Bruce Charlton's Notions

The problem with prophecy is that - when it is made public - it never seems to come true; or - even when some would interpret it as validated; prophecy never seems to do any good.

I have read many sincere, detailed prophecies made over the past fifty years or so; and they are often completely wrong - as wrong as it is possible to be.

There were, for example, from the 1970s - 1990s (and again leading up to 2012) many channelled messages about an imminent landing of aliens on earth and the consequences, and multiple predictions of an imminent planetary breakthrough to a higher 'frequency/ vibrational' level of consciousness. Didn't happen.


The only valid prophecy I have encountered has been Rudolf Steiner's of 1918 - about which I have written extensively. Perhaps significantly this was a pessimistic prophecy - about what bad things would happen if Western man continued to reject the reality of the spiritual; if we continued to assume the truth of materialism. And even in 1918 this was an extrapolation of a century-plus trend. 

But Steiner's main prophecy - of the Second Coming of Christ in c1933, was completely wrong - at many levels. Instead of Christ we got Hitler as Chancellor - although Anthroposophists actually interpret Hitler as a demonic reaction against the Second Coming. But if the 1918 prophecy is straightforwardly true, then the Second Coming prophecy is falsified by the same common sense criteria.

Another of Steiner's main prophecies was that Ahriman (Satan, the Antichrist) would be incarnated in c2000 - so I suppose that remains a possibility, although I think we might have noticed by now?

But from Steiner we can see that being A Prophet does not mean that one is correct about most things, most of the time. And if only a small percentage of  statements are accurate - and we don't know which percent until afterwards - then this really isn't much use.


There are several ways by which, it has been suggested, God could enable prophecy. But the question is why he would want to do this.

Prophecy essentially assumes divine planning to a timetable. And why would God (at least the Christian God) want to do that? And if he did, why would he want people to know about it. And if he did want people to know about it - why choose a human prophet as the mechanism - and expect the message to be accurately disseminated and understood?


There is no doubt that - through the ages - there has been a fascination with prophecies. But public, objective, social prophecy is beginning to strike me as a wrong idea at root. It may be a fascination - one I personally feel pretty strongly; but that fascination may be idle or evil rather than good.

I can certainly see the value in personal prophecy - among family, friends and the like. This can serve a function of retrospective validation - as apparently happened among Jesus's disciples when after his resurrection, they recalled some relevant prophecies. But something goes terribly wrong when these are made public, with 'general prophecy', when prophecies are made into objective statements, applicable to 'all'; when they are supposed to affect public policy.

Indeed, the most convincing stories of prophecy are when The Public disbelieve and ignore The Prophet, but a much smaller group of the prophet's family, friends, followers do believe; and these 'believers' are able to escape some prophesied disaster.

A good example is at the beginning of the Book of Mormon, when the prophet Lehi are ignored by the authorities, but he and his family escape the destruction of Jerusalem. Or in fiction when, in Watership Down, the shaman rabbit Fiver predicts the destruction of the burrow, is ognored by teh chief rabbit, but escapes with his brother and a small group of followers.   



I am certainly guilty, many times over, of worrying about what the future holds in general terms unless... or of trying to avert one or another prophecy. But surely this is a fault? Surely I ought to be discerning what I ought to do now - and (so far as possible) setting aside what might (but probably will not) happen as a consequence?

Or, if I did recieve a real prophecy, then this would surely not be about anything large scale - but about what should happen to myself or my family; something I can directly affect: where my personal decision is significant. 


Like most people, I want to be reassured that If I do X, then Y will eventuate; but we know that it is seldom possible really to know what will happen - too many factors impinge. Most importantly, all people (all Beings) have agency, and are capable of choosing. In principle, conscious behaviour cannot be known in advance - only guessed.

And therefore what we ought to do, ought not primarily to be aimed at consequences - especially when we know what it is right to do regardless of consequences. That seems the case in real prophecy - the future is not known with any great precision; but what ought to be done is clear. 

We may, if we are sincere, come to understand the reality of our situation - and this will include what we personally should do in consequence. To get back to that broadly-fulfilled 1918 prophecy of Steiner - we may reasonably infer that the bad consequences happened for broadly the reasons Steiner stated 100 years ago. But we only knew that for sure in (perhaps) the past generation or two; many decades after the prophecy was made.

And what we do not know is the consequences that would actually eventuate from here-and-now if we (from this point) did what Steiner rrecommended and remedied the defects Steiner outlined... If we (you and me, other people) regarded the spiritual realm as real, developed a more frequent and intense awareness of the spiritual realm etc.  What effect would this have?


In sum, even if we know that the prophecy was true, and what we ought to do about it  - this does not tell us what would happen if we actually went ahead and did it. If (for example) there was a general recognition that 'Steiner was right after all!' (at least, in that particular lecture of 1918).

What then: what would be the resulting consequences?

It seems we would need yet another prophecy!

I have blogged before on the strange revelation or prophecy from the early 1900s onward and standing at the heart of Rudolf Steiner's entire (vast) corpus - and therefore - presumably, although I'm not sure - that also of Owen Barfield.

You will need to read that post first...

Now; I find that I cannot just put this prophecy aside and move-on, but I keep returning to think about and consider the matter. Because if it was true - this would, of course, be the most important fact in the world - and, although Steiner (in his later works) was often/ usually wrong in detail, he was nearly-always right in essence.

Thus I shall entertain the thought that Rudolf Steiner was factually correct that the Second Coming of Christ has by-now already happened, and not as an incarnation of the bodily Christ but in 'the etheric'; and I shall further assume that while the core revelation is true, the details are mistaken - so that there needs to be a clarification.

Then, I shall see where this experimental-assumption gets-me; and whether it makes any kind of sense...


1. If Steiner genuinely knew that Christ was to return in the Etheric; my understanding is that this was not a chronologically exact foreseeing of the future - because I believe such predictions to be an impossibility.

So that in reality Steiner's prophecy was actually an announcement of a current state of affairs; and it meant that the Second Coming had already happened, which is (I infer) how Steiner knew about it.

So instead of something going-to-happen circa 1933, let's assume instead that there was a return of Christ from circa 1750 - in other words from the beginnings of the movement called Romanticism.

This is how Steiner could sense the event; sense it both directly - as an ongoing reality; a fact of daily life; and he could also sense it from his profound studies of Goethe and the other German Romantics, and the change that had come over their thinking.


2. What about the Etheric? What does that mean?

Translating Steiner's categories of The Self (as I understand them) the Etheric comes in-between the Physical Body and Consciousness (the Astral Body) - so Christ's return is not in his body (i.e. he is not incarnated), and it is also not in a way of which people are conscious.

The Etheric implies that Christ is felt; a transformation of Life, an unconscious feeling, at the level of instinct.

The presence of Christ in the Etheric is known as an instinctive feeling.  


3. Does this make general sense? Yes, it does.

The impulse of Romanticism came upon Western culture beginning from 1750 - affecting poetry, literature - including the invention of the novel almost exactly in 1750, music, visual arts, philosophy...

Romanticism also affected Western culture, through several later waves - eg the 1890s, the 1920s, the 1960s-70s) in terms of a new and strong (often destructive) impulse of individualism, political radicalism and revolution, the sexual revolution, an assertion of the instinctive (and 'primitive', or 'tribal').

In religion and spirituality we could point to Quakerism, the US New Religions of the middle 1900s, New England Transcendentalism, Walt Whitman, DH Lawrence, the Beats, the New Age... Every movement (good, and - mostly - bad) that contains a theme of instinct, personal revelation, intuition, utopia, altered consciousness, hopes of transcendence or higher evolution; all such could be interpreted as having some degree of unconscious awareness of the new possibilities deriving from the actual felt presence of Christ. 

