עברית Spiritual science discovers this universal truth, namely, that privatization is constitutional and instinctive in the modern age of the Consciousness Soul, because it is the very power that motivates and actualizes individuation.
The Universal Reversal of Anthroposophy and the Positive Mission of Egoism
From Lecture 3: The Universal Language of Michael and the Being of Rudolf Steiner
“Egoism must be fully and positively understood and accepted, because without going to the elementary school of this enormous power of self- love, there’s no individuation at all, and no freedom, and therefore also— eventually—no true and freely self-actualized moral love”.
The reversal of Anthroposophy was from the very start unavoidable, of course, and it was and is reversed in all possible, and often rather impossible and unimaginable ways! This is what modern humans naturally, and indeed, instinctively do after all: reverse and recreate everything into their own narrow representation of their physical, psychological, social, national, cultural and religious identities. As I showed in the second chapter of my book, The Event in Science, History, Philosophy & Art, reversal is the most fundamental, instinctive, existential modus operandi in the age of the Consciousness Soul. Because this reversal is such a universal, exact opposite of the true being of universal Anthroposophy, let us characterize here some of its main characteristics, because it is self-knowledge that we want to gain, and this reversal is the stuff we are made of, in the age of universal egoism. Now, if we observe this phenomenon rather phenomenologically, we will discover that it causes us to reverse the universal per se. We take hold of the universal impulses, concepts and ideas, values and moral intuitions, and privatize, nationalize, politicize them. Spiritual science discovers this universal truth, namely, that privatization is constitutional and instinctive in the modern age of the Consciousness Soul, because it is the very power that motivates and actualizes individuation. We privatize all our elementary perceptions, ideas, feelings and will impulses, and do this instinctively, long before we can reflect about it and realize that it is happening, in order to become strong and independent, egotistical personalities in the age of the Consciousness Soul. If humans would have taken spiritual science seriously, they should and could have become conscious of this fundamental reversing process, which belongs to the ABCs of spiritual science, but instead they do the same thing to spiritual science: privatize and appropriate it and reverse it into the very forms of thought that Rudolf Steiner overcame. In this way, we export and disseminate Germanized, Americanized, Catholicized, Buddhist, New Age, even Zulu mutations of Anthroposophy, keeping the universal names that Rudolf Steiner used, but replacing their content by the exact opposite of what they mean. What you get inside these nicely packaged, universally titled, anthroposophical names, is a mixture of many reversals: racism, regionalism, religion, nationalism, political ideologies from left and right, and many others, all masked and named ‘Anthroposophy’. Instead of using Anthroposophy to demonstrate the universal-human transformation of the private-privatizing, reversed-reversing ego and lead all isolated fragments and particulars to the universal origin of the various nations and religions, we accomplish the greatest reversal ever in human evolution, because humans were not yet able to reverse the universal human before our age, as they simply didn’t have any conscious access to it as we do now.
Anthroposophy is the first universal key and access given to humanity as a free gift, for its creative free use—and misuse. Naturally, because Rudolf Steiner used the German spirit as the purest chalice and vehicle to embody and express the universal human spirit of Anthroposophy, it happened that a reversed, Germanized Anthroposophy became the template and global centre of this process of reversal. From the beginning it taught the whole world the art of this reversal and disseminated this plague in its missionary anthroposophical zeal to all corners of the earth. People on every continent are copying and pasting this fully reversed template of Anthroposophy, obviously in a naïve and unconscious way, because they simply follow the authority and example of their European and Anglo-American anthroposophical teachers. You will see it ruling today not only all the anthroposophical headquarters in the western world, but also the remotest corners of China, India, Africa and the Amazon! On a smaller scale, each one of us is doing the same thing with our personal private version of Anthroposophy.
Dear Friends! Anthroposophical self-knowledge must start right here and now, or it will not start at all. After a century, we are immensely efficient and are experts in privatizing it all the time, in our private consciousness, in our personal soul and subjective opinions, through our inborn cultural, social, political, national and religious upbringings, and all our other human, all-too-human, biases. In this manner, the universal human message and being of Anthroposophy is reversed today into its greatest opposites.
As an old man who has worked in this field for more than 40 years, I have encountered an infinite number of reversed variants and mutations of Anthroposophy worldwide, even a remarkable brand of reversed, Russian-Jewish-Anthroposophy. This brand is made of a unique blend of a triple messianic complex, that combines three collective ‘chosen people’ syndromes into one: the Jewish, Russian and anthroposophical syndromes, each already a regretful reversal in itself, merged into one gigantic messianic complex!
