Hi,

The two people I know (one of whom as crossed) who can engage in the type of "reading" you are asking about each have very different relationships to it. One of them I would consider rather highly accomplished the other (the one who passed across) was still getting the hang of it.

They were both "naturally blessed" but also did much to cultivate and improve their capacity.

They both are wonderful proof that high levels of cognitive development simply are not the best predictors of an individual's realization of freedom. My friend who died a few years ago had a huge heart and a wonderful mind. He used his various kinds of clairvoyance always in helpful gestures and without drawing any attention to himself. I lived with him for over 6 months before he ever shared any details about his clairvoyance, and in the years since then I have had repeated first hand experience which demonstrated the exactness of his vision. A month before his death I had the fortunate opportunity to "interact" with a being he considered to be his most important "teacher". And he had such a wonderful sense of humor about it all!

But, like I said, he also indirectly helped me deepen the distinction Steiner makes between the realization of PoF and the development of higher perception. As highly cultivated as my friend's perceptual capacities were, there was a fairly typical disjunction between the conditioned nature of his "seeing" and the nascent impulse of PoF that lived within....

His moral qualities had met the baseline that Steiner seems to be shooting for in all of his clairvoyance-developmental work: I think Steiner is works hard to explain why his approach to clairvoyant development is predicated upon a healthy (relatively non-neurotic) ego. And it is clear from many of Steiner's descriptions that a high initiation on this path of perceptual development does not wipe clean low level neurotic functioning. I say this based on multiple descriptions Steiner has given of clairvoyants who had a basically healthy development yet still demonstrated rather normal egoic snags and, for some, even the tendency to downwardly spiral post-initiation.

I am now thinking of the quotes from Steiner you provide and thinking about them in the context of The Philosophy of Freedom

"most interesting that we now start to receive instructions in this higher language concerning how we should conduct our life.
we recieve directions for certain significant actions from this occult script which the un initiated will not be aware of."

this reception of instructions and directions corresponds very well to what my friends demonstrated. Each of them would describe such reception as if it was receiving something from a dear friend, filled with trust and benevolence.

yet no matter how friendly this give and take indeed was, I find it very helpful to compare it with PoF's quality of "reception" that is the realization of thinking's self sustaining nature; a moment to moment realization that inspired Steiner to write such things as:

In so far as a man receives his moral principles from without, he is in fact unfree. (10-5{6})

It is not the will of some being outside him in the world that man has to carry out, but his own; he puts into effect his own resolves and intentions, not those of another being. (10-8{8})

Steiner would never look down at our experiences in which we cultivate, consciously, free relationships with higher beings. And he certainly never spoke negatively about the wonderful experience of acting out of the deep trust and commitment of such a relationship. The achievement of reading from the occult script is not a monolithic experience and obviously is going to be individuated in countless manners. When my friend received instructions he often had a deep sense of "knowing" associated with the actions being requested. Sometimes not. Sometimes it would be years before he saw the purpose of certain requested actions. And I'm sure their were actions he performed that were not revealed to him before his death. To me there is something beautiful in this kind of relationship that is thoroughly grounded in conscious trust and love. I think we can all think of very good analogs to this type of experience.

Yet I can't even compare it to the realization of thinking's nature. I don't mean to suggest that the latter realization is "better" or "higher"; I literally mean that there is really no comparison. I am not shocked at all that Steiner made very clean distinctions between what is "achieved" in the conscious encounter with the intuitive occurrence and what is actually achieved in all levels of perceptual development. And I think it is important to note that Steiner did point out that the two paths- while overlapping in significant ways- had different functions altogether.

