fire element is extinguished by the water element naturally early in the discussion. It made me think of an example of how UNnaturally the elements interact when a lithium based fire is enlivened by water. So much so, firefighting scrambles to respond under this new construct.

Thanks 8:32. Did I remember wrong or have you changed your name :)

@@TheExceptionalState I stayed 8:32, TH-cam changed it for me back to a previous username and threw in some extra numbers while they were at it. Go figure 😏

What is energy in your estimation? Is there agency to it? Or does agency depend on what "it" is grounded in or flows through?

​@@jeffbarney3584 When I was in school, energy was the ability to do work. That's pretty vague. The Jewish believe that the universe is made of numbers and letters. I agree: information, concepts. I really like your summation that we humans are informed by "higher beings", and yes, "lower beings" (anthropomorphized) that we can cause to emanate by thinking about them. Our similar thought forms cause these adjacent realms to vibrate within us. Reaching for answers is how we initiate the emanation of a higher source. In the Gospel of Thomas, the question arises in a few of the sayings, what is the kingdom? Jesus says: "Movement and rest." There is this phenomenon that he talks about called "being in the Midst, which is nothing." I take that to mean that there is a place or space where information can enter, and that nothingness receives it. We (mind) time travels in a sea of information. We stretch, as it were, and sometimes we change. The reason that we can move at all is because there is a thing called frequency relationship. It involves time, energy, frequency, vibration (Tesla). Those are a few of my thoughts.

@@christineveazey3705 Thank you! I love this contribution. I'm gonna give it some thought and respond later.

@@christineveazey3705 For me a key to a door to the mysteries has become newly available. The key is being(s). Energy is the ability to do work. It is being that has ability and that does work. We are participants in the metamorphosing, and anthropomorphizing of beings and perhaps technologically providing bodies for incarnating beings and we are participating on our own self creation (in all the ways perhaps?) I love this image from the Thomas Gospel. Thank you. Agents move and agents rest.

Seems right on and well placed in time.

Totally agree regarding Collins and his behaviour during the pandementia.! I think he was playing for the other side :( His name happened to be on the list in the article

Guys like Rogan, Jordan, and Bret Weinstein have been a blessing to humanity, esp during Covid. The media is a scourge, one of the greatest manifestations of evil on the planet - b/c of how subtle and effective their deception and manipulation tactics are. People are lied to and brainwashed, and don't even realize it. And that does not exclude very intelligent people in many cases. The "mass psychosis" is how people get caught up in evil agendas like what happened in Nazi Germany, and people wonder "how could that happen"? Covid had something like a 99.8 percent survival rate with an average age of death near 80, and yet humanity allowed itself to be duped and held hostage by an 80 year old little elf weasel named Fauci for two and a half years. As Mark Twain said, it's easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they have been fooled.

How relatable is a god with no identity? How could humans engage it?

I believe ineffable is another of saying the same thing.

Interesting statement.

Sounds like you have a firm grasp of some very important points. Possiibly even better than I do. Thank you for sharing! At my current state of development (still a long way from meeting the guardian I suspect) I would say that rather than "stopping thinking" I frame in terms of letting the activity of thinking live in me whilst being conscious of how that activity sheds light on experience. It is for me akin to comunion that unites my being with a greater reality at ever deeper levels. Or having another go at expressing where I am. By focusing on the activity rather the products of thinking I am lead to a region of experience that takes me beyond what was previously conceivable. I need to take some more time to digest this pregnant part you wrote "....to be sure, also at work in the ordinary consciousness, but does not enter it while it is active."

Thank you James. Have you seen Jordan's two conversations surrounding his recent conversion to Christianity with John Vervaeke recently?

@@jeffbarney3584 I haven't but will put it on the to do list.

What I'm amazed that does not get a ton of emphasis in the story of the war in heaven is that angels are super intelligent beings. And 1/3 of them were convinced to join with Lucifer - against God. Astounding if true.

