Dear Friends,

America is a different place, in its soul nature, from Europe or Asia.  We on this list tend to talk across these differences as if they were not there.  For example, the basic soul gesture of an Eastern European is considerably different from that of an American.  Let me give a couple of examples.

In America, an instinct for social egalitarianism dominates, such that American anthroposophists tend to want everyone to be equal in the vertical (spiritual dimension) in the same way they are naturally equal in the horizontal (the social dimension).  Yet, if we read Steiner's writings on threefolding carefully, it is clear that in the cultural realm, the realm of freedom, people's different capacities are essential.  No one, for example, can walk into an operating theater and push the surgeon aside and say that because they have an opinion on heart surgery, it is just as valid as the skills and learning of the surgeon.

In a like way, in America, there is a tendency not to recognize "spiritual" talent within the Anthroposophical Society, confusing the social egalitarian gesture for a true assessment of spiritual experience and gifts.  We are here so fixated sometimes on this assumption that we are all equally skilled at spiritual development, that we refuse to recognize when we are ignorant and ought to be paying attention to someone with greater capacities than ours.  The instinct for egalitarianism even tends to make us jealous sometimes of others gifts, and strive all the harder to not admit to ourselves that in cultural spiritual life there will be a few who stand out (if we bother to actually look at their work and their deeds in an objective fashion).

Partially this is rooted in the gesture out of which this country was born, in that it threw over political relationships with the old European aristocracies of blood, and replaced them with what sought to be equality leading to brotherhood ("and crown thy good with brotherhood").  Today this has become extreme in practice in politics's where a kind of anti-intellectual mood drives into power a Reagan and a Bush, neither mentally competent for the spiritual cultural component of being President of the United States.  Two men who can't think, and are encouraged by the behind the scenes rulers in the circles of high finance, to believe themselves actually capable of holding down the higher responsibilities of this office, have lead America into ruin.

A similar difficulty runs through the Anthroposophical Society and Movement in America.  The social egalitarian principle puts forward the most politically adept into positions of authority and confines the talented to the periphery (such as Dennis Klocek).  Here is some Emily Dickenson, quite on point: "Assent, and you are sane; Demure; - you're straightway dangerous and handled with a chain".

If we move Eastward from America and into England, we find the egalitarian gesture less in place.  Its seed is there, but traditions of class lingers everywhere in spite of beliefs otherwise.  There is still a Queen and a House of Lords.  Private and public schools, and if one enters into government service, to rise to the top still depends a lot on who you know and what is in the blood (although financial blood is stronger sometimes than blue blood, it is still blood that counts).

Further Eastward into Central Europe and the aristocratic principle became transformed in the 18th and 19th Century into the authority of the mind.  To be called Doctor was to hold a trump card socially over all those who were not so labeled.  A recognition of the natural superiorty of the spiritual dimension seems more appropriate here, and we see this clearly in how Steiner was treated - how much in fact people gave away of their own thinking to his.  And, sadley, how hard it was for him not to accept this role.  Where a guru in the East would be enigmatic and indirect (sometimes even nasty and violent to an ass kissing student), Steiner spent large parts of his days giving specific advice.  The whole social structure in middle Europe gave credence to the view that there could be an all knowing thinker to whom everyone should give deference.  Call him a Great Initiate and the whole of the social horizontal becomes completely subsumed into the vertical spiritual.

If we go West from America, across the Pacific Rim, instead of a hierarchy of social deference, the whole thing moves off at an odd angle.  Where the America wears his heart on his sleave, the Asian has a secret inner life of the heart that is not even shared in the social intimacy of marriage.  The deeper the inner truth, the more private.  From this the guru becomes a teacher of enlightenment in which the ability to mystify the process is essential.  The secrets are keep inside, and outside the truths are pointed at sometimes so indirectly the thinker is (especially if they are a Westerner) completely confused.  "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"  "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."