We could posit that there was indeed a second coming of Christ perceptible at an unconsicous level; but distorted, and indeed twisted to evil by such factors as adherence to materialism; the pro-instinctive, short-termist and hedonic theories of the sexual revolution; consumerism; and by the cultivated spite and resentments of the various Leftisms and, in general, politics conceived as primary.

Probably the main evil-tending distortion is that Modern Man will not allow himself to become conscious of Christ. 

In other words, we could ascribe the malign phenomena of Steiner's own amazing 1918 true-prophecy to Western Man's failure to respond properly to the Second Coming; indeed, by our wicked choice to have perverted and inverted our instinctively-felt urgings of Christ.


4. What would be the implications? (Continuing to entertain the notion that this understanding is correct.)

Well, one implication would be that we need to become conscious of Christ's presence... This needs stating more strongly: we must become conscious of Christ's presence in this world, and of his direct influences on each of us, individually.

To become conscious of an instinctive-feeling means that we each need to do 'scientific' work - because that is the core nature of science: to do science is to become explicitly conscious of phenomena.

Therefore we each need to become scientists of our-selves.

And that is exactly what Steiner and Owen Barfield (and, of course - following them, myself) have argued is the primary task of Modern Man; which is to embark on a 'scientific' introspection, to develop a clear knowledge of our own thinking, to make intuitions both primary and explicit; and to do all this is the Christian context of its being done in light of the first and second commandments to love God, and neighbour.


5. Does this kind of 'Second Coming' even make sense to a Christian?

Well, maybe. I am more inclined to think so than before I embarked on this exercise.

It may make sense if our understanding is that this mortal life is about experiences from-which we need to learn in order to become more divine. If, in other words, our main task (as mature adults) is theosis rather than salvation - because salvation, while not universal, is by-default; and Hell must positively be chosen.

On such a basis, it is imaginable that a return of Christ at the level of unconscious instinctive awareness may be a means to this end.


In sum; I am surprised what good sense can be made from making the contingent assumption that Steiner was correct-but-with-errors when he announced the Return of Christ in the Etheric...

Prophecy - in the sense of inspired and accurate prediction of the future - clearly worked in the past: history is brimming with examples. 

Yet nowadays most people don't believe in prophecy, nor are there any recognized prophets. 

That's a pretty big change in assumptions - and indeed experiences! How could it have happened? 

The usual modern explanation is that prophecy never did work, but people in the past were (some combination of) gullible and manipulated, whereas (implicitly) modern people are not.... Yaas, well...

Setting that aside; I think it reasonable to assume that people in the past were indeed capable of inspired and accurate prediction of the future; but modern people are not. 

The answer, I think, is due to changes in human consciousness. OK, but what changes?

Firstly; modern people are not often capable of inspiration - but even among those who are, accurate prediction of the future is very rare, and I would guess that no self-described prophet has much recognition... Or at least, not for long.

Personally, I think there still is some capacity for the not-many-people who are genuinely inspired to prophecy accurately about themselves; when they are inspired - but this kind of modern prophecy is not socially-generalizable in the way that prophecy used to be.

In other words; modern prophecy (insofar as it exists) is individual not social; and this is one reason why people do no believe-in prophets.    

My best explanation of the loss of prophecy and the role of prophet is that in the past (and the further back, the more this was the case) Men were mentally-immersed-in human society and nature, and were in communion with the world of 'the gods' and spirits. 

Therefore, prophecy was both from this immersed-state of knowing where the whole of creation currently-was, and was-going; and also the prophecy concerned a much-less-free creation. In the past; nothing was significantly insulated-from creation, or exempted from the insights of prophecy; because for the ancients nothing was independent-of or alienated-from creation. Men were unfree.  

In other words; the prophet knew where things were going, and nobody was sufficiently independent of the 'group mind' to resist or reject 'where things were going'.

Everybody shared this knowledge implicitly, unconsciously (and spontaneously) - and the prophet was ('simply') someone who was aware of this general knowledge, and could articulate it - and once articulated by a prophet, the knowledge could be recognized by others.  

But in modern consciousness (what Steiner called the Consciousness Soul); from adolescence onward Men are no longer immersed-in 'the world'; and Men are instead (like it or not) cut-off from spontaneous knowledge of the group, nature, the gods and spirits... 

Modern Man is compelled to be free, and therefore compelled to choose. 

This is why Modern Man is now controlled by bureaucracy and the mass media, and by 'incentives' - this is 'necessary' because he lacks the old, spontaneous and mostly-unconscious immersive sociality and connection with the world. 

Now cohesion is from control, and control is top-down; and a matter of propaganda, bribes and threats - channeling choices (including denial of the reality of choice). 

Prophecy is lost because Men are no longer immersed in a common world, and prophecy is impossible because Men are all cut off from that communion with life and the world which used to enable prophecy - and which made it (all but) impossible for individuals to opt-out.

Now, we find our-selves already opted-out; and the necessity is to opt-in - and to choose that which is opted-into. 

If it is accepted that Rudolf Steiner was inspired in the remarkably exact and accurate prophecy of 1918 about which I posted recently

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/rudolf-steiners-remarkable-prophecy-of.html

Then it is worth thinking for a while about the causes.

I will attempt here to explain what I think Steiner was saying, in some mere generic version of his frame of understanding - rather than my own beliefs; and I think this exercise may be worthwhile given the validity of his prophecy.


To summarize (as I understand it); Steiner was arguing from a belief that humanity is supposed to move towards a new kind of consciousness - that is a new relationship between Man and the world - one which combined the 'immersive' awareness of spiritual realities that characterized the most ancient human societies (think about the shamans of hunter gatherers), with the alert self-consciousness of more recent eras (think about an archetypical scientist skeptic).

One intended mechanism for this evolution was the work of angels operating on what Steiner terms the Astral body - which I understand to mean the alert, awake consciousness... I think this means that we are supposed to know, explicitly, about this change of consciousness and to choose it.

The spiritual problems of our day are said to derive from the fact that instead we consciously fight, deny, and reject spiritual evolution; and instead of working on the Astral body, the angels are forced to work upon us while we sleep - and cannot resist them.

But this means that the angels are forced to work on us at an unconscious, inexplicit, instinctive level - they 'show us' (I presume he means in dreams, mostly un-recalled but still having an effect) images and simple ideas about the future goals.

I think Steiner is saying that the deep problems of our day derive from unspiritual attempts to enact spiritual goals - so that we actually enact in modern unspiritual society something like a hideous parody of spiritual goals.


The spiritual gaols which angels are attempting to communicate are threefold:

1. Brotherhood of Man - a sense of direct empathic communication between all people.
2. Divinity of Man - a direct appreciation of the divinity of all Men which will render formal religious practice unnecessary because all of life will then become a sacrament.
3. Final Participation - the change in consciousness whereby Man will be able to relate with spiritual realities through alert, conscious thought.

The effects of consciously rejecting this step includes, according to Steiner, the threefold consequences of disordered sexuality, the deployment of medical knowledge to harm and manipulate, and the abuse of powerful physical forces.


How do we get from the spiritual goals to the consequences? My understanding is that what happens is that good instincts are perverted by a culture which is spirit-denying.

So, for instance, the good and necessary spiritual instinct to regarding all Men as brothers is taken by modern society and made, on the one hand, into the utterly un-spiritual indeed anti-spiritual form of political and economic organization that used to be known as socialism, or Leftism.

In sum; in the un-spiritual context of modernity, spiritual brotherhood is re-made into social equality.

