From when I discovered him at 19, Steiner gave me the most precious tools for life. There’s nobody like him! What is it that is so precious with him, from him? I spent a year in Heaven at Emerson College, soaking up the foundations of Anthroposophy. All I learned I treasured in my heart, and it is still foundational to my experience. Yet right from the start I was aware that I had to work with what best enables me to help humankind, not with what Steiner said merely because he said it and has given me so much. I had to question everything and constantly build foundations afresh. Sometimes I have reached disagreement with Steiner, when new insights have opened up – yet they are insights I could scarcely have reached without his foundations.
I had no idea until I started this post- this was the very first blog post – that it was Steiner people, anthroposophists, that I would be moved to address! This website I knew I must do anyway … to pass on what I’ve seen before I die, to try to help build foundations for Spiritual Science the Next Generation … whose remit reaches further than the current incarnation of Anthroposophy …
This can still be painful and confusing to handle. I feel fear, shame. I’m different, the odd one out, neither a “normal” anthroposophist nor not an anthroposophist. I hesitate, hide away, hold back. I don’t want to tread on people’s toes, I fear upsetting people. And occasionally I still do. Yet still the pressure builds up inside me; I keep holding it all up to Great Spirit. I’ve lived with challenges to Steiner for thirty years, taking every opportunity for inspection, correction, improvement. The challenges have not gone away. They have strengthened, clarified, become insistent. And what I’ve seen is beautiful – if only I can help others to see what I see! It has gotten to the point that I feel that if I do not put forth my perceptions, I am denying Anthroposophy something essential that it needs badly now, if it is to flourish in the future.
This is about opening the door to “Spiritual Science the Next Generation”.
This is what I believe Sir George Trevelyan, sometimes called “Father of the New Age”, sensed the need for. I also believe Rev. Chad Varah, founder of The Samaritans, understood this; also George Macleod of Fuinary, founder of the Iona Community. All these practical visionaries had deep encounters with Anthroposophy, which they could not help but take with them into their callings. But I am certain we need to go further, yet can only do this as Spirit calls. This has been my calling, essentially, for decades; but it has stayed hidden, or expressed incompletely which can be worse than keeping silence!
The Voice of Opposition to Spiritual Science is growing. This does relate to what Steiner called the “incarnation of Ahriman”. I go further: my understanding partially dissolves Steiner’s picture, so that I am divested of anthroposophical thought forms, and can frame perceptions afresh in ordinary language. What emerged for me is a way to see beyond Steiner’s picture of Ahriman – not to deny its validity, but actually to pass through and beyond.
I cannot do my work in isolation forever. I am looking for responses, to nurture a community that can take forward the vision of “Anthroposophy the Next Generation”. Only reluctantly have I come to believe that I have to build my own vessels, rather than work from within Anthroposophy. But as Jesus said, new “skins” are needed for “new wine”, or else the skins will break and all will be lost. So despite my limitations, of which I am painfully aware, I need to speak out independently, rather than seek to use anthroposophical channels, for now.
Steiner: a missing “golden thread”
Only very recently have I come to realize that everything I have to speak out about touches a missing, hidden “golden thread” that is at the core of my perception of Rudolf Steiner. It will need quite a number of posts to do justice to what I see. It will surprise most of you very much so I hope you can bear with me.
Why? Why me, why Steiner? Was it something Steiner’s world was not yet ready for? Indeed, yes! talking about Steiner’s most important past lives would have overridden all the precious work that he did in that life! In that sense, thank God it remained hidden! But now it is needed! Was Steiner aware but unable to speak? Or was stuff withheld from him, for higher reasons? Or did Great Spirit deliberately give Steiner stuff that was incomplete, or slightly mistaken, as “grit in the oyster” for his followers, to wrestle with, and grow into their own strength? I don’t know. But I have lived with it all for too long, in the face of too many challenges, for me to be able to believe I am completely wrong.
Summary of my plans
Many aspects I have worked with, written about and/or spoken about to friends: now they all need to be brought together, for the transformation and quickening of Anthroposophy, as we reach the centenary of Steiner’s superabundant last years, his swan song before the gates of death.
The following is a summary of what I have to address. See Table of Contents for all the subject titles I have written (with links) and have yet to write.
The Star Ages. Why this matters; how Steiner got it partly right and partly misleadingly wrong; how the correction helps us understand our times, understand Steiner and his visions in historical context, and put our own experiences into context. Why I can claim to have gone further than Steiner or anyone else, in all this; how this was a gift from Great Spirit nearly 30 years ago; how it accords at the deepest levels with History, Astronomy, Astrology, Astrosophy, and most significantly, Christianity.
The Archangelic Ages. Steiner drew on the venerable Abbot Trithemius when he said the Michaelic Age started in 1879; but how can we verify this? As far as I am aware, no other Anthroposophist has done serious work in this area. Yet until we have improved validation, this precious topic remains “pseudoscience”. I have found some validation, and also some very challenging questions.
Steiner’s profound connections with the Hebrew race and destiny. One or two Anthroposophists have picked up hints, but I have gone further. This is at the heart of the challenge that Spiritual Science needs, if it is to come of age, a century after Steiner’s last years. I believe I have discovered several more highly significant past lives of his, and other lives of people who worked closely with him. It becomes clearer and clearer how all these lives fit together, why Steiner could not speak out, and why it is essential today that we grapple with all this. Here I also touch issues of disclosure, and will have to feel my way carefully.
The corruption of Science, that Steiner gave us tools to redeem, in his Philosophy of Freedom, and in Spiritual Science, which as a discipline we must open up and take further. This corruption has become clearly visible in the disciplines of Climate Science and Medicine, in particular. It is vital that Spiritual Science take this on more. I shall write more on this.
The Spirit of Reform. In our time (see my work on the Changes of Star Ages) every area of life is becoming ripe for spiritual re-envisioning to bring about Rebirth, Redemption, Transfiguration. It wasn’t just needed in the wake of World War I. The Findhorn Foundation rose to some of this level of vision. Life Coaching is a blessed new tool for this. Evangelical Christianity, calling for a spiritual rebirth is at best witness to countless miracles of healing. Every school subject, every profession, every religion and every church needs to keep going back to basics; good teachers understand this well. “Without Vision the People Perish”: no deep reform can take root without vision. Steiner founded the Christian Community separately from the Anthroposophical Society. their developments, which did not actively use terms from Spiritual Science but used a frame of reference comprehensible to all churches might be visible to inspire creative spiritual Awakening and Reform in all the Churches – as George Macleod understood.
Spiritual Politics and Exopolitics. The deep significance of 9-11 and suchlike, the increasing encounters with “extraterrestrials”, and the increasing polarization of different interest groups, all of which is linked to the current Change of Ages. Setting all this in the very long context of the Star Ages, which I learned from Steiner, but have had to seriously modify, using the tools of Spiritual Science.
Building Community. My visions are focussed on enabling spiritual-scientific Research to serve the whole of humankind. Yet the work starts on one’s own doorstep, from our own luminous visions, always paying attention, noticing where need is greatest, developing one’s own abilities, effectiveness, and self-awareness. Solving difficulties and transcending experiences of “failure”. Eventually, building community seems like a good idea to facilitate all this spiritual work – so long as we allow the Spirit of Reform space, to go back to basics whenever necessary. I’ve lived and worked in community for many years, and am writing more about how we can develop this further.
