| Pardon my native New Yawk Anglo-Saxon, but I had to encapsulate the sentiments of Saul Bellow toward Owen Barfield as he expressed them in the letters they exchanged in the 1970’s --- letters which now appear in the new book of Bellow’s Collected Letters. Here’s the review in the NY Times Review of Books: Saul Bellow’s Quest for the Vernacular Sublime http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/books/review/Wieseltier-t.html I’ll give you “vernacular sublime” all right! I quote below the section about Bellow corresponding with Barfield and how Bellow finally tells Barfield --- in a much more polite and civilized way than I do --- to take Steiner, as it were, and shove him up Barfield’s bombastic British bio-dynamic butt!!! But then the reviewer notes Bellow’s “turn to PoF” (metaphorical not literal) by praising Bellow’s “Declaration of Independence” from the doctrine of anthroposophy as well as Barfield’s prissy condescension to and haughty rejection of Bellow’s own artistic expression of his own ethical individualism. Tom Mellett |
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In the mid-1970s, there came a crisis. The dazzling representation of the appearances no longer satisfied Bellow. “For some time now,” he writes to Owen Barfield in 1975, “I have been asking what kind of knowledge a writer has.” The “interest of much of life as represented in the books I read (and perhaps some that I wrote) had been exhausted. But how could existence itself become uninteresting.” He concludes that “images or representations this side of the mirror have indeed tired us out.” Even more startlingly, he informs Barfield that “lately I have become aware, not of illumination itself, but of a kind of illuminated fringe — a peripheral glimpse of a different state of things.”
Barfield was an extraordinary figure, a disciple of Rudolf Steiner’s eccentric “anthroposophy” and its belief in a spiritual world with which we may have direct acquaintance, but also a profound thinker in his own right about language and imagination and the spoliation of human inwardness by a scientific and technological civilization. Bellow’s letters to Barfield are perhaps the most fascinating in the book, not least because they are the only ones in which Bellow is humble.
At Barfield’s suggestion, he undertook a study of Steiner — in defiance, to put it mildly, of his own skeptical and secular temperament. Perhaps his old schooling in the Russian writers — “We were so Russian, as adolescents,” he recalls to Stanley Elkin in 1992 — inclined him to such explorations. His impish delight in outraging the advanced cultural consensus of his time might also have encouraged him in this flamboyantly anti-materialist heterodoxy.
But not surprisingly, the doctrine did not win him. No doctrine ever did. In 1977 he confides to a friend that “I can’t manage this new kind of consciousness. I don’t know what to do about it.” And in 1979, in a dramatic letter to Barfield, he revolts. “I am troubled by your judgment of the books I’ve written. I don’t ask you to like what you obviously can’t help disliking, but I can’t easily accept your dismissal of so much investment of soul.”
It is a stirring moment, and more than an outburst of pride. It is a vindication of the old calling on the new ground: he has found spirituality in the enterprise of fiction. The rumor of dessication is dispelled. He will have no more of the other side’s condescension to this side. Never mind that the form of the novel was built on the ruins of metaphysical certainty: novels, too, may be soulful. Three years later Bellow castigates his erstwhile teacher for an uncomprehending review of “The Dean’s December,” and in a parting shot he taunts the mystagogue that “ ‘the leap beyond’ . . . would have to be a leap into a world of which one has had some experience.” Without such a continuity, the consummation would be meaningless.
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Tom Mellet and the erotic charge.
"There is an almost erotic charge to Bellow’s endless affirmations; they are so affecting because they are so willed.
(From the above article.)
Personally I am one step beyond PoF and am happy to say so. Its a great book and it makes you clairvoyant, but it doesn't contextualise the place it takes you to. The rest of Steiner does that. So chill out you wilful heretics and leave some space for us advanced guard to shout and swear in the joy of the vernacular too..
Bollox! (gotta love this medium)
Bryn
xx
Steiner's later work
Steiner's later work provided a field of concepts for specific areas of work for those who want them. You can get your concepts elsewhere from other experts if you choose.
As far as POF is concerned, his later work is the same as any other Guru for whom you seek guidance. POF is involved with your own production of concepts. POF is for everyone. Theosophists, spiritualists, and anthroposophists tend not to be attracted to POF. Steiner even made reference to this when he doubted any of his theosophy followers would read the book if it didn't have his name on it.