And this is made the focus of existence - as if it was a religion.


But on the other hand, spirituality cannot in practice be expunged from humanity - and the goal of brotherhood works at an instinctive level via the sexual instincts; to drive the sexual revolution - an incremental expansion of ever-more disordered sexual possibilities and practices.

In a sense, the sexual revolution can be regarded as a distortion of the impulse to universal Brotherhood - an impulse towards a kind of utopia of universal unrestricted sexuality.  

And this is made the focus of existence - as if it were a religion.


The direct perception of the divinity of Man, and the goal of a world where spiritual realities are so immediate that 'the church' is not needed, is something foreseen in the Book of Revelations of The Bible - but that is in The New Jerusalem, on the other side of death, and as Heaven.

The unspiritual parody of this unconscious impulse is anti-clericalism (a major feature of early communism), hostility to the Christian church, and the dismantling and destruction of 'organized religion'.

The church is discarded, but not because Man has moved to a higher level of spiritual consciousness and the need for formal structures has been transcended; not because Man no longer needs the church, being spiritually-perfected; but because the church is seen by modernity as something which is preventing progress to the ideal state of divinity of Man.

So, instead of the divine impulse that church organization will at some point disappear because Man has spiritually progressed to the point that the church is no longer needed; in modernity the church organization is destroyed because it is regarded as preventing spiritual progression.


This is part of the inversion-of-the Good which Steiner also predicts, in an exact description of our times:



In sum - the prophecy presents an interpretation of our current malaise which suggests that the evils of modernity can be seen as unconscious, un-spiritual and instinctive parodic distortions of Good impulses - impulses that are, indeed, being divinely encouraged and inspired (which perhaps explains their near universality, their simultaneous occurrence in many cultures).

Modern Man chooses consciously to reject these Good impulses by believing only in anti-spiritual rationality on the one hand and the unrestricted expression of instincts on the other hand - therefore the impulses emerge in horribly distorted forms; and yet their Good origins and benign intentions somehow make these evil distortions very difficult to defend against or to attack: our culture seems somehow helpless to resist them.


The answer? (Using Steiner's frame, more-or-less.)

We must (presumably) acknowledge the badness of our current situation, including the inadequacy of our consciousness; we must stop resisting the divine impulses so that they do not merely influence us against our will and during sleep, but also in our awake state; we must acknowledge spiritual realities - and allow ourselves to acknowledge, think about and experience spiritual realities in a state of full, alert awareness and in public discourse.

In sum, we need to stop fighting God's plans, and admit that God does have plans - and that we already-know enough of what these plans are (because this knowledge is built-into us); indeed, we need to stop actively denying the truth of God and of the spiritual, divine realm of reality - that would be a first step!

And the personal test of our success in moving towards this goal would - I think - be the advent and development of direct conscious experience of spiritual realities - including some kind of perception of the work of the angels.

My interest in Rudolf Steiner is focused mainly on his early three philosophical works culminating in The Philosophy of Freedom (1894).

However, I believe that post 1900-ish Steiner became (I have to say) corrupted by his later situations - and that he reverted to extensive use of what he termed Atavistic Clairvoyance (or, what Owen Barfield termed Original Participation) - in other words the post-1900 Steiner increasingly employed mediumship, or what we now term channelling.

This is quite explicitly described in passages of his later works (although Steiner strenuously denied that it really was atavistic clairvoyance - nonetheless, he describes visualisation and hearing words; much like Jung's hallucinatory Active Imagination); it is described in eyewitness accounts of Steiner's behaviour (eyes closed, frequent trance-behaviours); and it accounts for the vast and indiscriminate productivity of his later years: a vast productivity of (let's be honest...) mostly-nonsense; albeit highly-systemised* nonsense.

(All this behaviour is in stark contrast to the purposive, alert, aware thinking so convincingly explained and advocated in Philosophy of Freedom.)

My position is therefore that Rudolf Steiner was a great man, a genius of historic stature, originator of among the most important and relevant truths vital for our situation - yet, taken in total, he was mostly wrong about most things.

And for all their good work - this wrongness has been accentuated by the Anthroposophical movement - who have in practice taught almost everything except his core and essential philosophical insight.

This failure of the Anthroposophy movement was indeed made almost inevitable by Steiner's own errors in trying to systemise spiritual development into a (wholly-conjectural, on his part) process of 'initiation' and formal cognitive exercises. He should instead have pointing at the goal (which he had already done, in Philosophy of Freedom) and recognised that each person must find their own path to reach that goal; by trial and error (and repentance); as Steiner himself had done. 

I believe we need (and I mean literally need) to take Steiner's insights from PofF and apply them in our lives and in our civilisation - and we should (pretty much, but not entirely) ignore the truly vast structure of Spiritual Science he generated after writing Philosophy of Freedom^.

...With the exception of recognising that Steiner became a Christian in 1898 - and we too must have a Christian framework for our spiritual work on transforming consciousness.

We know this by experience of the multitudes who have tried to be spiritual but not religious (often implicitly anti-Christian), and observing the feebleness of the results. Our proper lineage includes William Blake, ST Coleridge, Owen Barfield and William Arkle - all of whom were serious Christians - as well as mystics or esotericists. 


Notes:
   *Steiner was a genius of quite astonishing intelligence and knowledge - and he was culturally German - so had capacities for systemisation far beyond normal, perhaps unique in history. My understanding is that he took information derived partly from channelling, and substantially information from reading, and incrementally elaborated these into his massive ideological system by addition and interpolation.
    ^Although there are indeed many nuggets of insight scattered throughout the post-1900 work which I would not wish to be without - for instance I am amazed and fascinated by the prophecy in lecture The Work of the Angels in Man's Astral Body, of 1918. Half of the lecture is 'nonsense' (harsh, but I mean it is incorrect and inessential) - but the other half is the only absolutely compelling example of prophecy I have ever encountered. 

As I keep revisiting Rudolf Steiner's now-validated century old prophecy; I realise that, although the prophecy is about Western society, and what it needed to do - but hasn't done; and although the prophecy has been fulfilled at this social level - its true implications are for the individual.

The prophecy was based upon an understanding of what would happen if Western man continued in the path of increasing materialism/ positivism, scientism/ reductionism in public discourse and private thinking - and we did continue.

The spiritual realm is now regarded as purely 'subjective' - hence not really real, hence without relevance for social living. Reality is mainstream-structurally-regarded as meaningless, hope-less, going-nowhere; and we our-selves as irrelevant.

It is, of course, a disaster that The West has made these choices; but the lesson of the prophecy was actually for individuals primarily - it was that we must (and must means must) develop our spiritual consciousness into new realms - more exactly into a 'animism of thinking': a recognition that ultimate reality consists of living, conscious, purposive Beings in a creation that has been transformed by Christ.

This means that the modern public discourse has become - in rejecting God, Christ and the Holy Ghost - (quite literally) insane - as well as calamitous and dull.

But this operates at the individual level - and the social level cannot budge without first the transformation of individual consciousness - and this transformation can only be done by conscious choice; it cannot be coerced or compelled; nor can people be induced to do it by unconscious manipulation/ propaganda/ habit-training.

We must now choose the Good - because evil is the default. 

The the lesson of the true prophecy is for you, and me, and everyone as an individual. It tells us what we must do if we are to avoid the general fate of our society: mental sickness, despair and demotivation.

It is noticeable that modern spirituality, especially New Age themed practices - including Western versions of Eastern religions, almost always focus on 'healing' and the practice of therapy.

This is also, substantially, the case for many types of self-identified Christianity - that the main focus is healing, and Christian practice is seen as a form of healing.

