Love is what is needed for Goethean conversation. It is the only way for individuals in a social condition to sustain an etheric field, and to take form as real entities within that field. When someone commits a conversational or a social faux pas, as everyone certainly will, correction needs to occur through the medium of love.

What is love? Love is a social force. It is what happens to human beings who commit themselves to social judgment. The universality of true social judgment is what constitutes the field of love.

Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offense, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes. 1 Corinthians, 13:4-7

Carl - I may not be following your trail of reasoning sufficiently.

You concluded: Real conversation cannot exceed the capacity of the individual who represents the weakest moral or intellectual link among those present.

Did you intend to convey that the conversation can only continue as long as the whole group can sustain its requisite moral conditions?

In my experience the collective intelligence - to keep with your terminology - of real conversation extends beyond the experienced individual intellectual capacity of single participants. The enhanced ability to express that collective intelligence is also elevated beyond the individual capacity to understand at times. It gets dodgy if someone begins to speak completely outside their own experienced understanding. This feels similar to channeling, of which I have no experience although I have met a few 'channels'.

Precisely what is limited and cannot be exceeded through individual weakness?

Do you mean that there is an objective capacity for intelligence - that an individual may be unable to reach on their own - that builds a ceiling to what can be acheived together? Is this something like a limitation through karma?

I may be moving away from what you are concerned with here, but another experience may be connected. This is my common experience in meetings and other informal gatherings of the ability of one person to speak out of the collective awareness of others beyond the capacity of those others to process the thoughts present in the gathering. In this way the individual borrows capacity from others and cannot perform the same feat when they not present.

Yo John,

In The Republic, Plato says that the defining attribute of a society of unjust men is that they are incapable of joint action. Even a gang of thieves, if they are effective, will be just to one another.

When it comes to Goethean conversation, anthroposophists generally show themselves to be incapable of joint action. It follows, I think, that there is probably something amiss with anthroposophists' ideas about justice, and with their moral ideas generally. These misconceptions probably have to do with the common and mistaken ideas anthroposophists entertain about freedom.

J.S. Mill in Utiliarianism argues cogently that the idea of justice derives from our sense of social expediency, and that part of our sense of social expediency is that it often requires inequality.

Now with Goethean conversation, we have a new kind of social situation and social expediency. We do indeed have a situation in which a whole group, a whole social organism, is willing a certain set of moral conditions. The whole group is seeking justice for each member of the conversation, and inequalities between individuals is recognized and understood to be part of the natural order.

Now if some one member betrays a moment of moral or intellectual weakness, what is expedient and just is never to ignore or pass this moment by. Rather, what is expedient is to bring the whole conversation to its level. It is to recognize explicitly that person and that person's motives. That's going to be the only way to sustain the etheric field. Of course, that individual will be educated and raised up in the process, but that is secondary. What is primary is that everyone stop and give him (her) a total, patient and indifferent energy and attention, an energy and attention based in hopefulness and love.

Yes, this limits what the group can do with a conversation. But ignoring a faux pas also limits what a group can do, but in an indirect and deceptive way. Consciousness of limits, and a willingness to work within them is more expedient and more just than an unreflective denial of limits. This latter is what we tend to see in the common anthroposophist, particularly in those at the Periphery.

The lifting of individual capacity by the capacities of others is also a real sociobiological phenomenon. One plays better soccer if one is on the field with players superior to oneself. The same thing can be expected in conversation.

Thanks Carl - I can follow you here.

You are suggesting that anthroposophical groups would do well to follow the morality of mountaineers in lifting a colleague who stumbles before continuing together. If this expressive deed of love, which is a healing social force, is practiced then the karmic legacy of the weakened individual may be redeemed and new capacities nurtured. In such instances the right action may be done for the right reasons beyond any selfishness of pushing for the summit.

Could this be conceived as being a team guru effect? The one is in the presence of the beloved, as the Sufis put it so beautifully.

The word guru has such a lot of negativity associated with it because of the trap of dependency that too often characterises the relationship with a guru. There is no doubt that a strong group fosters strong relationships in its members. As Tom is rememinding us in the posts from Awakening to Community a strong group can come about in other ways than mutual dependency. Dependency holds us in infancy and that can be a necessary stage of individual development, but it is no state to grow comfortable in. The Spring of support soon turns to the Autumn of retardation.