Thats odd. It is coming out loud and clear for me and others that I know of

and we are glad you found us :)

That would be the opposite of the spiritual reality we are engaged in and speaking out of. I get your Nietzschean ideal here. His Zarathusrta figure is much more in line with what I think is at work in evolution. To actually engage with the Christ figure takes a post paradigmatic mind and that by definition leaves the security in group think behind . As relates to the guilt game we play with ourselves it truly is a bad habit that must be overcome because it is anti human potential and is a devolutionary impulse. On the Christ path as spiritual discipline the transformation of the feeling life into organs of cognition is the reality that one finds and perception opens into deeper will impulses and life processes. The suffix Christ-ian means of Christ and the suffix "ity" being in the state of. The term mystical in the title means supersensible perception of. The institution you are speaking of is a hollow story people use to keep themselves in line or those that seek power over others use to manipulate. All sorts of institutions are used to those ends. This approach is distrustful of human nature and in the latter case also cynical. All of it is a promotion of ill health. My experience is that at the ground of metamorphic existence is being as a self organizing. Human beings have the freedom to engage with this nature or turn away from. I agree that institutions including contemporary materialistic science and all of its exogenous instrumentalist and utilitarian adulterations are elaborate escape mechanisms and as such are ontological violations and so ultimately self destructive. Bryan! Thanks for waking my inner Nietzsche this morning. He was right about so much. Unfortunately like Kafka's great regret he could not negotiate the abyss as threshold.

@@jeffbarney3584 Interesting insights thanks.

I believe I used both terms as synonymous. Though I am aware it is archaic I was not aware that it is offensive to some that the religion would be attributed to the founder.

@@jeffbarney3584Islam doesn’t belong in the West.

@@bryanutility9609 Can you elaborate?

@@jeffbarney3584 Not our history, not our people, not our culture, not our religion. Should not be within Western borders.

@@jeffbarney3584 deportation is appropriate policy

Hi James. Your talk of the astral reminded of this beautiful bit in Occult Science which will be part of the group conversatoin next week. Imagine a vessel full of water. Within the mass of water a single drop has no separate existence. But take a little sponge and draw a drop away, thus severing it from the total mass. Something of this kind happens to the human astral body on awakening. During sleep it is in a world of its own kind, a world to which it properly belongs. On awakening, the physical and the etheric body draw it in and fill themselves with it. These two bodies contain the organs whereby the astral body perceives the external world, to attain which perception it has to be detached from its own world. Yet from the latter alone can it derive the archetypal patterns which it needs for the etheric body. What a beautiful image to play with, every morning on awakening we bring with us a drop of the universe which is with us during our whole waking day.

Lovely to hear from you again Kate. I am looking forward to many more interesting conversations with these Aussies and Kiwis :). Jude's (Martin) PhD is definitely worth taking a look at if you are interested.

Tomberg is a very interesting character. I am not well read on him, though did enjoy his "inner Development " and "Christ and Sophia" . I must admit to a certain fascination for someone who also saw the important role that Catholicism has for helping people to find Christ. Steiner made some interesting comments about the importance of the Eucharist.

Hi Matthew. A brief look a the many definitions of Samadhi means I can neither agree nor disagree with your statement. However, I do think we can pick apart one area to create some clarity. If we start with normal consciousness we can understand that knowledge is a result of the union of experience (perceptin in PoF) and the inner creations of concepts and ideas. We need to be careful to distinguish between concepts/ideas (which can never be fully defined in language/are infinite) and mental representations which are individual representations taken from experience of the senses as placeholders for concepts. Thinking is the creator of the subject/object duality and all the other dualities that shape our lives. Another way of expressing this is that the activity of thinking transcends this dualism as it is dualism’s creator. We live by the grace of thinking can be understood to mean that we only know (are conscious of) our own existence because of this activity. However, by living directly in this activity (pure thinking) and not in mental representations we are living in that being/activity that transcends duality. In that sense I think some common ground can be found with some descriptions of Samadhi. You might like to look into the "exitus-reditus motif" as I think this helps open the mind to a larger experience of what the activity of thinking . Hope this makes sense