Government, too, is seen as a kind of healing - it puts itself forward as a mass-healing process ('the therapuetic state').

It seems everyone, all the time, is talking about healing. Of course they seldom achieve it and typically do the reverse - but healing is the prime justification for... everything.  

*

What this means is that spiritual life, religious life, ends-up being about human psychology - and more exactly about human psychology as it is now.

There is no doubt that the human psyche needs healing - that people are alienated, and their very selves feel cut-off from the world (that is when people are not simply lacking in consciousness and self-awareness, in sleep, intoxicated, or just distracted e.g. by the mass media and social interactions).

This lapsing of religion and spirituality into therapy is pervasive. And it is inevitable - so long as there is no external divine locus towards which we are orientated.

Therefore, religions or spiritualities which emphasize, almost-exclusively, the 'immanence' or indwelling of the divine (God in us, God in the world, in nature...), also become (before long) just another kind of therapy.

It is only when the divine is located elsewhere and when we are personally orientated towards the divine (and, preferably, on a path to the divine) that we can avoid having therapy as the main thing in life.

*

Because: therapy for what? We want to be healthy, happy, energetic - for what? What are we supposed to do if or when we are fortunate enough to be in this state?

Plus of course, life always end in death (usually preceded by some sickness and pain) - so if therapy is the focus of life, success is very temporary, and then life is always and for everyone an inevitable failure.

So why bother? hence the modern fascination with and esire for suicide (euthanasia, chosen reproductive sterility, anti-natalism, national self-annihiliation, fetchization of 'the other' etc.)

*

If we revisit Rudolf Steiner's prophecy from 1918:

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/the-absolute-necessity-for-change-of.html

Then I think we can see that this situation we are in, this situation in which therapy (healing the body, healing the mind) is exactly the situation that Steiner described as the working of angels during 'sleep' - in 'Steinerese' this refers to the body becoming primary and consciousness being ruled out of consideration.

This is exactly the seismic change in Western society since the 1960s with the take-over of the sexual revolution and identity politics (it began earlier, but became mainstream in the 60s).

It has, of course, been staggeringly un-successful in terms of its objective of healing! But that was also to be anticipated, since there is no foresight, no order, no prudence, no consciousness about the Leftist revolution including the sexual revolution - which is now the mainstream, official, mass media driven and state enforced ideology.

*

That is the point that Steiner was making. When The West turned away from religion in favour of 'therapy' - of sexual and individual license ('freedom'), short-term happiness and avoidance of suffering - it also sabotaged the attainment of those goals which are not true goals, and cannot function as goals - but are actually means to the external end which is divinization - becoming more like God, who is 'other', another personage - as well as permeating the world

So - we should not neglect the necessity for evolution of consciousness, in Man and in ourselves - the need for theois, for maturation towards becoming adults in faith; but consciousness, therapy, healing only make sense and can only be achieved in the ultimate framework of the external divine.

Striving fof higher consciousness in the absence of religion is just another kind of lethal. (Just look at the people who try it!)

God is the First Thing; and absolutely essential - not an 'option' but a necessity.

(I mean psycho-socio-culturally essential - not philosophically.)

Or else... What-is-happening, as prophesied by Steiner.

Edited from a lecture by Rudolf Steiner at Bern, Switzerland - 4th November 1919 concerning the influences of Lucifer and Ahriman.

The phase of evolution beginning in our own time has a very special character. The present phase may be characterized in a general way by saying that all the experiences confronting humankind in the physical world during the earth's further existence will represent a decline, a retrogression. 

The time when human progress was made possible through the constant refinement of the physical forces is already over. In the future, too, humankind will progress, but only through spiritual development, through development on a higher level than that of the processes of the physical plane. 

People who rely entirely on the processes of the physical plane will find in them no source of satisfaction. 

We are heading for the “War of All against All”; its implications must not remain in the realm of theory but also come to expression in the actions, the whole behavior of human beings. 

The fact that people in the future are not going to get much fun out of developments on the physical plane, will bring home to them that further evolution must proceed from spiritual forces.

 

Comment: A hundred years later and we can see that Steiner was absolutely correct. Four generations of (mostly) development in the refinement of physical forces, clearly has Not brought about human progress. 

(Indeed the prevalent - and explicit - idea among the (demonically-driven) Global Establishment is trans-humanism, transcending the human; the abolition - and eventual genocide - of all humans, and their replacement with 'cyborg' human-computer hybrids. Why not? Does Satan care for humans?)

And the war of all against all has advanced so rapidly in recent years - and with unprecedented swiftness in 2020 - that implementing exactly such a Life has become the main plank of global public policy with barely any recognition and even less murmer of disconent that this should be. 

(Disguised merely by the flimsiest and least coherent of Big Lies, blatant fakery, and terrible consequences evident in the personal experience of every single individual on the planet.) 

Steiner knew and prophesied that the immediate post-1914-18 world war was the last chance for the dominant Western world to change its trajectory; but instead materialism/ reeductionism/ positivism was embraced and enforced with teh promise of a life without suffering and of greatly enhanced 'fun' - as was evident in the Roaing Twenties and the Swingin Sixties. 

Yet the underlying reality of the 20th century was unprecedented world was and atheist socialist/ communist (anti-Christian) regimes of staggering human destructiveness. And the self-destruction of The West primarily by increasing value-inversion with sub-fertility, and deliberate strategy social and suicide - which seems to have reached a decisive climax. 

Rudolf Steiner's great strength is not his analysis of distaster - but his pointing forwards towards The necessary, fundamental and potentially effective (Christian and spiritual) solution; which is why (for all his many faults) he remains one of very few genuinely vital thinkers of the past couple of centuries. 

The mechanism proposed by Steiner was that there were certain changes that needed to be made, spiritual steps that needed to be taken, by Western Man in a fashion that was willed, conscious, explicit - and if such steps were not taken (and they were not taken) then the desired changes would appear in a distorted form as instincts post-hoc interpreted rationalistically...

I have edited parts the lecture to focus on the parts relating to what-turned-out-to-be the sexual revolution, now mainstream and dominant in the West - I have ruthlessly 'translated' some of Steiner's idiosyncratic terminology - so this is an interpretation as well as an edited version. Some of my comments are [in square brackets].

The whole lecture can (and should) be read here - but, be warned, it is difficult: 

What if humanity on earth should persist in sleeping through the momentous spiritual revelation of the future? 

Then the Angels would have to try different means of achieving what the pictures they weave in the consciousness of man are intended to achieve. If men do not allow this to be achieved in while they are awake, the Angels would, in this case, endeavour to fulfill their aims through their sleeping bodies. 

Here lies the great danger for this age of the Consciousness Soul. [That is, the era in which consciousness, self-awareness, is intensified to the exclusion of contact with reality - the age of disenchantment, alienation, materialism.] This is what might still happen if, before the beginning of the third millennium, men were to refuse to turn to the spiritual life. The third millennium begins with the year 2000, so it is only a short time ahead of us. 

But what would be the outcome if the Angels were obliged to perform this work without man himself participating, to carry it out during sleep? Firstly, something would be engendered in the sleeping human bodies and Man would meet with it on waking in the morning ... but then it would become instinct instead of conscious spiritual activity, and therefore baleful. 

Certain instinctive knowledge will arise in human nature connected with the mystery of birth and conception, with sexual life as a whole; and this threatens to become baleful if the danger of which I have spoken takes effect. 

The effect in the evolution of humanity would be that certain instincts connected with the sexual life would arise in a pernicious form instead of wholesomely, in clear waking consciousness. 

