MATTERS OF FORM

  I'm about to give you a heavy dose of Steinerthought.

If you quickly decide it is b.s., great.

That's all you really need to know.

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So: Stages of Form. It’s important not to take any of the following in a narrow, linear, logical way. Judged rationally, it’s all madcap. But it will give you a glimpse of what lies in wait (or at least what kind of thinking stands in back of Waldorf education). Seddon explains: “[E]verything that takes form first arises in Higher Spiritland, is developed in Lower Spiritland, and takes shape in the astral world before becoming physical. It subsequently returns perfected through the astral world to the transformed intellectual stage of Lower Spiritland and thence to the archetypal stage of Higher Spiritland.” [3] But I already told you this. 

Let's see if R. Steiner can help.

“We are in this higher spiritland when experiencing the splitting of the ego ... It is here that one is first able to form a true estimate of man on earth. As one looks back one begins to know what man is in his inmost being. There, too, it is first possible to come to an experienced judgment concerning the course of history. Human evolution that has been experienced becomes for us the progress of the soul as an ego being [sic]. Standing out from the general progress are leaders in the advancement of humanity. [Gee, I wonder where Steiner placed himself?] Here one actually experiences what I described in the second lecture, that is, the impulses that are continually flowing through the initiates who, wherever they may be, have to leave the life of the senses and go to spiritual worlds so that they can give out these impulses.” [4]

“From the lower spiritland one sees the whole being of Christ Jesus! So that, looking back in a purely human way, and holding fast to what is present in remembrance, you have a memory of Christ Jesus and of all the events that have taken place in connection with him, that is [cop out], if the other conditions of which I spoke in the second lecture [you could look it up [dull]] has already been fulfilled [there's always a catch]. The truth about the other initiates [i.e., beside Steiner and all the little Steinerites], however, you experience for the first time in the higher spiritland.” [5]

“Each of these conditions [of form] is divided into seven conditions of life [you've got to take this stuff on faith or with great handfuls of salt] — usually called 'rounds' [sic]; rounds are the same as conditions of life. And those now called conditions of form were formerly called 'globes' [sic; what's going on here is that Steiner is appropriating Theosophical teachings, especially those of the fraud, Madame Blavatsky, and by using new nomenclature he tries to make them his own; doesn't really work, though]. The latter expression is extremely misleading, for it leads to the idea that these seven globes are side by side [sic; the Steinerian diagram presented here shows a V-shaped formation, like geese or UFOs]. 

“These conditions, from the most remote form, which was almost formless [sic], down through the physical and up again to the formless, are not seven globes existing side by side [sic], but seven successive conditions. The same globe [sic: Steiner continues to use the misleading terminology about which he warned us] that is now physical was first of all spiritual, then it became denser and denser. It is the same globe [sic] simply condensed. Then a portion of it became astral, then a portion physical; it is always the same globe [sic]. It dissolves again like salt in warm water, it again becomes astral. Thus we have ascended to this astral stage where, in the Apocalypse [see the Book of Revelation], the vials of wrath are described: there the earth becomes astral again.” [6] 

“By Moon, we mean a former state of the earth that existed in the past [got it: a former anything would be in the past] and then, just as a human being passes through a spiritual state after death, went through a spiritual state called pralaya [a footnote defines this as dissolution, i.e., a state of rest]. Just as the human being reincarnates, so this lunar planet [sic] reincarnated as Earth. Further, what we have characterized as this lunar planetary state is, in fact, the reincarnation of a still earlier state, which we call the Sun [sic].” [7]
 
Steiner is exhausting. Let's go back to Seddon (who, I admit, is nearly as trying):

“In lower spiritland everything takes the form of thoughts, as dense as those that originally formed the brain [sic: Steiner taught that matter evolved from spirit and thought, not vice versa] ... Intuition [i.e., paranormal perception] no longer sees the movement of the planets but hears clairaudiently the music of the spheres ... There are still [note: present tense: confusing: this is the future] materialists who are slaves to their animal instincts [Steinerian evolution entails involution: downward movement: spirit produced matter, and humans produced animals by shedding certain undesirable bits of themselves: that's what most higher animals are, inferior bits of us that we tossed aside, in some cases before we ourselves were human; humans who still contain within themselves animalistic qualities have not evolved as highly as those who have shucked these qualities; we came from spirit worlds and are trying to evolve back up to them (seems like a lot of fuss and bother, why didn't we just stay put? Because we weren't highly evolved yet) but we will be much more spiritual someday in higher spiritual reaches, so our quadzillion reincarnations will not have been in vain] ... It is they [materialists] who worship the beast that arises from the sub-astral [sic] sea....” [8]

