Direct Response to Joel Wendt
From: golden3000997
Date: Sat Jan 10, 2004 12:24 pm
Subject: Direct Response to Joel Wendt
I had to do this in Word and then cut and
paste. I don't know if the formatting will get screwed up or
not.
Subj: RE: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Countering
Asuras
Date: 1/10/2004 1:18:16 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: Joel Wendt
Dear Kim,
What I was trying to point to was not to
be found in our trying to look at our "ideas" of the
human organization, as if we could label some aspects of this
"idea" as luciferic or ahrimanic (or asuric). Rather
I was suggesting that in order to know how evil works in the
world, we have to face our shadow, our double.
This is not about ideas at all, but about
what is working in our soul from the inside outward in such a
way that we really don't appreciate its true nature.
Mostly we don't self observe carefully
enough, or practice the relevant inner discipline by which we
would meet the double. Instead what happens is that we act out
of the double on a regular basis, but never see it - it is too
intimate, and being that intimate we'd rather be in denial of
it, than face it.
Now the activity of the double leaves all
kinds of hints and clues behind, but in order to perceive this
activity we have to be more focused on the beam in our own eye,
than on the mote in our brother's eye. Appreciating the double
is more an act of confession, than it is an act of describing
the world we perceive.
So when folks describe businesses or governments
or others as possessing evil qualities, we can generally assume
that they don't know what they are talking about, because this
focus on the "other" and the mote in their eye really
only tells us something about the speaker or ourselves.
OK Joel, let's see if I am understanding you
right. Are you saying?:
1. The very fact that someone talks about
Evil as an objective reality in the outside world, they must
by definition be wrong because it is not an objective reality,
only a reflection of the "evil" in the being of the
speaker i.e. the Double?
Careful self observation reveals that we
adorn the world with ideas that are first produced in our own
consciousness, most frequently though unconscious processes.
We have a feeling of antipathy (or sympathy), and this unredeemed
feeling then serves as a driver for the thought content. I use
the term "unredeemed" to point to the fact that the
feeling is not within our conscious mastery (as might be a cultivated
mood of soul), but more likely the antipathy is a product of
the double itself.
2. You can tell others about the motes in
their eyes because you do not have a beam in your own?
The double influences how we see the world,
because until we can consciously take over that activity, and
thus the unfolding of our own karma, we are bound to the double
by necessity. We need the double in order to experience our karma.
So the initial difficulty is always within,
and our first clue as to the problem is when we find ourselves
seeing evil outside in the world (the mote), rather than facing
the more daunting task of facing our own shadow (the beam).
When Steiner first taught these matters,
he taught in a time in which the intellectual soul still predominated,
and mostly to a people (Central Europeans) who lived very much
in the ideal. This required that he give hints and point in certain
directions, but could not be very overt and blunt.
But that time is now long past, and as
we begin the new century, it becomes necessary to be more plain
spoken.
3. You are the only existing authority on
whether or not any other person is speaking from his or her Double
or not because you are the only person who has confronted his
Double?
At present the best example of work with
the double is in 12 Step groups, wherein a certain practice (authored
by the Ethereal Return of the Christ) has flourished. Here is
one more or less accurate version: http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/12steps.html
Were anthroposophists to combine this practical
and pragmatic (very American) method of "confession"
together with a study of Steiner's Theory of Knowledge, great
strides forward in esoteric development could be made. You see,
in reality it is not about ideas at all, but about deeds - in
this case inner deeds which are then joined together in some
kind of wise group process.
4. The 12 step program supplants all of Anthroposophy
as a means of achieving Knowledge of the Spiritual World within
yourself?
It is the company we keep as we struggle
to understand and master the doubles that brings us forward into
the future along well grounded spiritual pathways. We could study
Steiner lectures, read all manner of books of ideas and ideals
about spiritual life, and never take the most dangerous step
at all - looking honestly at ourselves.
So on this list we talk about spiritual
as if we could see it in society, see lucifer here, and ahriman
there, and michael behind that, when the real serious work remains
undone - inside our own souls, in that place were ideas and feelings
are to become the conscious product of deeds - to will in the
thinking, and think in the willing.
But confession is hard to do. The last
thing our very protected and still too childish egos want to
do, is to confess to ourselves, much less to others. Far easier
to point fingers and blame, especially when someone has the temerity
to suggest we are full of shit.
Yet, of all the gifts another person can
give us, telling us when we are full of it is quite very much
one of the best. Hard to take - of course. Which is the main
clue to its real utility.
At the same time, groups need to be formed
where this is understood as a way of practice. No one goes long
to a truly functional 12 Step group without finding out about
confession and confrontation. "Hello, my name is Joel, and
I'm an addict" pause "hello Joel" says the group.