These sexual instincts would not be mere aberrations, but would pass over into and configure the social life, would above all prevent men from unfolding brotherhood in any form whatever on the earth, and would rather induce them to rebel against it. This would be a matter of instinct.

So the crucial point lies ahead when either the path to the right can be taken — but that demands wakefulness — or the path to the left, which permits of sleep. But in that case instincts come on the scene — instincts of a fearful kind.

And what do you suppose the scientific experts will say when such instincts come into evidence? They will say that it is a natural and inevitable development in the evolution of humanity. But light cannot be shed on such matters by natural science, for whether men become angels or devils would be equally capable of explanation by scientific reasoning. Science will say the same in both cases: the later is the outcome of the earlier ...

Natural science will be totally blind to the event of which I have told you, for if men become half devils through their sexual instincts, science will as a matter of course regard this as a natural necessity. Scientifically, then, the matter is simply not capable of explanation, for whatever happens, everything can be explained by science.

Man would pride himself upon the growth of his instinctive knowledge of certain processes and substances and would experience such satisfaction in obeying certain aberrations of the sexual impulses that he would regard them as evidence of a particularly high development of superhumanity, of freedom from convention, of broad-mindedness! 

In a certain respect, ugliness would be beauty and beauty, ugliness. 

Yet, nothing of this would be perceived because it would all be regarded as natural necessity. But it would actually denote an aberration from the path which, in the nature of humanity itself, is prescribed for man's essential being.


Comment: In other words, our true destiny is for each of us deliberately, by choice, consciously and explicitly to make the next step in the evolution towards divine consciousness.

But if we do not make this choice and take this step (and we have-not done so in the past century since Steiner gave this lecture), then we will instead have...

What I find especially impressive about this prediction is that insight that the sexual aberrations would come to configure social life; and would be explained-away by 'science' as natural and inevitable developments: "Man would pride himself upon the growth of his instinctive knowledge of certain processes... and would experience... satisfaction in obeying certain aberrations of the sexual impulses"; and would see these as "evidence of a particularly high development of superhumanity, of freedom from convention, of broad-mindedness"; amounting to a mainstream societal adoption of value-inversion - "ugliness would be beauty and beauty, ugliness".

Well, we will have exactly what we actually do have: Steiner's prophecy regarding the sexual revolution has-been fulfilled; explicitly and to the last detail.

Throughout the twentieth century orientated towards the millennium, and spilling over somewhat up until the 2012 'delayed millennium', there was a significant sub-culture of 'channeling' among spiritual-but-not-religious people - those who from the 1980s were gathered under the New Age label. 

The phenomenon was essentially a development of the spiritualist mediums from the 19th century; but instead of focusing on contact with the deceased on behalf of their surviving spouses and relative, the mediums of channeling purported to be contacting what might be termed 'spiritual teachers'. 

These channeled-teachers were of a wide range; from God and Jesus Christ, through angels, down to 'ascended Masters', prophets, and famous people of the past - or sometimes named, but imperfectly identified, spiritual authorities. Others were quoting from spiritually perceived sources (e.g. "The Akashic Records").   

I would regard Madame Blavatsky (Theosophy - late 19th century) then Rudolf Steiner (from about 1900 - Theosophy, then Anthroposophy) as probably the major precursors and originators of New Age style channelers. Steiner, in particular, exemplifies both the possibilities and pitfalls of the business. 

I have been investigating the literature on channeling for about 8 years - since I became engaged with the work of William Arkle and the circles he moved in. In his later years, Arkle took a serious interest in several of the channeled books which came out from the early twentieth century, and which were especially abundant in the 1980s and 1990s (Arkle died in 2000). 

Since I respect Arkle, and have learned so much from him, I thought this phenomenon was worth a look; even though Arkle's best work (in my opinion) comes from the period before his late-life engagement with the New Age and channeling.  

I got-hold-of - or took a serious look-at - all the books Arkle mentioned; including his particular favourite from 1931, an anonymous production called The Book of El Daoud, the Father-King, Which is the Gospel of Simplicity given unto his own. 

Others books included a series from 'Lord Mikaal' (i.e. St Michael) including Winds of Truth (from 1950s onward); The Only Planet of Choice from Phyllis V Schlemmer; MAPP to Aquarius by Nada Yolanda; Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsh - still ongoing. 

I also listened-to/ watched some famous channelers in audio or video.    

To keep matters brief; I was overall very much un-interested and un-impressed by the authority and accuracy of channeling; as a way of gathering objective spiritual information for the benefit of Mankind.

There were - of course - some bits and pieces of what seemed like valid and helpful perspectives, usually of a very general (indeed obvious) nature. And there was also some indication that the process may have been somewhat helpful to some of the people involved - at first. 

But overall, teaching-channeling seemed like a net-harmful activity - especially over the longer term, and the prophecies - especially relating to the millennium - were wrong both in general and in detail. 

In particular; in the 1980s-90s; it apparently became normal in New Age circles to expect a millennial raising of human consciousness - often described as a raising of vibrations or frequency - which would raise-up the entirely of mankind; or at least those would would accept it. 

The process was primarily something done-to (rather than done-by) humans - it involved varying degrees of eagerness or acquiescence - but was envisaged as an external intervention (sometimes from extra-terrestrials, who - in this kind of scheme - took on many of the traditional qualities of angels). 

Included was a general idea of the expectation increased 'spiritual help' such as paranormal activity (or awareness of paranormal events) such as UFOs, Crop Circles, channeling itself, synchronicities etc. 

And also an increased presence-of (and contact-with) helpful spiritual beings of various kinds including ETs, angels, Masters; and the birth of a new generation of especially spiritual children (sometimes called 'indigo' children - or some other colours). At its most mainstream - in 2008; plenty of people believed that Barack Obama was an elevated spiritual guide called a Light Worker - who would lead the world into the New Age. 

In the event; none of this stuff happened but the opposite. Especially after the deferred millennium of 2012 (supposedly the end of the Mayan calendar and a new astrological cycle.  

The New Age dwindled, and Men got much less spiritual and more materialistic, this-worldly and nihilistic. 

And (especially since social media) the masses have handed-over their minds to the Global Establishment, rather than to spiritual authorities. 

So - is channeling completely bogus? No - because I know of at least one valid example; which is William Wildblood's experiences, described especially in his book Meeting the Masters. 

A comparison with the mainstream New channeling shows why. Wildblood's experiences were personal and private, and not revealed until log afterwards. The teachings were personally directed - tailored to the young Wildblood's needs and development. The teachings were also relatively low volume, and simple.   

This contrasts with the (more or less) famous channelers - who address 'the world', make everything public ASAP; and generate a large amount of highly detailed 'information' on... every subject under the sun! There is also a strong flavour of pandering to the audience about these messages - they say what will play well with the kind of soft-leftists who make-up nearly all of the New Agers. 

Furthermore, the New Age channelers/ mediums (or their sponsors) adopt a 'careerist' moeny/ status. publicity-seeking stance - and some of them also espouse and practice sexual 'liberation'/ promiscuity/ revolution.  

In conclusion; I regard channeling as probably a real thing, a kind of spiritual experience, that happened to some people in the 20th/ early 21st century; and was probably related to that particular phase in the development of human consciousness. 

But it was meant to be a personal and private type of communication and intended to be understood in a Christian context. 

Channeling was Not a kind of objective information, nor a quasi-scientific form of 'knowledge'; understandable, learnable and applicable for adoption by 'the world'. 

To return to Steiner; in his early years, and intermittently thereafter; Steiner made major contributions to understanding our situation in the world. 