To Personally One Step Beyond
Dear One Step Beyond,
1. Did you read PoF in German?
2. If you read an English translation of PoF, did you have any difficulties?
Stop this partisanship Tom!
I agree of course PoF is germinal because it deals with thinking, and without thinking nothing happens. Who could disagree? But once thinking has ocurred a soul needs to know yet more about its thinking self. Knowing more about ones thinking self is not "a specific area of work for those who want it". (paraphrasing you). Soul knowing is as germinal to a thinking self as is the first picking up of a copy of PoF. There is a seemless continuity.
If you're going to dismiss readers off to "other gurus" immediately after they've read PoF, you do so presumably because you think that thereafter,the process of learning is different from the PoF experience; ie. in some way more suited to "guru learning". I say not so. It is exactly the same process, only the context is expanded.The context you're dealing with then is ones experience of producing self and world.
Also in my experience, there are people who can think "PoF style" who have never heard of RS.,which sort of weakens the partisan cry: "PoF is for everyone".
Further more obvious weakenings are: Many people can't read. Many refuse books of all kinds, or have no will or capacity to concentrate, no linguistic aptitude etc etc.
oh how we quibble. I like a good qubble before lunch.
For me to say "POF is for
For me to say "POF is for everyone" is to say health is for everyone. It is science so it applies and is of relevance to all. After POF you have the many expressions of individuals, like you get in a study group. You can take them or leave them. Steiner's later work is on the same level as the individual expressions of anybody else.
POF is the science of becoming an individual. Steiner's later work is his life as an individual. No greater than our lives as an individual.
Dumbing down has its limits
Well,you can say "health is for everyone" as much as you like, but where's the meaning in it? Health is patently not for every one: illness is for many. I suppose you mean you wish health was for everyone, but even then..! A bland slogan.
"POF is the science of becoming an individual.". Ouch! Sounds like a quick strap line on a self help book. I cant find any meaning in it if by "individual" you mean individual human being.
"Steiner's later work is his life as an individual". So before he wasn't an individual?
I don't know what to make of :"It is science so it applies and is of relevance to all." What kind of statements are these on a philosophy site?
Your sloganeering Tom, Too much TV. This is exactly the language THEY engage in.
And as for degrees of "great"ness of individuals-well to me I don't see how Steiner's celebrity or lack of it has any bearing on the content of PoF at all.
Of course, Tom, draw the line where you like; pre this, post that etc. Thats not the way I see it at all.
Fun and games
Bryn
Thank you for your Steinerism
The THEY you refer to are those outside Steinerism? Society members always post their critique comparing the work of others to their comfortable Steinerism.
Outrageous! I aint got no comfortable steinerism!
Miles off ! You're losing the argument Tom. Any sentence that starts "Society members always..." tells me you aren't talking to me. I am not "society members".
The THEY that I put humourously and deliberately over-dramatically in caps, refers to the Suppliers of Television who do so much to degrade intelligence via language abuse.( More caps here for the purposes of humour. Thought I'd point it out to avoid misunderstanding or accusations of paranoia or conspiracy theory or elitism or something)
Hang in there
love
bryn
ps I used to work in tv so I am entitled to my critique.
TV Show
I think the word "Steinerism" needs to be brought up a lot so people can wake up from group mind of anthroposophy. I lost track of our discussion.
You said you worked in TV. Were you on air? Their is a great need for some sort of POF discussion show. I recorded myself and discovered I can't speak coherently in conversation, but maybe could improve. Do you have any ideas or ability to create a show? Interviews? I thought of interviewing several people from a list of questions and then editing it into a video.
Yeah. Best lost track of!
Wow ! Good idea, but certain reservations spring to mind. First is exemplified by our debate above.
IMO as soon as you lead with headlines like "Fuck You and Steiner Too" you are putting yourself firmly in the low end of the communications market, in the domain run by the shark-like people with razor minds and a will to win at any cost. They think fast, talk fast and are a bunch of bastards ( as far as I see it now I'm older, anyway.) Your scurrillous headline just enabled me to go after you, using language in an adversarial, reactive way. Thats not PoF.
PoF, is reflectively written,subtle, and about as unimposing and unpersuasive a text as you could get. I dont think its spirit would survive in the atmosphere of any conventional TV discourse. Furthermore PoF does not qualify one to excell in a competive milieu despite its thinking enhancing effect or the intellectual self belief it engenders.Those sharks are very, very clever indeed. PoF on the other hand is meditative and slow in nature. So thats the main problem with the live TV situation as it is expected to be today. In the jargon of Anthroposophy, its entirely Ahrimanic! Its a killer atmosphere. But having said that....:-)
To do justice to its subject, a TV presentation about PoF would have to be VERY original! Hmmm.