I wonder if the formal anthroposophical movement will ever be one in which there is a rich, responsible and joyful sharing of the various individuations related to reading the occult script? I personally don't think it is at all necessary to the ultimate purpose of anthroposophy that such perceptual development is pursued, but I have no doubt that many within the movement strive for such development and expect it to become a more widely shared capacity within the anthroposophical movement. Jesiaha Ben-Aharon ruffled more than a few feathers at Steiner College when he shared his strong opinion that it is well time that people share more openly their experiences.

hullo jeffrey,

    thank you for that substantial response.

        it gave me a lot to think about. I can relate to the downward spiral and the joyful sharing..........downward spiral i experienced a few times, and joyful sharing I experienced at a camphill a waldorf school an anthroposophical community.

                                    I am still trying to get peoples experiences of what this occult script is, but noticed if you look closer it is written in nature many truths and stories.

                     thanks again jenny ren. i am interested to know more about your clairvoyant freind that died.

Hullo to you too, jenny

I'll call him Robert and tell you some more. Because of severe trauma he experienced as a young boy coupled with his clear perception that reality did not end with the senses or with one lifetime, 6 year old Robert thought he was being punished for having had lived an awful life. He thought a cosmic decision had been made to "give him hell", literally and eternally.

His experience of the other side of the threshold were typically benign and helpful, but on this side utter and relentless pain was the norm. By the time he was a young adolescent, Robert drugged away the pain and, thereby, closed the door on his heavenly hosts.

At the age of 29 he was in a bathtub just about to shoot out his brains when a very powerful voice asked that he remove the gun from his mouth. He did. This being- who he would later consider his primary non-bodied teacher- told Robert that if he chose against ending his life right now things would get much better fairly soon. This was the first direct contact in years. Robert was shaken and decided to give it a shot.

His life turned around very quickly. Always incredibly intelligent and creative (often too much so during his mischievous late teens and early twenties), Robert cleaned up his life physically and began a basic schooling in consciousness. Within a short period of time his clairvoyance and clairaudience began to reemerge. He found a fleshed teacher and, at the same time, a group of unfleshed souls took up his education

He got his PhD in psychology and began running clinics for at risk youths.

One day at the end of a meditation, he received a clear image of what looked like a Native American healing tool. He was shown each part of it and told to go make it. If you could hear the way Robert "conversed" with his unfleshed friends, you would laugh with joy. He often said he was very relieved that "The Universe has a sense of humor" and "let's me get away with some colorful language"...

"I don't know to make that thing, let alone where to find all the pieces. No way!" He immediately saw the image of a beach he was very fond of and he knew he would go there. He went and in less than an hour on the beach and in the trees, he found the exact pieces of wood, feathers and other material he needed. He went home and a new teacher spend hours with him showing him exactly how to make it. This particular tool wasn't explained to him in any way, but about 80% of the hundreds he would make over the next 20 years were shared fully in function. Often it was Robert's job to use them for specific purposes. Sometimes people (mostly native elders) would be guided to Robert's "Ashram" and he would hand over the tools.

When I first began living with him- before he told me about the source of his tools- I couldn't take my eyes off the beauty of these things that were all placed on the walls. He explained that this was not to show them off but to have them at hand in his little "ashram" and he always encouraged people to tough them and describe their experiences.

As I said in my earlier post, Robert did not talk to me about his spiritual path for the first six months; and only then because I began to ask him. After he opened the door into that aspect of his life, I was flooded with stories of his worldly and other-worldy adventures. Crazy and Beautiful and Fully confirming of the joyful, playful and serious point of our life in the land of conditional reality. Robert demonstrated an integrity and clarity of purpose that I have hardly ever seen. His laugh was loud and hearty and his tears were abundant and, always, radiant. He was equally manly man and womanly woman. If you were a powerful military man, you could go out in the woods with Robert for a couple weeks and admire his tracking skills and his ability to creatively navigate the natural environment. In those contexts, Robert loved his guns, ropes, tents and gnd's. And, yet, if you were so inclined and wanted to go to a drag club and dance the night away, Robert would be your best "girlfriend". I have pictures of him in my room, side by side, in which you see him staring out of the woods dressed in camouflage in one and dancing in a glittery dress in the other.

