A comment for GunnerQ on "esotericism"

I cannot induce GunnerQ's Substack blog to accept an extended comment on his recent posting; so I shall reproduce it here:

@GQ - 

You seem to be working something out at present, using over-inclusive and scattergun principles and arguments that (I predict!) you will discover fail to discriminate between what you value/ want to preserve and what you (IMO rightly) abhor and wish to exclude. 

Thus, I think you are painting yourself into a corner; as you will realize sooner or later! 

And I am confident you Will realize this, since you are clearly honest and well-motivated. Nonetheless, speaking from experience, this "painting oneself into a corner" is sometimes the best way to learn - learn deeply, that is. 

I painted myself into a very terrible corner in the early 2000s (eg in my book The Modernization Imperative) but it was, apparently, necessary for me to plumb materialism to the very dregs before I could recognize its innate nihilism - and could choose to become a Christian. 

More generally, that has been the usual way for me to learn - throw everything in, trying to make something work, and only when it has collapsed (collapsed, that is, from my POV) will I abandon it. 

Anyway; I certainly agree that there is a kind of black magic cult near the top level of totalitarian control in the world - mostly western world. This is very important to recognize. I've written about this variously: https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/search?q=steiner+brotherhoods. 

But you notice that these insights came from Rudolf Steiner, who himself had an esoteric (albeit not secret) society - and, IMO, one with not a few undesirable aspects. 

(Plus, ninety-something percent of what Steiner wrote is, so far as I can tell from the large but minority sample of his writings I have read, completely - and sometimes perversely - wrong!) 

My point is that there is (I have found, and continue to find) a good deal to be gained from reading Steiner and other occultists who are on the Christian side, the side of Good (Dion Fortune, Gareth Knight) - while avoiding, completely - or almost so, those on the dark side, the Left Hand path. Indeed, these are some of only a handful of authors I would regard as personal mentors, to a greater (Steiner) or lesser (DF and GK) extent. 

Reading, as always, must be with discernment - because (speaking personally) there is nobody, not one single individual*, in the whole world, past or present, whose core views I accept in toto - and typically I reject (later, if not sooner) most of what anybody writes. 

In conclusion, occultism and esoteric organization is a method, not a goal; a means not an end; and well-motivated and real Christians may (or may not) choose to engage with esoteric/ occult material and methods according to preference. 

As always, motivation is primary, and discernment is necessary - because discernment is just another name for taking the fullest possible personal responsibility for our spiritual life. 

Esoteric/ occult activity is neither more, nor less, dangerous than the far more pervasive and equally-deadly literalism/ Pharisee-ism and institution-worship/ obedience; to which too many Traditionalist Christians are not just prone but explicitly dedicated.  

*(Not even the Fourth Gospel, that greatest of all Christian texts... greatest of All texts, do I accept in its entirety - because I'm sure there are errors and later alien additions - even in the divinely-inspired "King James" translation.)

When 'spirituality' become merely materialistic - lessons in "defense against the dark arts" from Rudolf Steiner in 1917

One of Rudolf Steiner's deepest prophetic hints was from a series of lectures in late 1917 which were collected and published in 2004 under the title Secret Brotherhoods and the Mystery of the Human Double. 

(All the lectures are also available free on the Rudolf Steiner Archive as GA 178, although these translations are less comprehensible than the 2004 collection.) 

I have been re-reading these remarkable works - as always sifting and reinterpreting Steiner's valid 'raw insights' from the (wrong) metaphysical schema and his frequent errors of overelaboration. 

Steiner's prediction was that through the twentieth century and into the next, the demonic powers, assisted by their human servants (i.e. the 'secret brotherhoods' of the book title - nowadays broadly corresponding to the highest human levels of component institutions of the global totalitarian System) would have the primary strategy of convincing the masses that this is a wholly material world. 

This is the ideology we may call leftism; but which is in essence identical with philosophical materialism/ positivism/ reductionism/ scientism. 

Indeed, so successful has this strategy been, and so dominant and habitual its world-view, that we do not have a generally-accepted name for it! Why name what (nearly-) everybody believes?

The reason behind this materialism project is demonic, in the sense that it is the most effective way of achieving mass damnation. 

In the past, it was necessary to induce Men to reject Christ and choose Hell in an explicit kind of way; but with global materialism Christ, God, creation, and the whole spiritual world are simply regarded as not-real, nonsense; a childish and foolish delusion.