A further problem to know up front, is the intention behind nearly all TV. It is mainly to persuade in some form or other. A more precise phrase would be "to usurp the will of another". Steiner is the most unassuming thinker possible, and he strives not to impose (Apart from his wacky Goetheanum and look what happened to that).
Anyway, no, no professional presenting. I was in production, but I CAN present as I've since worked in theatre and am vain and love posing and attention.!
As for "Steinerism", Fuck Steinerism. It aint my problem.
But I'm thinking about your TV idea.
Bryn
Recorded POF study group
If I can find a co-host or host the following project could be started. The tech side has already been figured out:
It is difficult to get people to talk about POF unless they are commenting on a section of the book.
Here is a simple approach.
Audio recording a weekly study group.
Find some interesting people, enough in case some didn't make it. (6+)
Go around and have each person make a brief comment on the POF section.
Brief response friom others.
Record the conference call.
Edit discussion to that which is interesting enough, 20 minutes?
A BIG DEMAND EXISTS FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT TO LISTEN IN.
From here the listeners might be inspired to join one of the other online study groups I plan to start, and become a participator.
It is difficult to get people to join these groups.
These recordings could be part of the POF archive
I like the idea...
...... but I must decline to join in thanks Tom. I simply havn't got the life style to comitt to more time spent in front of the computer screen. I can see you've given it good thought., and have developed the expertise, so If I can help in some intermittent way, like before when I was editing text, I'd be happy to help in this initiative.
All positive regards
love
Bryn
Limey Anthroposophy
Hi Bryn,
So great that you commented here. I must say, you are truly one wigged out Limey Anthroposophist! And I mean that as a sincere compliment. I guess I could use the word "daft" as well. Anyway, I can really appreciate someone who gets a theology degree as an Anthroposophist and has worked in modern media. Honest to God, you are so cheerily bonkers that I feel inspired to write perhaps a whole new comic skit based on Monty Python. Of course I mean Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Up for a remake? Come to Hollywood, baby, I could make you a star!
Of course. It's right in front of me. This is cosmic, man. Your name is Bryn. Yes, we can do a remake of "Life of Brian" and call it "Life of Bryn" --- all of it written from the anthroposophical perspective, with a case of "mistaken identity" related to Steiner's Mystery of Golgotha. I love it!
Now, to get less feverish, you do realize that Steiner's experience of the Mystery of Golgotha, which we can put somewhwere in the 1897-1900 time period, is the dividing line between the atheistic Steiner before then --- celebrated here by Tom Last --- and the Christian Steiner after then --- celebrated by all those Steineristas practicing Steinerism..
Now, Bryn, I also see that you and I actually commented on the same British blogsite in the same thread.
UK Anthroposophy
http://ukanthroposophy.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/plymouth-university-axes...
November 6, 2009
Plymouth University Axes Steiner BA Degree Course
I'm sure you missed my comment as I missed yours because our postings were made 4 months apart.
(You posted Comment #4 on November 24, 2009 while I made Comment #12 (as Imker) posted March 19, 2010.)
Now Bryn, I really must take you to task over your smug defense of Marie Steiner in her infamous preface to the Euyrthmy as Visible Speech lecture cycle.
“. . . decadent negro dances which are hammered into us by machinery,turning us into machines and gradually killing out our finest human qualities”, I think you’ll find it is critising machines playing music not negro’s.
Bryn, you very deftly (not daftly) ripped that quote out of context. You know damn well, my man, that earlier in that article, Marie Steiner was lamenting the animalistic nature of Negro music and dance in Paris in the 1920's. (I wonder if she ever saw Josephine Baker?)
But we can discuss this later because for now I want to make the point that Steiner's racism and anti-semitism ---before the MoG experince of 1900 --- was incidental to anthroposophy. But after he had his "Come to Jesus" moment in the MoG and he became thoroughly esoterically Christianized, then his racism and anti-semitism became fundamental to anthroposophy.
Tom Mellett
known as Hollywood Tomfortas as well as Imker (depending on whom I'm calumniating at the time!)
