tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post8737994944831215013..comments2024-03-28T00:17:55.823+00:00Comments on Bruce Charlton's Notions: Rudolf Steiner and the power of the lectureBruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-11595581582591904662014-06-08T19:53:58.013+01:002014-06-08T19:53:58.013+01:00John Boyd, an air force colonel, seems to have gai...John Boyd, an air force colonel, seems to have gained a lot of influence from giving long lectures and 'briefings' despite not having written much in his life time.<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist)<br /><br />Hitler famously believed the spoken word was better than writing in influencing people. I believe he noted Bolshevik agitators giving speeches as being much more influential in moving along the Communist Revolution in Russia than the writings of intellectuals.Mikehttp://mike-log.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-35870707556907652852014-06-08T17:06:42.865+01:002014-06-08T17:06:42.865+01:00@Ara - CS Lewis wrote a letter to Owen Barfield in...@Ara - CS Lewis wrote a letter to Owen Barfield in 1940 which was a kind of formal statement of his considered views on Steiner and Anthroposophy:<br /><br />"Though I reject ... the philosophy and theology of Dr Rudolf Steiner and the Anthroposophical movement, I have been intimately acquainted with some who adhere to it for over seventeen years.<br /><br />"One of them is the man of all my acquiantences whose character both moral and intellectual I should put the highest, or nearly so.<br /><br />"Another has written a book on education... which seems to me full of good sense.<br /><br />"Another... has continued to be an excellent mother of five children...<br /><br />"Believing the doctrines of Dr Steiner to be erroneous (although not more so than those of many philosophers who are more widely influential than he in modern England) and being frequently engaged in controversy with my Athroposophical friends on this subject, I believe I should have been very quick to notice any evidence that adherence to the system was producing either intellectual or moral deterioration. <br /><br />"Of such evidence I have found not a shred. The friends of whom I speak are all highly educated people and I have not found anything to diminish my respect either for their characters or their capacities."<br /><br />This is reassuring; although the first generation adherents to a new religion were always - by definition - formed in another religion; and so it would be interesting to compare what happened with the second generation onwards.<br /><br />My vague impression us that Anthroposophy was fairly quickly corrupted by secular Leftism - at least that is how the people I knew seemed to me - just assimilated as a variety of New Age spirituality. <br /><br />Owen Barfield himself was the only Inkling who seemed to embrace the sexual revolution - in later life - with adultery, then running two simultaneous long-term girlfriends - according to his biographer Simon Blaxland-de Lange. Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-56579115580278640222014-06-08T15:47:08.216+01:002014-06-08T15:47:08.216+01:00The mixed endorsements here made my curious; a cur...The mixed endorsements here made my curious; a cursory Google search popped up Berdyaev complaining about Steiner:<br /><br />http://www.berdyaev.com/berdiaev/berd_lib/1916_252b.html<br /><br />Translating from the Berdyaev, the money criticism seems to me that Steiner belongs to that brand of theosophy which produces 'scientific' description of the angelic hierarchies and such things, without pausing to ask what all of it <i>means</i> or why we need to know about the invisible world at that level of detail. I'm not sure about the accuracy of Berdyaev's other criticisms, not being familiar with Steiner.Arakawahttp://arakawa.github.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4683970826895755480.post-81405933278382647742014-06-08T14:00:05.045+01:002014-06-08T14:00:05.045+01:00Interesting point, Bruce. Steiner has had a tremen...Interesting point, Bruce. Steiner has had a tremendous impact on farming, mainly by way of a single series of lectures given in June of 1924. Organic agriculture is basically a watered down version of Steiner's Bio-dynamic system. <br /><br /><i>I simply do not respond to his ideas; although neither am I hostile to them </i><br /><br />He was obviously a brilliant man with astonishing vision but, I can't help thinking something is way off with his philosophy. It does not speak to the truth in my heart and, when I have read him, often leaves me with an uneasy feeling.Richhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14131427883067501547noreply@blogger.com