The question of Jesus Christ has not been refuted by materialism, it has instead been rendered incomprehensible, meaningless, absurd! Which is far more effective.  

But the plan of materialism needed to account for Man's perennial seeking for 'spiritual' meaning; for something beyond the mundane - and Steiner perceived that therefore there would need to be ways of rendering and reducing 'the spiritual' to the material. 

So that people who regarded themselves as spiritual would actually conceptualize 'spiritual' in a materialist way - without realizing the fact!

And this is precisely what has happened with the New Age tendency in spirituality; which itself evolved and expanded from roots in 'Eastern' or 'Perennialist' Beat Generation in the 1950s, then 1960s Hippy spiritualties.  

What happens in such 'spiritualities' is that the spiritual is very rapidly 'operationalized' as something material. 

Most obviously there tends to be a focus on this world rather than life beyond death; thi world is seen as the most urgent, the most important, the most real - eventually the only really-real. Therefore, the New Age assimilated to mainstream Leftist political ideologies and projects...

Perhaps the commonest example is when spirituality or consciousness is interpreted as an abstraction therefore not as personal - and using terms from physics; as when New Agers talk - and think! - about spirit in terms of energy, light, vibrations and frequencies. 

Another spiritual reduction is when there is a focus upon Healing - and the bulk of New Age spirituality gravitates towards some model of Healing or Therapy - which is both this-worldly, and rooted in feelings, which are substantially material phenomena since they depend on the body and brain, and can be (to some extent) manipulated and controlled.

Thus we arrive at the typical New Age spirituality - rooted in this world, and in feelings; and spiritual practices (such as meditation) become a type of psychotherapy.  

Ironically, Anthroposophy has itself taken exactly this path into materialism; and (in its institutional manifestations) has consequently become assimilated into mainstream materialistic leftism. This tendency towards abstraction (including physics metaphors) is seem in Steiner's metaphysics, and his explanation of the nature of Christ. 

And the energies of 'Steinerism' became focused on the institution (Anthroposophical Society) rather the individuals; and on the 'applied' materialistic and this-worldly aspects in medicine, education, agriculture etc. 

Furthermore (and Steiner himself had encouraged this) the legacy of Steiner became materialistic - with 'expertise' being understood in terms of comprehensive and accurate scholarship of 'what Steiner said' on this, that and the other - regarded as de facto infallible. 

Therefore, Steiner's greatest 'disciples' - who are all more or less 'heretical' in terms of the materialist orthodox interpretations rooted in 'what Steiner said' - have been largely ignored, rejected or unnoticed - for example Valentine Tomberg (expelled), Owen Barfield (marginalized), or Joseph Beuys (unnoticed). 

Looking back over the past century we can easily see that Steiner was profoundly correct about the way in which materialism has triumphed - explicitly in the realm of public discourse; and implicitly in a great deal of the 'spirituality' of today; which is characterized by abstraction, usage of 'scientistic' vocabulary and concepts, and a focus on 'therapy and 'making this world a better place'.  

What is needed is almost the opposite - and Steiner also said this in these lectures; which is to regard the universe as a creation populated with personal Beings - not abstractions; and therefore true spirituality as consisting in a personal relationship with the many spiritual-Beings - such as God, Jesus Christ, angels, the 'so-called dead', and indeed aspects of other Mortal Men.  

And, on the other side - the side of evil; the capacity to recognize that evil is also personal not abstract; therefore purposive, not accidental. 

From this comes our only genuine defense against the dark arts of evil which is recognition, understanding, and rejection - rejection by means of affiliation with God, which (as of 2022) must come through commitment to following Jesus Christ.  

Note: the term 'defense against the dark arts' is a reference to the Harry Potter series of novels; which I am currently re-reading with pleasure and profit. 

Why we need to think about what happens at death, and The (so-called) Dead

Rudolf Steiner had a remarkable prophetic era in his life, around 1917-19. At that time he seemed to have all kinds of insights about what was coming; including what was coming if Man did not re-connect with the spiritual aspects of the world (if - in a nutshell - Man did not take the path of Romantic Christianity). 

I have been reading some lectures given in Zurich, dating from November 1917 (significantly, Steiner seems to have made several of his best and most prophectic lectures to the Zurich Anthroposophical Society). 

These lectures are focused around the question of relationships with The (so-called) Dead; including how these relations can be good, or evil. 