Likewise duty can be seen as a step in development. If I recognise a moral duty I may feel obliged to act out a specific deed. But if I see my duty and act out of love, not obligation, then I free myself from encapsulation and dependency on a moral form. This releases forces into the world that work beyond the confines of the specific deed. These are healing forces that open karma from the cul-de-sac of dutiful ritual.

Is this what is meant in Steiner's personal rendering of the Lord's Prayer? Your Kingdom is extended in our deeds and through our conduct in life.

So on further thought I want to shelve guruism and unfold Team Medicine or Team Healer to honour the Team Spirit that can develop out of free deeds and who is cramped by dutiful conduct. I have seen eurythmy crippled out of dutiful imitation of a revered teacher.

Abusive pressures and demands from a group upon its single members can arise if the freedoms of ethical individualism are not honoured. Anthroposophical groups and communities are not immune. Individual members too often inwardly torture their own souls out of real or imagined pressures of duty in community. Let us encourage the healing spirit rather than the guru.

The all-one-being of living thinking members - described in PoF - does not cast us out. Only our own actions drag us out of spirit human community if we eat the attractively presented cursed and blessed apple of moral judgement with anything less than love.

Yo Carl (I am flattering you sincerely here)

You are quite correct to point to our several species of unrealised ideals that are clustered in ethical individualism. But is the position of those who strive with good heart as unfortunate as your post may appear to some readers to suggest? You have not suggested that that dutiful and devoted work is wasted, but that such enaction is not the same as pure loving deeds. We need not wait to begin our anthroposophical work until we are fully accredited initiates. It is however visible in some quarters that an individual or group effort is scrutinised for seediness rather than for seedliness. This is only possible if the scrutineer(s) does/do not practice the dead dog's teeth exercise. I hold the previous sentence up for such scrutiny.

This is a sensitive issue. Who am I to flatten the good will of any child on the path? It can be that our best efforts need a generous spirit to stoop down and glean the wind-blown harvest. A good looking over can raise the deed a couple of inches higher than a thorough trampling. So the aspiring ethical individualist will look with loving clarity for the seeds of future cultivars everywhere. All good hearted deeds have seeds of evolution, and together we can improve their viability through loving appreciation. Such appreciation can be further lifted through consciously speaking of the doer in an act of reversed cultus commonly known as offering up in prayer.

We live in a time when - in general - the giants of spiritual vision have given the rest of us a chance to have a go on our own. Yet in our Goethean converse we can in combination achieve what is beyond the reach of the single gigantic one. This is perhaps yet another image of the aspirations we share through our journalings together.

This contribution is born out of my concern to lend justice and appreciate the well meaning contributions of our fellow journalers and journalists. It must be hard to post a new journal here if others are perceived to be looking disparagingly for tentative mishaps. We can - and will - have a wittily robust debate here. I wonder if sometimes we could be more pointedly supportive. A dead dog is not going to bark at us for admiring its teeth.

The Lord's Prayer is for all of us, even without a double spinner on the front of our hats. We shall reach the summit of ethical individualism together. Thanks Carl.

Yes, John,

I think we are substantial accord here. That's a good thing.

No, the position of those striving with a good will is not unfortunate, even if Steiner-style ethical individualism may be a bit beyond their capacities at the present time. The reason for this is the plenitude of cultural forms that RS and others have bequeathed to them - the Old and New Testaments, biodynamic agriculture, eurythmy, Waldorf education, and the Goetheanum all spring immediately to mind. These forms each have enough spiritual substance in them to keep most people's batteries charged, and to keep alive the hope for and the possibility of something truly grand for human life on earth. That "something," of course, is a concourse of immortal Spirits associated with human bodies and human institutions causing the evolution of the Planet in the direction required by cosmic law.

The one cultural form that has not really taken shape in anthroposophy, except perhaps in inner circles at the Goetheanum and elsewhere, is conscious conversation. This is the critical form to develop. I believe you and I agree about this.

