John Dunn

Consciousness, not blind creativity

Sunday, 15 September 2024 at 22:15

Steiner's interpretation of man

On the one hand Steiner offers us a Spinozist interpretation of man who is utilised for a purpose, which is to make manifest the thought pool of the cosmos. This would make man a mode of existence of that which was there ‘in the beginning’ - the Substance. On the other hand, Steiner offers us the ultimate divination of man. The gospel mystery and drama of the incarnation is now located and consummated in humanity, which becomes its living carrier. It is as though man has been accepted as one third part of the Trinity.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

Messiah socialised

Saturday, 14 September 2024 at 21:38

Rudolf Steiner

Messiah socialised

In Steiner’s schema, humanity co-partners with the Divine so as to complete the creative act of God’s Incarnation. Instead of the Incarnation being through one man, the Jesus of the gospels, in our current day it is taking place through all of humanity. The modern-day coming of the Messiah is through the transformed and awakened consciousness of humanity as a whole. In a very real sense, we are the very Messiah we have been waiting for. ‘By a strange paradox,’ according to Steiner, it is ‘through the forces of evil’ that ‘mankind is led to a renewed experience of the Mystery of Golgotha’.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

Echoes of Spinozism

Thursday, 12 September 2024 at 20:26

Baruch Spinoza

Echoes of Spinozism

The world spirit, or cosmic fulness, is being presented by Steiner as a presupposition to which we, as fully human individuals, must ultimately return. We can make as much effort as we like into achieving individuation, shunning ‘all the welter of customs, legal codes, religious observances, etc.’ as Steiner describes them, only to find that we must remain true to what was there all along, that which was there ‘in the beginning’. Are there not echoes of Spinozism here? Are we not back to the great presupposition - the Substance - with that which was there ‘in the beginning’?

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

Taking stock

Wednesday, 11 September 2024 at 20:54

Rudolf Steiner

Taking stock

Let us take stock here. Has Steiner answered the question? Who am I? I am a cosmic mediator according to Steiner, Logos incarnated, the manifestation of cosmic fulness, that which was in the beginning. Found!The meaning to life! Answered! The Grail question! Is this not enough? We keep coming back to this - the divine status of man, a creator in the image of God - the incarnation of the second coming resonates in the work of Dante, Fichte, Coleridge, Gentile and now in Steiner. But if manifestation of the spirit is not a creative act, but rather a revelatory act, are we not confronted with a severe curtailment of man’s freedom, however vast the leap we have made with Steiner?

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

To be a cosmic mediator?

Tuesday, 10 September 2024 at 22:19

Cosmic Mediator by Leonard Rubins

To be a cosmic mediator?

It was on the point of Logos that Gentile was beginning to penetrate through to the truth, but fell short. Steiner seemed to offer me a way forward. By being the cosmic mediator, man is the manifestation of cosmic fulness, i.e. the Logos incarnate, that which was in the beginning. But more than being merely a cosmic mediator, I am, to use Steiner’s own words, ‘the unified world of ideas which reveals itself through this organism’.

Is this not enough? To be a cosmic mediator? Is this not finally the answer to the great Grail question. I could never have dreamt of such a response when I first asked the question. And yet - the question remains- does something emerge from intuition that was not there before? Is man free to create?

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

In the beginning

Monday, 9 September 2024 at 20:37

Another way of saying that the free Steinerian individual is intuiting the thought pool, or Logos, is to say that the individual is thought incarnated, or even reincarnated. Has the exemplar of such a free individual ever walked the earth? ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.’ (John 1:1-4). It is universally accepted that ‘Word’ in these opening lines from John’s Gospel is coterminous with ‘Logos’, and that the ‘Word’ or ‘Logos’ is a reference by John to the Jesus of the gospels.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.

This cosmic pool

Sunday, 8 September 2024 at 21:47

This cosmic pool

It was by arguing that the individual must develop the capacity to gain access to the ‘unified world of ideas’, this cosmic pool of thoughts, a realm of pure spirit, detached from objects perceived through the senses, that Steiner rationalised himself into esotericism. He gave us permission to consider the occult as a means of answering the Grail question - ‘who am I?’ He also permitted us to make a cosmic reversal - to upturn Spinoza and Marx - by establishing the working principle that matter originates in spirit.

From Child of Encounter

© John Dunn.