Christianity As Mystical Fact 11/12: Rudolf Steiner - Christianity & Pagan Wisdom - Philo & Spinoza

Jeff and I continue on our voyage of discovery into Rudolf Steiner's transformational book "Christianity As Mystical Fact: And the Mysteries of Antiquity". Today we look look at what chapter 12 has to say about the relationship between Pagan Wisdom and Christianity.
Spinoza: On the Improvement of the Understanding:
But love towards a thing eternal and infinite feeds the mind wholly with joy, and is itself unmingled with any sadness, wherefore it is greatly to be desired and sought for with all our strength.
GA 8. rsarchive.org/Books/GA008/Eng...
#rudolfsteiner #spinoza #mysticism #christianmysticism #mysteryschool #plotinus #philo #paganism

[@jameskaplin502]

The joy I find in Christianity as Mystical Fact for me began in the realm of feeling and devotion for Christ but since then moved it's center to the intellect and I can see it coming full circle back to the emotions but married with the intellect. I watched Matt's presentation with Tim Jackson called "Whitehead's Panprehensionism: A Feeling For Reality" and what jumped out at me was the world of feeling being an universal according to Whitehead and the propositional feelings and judgement conscious. These higher forms of feeling we experience when we have prehension of a concept make judgements to the mind that one has a feeling they are coming from an universal. I do believe the mind is based in the astral that is linked to the angels and the feeling is based in the etheric and linked to the archangels and the will based in the physical body linked to the archai. So when we are receiving these higher feeling on our judgements we are providing that mystical fact. I do believe we need to marry these concepts with these purified feelings to move forward into putting our moral life into action with the will in a future. Now my morning meditation is coming alive in my soul. Those who put their trust in its name have come into being not out of the blood (Etheric Body, Feeling & Angel), not out of the will of the flesh(Physical Body, will & archai), not out of the will of man(astral, Mind & archangel), but out of god. John 1:13 We need all three of them to be in communion to reveal to us we are God's children.

[@TheExceptionalState]

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.

[@fusion9619]

In response to something said around 25 min in :
I don't understand the Trinity. I'm a Christian, but the Trinity just seems like an imposition of limitations on God. It seems like other people's objection is that God is just One or "oneness" ; but the way i see it, an omnipotent being can be One or Three or a Billion or 2^274 or anything, and never lose a bit of it's omnipotence. Infinity doesn't stretch out and become thinner as it stretches - its infinity thick and infinitely wide. I do enjoy the mental exercise of the Pythagorean or Taoist reasoning of Three being the complete object, but it's just a human game and it exists within the framework of logic created by an infinite being, who exists beyond and prior to logic.
So... Thats why i don't get the Trinity.

[@TheExceptionalState]

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

[@fusion9619]

@@TheExceptionalState thanks, I'll check that out

[@jennifernoyce7893]

would like to be able to hear this. Very muffled

[@jeffbarney3584]

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

[@screensafety8015]

“Mohammadism”? You meant Islam, I take it.

[@jeffbarney3584]

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.

[@bryanutility9609]

@@jeffbarney3584Islam doesn’t belong in the West.

[@jeffbarney3584]

@@bryanutility9609 Can you elaborate?

[@bryanutility9609]

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

[@bryanutility9609]

@@jeffbarney3584 deportation is appropriate policy