But in becoming a professional, addressing 'the world', building a movement, and channeling a vast body of quasi-objective Spiritual Science (which has since been learned and - mostly - applied like cook-book recipes by his followers); Steiner became mostly (but never wholly) a producer of pseudo-knowledge - as did the later channelers. 

(Indeed; a great deal of Steiner's purported Anthroposophical cosmology, history and prophecy comes from Blavatsky's Theosophy, or is modified ad re-shaped from her - naturally, as Steiner was an official Theosophical leader for many years.) 

William Arkle - on the other hand - never seemed to go all this way. 

He was apparently misled, by the consensus of channelers, into a false spiritual optimism - and his hard prediction of a massive enhancement of human spiritual consciousness around the millennium did not happen. 

But his reading and understanding of channeled sources was so selective and idiosyncratic, that mostly it functioned as a confirmation of ideas he had already arrived-at himself - from personal and private intuition/ direct-knowing. He kept his 'teaching' simple, stuck closely to what he had tested and affirmed; and therefore it was largely valid.  

In a nutshell; I think the main value of the channeling phenomenon - as evidence by William Wildblood, was insofar as it was a direct and experiential confirmation of the reality of the spiritual. 

By experiencing genuine channeling either at first or secondhand; some people were lastingly convinced that there was more to the world than the material.  

Thus, true-channeling is probably more a matter of form than content; therefore it is best regarded as properly a transitional spiritual phase, or step towards Romantic Christianity. 

Continuing from:http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/understanding-rudolf-steiners.html
and the reference cited therein:Steiner's prophetic essay called (in English) 'The work of the angels in man's astral body': http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19181009p01.html
**
I have been pondering further the great prophetic utterance of Rudolf Steiner from 1918 - which has worked on me in the way that prophecies surely are intended to work in retrospect - the truth of the prophecy serving to validate the interpretations and reasoning which led to it.

My understanding is that it was during the 1960s that there was the decision time: men then knew what was required of them - but for this to happen it was necessary that there be a change in consciousness so that Man's 'destiny' was accepted at the highest level of alert, conscious awareness. What was needed was a metaphysical restructuring; a transformation in fundamental beliefs and assumptions underpinning daily, routine practice - such that Man began to work towards a situation in which the spiritual perspective (in this fully 'awake' sense) became the primary, daily, habitual mode of thinking to a greater extent for more and more people.

The point is that there was a choice presented - and a choice was required and unavoidable - Man (and individual men and women) could accept or reject this plan. It was decisively rejected.

The choice was made (by almost everyone) that the habitual mode of everyday thinking would be to sleep. And as a consequence, the new impulse would remain at the unconscious, instinctive, irrational level.

So our lives and our cultures divided - between a rational anti-spiritualism - which can be seen in the expansion and universal invasion of pseudo-scientific bureaucracy and the world of 'careers', work and 'official' discourse; and on the other hand an irrational, instinctive surge of animalism which is most evident in the mass media and leisure, daydreams or fantasy.

These two strands are both very powerful, uninegrated, and in opposition. The semi-awake rationality fences in life and drains all meaning; the hardly-awake instinctualism is almost wholly selfish and destructive and negates all purpose. We cannot behave rationally, not even with self-ineterst - because this is contradicted by the anarchic irrational impulses; we cannot behave according to our urges and hedonism because we our under increasingly-total survellance and encaged with laws, rules, regulations and managed-consensus.

The result has been - very exactly - the situation that Steiner prophesied. The situation is now one in which the reality of empathic identification between Men has been perverted into a political tool of self-hatred and suicide; in which the sexual impulse in pernicious forms has invaded and configured conscious social life, such that this is seen as a higher moral state; in which medical and therapeutic reasons are given for creating sickness - and such sickness is regarded as desirable; in which the interaction of human minds with physical technology is a pervasive daily reality. 

The only way out from this spiritual nightmare is by a fundamental change in the way we think, underpinned (necessarily) by a change in the basis of our thinking.

This necessity applies equally to Christians as to non-Christians - if your Christianity has been merely a change in the set of propositions which you believe - a change in the set of moral rules you endorse, a change in a checklist of propositions, then this is not enough.

What is required, is that we interpret our lives as the primarily a consequence and product of spiritual forces - by restructuring our primary beliefs (ie. metaphysical assumptions); and - building upon this and symbiotic with it - by incremental steps trasnforming our actual, moment-by-moment thinking to an alert, fully-consicous, fully-rational, awake and aware higher consciousness of these spiritual realities.

This means (among other things) rejecting political, economic, sociological, scientific explanations as (in essence) post-hoc ratioanalizations of the underlying spiritual warfare and evolutionary-change.

Steiner suggests that we start with our own life - in recognizing that the miraculous is everyday: that we could not get through a day without such occurrences. As often as not, the miraculous is what did not happen, rather than what did - the disaster that was prevented more than the reward which was given. That important things did not today - contrary to our expectations and perceived trends - get worse; but rather than that, they remained the same.

Above all we must not sleepwalk through life, must not dissipate our lives in unconsciousness (whether from addiction to media, causal time-killing or emotion-stimulating socialization, sexual or political fantasy, unthinking obedience or unthinking rebellion, intoxication or self-indulgence or whatever form of 'sleep' is most troublesome and pervasisve in our lives)...

We must instead strive to live for (and to increase in number and to extend) those moments of alertness, clarity and awareness of our agency that are the first fruits of evolution of cosnciousness, of metaphsyical metamorphosis.

And we must, by whatever means are possible to us, strive to elicit the same in others; whether Christian or not - everyone needs this.
http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19181009p01.html
 

I am convinced by the overall validity of Rudolf Steiner's 1918 prophecy concerning the spiritual future of Western Man:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=steiner+prophecy

The bottom line of this insight is that within a Christian context the number one priority for modern Western Man is to expand and enhance consciousness such that we become aware of the spiritual world beyond the 'five senses', including the divinity of our fellow Men.

This enhanced consciousness aimed-at is not a matter of the kind of hallucinatory, dream or trance-state we associate with shamans and other mystics of former eras - but is to be achieved in and by lucid, alert and purposive thinking.

Overall, not so much about seeing new (and previously unseen) things, so much as seeing old things anew (see Arkle's painting above).

In other words, it is a particular kind of thinking which is to provide us with valid knowledge - but not just abstractly 'knowing about' stuff; but actual experience of the reality of knowledge.

(Why? My understanding is currently that there is a kind of thinking which is primary, spontaneous, and does not depend upon perception or any other kind of 'input' - and this comes form God-within-us, that which makes is children of God: and that is the reason why it is intrinsically valid thinking.)

The 64,000 dollar question is how do we do this? How do we raise our thinking to this level, and keep it there? Where do we even start on this task?

Having been reading Colin Wilson's Beyond the Occult recently, I think one general answer may be that we should start with any of the spiritual, paranormal or enhanced types of consciousness that we personally spontaneously experience. These go by many names, but could include peak experiences, synchronicity, self-remembering, clairvoyance, fore-sight, the sense of being transported to another time or place (what Wilson termed Faculty X)...

Or (especially) those 'magical' (or holiday) times of several or many minutes when we seem to be living inside a narrative or story or tableau, and in a state of awareness of connections and a providential unfolding...

In a nutshell, we can start with those moments or times when the ordinary and the everyday are felt to be meaningful, purposive and we are engaged by them.When this happens, we are inside the kind of thinking we are aiming-at, the kind of thinking we most need - these phenomena are (often) a sign that this is it.

That is the kind of thing we start-with, and what we need to remember, take seriously, and endeavour to build-upon.

Nothing we might do is more important - the task deserves our best efforts.

