I wrote a journal entry this morning, and spent the day helping my girl friend carry out a b-day party for her 92 year old mother. When I checked this eventing on what I had written, I found Tom's (Tmasthenes) comment, scanned it and then deleted it.
Here are my reasons, and some background.
I've had a rather odd biography. Given my many decades work as an anthroposophist and spiritual scientist, I felt that it was incumbent upon me to provide for my readers some biographical background. I thought they should have access to these odd facts, and be able to take account of them in whatever way they needed in order to make any judgments upon my work as they might wish to make. Readers who want to take a look at this then should read Biographical Necessity, at: http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/anthro-bio.html This is over a hundred pages printed, so people should recognize that if you want to have a thorough knowledge of what is there, your work is cut out for you.
I wrote this essay very carefully, because I knew full well what some would try to do with the material it contains. For example, the essay clear states that certain ideas are being represented as hypotheticals, and not as conclusions. Like I said ... I've had some odd experiences and in this small book I endeavored to treat the whole situation with a great deal of respect (and some humor), given that another personality (now no longer incarnate) plays a very crucial role, which it was my intention from the beginning to honor. Even so, i knew some readers, having their own agendas, would dishonor this individual and our relationship.
I also expected material from this essay to be turned into what is essentially spiritual gossip.
This is what Tom did. He took material out of context, twisted it for his own purposes, and then posted it as a comment to my journal entry. Since I have the capacity to delete this undisciplined and false presentation, that is what I did.
All the same, I leave to those who read this journal entry the above link, and they are free to read the whole thing and decide for themselves what they think to be true. Here is a comment from the little book, to provide some context (and understand the humor with which I approached the biographical material):
""To give a bit of an advance hint as to the conclusion, here is something that can be found near the end of main body of this essay: "Consider this essay then a very long shaggy dog story, typical of the American Soul with its imaginations of such exaggerated fanciful characters as Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill. That is, after all, the only kind of idea we anthroposophist's presently have of the Future Maitreya Buddha - a fantastic exaggeration. Anyone who thinks they can speak with final truth of such aspects of human spiritual history, had better come back down to the earth. Remember, Rudolf Steiner only spoke of this at a certain time and place because he was more or less forced by circumstances to do this."
VJ, BT and First Tom
Hi Joel,
You know, you play the "victim card" so well here that I am forced to play the "bully card," to keep up with the game. However, playing my card just inspired me to solve an administrative problem of identity here on the PoF blog, namely that Tom Last and I share the same first name.
So here's what I propose. Because you are the victim, Joel, I shall call you Victim-Joel or VJ for short. Then I would be called BT for "Bully-Tom" And that will distinguish me from Tom Last, who shall be designated as "First Tom" or FT. Get it? . . . First Tom is Last! God I'm just so clever! I don't know what to do with my self. (But I bet Ahriman knows what to do with my self. Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!)
BT
PS Oh, in case you need to refer to my notorious comment that you deleted here on your Journal space, I have posted it as a comment over on my Journal space under "Win-Win for the Bodhisattva." Come to think of it, I ought to set aside that space for all the comments you will delete, like this one.
Steiner's Ultimately Speculative Metaphysics (after 1900)
Hi VJ!
Now that we’ve got the administrative details out of the way, I can address the substance of what you wrote above. Wow, so VJ, I take it that I was completely mistaken in my previous postings, because I had been operating under the assumption that you were literally the Bodhisattva, that you were literally the reincarnation of both George Washington and Clara Barton. But now you say that these literal identifications are but fantastically exaggerated metaphors!
OK, that’s wonderful. I’m glad we settled that, and I must needs apologize to you now for being so dense and dim-witted that I actually thought you meant these identifications literally. But you showed me my place, Joel, and that is truly inferior in spiritual cognition to your superior level. But it’s OK Joel, I’m old enough and mature enough and man enough to accept the fact that you are superior to me in so many ways. It does help to take a little edge off my natural-born megalomania (Recall my hat size is between 7-3/4 and 7-7/8, which is 62 to 64 in European size)
So, VJ, your point is extremely well taken and it is crucially important because it leads to an issue that is a deep interest of First Tom here, namely, the issue of speculative metaphysics.
You see, VJ, you are really on to something here in likening your excursions into identifying with the Bodhisattva, GW & Clara B as like a child who believes in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, or the myths of Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill as you mentioned. Sooner or later, everyone is awakened to the actual objective fact that there is no literal Santa Claus, no literal Easter Bunny, that Paul Bunyan really didn’t literally chop down trees of that size, etc. In short, you awaken from the enchantment of the imagination and become aware of a more realistic, objective, more literal world.
So, since we have gone this far down the exaggerated metaphorical road, let’s keep moving along the path, shall we?
Around the turn of the 20th century, somewhere between 1897 and 1900, Rudolf Steiner came to an experience that he called the “Mystery of Golgotha,” in which he tells us that he stood before the crucifixion and resurrection event of Jesus Christ in a “solemn festival of knowledge.” (very end of Chapter 26 in his autobiography)
From this point on, Steiner’s whole life moved down a path of an esoteric form of Christianity, which we all know and love, of course, as anthroposophy.
But here’s the problem, VJ. How do I know, how do you know, how does anyone know if this experience of the “Mystery of Golgotha” is real, is literal, is objective as you and so many other Anthroposophists claim? Why wouldn’t this “experience” of Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus (as Anthros call him) be just as much a fantastically exaggerated metaphor, a myth, legend or allegory as any other myth or legend like Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny?
After all, I believe it was CS Lewis who once said: “If Jesus Christ did not exist, then we’d have to invent him.”
Well, Jesus H. Christ, then, maybe all of us have invented Jesus Christ, each in our own way, and that one of the most unique and gifted inventers of Christ was Rudolf Steiner. Then, that’s all the more reason to get back to Steiner’s pre-Christian, nay even roundly and soundly atheistic Philosophy of Freedom, in which there is no need for this childish subjective metaphysical speculation of God, let alone the fantastical exaggeration of this metaphorical being called Christ Jesus and this highly imaginative allegorical event called the “Mystery of Golgotha,” certainly the most egregious form of “speculative metaphysics” to ever come down the anthroposophical pike.
At least Rudolf Steiner maintained his sanity before 1900, so I think we can all be eternally grateful for that.
Yours in Christ, VJ, which is the same as
Yours in Paul Bunyan, VJ, (or are you Pecos Bill? Can't tell.)
BT
Thanks, BT. I feel kind
Thanks, BT. I feel kind of dumb that it took me over two years to get it through my thick old skull that Joel Wednt was just kidding about being all of those great big incarnations. BT, do you know if Joel is also kidding about his spiritual scientific research concluding that Karl Rove is both a man that is mistrusted by a majority of the world and the incarnation of Ahriman? I still feel dumb.
Anyway, nice to meet y'all,
Terry
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