In the East, the rational is so devalued as a spiritual reality, that to not "think" is the goal.  Socially, gurus are everywhere.  They grow like weeds, and have so impressed many Americans that these Americans lose the very ground underneath their feet. 

Where this Asian impulse runs further in to Western Russia and then toward Eastern Europe, a strange confluence arises.  The secret inwardness remains, and a kind of intellectualism is added over the top.  All is colored of course by the love of tragedy (a happy Russian isn't a Russian at all), for this soul is not developed and won't be developed until the 6th Epoch.  This produces a passionate mystical nature, such that as it reaches into Central Europe and Anthroposophy we get a Prokofieff, who never has been a spiritual scientist, and will always remain a Russian mystic trying to imitate what he doesn't actually understand.

The social gesture here is actually a kind of sub-egalitarianism, for its view of tragedy puts us all in the same sorrowful bucket of sad horrors.  Prokofieff is obsessed with the quite evident failure of the Christmas Conference, and leads a chorus of folks who want something to believe in (rather than actually do the work of spiritual development), such that they ignore everything that followed Steiner's death as if that quite evident fall from grace never happened to the Society.

Here the social truth is just plainly ignored, and a kind of false idol of vertical perfection (Steiner) becomes worshiped.

The reader will note that I worked out of America as a kind of center.  This was intentional.  The fact is that the future of Anthroposophy, in that it becomes more incarnate and more socially realized, depends in large part upon the American Soul.  A kind of spiritual war is going on here, in which (among others) the Ahrimanic Beings are quite active, because one of the biggest dangers to the triumph of Ahriman's incarnation is American Anthroposophy. http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/otlwa.html

The self evident failures of the 20th Century have lamed Central Europe and Dornach.  The East is still too inward, or too immature, and only those weird American's have the right instincts.  This is not meant to put any other individual down, but to tease out of the whole phenomena of anthroposophical practices world-wide, that which will be most fruitful for the near Future.  Ahriman is incarnate here, and the great battle is joined.  There is a reason this takes place in the soul gesture of the American, which has little to do with outward social understanding of America as a political entity, and a great deal to do with the hidden qualities this soul possesses and which can be trusted by others.

Just consider that we are here, in this place on the Internet, because of the many yeared devotion of an American to Steiner's The Philosophy of Freedom (spiritual activity).  In the will of Americans something remarkable is bubbling to the surface.

One of the ways in which we can confuse ourselves is to believe, as was pointed out in the beginning of this journal entry, that everyone is spiritually equal.  This is a fiction, one which if we indulge it with our egotism, will blind us to that which can most help us understand the world in which we live, and find our way through it.  We quite naturally and rationally don't want to make the error of the East, which is to indulge in guruism, or the error of the Center, which is to elevate to near godhood a single human being such that our own thinking (intuitions) become secondary to what Steiner said.  At the same time, we will be quite foolish to think that the spirit does not speak to some more than others, for it is not our will or vain wishes in this that counts.  The wind blows where IT wills.

Emerson, as in many other matters, hits the nail on the head when he says the following kinds of thinks: "In self trust all virtues are comprehended."  "The only thing of value in the world is the active soul".  Books are only meant to inspire, never to substitute for our own thinking (a paraphrase of a much longer paragraph).

So the question is not about giving something away from our own I, to another's thinking.  But at the same time, recognize that the spirit speaks to and through those whom it wills to speak to and through, such that the inspiration of the past out of Central Europe can be quite well added to in the present by those personalities who incarnated just in this time in America, in order to face down Ahriman, and point the Movement and the Society in the right direction.

Remember, the false egalitarianism will lead one to think that they can do spiritual research, and that everyone's intuitive capacities are equal.  If you want to know certain matters, read those who have done the work, and don't go around thinking that you are ready to know everything all on your own.  If your are a eurythmist, be a eurythmist, but don't go around thinking you know how to do spiritual research into the social.

We all have thoughts and opinions.  Knowledge is much harder to come by.

love,

joel