 

“Although personal karma has already been balanced any karmic effects produced objectively as grotesque astral beings [sic] must still be adjusted [so we still have our evolutionary work cut out for us].” [9] This is from a section titled “The Perfected Astral Stage.” Things won't be perfected until the animalistic and the grotesque are cleaned up — this harkens back to the inferior human races that exercised Steiner so much — although Seddon is discussing races that, in the distant future, will have long since been eliminated — diversity and mutual respect never figured much in Steiner's work.

 
In quoting Seddon, we implicitly accept his reading of Steiner. Is this correct? Not exactly. But since both guys were shoveling manure, what odds? Think of it like this: Did Seddon correctly describe the coherent (but loopy) vision of the future that Steiner had according to Seddon? R. Seddon had to scramble far and wide, pulling together quotations and “indications” from widely scattered R. Steiner essays and paragraphs. He treated R. Steiner's early work as consistent with R. Steiner's later work, when R. Steiner himself argued that he learned and grew as he went along, correcting early statements that weren’t fully on the button (not his fault: the Theosophists gave him damaged goods — and he didn't really change his mind much, he had always been right, mostly). R. Steiner had to claim virtual omniscience in order to be the the seer and fountainhead he claimed to be. But we can see Steiner forcing his early works into the Procrustean bed of his mature Anthroposophical doctrines. Seddon went even farther, which is something Anthroposophists have been known do, following Steiner's indications, either carefully or not,sometimes they wind up traveling far afield. But Seddon generally stuck with the master's generally apparent meaning. [10]
 
I'll wrap this up by saying I won't try to rebut R. Steiner or R. Seddon concerning what we’ve just read. There clearly is no point. But I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Steiner's gag writers. They were the best. I suspect, but cannot prove, that they later reincarnated as the writers of SEINFELD. Or maybe they congealed to become Robin Williams. It's hard to say.

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Better late than never: Here is an overview of human evolution as described by Steiner. It is essentially a reworking of Theosophical doctrine. The overview should clarify (slightly) some of what we have already seen and (more slightly) what we will be getting to.

Steiner describes our evolution in AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE (which has also been published as AN OUTLINE OF ESOTERIC KNOWLEDGE and as OCCULT SCIENCE - AN OUTLINE). Bear in mind that this was an early work, but Steiner explicitly says in the prefaces that he was right all along.

Humanity will evolve through seven major phases, the Conditions of Consciousness, which are named for planets. Overall, we will move higher and higher in consciousness, progressing from being quite dim to becoming gods. (Actually, after the seventh Condition of Consciousness — Vulcan — there are five more Conditions of ever-more-divine Consciousness, but these cannot be described in human language, so we needn't trouble ourselves with them now. We'll get to them when we get to them.) [11]

Each Condition of Consciousness contains seven Conditions of Life, each of which contains seven Stages of Form each of which contains seven Epochs,  each of which contains seven Ages (actually, in some Stages of Forms, the subdivisions go under other titles — although why this should be is unclear, since Steiner and the Theosophist were just plucking names out of the air, or ether).

I'll say this again, more slowly. We are currently in/on the Earth Condition of Consciousness. Within this Condition, we progress through seven sub-conditions, called Conditions of Life. We are now in the fourth such sub-condition, the Mineral Condition of Life. Solid, physical minerals now exist; we have physical bodies made of minerals; and we are able to grasp the idea of separate existences.

— Roger Rawlings

 

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Talismanic paintings innocently created by Waldorf students.

Hinduism is crucial to Anthroposophy. 

Steiner's teachings on karma and reincarnation derive from Hindu beliefs. 

This painting, by a Waldorf student, employs the "sacred syllable" 

for Hinduism and other Eastern religions. 

[Detail; image courtesy of PLANS.]

ENDNOTES