He always worked to help beaten and troubled and addicted teens. If you were a college student looking for an internship for your degree in Psychology, you wanted a year with Phil. He hardly ever let his clients and interns know about his contact with the spiritual world. It wasn't necessary. In fact most people who knew Robert did not about the degree to which was "tapped in"

While living with him I had a few experiences directly with him that confirmed the degree of his clairvoyance, but it wasn't until I moved away that the big and somewhat unsettling (at the time of their occurrences) "verifications" took place. Robert lived for another 7 years after I moved away. His love was vast and crystal clear. He had no real patience for any shade of dogmatism. I introduced him to Steiner's work. He immediately saw it as the teaching of a great initiate. He also thought Steiner was one of the most attractive men he had ever seen. He visited me once at Steiner college and appreciated so many of the people there but was disturbed by what he considered a deeply unconscious dogmatism. However, he always supported my commitment to the path Steiner laid out and I look back on our evening conversations about Man's cultural/spiritual evolution as some of the fondest memories of my life.

Robert was always ready to laugh, to sing, to help and to give anybody the shirt off of his back. And he ate awful food and enjoyed terrible movies.

I had the awesome opportunity and responsibility to be in charge of Robert's tools after he died. I spent three days collecting them, organizing them and finding various places to keep them. In my house I have two of his favorites resting on a shelf under the window. One of them was the last tool he ever shared with me. He considered it one of his favorites and, incredibly, as he was showing it to me (in a dilapidated motel somewhere in Utah), it began doing it's thing and he ended up helping two of my loved ones, oddly enough. The other tool he needed more time to share, time he ended up not having. But I enjoy having one tool on each side of the threshold with Robert. He smiles at the mystery and encourages unique and always individual freedom. Thanks for asking about him. It was wonderful dipping back in that well...

  thanks jeffrey for sharing about roberts life.

                     it means a lot to me as i also developed mediumship and clairvoyance and sometimes i myself think i am strange! to have a glimpse into this other multi dimensional soul was strengthening for me. I pick up he wants you to do a book with photos of his creations and a biography of his life/work.

                                  I had a sense the two of you have a special bond.

                                                                                      thanks jenny ren.

Thanks for this Jeff!

It really was good that I took some time to reflect on my friendship with Robert. Upon reflection I see that my relationship with him paved the way for the transformation in my relationship to PoF that would come a fews years later.

I didn't make that connection until writing about Robert to you guys. I was developing my friendship with Robert during my co-dependent years with Steiner. It was right around the time of Roberts death that my relationship with Steiner became less delusional and more realistic (in every sense of that term!). It lost some of the fireworks that come with projection, but gained the relief and true exchange that comes with reclaiming projection.

Robert served me in many ways, but now I see that he was sort of a tacit symbol for me, working subconsciously in my soul. Here was this guy who had fairly sophisticated higher perceptive capacities, used them in socially responsible ways and never pushed them on another human being or asked for recognition of any kind. He was actively in my life. So was Steiner in the sense of how important his work, writing and path was to me. And then there was The Philosophy of Freedom.

I had not yet consciously formulated what was happening in my soul/mind, but that period of time was when I was really begininning to distinguish the role of PoF from the facts of perception. Even at the time I probably could have made a sophisticated statement about such a distinction, but it was not living in me, it wasn't burning as a knowledge-need within my chest. In fact, just the opposite; in those days, at some level, I needed to tie the path and purpose of PoF to the incredible mountain of perceptual development that Steiner also shared. There is undoubtedly a relationship between the two. No: there ARE undoubtedly many different relationships between the two, but my soul's unconscious dependency upon being unfree required that I conflated the two in subtle yet serious ways.

Robert's utter humanity (his shadow was as human as his light) helped me begin to ask a new type of question about what I was really seeking via anthroposophy. But those questions did not become conscious forces in my life until after the dark night of the soul. Damn that dark night! just kidding.