PoF also was the first philosophical book that got me really thinking about what I had to do in order to read it.  In that sense, I give PoF full credit for teaching me the value of experiential self-reflection which ultimately led me to stop thinking of "thinking"  as something that could be represented.  In other words, without PoF I would still be under the belief that humanity is in need of new ideas, rather than the utter erasure of all its false ones.

PoF is like going to the gym all ready to work out and get your muscles all bulked up and strong and then your trainer comes up to you and points out that if you calm down your body's health will take care of itself.  It's the calming down that requires a new type of inner activity and re-cognition.  Tim, you always point out my desire to provoke with my example and, yes, I'll admit that I am well aware why that analogy goes against the grain to a large extent. PoF is suppose to be thought of as going to the gym and building up all these new muscles that make you stronger and more capable of defeating the dragon.  And that is exactly how I walked the path for about ten years. It served me well and I don't mean to trash it.  It fact, without treating PoF as a muscle building program I would never have gotten my head muscles strong enough to realize that PoF isn't found in that kind of strength, at least not for me anyway.  Being able to concentrate for long periods and go into a new kind of state of concentrated cognition was great and useful, but not what I really wanted.  I wanted what Steiner talks about in the 1918 preface. Changes is states of consciousness and even in fluidity of thought were awsome but not at all what Steiner points to there.  The world is filled with people who see angles, who can concentrate, who can think in beautifully fluid ways; thank God!  But these same folks can be the perfect demonstrations of how conditional their skills are.  What I've found in PoF (and maybe it has nothing to do with other's reading of PoF) is that it is pointing to something that is unconditional, alive, eternal and utterly "free".  And when you find even a part of this "something"  (5-1{8}) you see the "calming down" that is our shared freedom.

But I really do need to go to the gym today. The real one.  I have friends visiting and all I do is eat anything that I see these days. So, excuse me.

Jeff

Jeff, should we share our deep unworldly secret or should we each send our favorite photo to Patri at the exact same time?

I've loved how Steiner would apply The Philosohy of Freedom to any and every subject, Patri. I was teaching at a central coast university when I began reading The Philosophy of Freedom. The campus library was my gettaway on Sunday afternoons; I would finish up all my grading and find a table tucked away in the corner where I could jump into Steiner's philosophy. I soon began to read other books of
Steiner's lectures and I was curious to see how Steiner would often begin relating The Philosophy of Freedom to the most disparate subjects. Sometimes he would stay long on it, but out of nowhere he would all of a sudden relate taking care of one's farm to some passage the book; out of nowhere he would suddently bring PoF into a lecture on early human rituals, taking a quote from here or there and pointing to some interesting connection. I guess I'm feeling a bit defensive about your last comment because it seems like it could easily apply to what I've been writing the last few days. I have been, no doubt, doing a close reading of the text and I've been applying that close reading to things other than Steiner or his writings. Why should I be defensive? I love PoF and to read somebody say that those who apply it to other things and look closely at the sentences are "way off track" just gets my proverbeal goat. If I keep in mind that you are simply trying to express what you have found wonderful about the book for yourself then the defense goes away as quickly as it came. I used to see spirits and up until about 21 this was common. They were always peaceful encounters, mostly as if I was just being allowed to watch. My mother told me to tell her if it ever got scary or confusing and other than that she left it alone. Ocassionally there would be a direct interaction with a spirit. One day when I was furiously scribbling into my notebook while reading PoF in the university's library, the spirit of an old european man was standing by the table watching me write and read. It had been over a decade since I had such an experience. I bascially igored him as per my usual way, but it was clear that he was taking an interest in my study. I was getting more and more frustrated with a specific passage, going back and forth between reading and writing until my head began to hurt. At one exhausted point I looked up to see his smiling face. He was smiling at me but pointing outside to the benches. Sick of trying figure out whatever it was, I got up and strolled outside to the benches and sat down. Suddently out of lovely little tree in front of me a flock of butterflies exploded out of the tree and into the air. I had never seen anything like that. It was just beauiful. In an accent I could never place, the old man said, "Does that help?" It sure did. When I first began reading PoF, I secretly hoped it would teach me to see more clearly and consciously into the spiritual world again. I had missed seeing spirits and heavenly creatures more than I wanted to admit to myself. I was reading to find a key into that sort of spiritual vision. A few years later at a time when my long time partner was deciding to "play the field", as they say, and my heart was spinning into some fairly dark places, my need to see spiritual sights asserted itself with a new level of force. I joined a PoF study group and decided that this time I would really crack it open and stick to the thought training exercises. Towards the end of the study, one night, I was in the group trying to grapple with a portion of the text and going on and on about it in a rather strained manner, when I looked up and saw the old man laughing. I got the point immediately. Some part of me did, that is. From that moment on I began to "use" PoF in a new way, no longer so much as a means to an end it became much more like a friend who would simply chat with me about what was already going on. It became more like watching for explosions of butterflies.

Sara