PS Oh, Bryn, so you can distinguish the two Toms here, since I'm a little older than Tom Last, then you can call me Tom First!
Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!
Would you do an interview?
Would you do an interview? It would be edited so pauses to think are OK.
Because of peoples various priorities it may be difficult to get people together in a discussion group. I could work up a list of questions on a chapter, send them to people, then interview them on Skype, then edit the results from 6 people into videos, with some graphics added to the sound track.
Interview parameters? + Dottie going bananas over you!
Yes, Tom, I would be interested in an interview, but I'm not sure of the parameters. Do you mean that you would be interviewing me? And then would it be limited to a specific section of PoF? If so, I feel like I would really need to do my homework beforehand and also not stray from the topic.
On the other hand, what about a kind of "free-floating" interview where you and I discuss the background of PoF, specifically, the pre- and post-Christian Steiner and the whole phenomenon of Anthros ---- including Steiner himself!!!--- sort of "back-engineering" PoF to fit the post-Christian Steiner? That should be separate from the first format which you seem to be directing toward a study group.
Thirdly, I have a sense that Bryn is as intelligent and as bonkers as I am, so interviewing us together might be a real experience. However, I fear it would devolve pretty quickly into an episode of "Month Python's Etheric Circus," which also may be a very good thing. Who knows, maybe Bryn and I could do a radio show, like on Skype.
Oh, before I forget, Tom, you have really pushed some of Dottie Zold's major buttons. She's madder than a wet hen at you over your praise given to Dan Dugan. She hangs out on the Anthroposophy_Tomorrow Yahoo group. I link to her two posts here today.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anthroposophy_tomorrow/message/45901
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anthroposophy_tomorrow/message/45903
I consider that the threat
I consider that the threat to Steiner's work is Steinerism, not Dan Dugan. I also point out that Dugan is part of the Carl Rove right wing nut case brigate out to destroy the world.
http://www.philosophyoffreedom.com/node/5299
Tom, I was asking Bryn if
Tom, I was asking Bryn if he wanted to be interviewed, but I also was going to ask you. When you select "reply" then a post appears connected to the comment being replyed too. Their is almost nothing on the internet about POF so I want to get some stuff on that. Your other ideas could be another project. I am always desperate for website content. You may want to give me questions to ask you for another topic.
I will post some chapter one questions. The interviewee could select some from that list and add other questions related to the chapter. So the questions would be known ahead of time.
You're Sharp Tommy Mellet but...
...that Bryn commenting on the sit you posted, for sure aint me! No wonder you cant get a handle on me. Surprising tho, because I know no other Bryns in the wonderful world of Steinerosophy. Nope TM, definitely not me. Honestly.
“. . . decadent negro dances which are hammered into us by machinery,turning us into machines and gradually killing out our finest human qualities” I think you’ll find it is critising machines playing music not negro’s.
Hilarious! This guy is a disgrace to the name Bryn. He IS bonkers, to write lame shite like that.
Can I ask for clarification on "wigged out"? Anyway, nothing bonkers about me mate. I'm the real thing. You'll learn to love me. Oh, and for Christ sake stop calling me an anthroposophist! I'm too beautiful for that.
Yeah, Steiner and his coy "Festival of knowledge" MoG explanation! Bit of a let down really considering he says that until then he could have been mistaken for a card-carrying Nietzschian.
Personally I dont give a stuff about racism or semitism, anti or pro. I'd be just as happy to chat Formula 1 or baseball.
Did Tante Marie really say that? "Decadent negro dances hammered into us by machinery..etc". How perceptive of her. She wouldnt have liked me. I spent a good part of my early life playing bass guitar for a living.
Bless us, and the internet
Bryn
I'll do that
Yes fine I'll be interviewed. When and how? I'll get a headset/mic. You might not get the easy, standard stuff, you realise tho.PoF is only a part of a process for me.
Bryn
questions
A regularly used form of video presentation is where you have several different people give their comment on the same question.
The commentors can select which of these questions they would like to be asked and anybody can suggest other questions.
I will work on a set of chapter one questions today.
contemplate phrase
What may be better than questions is selecting a line from POF and record comments. In this way a person could even pose their own question related to the line.
TOM. Ive got a headset. Wots next ?
I rang the call in button at the top of site, No answer. Head set works. Mic works.cu later no doubt.
x
bryn
sounds good.
no text
Did Saul Bellow speak and
Did Saul Bellow speak and read Russian?
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