I am fascinated - and, in general terms - convinced-by Rudolf Steiner's Zurich prophecy of 1918. 

Steiner said, in essence, that if Mankind continued to hold-to 'materialism', and to reject the reality and primacy of the spiritual; then this would distort human consciousness. Until, by about 2000AD, the process would lead to the great evils of value-inversion: in other words, evil done with belief that it is good. 

Steiner's prophecies have been fulfilled - most obviously in terms of the sexual revolution. 

And it seems to me that the prophecies have come true for the reason that Steiner predicted: that, by rejecting our destiny to overcome materialism (by voluntarily choosing to become more consciously spiritual), modern Man's distorted consciousness has distorted the whole world. 

This happens because Man's consciousness participates in the creation of reality; thus Men co-create reality. 

When our consciousness becomes evilly-distorted, so does the world. So, the origin of the Matrix/ The System/ the totalitarian world-order is in the minds of Men; and the Matrix arises from the collusive choices of Men - including our-selves. 

This is why the Matrix is now world-wide and penetrates through all social institutions; and why we cannot escape it whatever the location, and whoever we mix-with: because it is our own distorted consciousness that is making it. 

We - collectively - bring the Matrix with us, wherever we go.  

And the only escape is by development of consciousness in the direction that is ordained for us: towards conscious awareness and choice of the spiritual in life and reality. 

But, as yet, Mankind does not want this, wants instead the Matrix - and our hopes and efforts are directed merely towards amelioration of the excesses and incoherencies of the Matrix. 

Only when we are ready to take the first steps, in our own minds, outside the Matrix and into the domain of spirit; will it begin to cease to dominate the world. 

I have come to believe that it is essential for modern Man to develop super-sensible perception; in other words, to develop the ability to (and habit of) perceiving some of the reality of the world beyond the sense-perceptible/ scientistic/ materialistic.

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=steiner+prophecy

This all sounds very spiritual, mystical and woo-woo - and of course it is; by mainstream contemporary standards of public discourse - yet super-sensible perception is also pretty much an everyday occurrence for many (not all) people.

Super-sensible perception may be identified because we perceive something; yet we know that what are perceiving is not a part of the sensory data.

To show what I mean I will give examples from my personal experience.

*
1. Music

When hearing great music, I am aware that what I most value is not in the composition, nor is it captured by the performance: it is not simply a product of sound perceived by hearing. This is a fact, and the fact is obvious - but not trivial. Even when the music is nothing but arpeggio block chords, as with the piece above.
*
2. Pictures
 

When viewing a great painting (the above being of Salisbury Cathedral by John Constable) I feel far more than the depiction or the paint, is doing - there is a definite and solid sense of mystery about what I perceive.
*
Poems

My love he built me a bonny bower,
And clad it a’ wi’ lilye flour;
A brawer bower ye ne’er did see,
Than my true love he built for me.

There came a man, by middle day,
He spied his sport, and went away;
And brought the King that very night,
Who brake my bower, and slew my knight.

(The beginning of the Lament of the Border Widow, an anonymous Scottish-English Border Ballad.)

The above poetry is simple, crude, un-literate - the first verse uses many conventional and clichéd phrases, the second verse is literalistic in its description... Yet super-sensible perception tells me, with rock-solidity and stark factuality - that this poem is as beautiful and profound as can be told.
*
4. Stories



Please don't ask me to explain what on earth (or off it) The Little Prince story is about - I only know it is about much much more than my sense perceive.
*

5. Paranormal phenomena

A large majority of the population feel quite sure that some dreams mean something beyond the dream; or that they sometimes foresee future events; or that the sometimes experience telepathic communications - that such experiences are sometimes valid - and they equally sure that these valid experiences cannot always be explained by five-sense, 'objective' perception. I agree.
*

6. The night sky

When I look at the night sky, on a clear night (only on a clear night, with darkness between the stars) a can see a network of fine silver lines radiating from and joining the heavenly bodies, stretching across considerable segments of the sky: I see not so much a spray of detached stars, as a luminous gossamer web over the dome.

I know that I see these threads by super-sensible means - because they are not seen by other observers (i.e. they are not an optical illusion), they are not recordable by binoculars - yet the lines are there, quite definite; present but not originating from vision.

In sum, super-sensible perception is something common and everyday that most people experience already - they only need to notice it, take it seriously, and regard it as real.

*
I have been reading and listening to Rudolf Steiner for a few months, as if I was searching for something but I did not know what. Today I found it! It is an astonishing, inspired and prophetic essay entitled, rather tangentially, The Work of the Angel in our Astral Body.

The months of rather desultory and aimless exploring served to prepare me so that I could understand this very difficult and concentrated and jargon filled piece - which, as is usual with Steiner, contains much that is bizarre and apparently arbitrary - but my attention was arrested initially by this astonishing passage which foresaw exactly our current situation.

The reason we are in this situation, according to Steiner, is the wrong exercise of our free will to ignore (by sleeping through - in an attempt to return to the immersive spirituality primal animism) or refuse (in the name of a scientism that disbelieves the spiritual altogether) what should have been a step forward in our human evolution: a conscious spirituality focused on Christ.

*


http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/19181009p01.html

Those angels who are wisest and most experienced are Men who have been born, lived, died and been resurrected: these are the post-mortal angels, and are Man's greatest spiritual teachers.

Post-mortal angels can communicate with us by the usual means of communication - spoken, visual, by writing etc - but of course (in the modern West, especially) such communications are prone to inattention, misrepresentation, misunderstanding; and are quantitatively utterly swamped by the mass media, government and corporate propaganda, trivial and dishonest social interactions and many other net-evil communications.

Therefore, the post-mortal angels also use direct knowledge, in the universal realm of reality. This is the 'underworld' realm which Man spontaneously but passively and unconsciously accesses in early cultures, early childhood and in sleep. But in such circumstances, the knowledge is not explicit and we are unaware of it except as feelings.

For modern Man, feelings are not enough - even if those feelings are broadly benign. For modern Man we must know - and know that we know - and what we know must be thought so that it may be integrated with all other knowledge.

(That is after all, the divine way of being - God knows everything explicitly, not as instinctive urges and aspirations.)

So - what the post-mortal angels need to tell us is incorporated into the universal realm of reality; and we can each of us know it IF we can think in such a way that we too are thinking in this realm. This is what I have termed Primary Thinking, which is the conscious and purposive intuitions of our true self.

However, modern Man does very little thinking with his true self, instead functioning mostly from a variety of superficial, labile, automatic, inculcated ways of 'processing' information... And when modern Man does think with the true self, then his modern metaphysics tells him that such thinking is meaningless, subjective, 'wishful thinking' or delusional.

However, THAT is where the knowledge of the spiritual teachers of Man is located - and if we want to know it (rather than merely to feel it) then we need to engage in Primary Thinking, and take it with the utmost seriousness.

So... the first message of the post-mortal angels is the two-fold information that Primary Thinking is necessary, and that it is primary... In other words, that this is what we most need to do; and that if and when we can achieve primary thinking it will become our primary basis for living - ultimately superseding all external forms of communications from authorities (including from churches).

We are to base ourselves and our lives upon our own, personal direct knowledge of reality; and not not secondhand/ communicated/ interpreted knowledge.

The second type of information involves hints as to what we will discover. This is already known, from the writings of prophets - but that is not sufficient, because we need to know it for ourselves and directly.

But what we will discover is that all Men are a family, we are all actual (not symbolic) brothers and sisters because we are actual children of God - who is therefore our Parent... or rather parents: Father and Mother. God, the creator, is our loving Father and Mother. This is absolutely vital knowledge without which we cannot understand anything of importance - and we each need to know it directly, not as an hypothesis.

