Bravo, society minder!

I would suggest that the real question is not the appropriateness of serving alcohol at a spiritual research seminar, but, rather, through which "doorway" the luciferic spirits moved who had influenced such a decision to be made. It would be valuable to know which researchers ingested the toxins and which refused. That would be valuable information regarding one's evaluation of his or her research. I'm not saying that it would invalidate it as such, but in following Steiner's guidlines for non-clairvoyants applying reason to the methods and conclusions of clairvoyant research, we would be making a grave error to blithely dismiss or indiscrimantly ignore such information.

On a broader note, however, I personally would not conclude at this point that any of the researchers themselves had anything to do with the decision to allow toxic ingestions at the reception. If it is the case that they had no involvement then a brief application of free insight makes clear that the inclusion of alcohol would in no way work against the free activity of any participant exercising his or her free will at the conference.

Yours,

SS

The truth then was that we were all schizoid and couldn't function comfortably within the social protocols on offer. We had to be anaesthetized to stand and chat in the tense conventional postures on offer.

I loath alcohol for "oiling the wheels", and have very little sympathy for so called spiritual people who feel they can't reveal themselves in conversation to their fellow humans without it. Blimey, whats spirituality supposed to be about, if you have to be pissed to talk to your friends?
Homnunc

To serve the wine at this function and to call Biodynamic is such a cop out excuse to say it was ok. It is still wine. Fermented fruit that has turned into alcohol. Yes, wine has some antioxidants because it was made with grapes. Limiting your consumption may make it beneficial or at least counteract the health hazards that the alcohol gives. But to actually pack crap into a bull horn for a while and bury it then take that out to later fertilize the grapes that are being grown organic, to call them biodynamic is one step from the old days. Why not say some words over the bull horn full of crap to induce a magic spell and call it 'Biodynamically fortified'? Sounds good to me! Besides, it would give it a marketing flare and you could legitimately say something else was done..

Despite my previous comments my answer to the intial question is no. In fact I would find it rather embarassing to see alcohol served at a Spiritual Research Seminar. What I or anyone else might enjoy in private is another matter.

Dear Friends,

Steiner makes an interesting remark (perhaps in PoF), suggesting that we distinguish freedom from license.  We can do anything we choose of course, but in fulfilling an appetite are we actdually free?   That is, in point of fact, the first question in PoF: can we want what we want?

In another instance Steiner remarks that the effect of alcohol on the human organism is to drive the ego from the blood.  As someone with 18 years in mental health, and being an addict in recovery, I am well aware of various stages and kinds of inebriation.  A small amount of alcohol relaxes us, or so we assume.   The fact is that alcohol has two clear effects:

1) It disinhibits so that we begin to disconnect from the influence of the ego on the astral body, because the alcohol drives the warmth body from the blood.  We like the disinhibition result, because we tend to wear masks in many social situations, and seek an outside chemical "helper" to become more spontaneous (leave aside the social mask).

2) It is a depressant - that is it is really a downer (although we first feel it as if it was an upper because of effect #1 above).  This is why people get sorrowful as the alcohol begins to be metabolized.  Of course if one is binge drinking (that is keeping the alcohol coming in), the upper-like effect continues until we pass out, puke or kill ourselves or someone else trying to drive a car (that is totally loose the ability to make sound, ego based, judgments - having opened the door to greater influence by the three-fold double through the ingestion of the alcohol and its driving out of the ego).

There is a wonderful definition of "addiction" that comes from an anthroposophical nurse in Holland: We become open to addiction when we use an outside influence to bring about the resolution of an inner conflict, instead of bringing to bear our own will - our own ego forces inwardly.  This need to use this outside influence (frequently a substance, but it can include sex, power, shopping etc.) - this need becomes a habit when the ego remains too weak before the temptation to resolve the inner conflict through the outside influence.  In the above social situations, the inner conflict arises because we wear social masks, yet want to be intimately known in social situations.  We use the outside substance instead of bringing the ego forces to bear on the inner conflict between inhibition and spontaneousness.

This would be a sign of the absence of inner spiritual freedom - that is the inability to resolve an inner conflict (or even be awake to it) via the own ego forces.

When the use of an outside influence to resolve an inner conflict in the astral body (overcome a desire we would rather not have) becomes habitual, this results in the creation of a psychic parasite in the soul, which an older spiritual science called "egregores", and which Steiner called "tumors" of the soul in the last lecture of Man as a Symphony of the Creative Word.  I prefer the term "self-created wounds of soul", rather than egregores or tumors.  The rite-like repetition of the use of the outside influence frees this area of the wound from any ego-based self regulation, thus creating the parasitic relationship of the wound to the rest of the astral body (as the heroin addict says: the monkey on my back).

The reason, this use of alcohol (or any other "addictive" substance or process) is a problem for spiritual development, is because of the need for purification of the astral body (three steps in moral development for each one step in spiritual development).  In lecture Twelve of the Gospel of John cycle, Steiner describes success on the path of PoF as actually fulfilling the need for purification (there called Katharsis) of the astral body.  The reason the astral body needs to be purified is that its excessive density and weight, due to too much earthiness, makes it unsuitable for regular contact with higher Beings.  They can overcome this darkness in the unpurified astral body through acts of Grace, but we cannot freely rise toward them out of our own will without achieving significant purification of the astral body on our own.

A little known fact of Steiner's biography is that he overcame his own atavistic clairvoyance (from age 8 onward) in his late adolesence through the daily use of alcohol for over a year.  Subsequently he then achieved the new thinking initiation described in its preliminary and preparatory phases in PoF.  That is he faced the elements in the desire or astral body (exactly as described years later in the beginning of PoF) and then went on to full purification via his work described as "some results of introspection following the methods of natural science".  Natural Science includes experimentation, that is in terms of PoF it includes acts of will in the inner life done without knowing in advance what will be the results.  Without real inner risk (and risks in outer circumstances like seeking to be spontaneous in social settings without using alcohol), we make no real development (lest ye become again as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven).

The existence of the serving of alcohol in social settings at anthroposophical conferences seems to me to be entirely useful for it actually offers people the opportunity to work through these problems, even if they don't yet fully understand them.  Our meetings are frequently ensouled with an excess of gravitas (to much ahrimanic seriousness), for whiich the luciferic temptation of alcohol might be quite significant - even curative.  Steiner said on more that one occasion that we can overcome the ahrimanic with the luciferic and vice versa.  Since first encountering the Society and Movement I often wondered why the social traditions of Americans (the cocktail party and the afternoon barbecue) were never offered or supported by the Study Goups and the Branches.  So much seriousness, and so little joy.  That alcohol was served at this conference mentioned above seems to me to be entirely appropriate.  The only thing missing is a general knowledge of the facts descrbed in this little note, which would then help people face these questions in a more awake and individual fashion.

hopefully this will be useful to some readers,

love,

joel

excellent contribution - sillyness is a prime antidote to the influence of the double, and is certainly capable of generating the levity forces able to counter an excess of gravitas.  I once proposed that a weekend conference do a "sock-hop" on Saturday evening, instead of the intended "serious dramatic presentation".  That proposal didn't fly, of course.

j.