tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post181301542414962645..comments2024-03-14T06:20:59.015+00:00Comments on The Notion Club Papers - an Inklings blog: How to be a visionary of Final Participation Bruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-82364414282932406532018-05-22T16:12:33.496+01:002018-05-22T16:12:33.496+01:00@Max - My strictures are not only based on the fai...@Max - My strictures are not only based on the failure of the Anthroposophical movement - which began to fail long before Steiner's death, as Steiner often stated (and probably it should never have been begun in the first place, not least because of the corrupting effect of enforced productivity upon Steiner himself - Ahriman indeed!); but also on the conviction that the idea of a spiritual method is a mistake, as is the idea of initiation, and the idea of spiritual masters and disciples. <br /><br />These ideas are, indeed, inconsistent with Steiner's own best and deepest work - but more importantly with the nature of reality and how God want's us to live in the creation he has made for us. <br /><br />My conviction is that we each have an extremely different destiny or task in our mortal incarnate lives - some, indeed, fulfil their tasks merely by being incarnated as an embryo or fetus, or dying during or soon after birth (these are, in fact, a large majority of the humans who have ever lived).<br /><br />Among those of us who have long lives and who reach adulthood, the intention is for each to find his own path towards divinity - as much as possible (help is provided when needed, but not necessarily when asked-for). <br /><br />A set of exercises in concentration etc will, by sheer chance, be the right thing for some specific people in some specifci developmental phase; but they are based on a false understanding and create the wrong kind of expectations in most circumstances. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-68484204462231600522018-05-22T15:28:00.809+01:002018-05-22T15:28:00.809+01:00Thank you for the response Bruce, and I really app...Thank you for the response Bruce, and I really appreciate your work on Barfield,<br /><br />In regard to the viewpoint you expressed above and in the post: my experience, and the evidence that I have encountered, leads me rather to believe that the exercises that Steiner prescribed are extremely effective. One of the reasons that this efficacy is not more apparent is that it is ultimately the individual who must take initiative on behalf of his own practice. This is not especially popular because people generally prefer to receive initiative from outer circumstances. It is not especially apparent because when somebody makes progress, most people who have not done so lack the sensitivity to notice when progress has been made in the first place. Instead people are inclined to expend their efforts quibbling over inessential points and rationalising their own lack of bona fide application/attainment.<br /><br />I recommend you read Massimo Scaligero’s “A Treatise on Living Thinking” before you conclude that Anthroposophy “has not gone anywhere and has rather degenerated into Leftist pseudo-spirituality.” I think it is rather precisely this culture that has obscured any real progress that has indeed been accomplished. I hope some of us can work to change that.<br /><br />With warm regards,<br />MaxMax Leyfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04270925475011440389noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-62771757605912453212018-05-22T07:02:04.371+01:002018-05-22T07:02:04.371+01:00@Max - Yes, that's the theory but it apparentl...@Max - Yes, that's the theory but it apparently doesn't work! <br /><br />A century of Anthroposophists (Tomberg aside) don't seem to have gone anywhere - except to degenerate into yet-another Leftist-politicised pseudo-sprituality. <br /><br />And this was predictable: the history of genius (eg scientific creativity) shows that people's best efforts cannot emerge without building on spontaneous, inner motivations that are distinctive, unpreditable, unshapeable... <br /><br />There is no evidence that Steiner himself became clairvoyant by means of the exercises he prescribes to others - it was just a theory about how to may a spiritual system; perhaps it derived from a mistaken theory about science and scientific education? Four generations later - with science having been replaced by a procedural, credential-driven, falsely quantified, careerist bureaucracy, we know that this is instead *anti*-science. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-36186914822603000052018-05-21T22:17:01.305+01:002018-05-21T22:17:01.305+01:00One point about the exercises to strengthen Thinki...One point about the exercises to strengthen Thinking is that it is actually beneficial to contemplate an object that is not inherently interesting, because then we have to supply our own interest, and this is exercise.Max Leyfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04270925475011440389noreply@blogger.com