This information also means that we are all divine, of God-nature; but embryonically so. We are flawed and immature Gods; but Gods we indeed are.

Furthermore, we are (potentially) even more closely spiritually-connected into families and 'clans' - our blood relations, our married spouses, and even (that rarest of rare relationships) our true friends may spiritually be bound by commitments of voluntary and mutual love. We are therefore connected in multiple ways, really connected. We are not alone: we are never alone. 

This is a modern revelation - not to be found in the ancient scriptures; because it is an insight from the lives of post-mortal angels, our closest spiritual teachers; and results from their experiences in relatively-recent lives (past few hundred years), which have taught them the necessity of this truth.

Now, all this is vital and urgent knowledge, and will lead to a transformation of earthly life. But of course it will not lead to Heaven-on-Earth because we don't treat our known spouses, families and real-friends perfectly well... we are only flawed, incomplete, partly-grown gods.

Why am I saying this, as a mere 'communication' - with very limited distribution, prone to incomprehension and misunderstanding? The answer is that by knowing these things first as 'hypotheses' - some people may be encouraged to seek their validation: to look for them by seeking the reality-of and developing their ability-at Primary Thinking.

(Don't believe Steiner, don't believe me: take these insights as hypotheses - then find-out for sure, for yourself.) 

And then they may find some or all of the hypotheses confirmed and clarified by their personal intuitions - which is the only thing that can make them real, and provide a solid basis for Life: for Life as it should-be.


NOTE: The above is a re-explanation, with what I regard as corrected metaphysics, of the content of Rudolf Steiner's 1918 prophecy - usually published with a title something like The Work of the Angel/s in Man's Astral Body. I have also added what I regard as the core of Mormon teaching, the vital essence of what Mormonism has added to Christian doctrine, and which is ever-more necessary for us to grasp (something of which Steiner, knowing nothing substantive of Mormonism, was unaware).

Frank Berger has provided a detailed, stepwise account of the sexual revolution during the past half century or so.

In course of explaining the spiritual causes of what is going on in Western Societies, he references Rudolf Steiner's 1918 prophecy (contained in Work of the Angels in Man's Astral Body) that I have discussed often on this blog.

In terms of prophecy, I would add the short dystopian novella Night Operation by Owen Barfield (1975) - a section of which can be seen here.

In short, Barfield was aware that human sexuality was likely to become perverted, inverted and evil - as a matter of official approval and public policy. Significantly, Barfield was a co-translator of the Steiner 1918 lecture.

A great deal of political commentary over the past couple of hundred years (and continuing) is directed at the question of what kind of political system we ought to have; what we could (in principle) have, and what we should be striving for. I have certainly spent a good deal of my life pondering and researching such matters.

My current understanding is not welcome to me, but it is something I can't shake. The conclusion is that I can see no future; or, at least, none that is significantly better than what we have now.

The present System is actively destroying itself, and is anyway unsustainable for multiple reasons. None of the past systems are viable from here forward; and anyway none will happen because they are not wanted/ opposed.

And knowing what we now know, I think we can see that no conceivable political system is going to be better. But more than this, I don't see any kind of System at all surviving - at least nothing on the scale of any current nations.


The ultimate reason behind this is the change in 'human consciousness'. This is not something that can be proved with evidence (indeed, nothing can ever be proved by evidence); but there is plenty of evidence compatible with my belief (coming via Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield, mostly) that human beings have changed through history; so that past possibilities are left behind.

We can see this in so many ways. The death of real leaders, and the absence of real and good leaders. On the other side, the lack of desire among the masses for real or good leaders. The short-termism, the petty selfishness - making survival in the long term impossible. The (really astonishing) lack of courage means that no plans get followed-through; indeed so cowardly are people that they seldom even get as far as formulating an idea of resistance.

And, most decisive of all, the lack of motivation - which underpins most of the above; and which stems from the denial of God, the denial that we live in a creation, the denial of ultimate meaning and purpose and relatedness in the world.


All of this might not be sufficient to destroy the hope of something better if it was not for the utter inability of people (both the leadership, but also en masse) to be able to acknowledge the real problems; the habitual and denied dishonesty, the inability to stick to a line of thinking for more than a single step, the absence of even the most basic discernment.

All of these stem from the denial of God; yet the denial is itself denied; and the basic consequences of the denial of God are denied... so that this situation itself seems extremely unlikely to be remedied. 

But even if all-of-the-above was remedied; and we had brave and honest Christians looking ahead; I see no conceivable way in which any kind of politics, any social organisation, can be imagined that would allow the kind of Christian world that we know we ought to have.

The Christian societies of the past are all (in their different ways) so obviously and so deeply flawed to the modern mind, so not-truly-Christian; that we cannot honestly regard them as anything other than a merely quantitative and partial improvement on what exists now.

And we know that all were riven with contradiction, and unstoppable change and decay; so even if they could be recreated (which they can't) they would begin to collapse as soon as (or before) they were remade.


So this is my best guess, my foretelling, my prophecy. That the experiment of human civilisation will come to an end.

There will be no future politics in the same sense that (as far as we know) there is no such thing as politics in small scale, nomadic, tribal societies. That whole level of things will cease to exist.

If my understanding is accurate, then this is something we cannot prevent, cannot stop, should not stop; but it is something we will each need to acknowledge and learn from. We will be severely challenged by it, each in multiple and different ways; and these challenges are an opportunity to discover things we personally need to know - for eternal life in Heaven.


Perhaps it is worth clarifying that I am not in any kind of despair about this, above and beyond the usual worrying to which we are prone. It is not a projection of some kind of inner nihilism.

I see this a just a matter of fact; which it is my duty to confront. The future of the world really is in God's hands; and I trust God.

That is to say I trust God not to make this world 'more perfect' (more comfortable, prosperous, peaceful, cheerful or whatever); but I trust God (as my loving parents) to arrange things such that my personal experience in this world will be for my ultimate eternal benefit - if I make the choice For love; For God, Goodness and Creation. If I join the side of right.


But for those who decline Jesus's offer of Life Everlasting in Heaven and adhere to the mainstream materialistic this-worldly atheism; there will be zero meaning or value in this collapse.

Presumably they will carry on living in terms directed by their aspirations - such as grabbing for more immediate pleasure, and eluding current suffering; or perpetuating their biological life for just a bit longer.

It's a choice - and we each make our own choice. 


Note added: The inevitability of collapse raises the question of whether it could have been averted. My view, expressed throughout this blog over the past few years is: yes, probably. The original (Christian) Romantic era - beginning in the late 1700s with the likes of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Blake and (in Germany) Novalis - and extending from then, with several revivals - showed clearly (and explained) the way it should have been; although, since Men's minds were Not so-transformed, we cannot Now, retrospectively, reconstruct how this would have worked-out. Instead, Christianity did not change and the residual mainstream of Romanticism became anti-Christian. Instead of Christianity being transformed and retained, retained and subjected to the best efforts of the best minds; Christianity was either un-transformed and shrank, or (more often) rejected. If the West had followed what I regard as its divine destiny; all kinds of things might have been possible. Yet as things stand, we are something between one and two centuries too-late; and have accumulated a truly colossal level of spiritual damage; such that value inversion is now mainstream, mandatory and - broadly - accepted as 'common sense'. For a few generations it might have been possible to re-grow The West from a minority of  Romantic Christians, but now the minority is minuscule and there is near zero in the way of shared assumptions. The units at issue have shrunk - over the decades - from civilisation, to nation, to denomination to the individual and his family. Well, so it goes. That is the situation. We know what we each need to do.