The culmination of everything will come with the completion of the Conditions of Consciousness. [1] There are seven Conditions that we can more or less discuss, followed by five more that are totally beyond our ken. Following Steiner's lead, I'll end with #7, "Vulcan," leaving the ultimate mystery Conditions to reveal themselves in their own sweet time. We must not impose on Steiner’s scheme linear coherence that is alien to it. But we also must not deny it the odd coherence it does possess. The basic idea is simple enough. There are cycles within cycles, cycles recapitulating previous cycles. Conditions of Consciousness recap previous Conditions of Consciousness, which themselves recap Conditions of Life, which in turn recap... We haul our history along with us, not as mere memory but as a living recurrent present, although the revisited past is reformulated in its present and future renditions as we progress. Thus, there is no straight line from our beginning to our end. But eventually, in a patterned evolution that requires enormous stretches of time while entailing the entire universe, we will get there. We have already been through a few Conditions of Consciousness: Saturn, Sun, and Moon. We are currently in/on Earth, as most of us realize. Steiner and his followers, interestingly, don't realize this — or so I would submit. They live in cloud cuckooland. But our strengths are our weaknesses. I am limited by my rationalist/materialist/brain-o-centric forms of thought — which, according to Steiner, are not real forms of cognition at all. Seddon is limited by his inverse forms of my strengths/weaknesses. Steiner is limited by ... you know. If you want to intuit/imagine/receive the inspiration of Steiner's supersensible visions, I'm the wrong guy to come to. But so is Seddon. And so is Steiner. These are deep waters, dark, yet infused with an inglowing transcendent brilliance (as it were). Only when you attain clairvoyance and consult the Akashic Record(s) will you truly know what's going on. (It is odd that clairvoyants can't agree whether there is one Akashic Record or more than one, but these are deep waters.) Once we finish our Earth Condition of Consciousness, we will move along to a pralaya followed by Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan. (Followed by other, secret stages that we cannot discuss.)
The Seven discussable Conditions of Consciousness are:
1. Saturn. 2. Sun. 3. Moon. 4. Earth. x. 5-step pralaya. 5. Jupiter. 6. Venus. 7. Vulcan. (Yup, Star Trek fans: Vulcan. Are you there, Spock? Beam me up, Scottie.) Hence, after the upcoming 5-step pralaya, we will proceed to Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan. These planets/stages will, in turn, be what we make them. This will help: "The four Conditions of Life on Jupiter recapitulate Saturn, Sun, Moon, and Earth ... Only what on Earth lives enclosed by the human skin lives over into Jupiter. In forming our body [sic] we build a temple; in doing so rightly we form Jupiter rightly." [2] Much of this wisdom recapitulates an early Steiner book, AN OUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE (see below). The teachings therein essentially recapitulate Theosophical teachings. So what goes around comes around. (That five-step pralaya may weigh on your mind. Its projected existence in the future might be taken as suggesting that the Stages of Consciousness are phenomenological, caught in the web of sequential temporality. But don't fall for that. Don’t fall for any of it.) ((The missing five Conditions may also weigh on your mind. Get over it. Hearing about them — even if it were possible — wouldn't be good for you. Always remember, Steiner knew best.)) ◊◊◊◊ ◊◊◊◊
— Roger Rawlings   Painting by a Waldorf student.  A good day on our planet, here and now. A drawing by a Waldorf student. THE END NOTES [2] Ibid., pp. 114-115. |