I think what we are saying is similar perhaps with different terms. Steiner uses 'thinking' in his own way. I would say that thinking arises out of awareness, which is the integrated being of your Spiritual Self, which is in essence a spiritual activity that in modern times dies into the image/concept of what it is is aware of. Our Higher Self, as a being of love, has its own awareness, which knows by being, and it's qualities of love and peacefulness, we have by the grace of the Universal Self, which is what Christ was the avatar for. Being able to cultivate an intuitive relationship with the Higher Self is to stand between two worlds, physical/spiritual. Overcoming/sacrificing your personal self (with its preferences and opinions and colored/selfish way of seeing) to join transpersonal awareness and its selfless engagement in perceiving reality is what Christ provided for us individually by joining with the Earth. The peaceful, unconditional love within awareness is our resource to invite the Higher Self(Christ) into our earthly selves. It must take the leadership role as selflessness/ sensing it's qualities instead of the instrumental , manipulating intellect alone. A bit of a tangent, sorry. But I think Steiner's 'thinking' overcoming duality has to do with transpersonal awareness or the ability to enter Samadhi (which is the intergrated awarness of your higher being) in the midst of everyday life. Only it can selflessly listen to what other beings are saying by 'being' them (knowing their noumena) through the use of our latent clarevoyent capacities.

@@matthewmccartin7069I agree, we seem to be coming from the same perspective, but each one of us emphasizing slightly different aspects. I think here you have the essence of it when you say "Steiner uses 'thinking' in his own way. I would say that thinking arises out of awareness, which is the integrated being of your Spiritual Self". I fully agree with this, but also feel it is useful to add a clarifying point. If we examine the activity of thinking (not the thoughts produced by it) then we find that it first appears as experience (in awareness to use your term), but thinking at the same time takes us beyond mere experience to an enhanced experience where we can talk about understanding something that was previously incomprehensible. Thinking is that activity that enables us to consciously experience the intelligence/nous/divine/universal self that underlies the structure of all experience.

Thanks James!. An interesting reflection about the categories. It is a long term project of mine to dig deeper into what Steiner meant when he talked about Aristotle's categories being a type of cosmic script. We still have 2 chapters left in the book, but I understand why you think it should be 11/12 Christianity and Pagan Wisdom Augustine and the Church I have been digging deeply into Aquinas' life and works recently. I am particuarly intrigued by the closeness in time to Aquinas' rebuttal of Siger of Brabant and his exhortation “The end of my labors has come. All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me.” ........ “I can write no more. I have seen things that make my writings like straw.” Is this something you have looked into? www.catholic.com/qa/when-st-thomas-aquinas-likened-his-work-to-straw-was-that-a-retraction-of-what-he-wrote

@@TheExceptionalState I have looked into this and Steiner's lecture's "The Redemption of Thinking (CW 74) " and how Aquinas was looking into the problem of the revelation of religion and could no longer use the scholasticism of the time to bring reason and logic to revelation. This lead to nominalism and Ockham's razor, then to Bacon's philosophy and finally to the apex of nominalism the philosophy of Kant. Thomism now through spiritual science has now the reason and logic to bring forward what was for Aquinas straw and a knowledge of revelation.

@@jameskaplin502Thanks James for reminding me of GA74. I have been digging deeper into the life of Aquinas recently, both his biography and moral philosophy. Furthermore, because I am also looking closely at Dante's Paradiso this is leading to a kind of quickening in my thinking and understanding in relation to PoF and KoHW which is still so fleeting I think it is better not put it into words yet.