But as a framework; Steiner makes a very important point (text edited by me):  

There are still many people who say: “Oh, well, in all good time we shall discover what transpires after death; why trouble about it now? Let us attend to the requirements of life and when we reach yonder world we shall soon discover what it is.” 

Well and good, but if it is true that in yonder world a man becomes what he has pictured himself to be, then something else is also true. 

Take the idea that is not at all uncommon nowadays. Somebody dies, leaving relatives behind him. Although thought may not be entirely lacking in these people, they may be materialistically minded, and then, quite inevitably, they will think either that the dead man is decaying in the grave or that what still exists of him is preserved in the urn. 

If materialism were to triumph, the conviction would still further increase that all that remains of the Dead person is disintegrating in the urn or in the grave. This thought is, however, a real power; it is an untruth. 

When those left behind think that the Dead person no longer lives, is no longer there, this is a false thought — but it is real and actual in the souls of those who form it. 

The Dead person is aware of this thought-reality, is aware of its significance for him. And it is a matter of fundamental importance whether those left behind cherish in their souls the thought of the Dead person living on in the spiritual world; or whether they succumb to the woeful idea that the Dead, well, he is dead, he lies there decaying in the grave. 

Far from being a matter of no importance, there is a very great and essential difference. (...)

This is illustrative of the way in which modern Man prejudges issues that he has not considered; makes up his mind about the fundamental, metaphysical nature of reality; meanwhile pretending that he is merely being 'common sensical', focused on 'what matters' and 'keeping an open mind'. However, common sense here-and-now is often the opposite of history, 'what matters' depends entirely upon what actually-is true and important, and keeping an open mind on one subject entails closing the mind on other possibilities.

Modern materialism conceals itself behind such assumptions as taking the attitude that we can (and should) defer dealing-with questions such as whether life, or human identity, continues after death; or whether The Dead have some kind of an ongoing relationship with the Living. These assumptions are reinforced by statements that 'we cannot know' such matters - or cannot know them with certainty, and therefore need-not/ should-not consider them. 

Yet at the same time, the same people behave in every way as if they were certain that (for example) 'racism' (undefined) is a great evil everywhere in the world today; or that 'science' (undefined) has proven that global warming is real, caused by CO2 and can be stopped or reversed by carbon taxes and 'green technology'. Or certain that the birdemic virus has already been a major cause of death, and is a major threat to global health. 

In truth, people refuse even to think-about death and The Dead - because they have already decided, they are certain, that the dead are annihilated and therefore there can be no genuine relationship between dead and living people.

Yet people are wrong about certainties; and then their wrongness has consequences. If The Dead continue to live and seek a relationship with the living, and if this relationship (like other personal relationships) may be good or evil in nature; then this denial Will have adverse consequences - especially if evil persons abuse their knowledge of the continuing relations with The Dead for their own evil purposes. 

 

This abuse is the subject of other parts of Steiner's November 1917 Zurich lectures: the ways in which 'dark brotherhoods' manipulate the situation of The Dead to cause harm to human health and the development of consciousness. 

As always with Steiner, I find that reading these lectures requires considerable sifting, discrimination and modification; but I feel a solid ring of truth about the subject matter and his basic points. And I think it is very likely that something of the sort is actively happening among the Global Establishment at the highest levels - where (to all appearances, by action not words) belief in the supernatural is normal and regarded as vital (albeit deniable and denied); and where initiations, symbols and rituals of many types have such an important role (albeit shrugged-off as mere vestiges, artistic subversions, parody and 'fun').  

One point Steiner makes is that when 'initiates' of these dark brotherhoods die, they may consent to become what are essentially 'evil ghosts' (as a mode of live extension - a very popular goal among the 'elites', as 'transhumanism') --- dead, still tied to the earth, and able to cooperate with the dark brotherhoods, and to continue their work of opposition to God and creation. 

Indeed, Steiner regards the hope or promise of life-extension to be the materialist evil-inversion of the Christian goal of life eternal; with the promise that it can be obtained by technological-magical procedures. 

 

I am personally Not certain about all this, but I'm pretty confident that there is 'something in it'. And much more so now than a century ago, when Steiner was speaking - hence the prophetic insight on display here. And like all prophets (as contrasted with mere predictors) the future is seen as contested territory, subject to human free agency; and something we all help to decide, and contribute to making.