Now the trick will be to see if we can get everyone else using this website to agree to it as well. That is why I'm structuring the Conscious Conversation Journal here in the way that I am. What this Journal is supposed to show is everything that applies a priori to the idea of Goethean conversation. Once we are finished with this outline, it will be pretty clear why Goethean conversation is still a bit of a mystery to most folks. Human conversation in general and Goethean conversation in particular is a complex phenomenon. No one in the history of philosophy, of science or religion, to the best of my knowledge, has ever tried to work it out. We have an chance to work it out here on this website.

At some point it will be of interest to me to enroll a Subscription to the idea of Goethean conversation. All those willing and able to affirm their endorsement of its principles, and their willingness to apply them in the appropriate circumstances, will be given an opportunity to register here, and to record the extent to which they accept or find unacceptable the Domain of Values that are currently thought to constitute the possibility of anthroposophical conversation.

At this early stage, it is particularly interesting to me to get certain individuals to weigh in on the program. Of particular interest , in addition to you, are:

Tom, Lori, Joel, Sebastian, Caryn, Tim, Valdo, Jay and Jeff.

Cisco and Patri are, from my point of view, still in the loop, despite their apparent discontinuation.

I enumerate this list simply because these are the people currently using the site with whom I have some familiarity and intimacy. There are undoubtedly many, many others whom I don't yet know who we'll want to have check in, and probably a few whom I've inadvertently forgotten about in compiling the little cult. Ideally we'll want to get the Dornach Vorstand and the Rudolf Steiner College Faculty, and other members of the Center, likewise to register and record their positions.

A pretty good use for this website, don't you think?

Hi John,

You said: We can - and will - have a wittily robust debate here.

I wonder if we will?  We are well used to the demands Carl makes on us to draw on our I AM, to smile as we manage the emotional tumult that burbles up from beneath as we read his judmental comments.

I find there is wisdom to be had from Carl's perspective - even from the journey I have to take as I drag myself over to it!

Whatever I receive, somehow, I must keep it, and work with it,  until I can return it as love.

With best wishes,

Sebastian

Good evening Sebastian. How was your day?

It sounds like this Carl guy really gives you seismic quakes! He is really trying hard to lift us up cool clear mountains onto small creaky platforms. It often feels a bit wobbly and how those winds blow straight through our ears! He has his own design of platform you know and he does the whole thing with no nails - only organic string theories.

I can feel with you here, Sebastian. It sure is a tough playground as we don't have the wings for it. Carl really likes to have folk come round to play and he tries really hard not to shout. But he makes the rules you know - it's his ball and his bat in his garden... But you know what is really amazing about this game? I tried playing his game with my own rules because I read this crazy book that said if we think together we are playing in the same garden with the same bat and there is only one ball. Well it said 'triangle' but a triangle is a ball whichever way you look at it. It also said 'ethics' or 'morals' but up here it's the rules and this book says to use the best ones you can buy.

Anyway, there I was hanging from a thread and playing my own rules and you know? He is great with concepts on the service, but I have the edge with those sneaky backhand images. Carl hung around and played along too. He really is some social guy.

And you know something else? Nobody gets more than half the jokes round here because I type with a straight face and hide the serious stuff in the punchlines! Doesn't it crack you up? It gives me tennis elbow! The best person to practice love on is someone you don't like. There is no fooling yourself then. This Carl guy, I can't help but like him because he is so genuinely himself. Can't ask more of someone.

Isn't it crazy that we decided to meet like this, philosophically speaking, just you and I and everybody else in Carl's everybody's garden? I really hope you hang around. You get me thinking and I am such a touchy feely person usually.

right now ... what's for second breakfast?!  Hope to see Patri and Cisco partaking as well ..

Under the sea, in a Conversation Garden in the shade...  I love how the spirit of play is coming back into the website, that has to be a good thing!

John, you are a true poet and I can only admire the breadth and generosity of spirit in your comments here!  Those are words I would love to have said but it would have taken me years to get them!  Long may your brow chakra expand...

As for the rest of us dirty dead dogs, we'll try to raise a smile occasionally so someone can admire our teeth more easily...