עברית "This is what should come forth from Anthroposophy: to be awake, to have enthusiasm, to transform cognition into true activity, into deeds, so man does not only know more but will become something through Anthroposophy”.
On reading Scott Hicks book, The Resurrection of Thinking: Steiner's Anthroposophy & the Postmodernism of Badiou, Deleuze, Derrida & Levinas, I feel first of all a sense of healthy wellbeing, of blessed satisfaction, like one has after a good, nourishing, enlivening meal. One feels: This author thinks with his whole body and being, through the whole spiritual- metabolic life cycle of the human being, in which you can sense how the late Latin metabola, begins to resonate in a new way with the ancient Greek μεταβολή, change, from μετα- + βολή, a throw, as in μεταβάλλειν, to trans-form, to change. In the words of Rudolf Steiner, we can say that he begins to think with his spleen, which mediate the transition from the ordinary ego to Spirit Self, and we can experience with him “this development from Tumpheit to illumination, Sälde; this was what became the motif of Parsifal. Parsifal develops from dullness to Sälde”.(Lecture of 22 October 1922, GA 218)
Scott’s thinking and language is substantial, as thinking can become only if it extracts real forces from the physical body; it is living, chemically active, because he uses forces extracted from the etheric body; and he thinks in such a way that the forces of the astral body that in ordinary consciousness supply the brain-bound materials and forces for our mental images, are constantly transformed to living, animated pictures. And this is what causes the greatest Sälde, the most refreshing satisfaction: that I feel in each sentence and phrase, how in each thought process he activates all his soul forces together, the will, drives, passions, feelings, sensations, perceptions, memories and creative fantasy. But the result of this mixture is not chaotic mess, rather it bubbles up as highly bio-dynamic creative chaos, fired by the flames of true spiritual enthusiasm, rejuvenated through the water of life, energized with fresh currents of soul air, and light-filled, because it is born from disciplined thinking, thoroughly trained in Rudolf Steiner’s demanding fundamental philosophical- anthroposophical books and lectures.
Let us join Rudolf Steiner as he reviews the metabolic process as a whole, from a spiritual perspective. The metabolic cycle, he says, must become the model of real spiritual activity, must fire our enthusiasm to do consciously, in our living thinking, what the whole human constitution is doing unconsciously with each intake, assimilation, and spiritualisation of our physical nourishment:
“One can say: foodstuff taken up, killed, revived, astralized, transformed into the ego…”. That is, after thefood has been taken up and killed along the digestive track with its excretive processes, it goes through these enlivening, ensouling and spiritualising stages.
“It is:
1 transported into the lymphatic glands;
2 conveyed to the heart, fired by the heart.
3 The kidneys then radiate through it, and all is astralized,
4 taken up by the liver functioning and conveyed to the Ego.
5 Then the whole can be caught up by the activity of the spleen and then, under certain circumstances the person will be made into an enthusiast, one who receives strength from the spiritual world through the activity of the spleen…the spleen is connected with all those activities of man which go beyond the ego, which approach the spirit-self. The spleen is even directly the organ of the spirit-self. It enters fully into the spiritual realm”.
This is what it takes to enter into the spiritual realm and experience the first seeds of the transformation of the astral body into Spirit Self. This can only take place by means of fully conscious cognitive and moral activity. This fiery enthusiasm, about which Rudolf Steiner speaks above, is what animates Scott’s book from front to cover. It is truly holy fire, or to use Deleuze and Guattary expression, “holey” fire, burning in secret tunnels and caves under the devastated modern earth, where in the spiritual catacombs today the new earth and people, the earthly-human sun, is prepared. Scott Hicks is such an anthroposophical enthusiast, because he feels in his whole being what Rudolf Steiner really meant when he said:
“Then the whole can be caught up by the activity of the spleen and the person will be made into an enthusiast, one who receives strength from the spiritual world through the activity of the spleen”.
Now, in this fiery connection, it is interesting to note the following fact about the present increasing intensity of the forces of heat in our world. If you want to experience the inner forces that in the external world cause such ecological havoc by means of the so called “global warming”, you can do it be reading Scott Hicks book!- this statement may appear paradoxical or nonsensical to some readers, who imagine the human soul and its spiritual activity to be an isolated island and not an organic part of the earth and cosmos, - but if you consider the fact that warmth is composed of the inner, intensive etheric warmth forces before they become physical quantitative heat, you will gain a new insight concerning the real cause of global warming. Global warming has indeed much to do with the spiritual reality behind the external causes, such as CO2 emission (which needless to say, we must learn to control and minimize in any case); but when CO2 is exhaled, by us and by our civilization, it is not only a material gas production. Etherically speaking, it makes enormous amounts of etheric forces free for creative spiritual and moral activity- but they are not used for the good and are reversed and misused for ever greater egotistical greed and power. The etheric streams released by the global combustion, industrialization, transportation, data creation and consumption, must find the way to unite, and this can only happen in our hearts, minds and deeds, with the increased in-streaming of the beneficial, life giving forces of the etheric world. This increasingly intensifying stream of new life brings with it, first of all, new forces of etheric warmth. But these etheric warmth forces are highly moral forces of spiritual fire and when they are neglected by humanity, they are reversed into their opposite and become physical, scorching, heat. Strange as it may sound, the truth must still be said clearly: the external rise in temperature is caused by the reversal of etheric warmth and love into forces of moral coldness, indifference and hatred, produced so abundantly by humans on the earth. The gracefully given etheric forces of life-giving warmth, reversed to moral coldness, turn into external forces of heat, and burn the earth. It is called also, esoterically speaking, “the wrath of God”, which is the other expression of God’s love, because it must burn away the increasingly thick ice of our moral coldness and the cold flames of our hatred to each other. The increase in global warming and external heat is not caused by the material gas emissions but because humans misuse the new etheric warmth.
Now, when you read Scott’s book, you feel how this etheric fire forces become cognitively and morally productive, because in each sentence and phrase you feel the heartbeat of love and true enthusiasm for the mysteries of humanity, earth and cosmos. Spiritual knowledge becomes dense, substantial, yet light-filled; it becomes limbic, metabolic, respiratory, sensory, knowledge, as Rudolf Steiner said hundred years ago:
“What one needs today is the kind of work that transforms the spleen into enthusiasm, into fire so that men do not have a sleepy, but rather a wakeful civilization. This is what should come forth from Anthroposophy: to be awake, to have enthusiasm, to transform cognition into true activity, into deeds, so man does not only know more but will become something through Anthroposophy”.
Scott Hicks invites the reader to take part in this spiritual metabolic cycle, which he, as a unique “spleen man”, has accomplished in his labor of creative thinking. This is a wonderful journey and I recommend it to all true “enthusiasts” of Anthroposophy, who are longing, as I do, to see more and more such creative, adventurous, thinkers as Scott certainly is. And with such resurrection of thinking, Anthroposophy- and this term is used here solely to name the spirit of humanity as a whole- will begin its long-awaited resurrection from the grave of our present civilization.