The essential point to me is to realize that Steiner did not himself achieve his adult initiation (as against the atavistic clairvoyance of his childhood) on the path described in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. If we wish to follow Steiner's steps, we follow The Philosophy of Freedom.

At the 2005 Ann Arbor Conference, after I had spoken at the final plenum about the importance of PoF, several people wanted, as John Ralph seems to want in his comment to my journal entry on "Spiritual, or Inner, Freedom", to do both The Philosophy of Freedom (PoF) and Knowledge of the Higher Worlds (KoHW).  I'd like next to speak to the assumptions latent in thinking this way.

The essential point to me is to realize that Steiner did not himself achieve his adult initiation (as against the atavistic clairvoyance of his childhood) on the path described in KoHW.  Steiner's path was described (indirectly, and without personal references) in his books on the science of knowing (A Theory of Knowledge, Truth and Science; and, PoF).  If we wish to follow Steiner's steps, we follow PoF. Its quite clear (see the book Enliving the Chakra of the Heart by Florin Lowndes, last two chapters) that KoHW was written in large part because people were not taking up PoF, and/or finding it too difficult.  KoHW was published 10 years after PoF.

KoHW is a modernization of Roscicrucian developmental practices leading to initiation.  It does not lead to the New Cognition, about which Steiner stated that this New Cognition, when developed out of PoF, results in the thinker have an experience of the spiritual world as a world of thought.  KoHW does not produce this effect, and does not provide the precision and exactness and SURETY of (scientific or PoF) thinking as does KoHW.

The exercises in KoHW consist of a series of moral admonitions, coupled with work on the imagination such that objects of sense experience become exercises to strenghten the picture thinking.  Coupled together (for every one step in spiritual development, e.g. the exercises of the picture thinking, one needs to take three steps in character development, e.g.the moral admonitions) a basic metamorphosis of thinking does result, but it lacks certain qualitative characteristics only available through PoF

When Steiner in Occult Science says that the path of PoF is more sure and more exact, he is not making small talk.  He always gave out his hints in a precise language, which was yet modest (no hyperbole or exaggeration).  There is a surety and precision that results from scientific (objective) introspection, which KoHW does not foster.  Since KoHW proceeds by processes of moral admonition for its "character" development, this leaves aside the full and direct encounter with the moral capacities of the spirit in the soul only made available by a thorough study and practice of moral imagination, moral intuition and moral technique (particularly, as this journal entry suggested, with regard to our inner soul/spiritual actions, not just our outer social actions.

Further, the problem of knowledge is not fully developed at all in KoHW.  In large part we can experience this in the Society and Movement almost everywhere by just listening to what is emphasized.  Hardly anyone (and this is sadly sometimes happening on this list - see the dialog following this comment in my last journal entry) actually makes references to their introspective experience.   They will throw around concepts they have acquired from reading (basically use language in a certain way), but little will we hear of their experience in the practice iof ntrospection out of PoF.  This includes the most fundamental and simple distinctions, say between thought and experience or concept and percept.

It is possible, for example, to read or listen to an anthroposophical speaker or writer and know which path they are following, and quite a bit of how far they have gone on this path.  The way they connect thoughts reveals a great deal about the qualities of soul that have been developed.  In addition, we can look to the degree to which their thinking is independent of Steiner-thought.  We can actually (if properly trained via PoF) recreate the thought stream living in the sentences in our own mind and "feel" certain qualities and characteristics of the spirit and soul that constructed that sentence and the related and following thought content.

There is everywhere in the Society and Movement an absence of clear (clair-) thinking.  What is the consequence for anthroposophists that PoF is so neglected?

Horrible tragedy.  For a sample of the problem here is a paper I handed out at a recent Branch Meeting where a certain awful book was being put forward as important. http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/counter-silicon.html [1]

joel