When you go out and shiver and do you say "It is very absent of heat today" or do you say "It is cold". If you answered the former, then congratulations for you are being consistent in your belief. If you didn't then I suggest that the "linguistic nuance" is indeed hinting at a fact.

I am not denying the fact that cold exists. Linguistically, we created a word to describe the absence of heat. Cold and hot are opposites, most definitely. I am not denying that. I have difficulty understanding your analogy 15 minutes in where you said that hot could not exist without cold. Cold is the absence of heat, but heat is not the absence of cold. Temperature is the vibration of molecules. The higher the vibration, the hotter the temperature appears to be. We can slow this vibration to near zero but never completely stop them from vibrating.

Perhaps it is this vibration that Steiner/Heraclitus is referring to. As we continue to think and increase our vibration, we unlock the omnipotent potential that latently exists within us.

Sticking with your motion and non-motion picture of vibreating atoms Heraclitus' position appears to me to be that it would be equally correct to describe motion and stillness as the two extremes of a polarity. So that in a hot system stillness must be added to cool it and vice versa. I think Steiner would also point out that we can talk about non-phyiscal heat. E.g. Have warm emotions or chilling sensations which is a soul experience that can be had without any theorteical knowledge about the speed of atoms. @@billg302

Thank you so much for your kind and supportive words!

Beautiful

Thanks for sharing this James. Your own experiences of the Eucharist and the unceasing promise ot transsubstantion for anyone who truly grapples with the mystery of Christ fill my heart and head with warmth. It would be lovely to hear more about how the mystical fact is becoming a reality to you. Thomas Aquinas famously said "Everything . . . seems to me straw compared with the vision I have had". It is a shame that no records exist (as far as I know) as to anybody askng him to describe what happened and why. In my own imagination I wonder if he experienced some similar to what Dante experienced in the final part of the Divine Comedy, namely Paradiso. Any thoughts? Fancy a chat sometime?

@@TheExceptionalState I believe that when I came across this from Steiner from Lecture X GS 346 "Lecture to Priests: The Apocalypse - "Now just think that this Revealer approaches John showing him in a prophetic picture what will later occur for humanity. There He comes down in future times the one who has the name which He alone understands. What can all of this really mean? If one honestly wants to understand it, the whole thing seems to be meaningless at first. Why does He come, the one who is to bring the salvation of the world, the justice of the world all of this is written in the Apocalypse -, “who shall make faith and knowledge true;” not what the (King James version has: “was called Faithful and True”) but “who shall make faith and knowledge true.” This is really like hide-and-seek, for if He has an inscribed name which only He understands, what is that supposed to mean? It makes us ask a question which goes deeper. What is this really all about? Imagine it quite vividly: He has a name which only He understands. How can we relate to this name? It should really acquire a significance for us; this name should really be able to live in us. How can this occur? It can occur if the being who understands this name becomes united with us and enters our own self, then this being in us will understand the name and we will understand it also. We will have Him in us and we will continually have the awareness of Christ in us. He is the only one who understands the things, which are connected with His being; but He understands them in us, and the Christ-insight of the Christ being in us gives the light which is rayed out in us, because He becomes this light in us, in our own being. It will be an insight which dwells in men." This statement started living inside of me and brought me into a true sublime consciousness that has shifted my entire worlds of feeling , thinking and willing life so it was more of a transfiguration of my soul. I would love to fancy a chat someday and I truly appreciate the work you and Jeff are producing because you both have a courageous conviction on your pursuits of your journey of truth.

It seems that both Jeff and certainly are drifting into a field you are very familiar with. Since we did the chapter on Apocalypse and all the intense reading before and after something has also shifted deeply inside me. Indeed, Jeff and I mentioned in this video that our next series might have to be on the Apocalypse for the very reasons that you refer to from GA 346 Let me know when works for to have an informal chat and I can coordinate with Jeff and we can see where the divine winds would have us blown. @@jameskaplin502 BTW thanks for your stimulating comments, it helps us to feel that we are doing something of value.