But since all humans feel themselves naturally and instinctively, in this universal age of egoism, to be chosen people, first of all as individual egos, Anthroposophy is reversed naturally and instinctively. There’s no religion or spiritual sect on the earth, philosophy, ideology, or mystical tradition as well as aberrations, to which Anthroposophy is not being constantly reversed! We have academically and scientifically reversed Anthroposophy, New Age Anthroposophy, Catholicized, Protestant, orthodox, Buddhist, and American Indian Anthroposophy, politically reversed Anthroposophy, from left, right, liberal, socialist, and imperial. We have all the variants and hybrids of Anthroposophy merged with spiritual practices from all corners of the world: yogic, mystic, shamanic, orgiastic, using Ayahuasca and LSD, as well as tantric and kundalini mutants of Anthroposophy... And the remarkable, seemingly paradoxical thing is, that the fact that Anthroposophy can be so universally and globally privatized, reversed and caricatured by everybody, is rooted precisely in its absolutely generous, universal-human nature, which lets all humans be totally free. Because it speaks to each person as a universal-human being, each person can grasp it and immediately privatize, appropriate, reverse and use it according to his and her biases and preconceived ideas, opinions and habits. He finds himself as a universal human through its help; in the moment of the first meeting, he feels that Anthroposophy addresses and acknowledges his higher universal self; but then a moment later his ordinary self takes over, he forgets her and his true universal self, and lets his lower ego take it over and transform it according to his egotistical and personal identity.
Therefore, one of the most urgent tasks of the School of Spiritual Science, as the first actualization of the new resurrected stream of spiritual science, is that self-knowledge will not only be studied in books and discussed intellectually, but above all be practiced; what we must bring about, is to face consciously these egotistical reversals on all levels in ourselves. Is it an extraordinarily complicated task? Not at all, because we must only simply walk the most common talk of self-knowledge taught in the most basic books of spiritual science! So why is this so difficult for modern people? Certainly not because it is a difficult subject for the intellectual understanding. The difficulty lies not in the understanding, but in our profoundly weak moral courage and the passivity of the forces of the heart and will. This is the reason why we have placed the most personal experience of self-knowledge at the very elementary beginning and centre of our renewal of the School of Spiritual Science. At the centre of our devotion to truth and real self-knowledge, described in the first pages of the book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, we placed the ‘elephant in the room’: our universal egoism, mentioned above. In the Anthroposophical Society and movement and their daughter institutions worldwide, no one does this. But the strongly privatized and egotistical, all-appropriating and reversing modern ego that we are, prospers all the more mightily the more its existence is repressed and hidden, precisely among so many spiritually striving people! However, as we showed in the first lecture, the future school of true love is based on the full recognition, experience, acceptance and metamorphosis of this egoistic self-love; our fierce modern egoism must not be shamed, judged and condemned, pushed down and hidden under the nicely woven anthroposophical carpets, because the more seemingly unconscious it becomes, the more it takes vengeance on everything we do in our spiritual work.
Egoism must be fully and positively understood and accepted, because without going to the elementary school of this enormous power of self- love, there’s no individuation at all, and no freedom, and therefore also— eventually—no true and freely self-actualized moral love. It must there- fore be treated lovingly, yet also firmly and truthfully, as you would treat a small child, and admitted, acknowledged, faced squarely, studied objectively, and gradually transformed and healed over many years of developing higher and more mature soul forces with dedication. These mature forces can naturally only grow in real life, not in nice spiritual theories, but in the constant, repeated meeting of the other person in honest and courageous efforts of community building. In this manner the most powerful modern instinct, drive and passion of privatization, individuation, self-love, separation, in short, the ego, finds its fruitful creative place in the light-filled centre of the earthly-human sun community, and its infinitely strong forces of self-love are used to ‘reverse the reversal of egotism’ and serve now the true love of the self and of the whole community, in ever creative ways. But this I cannot achieve alone in the closed confines of my isolated, even if ardently studying and meditating, anthroposophical self! I can do this only if I open my heart to reveal my true being, with its depths and heights, in the context of the mutually empowering and fostering community of free and creative strong individuals.
It is, after all, thanks to the ego that each one of us has his and her unique personality, his soul colours, talents, gifts, and human, all-too-hu- man, weaknesses, blunders, and challenges; and you get to know more about each individual’s sacred spiritual being not by denying the personality, but rather by developing the personality, using all its forces, its passions, desires and instincts, to channel them gradually to the universal-human essence of each human spirit, to let eventually more and more of the cosmic individuality light up inside the earthly personality, and to let the uniqueness of the earthly personality be universalized, spiritualized, adding another page or petal to the growing beautiful crown of our slowly growing, expanding eternal individuality...
The Twilight and Resurrection of Humanity
The History of the Michaelic Movement since the Death of Rudolf Steiner
From lecture 3: The Universal Language of Michael and the Being of Rudolf Steiner