Confession and welcome, for we are brothers and sisters here,
all of us striving to overcome what seems beyond us to overcome.
5. One cannot be an Anthroposophist unless
one is in a 12 step program? How well do YOU take being told
that you are full of bull?
So personal stories get told, and some
stories are from new people, and familiar to all for that reason,
and then once in a while someone who has been working the Steps
for twenty years gets up and speaks, and wisdom flows into the
circle - hard won wisdom - wisdom won through pain, and error,
and trial by fire.
6. I have well over twenty years of "wisdom"
or at least experience, won through pain, error and trial by
fire and I do not need to have done it through a 12 step program
for it to be valid. On the other hand, I do not claim to be "wise"
or to know what is best for anyone else, or even (most of the
time) for myself. You want to hear my story Joel? From Physical
Pain and Abuse as a Child to Emotional Pain and Abuse as an Adolescent
to Mental Pain and Abuse as a Young Adult? You want to hear it
Joel? You want to hear about my Meeting with Michael - a REAL
EVENT at age 15 Joel - before I had ever heard of Rudolf Steiner?
What I prefer to tell is about the men and women I met at Threefold
Farm who received me with open minds and open hearts and gave
me help and advice and instruction without even a TINGE of judgmentalism
in it. And there was PLENTY to judge! That is what Anthroposophy
IS to me, Joel. Truth without Judgment. Discernment, not Damnation.
Nothing from books here.
Now the 12 Steps have a weakness, in that
it wasn't possible to speak of the double in a blunt way - human
consciousness in the early years wasn't quite ready for this.
But now, as we more and more need to understand evil in order
to have any kind of intelligent civilization, it becomes necessary
to speak plainly of the double. For this anthroposophy was introduced
into the world, because our "psychological" paradigm
had to grow so as to better reflect the truth here.
7. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but didn't
Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 step program come into existence
After Rudolf Steiner was alive, thereby indicating that the double
could be spoken about at that time, because he did do so?
Unfortunately, the anthroposophists have
fallen into Steinerism, into dogma and sectarianism, and a kind
of lame theological thinking. The hard part of anthroposophy,
looking squarely at one's self, and making self knowing the essential
goal, this has not come to pass as much as it needed to.
So we enter the new century a bit lamed
- something is missing. Anthroposophists don't know how to "confess",
how to meet each other as true ego beings (as I-ams with flaws
and doubles and all kinds of tendencies to error and stupidity
- that is as human beings). Instead we are on this high path,
students of the great doctor, far above the messy stuff of life.
Our dialogs are competitions in knowing (which one has the better
handle on the questions in the New Testament, or which one sees
social life more clearly), when they should be cooperative arts
of sharing (c.f. M. Spock's Group Moral Artistry).
8. (Refer to #3) You are the only existing
authority on whether or not any other person is speaking from
his or her Double or not because you are the only person who
has confronted his Double? YOUR dialogues may be competitions
in knowing, as for me, I have found a tremendous amount of give
and receive and mutual support and respect here.
Anyway, Kim, I can't really be supportive
of what your wrote below - it is still about the mote, not the
beam. Were you to tell us a story of how you finally noticed
how badly you treated your first husband, because you were more
interested in your own career than in his welfare, and how you
have began to see how this impulse still lives in you today and
that you need help in mastering it. And if you then related that
you had begun to pray to the Holy Mother on a regular basis,
for help from your higher power in dealing with this unredeemed
soul flaw which you have now confessed to having. Then further,
how you began to be able to notice this impulse rising in your
soul, very subtly as a kind of temptation whispering to your
spirit, your I-am, and that now you could recognize that this
was an aspect of the double complex in the soul, this temptation,
so now you could see it, and you were grateful to the Holy Mother
for this help, and truly humbled by how flawed you could now
see that you were. So then you went to your former husband, and
sought to make amends, because you knew that you had to at least
ask for his forgiveness (which it isn't necessary to receive)
before you can truly forgive yourself. Then after going through
this trial, which took several months and involved much agony,
you found that in your prayer life, you began to have better
insights into how to love your current husband better, in fact
you could place questions during prayer and receive answers.
9. (Back to #2) You can tell others about
the motes in their eyes because you do not have a beam in your
own? How DARE you tell Kim how to deal with her own Karma and
what to Pray? Not as a loving suggestion, but to tell her that
unless she had done things the way you said they should have
been done, then her own experiences and
intuitions must be wrong!
If you were to tell such a story (which
is entirely made up by me of course, and isn't meant to do anything
but serve as an illustration) to others, this would not only
serve your own development indirectly, but also be an example
to others. Then if we were in a group that worked together in
this way, with many stories, we could begin to see that in practice
we now had started to understand the Gospel of John, and the
beginning steps outlined there - the washing of the feet, and
the scourging for example.
Then the need for discussions about things
we don't know anything about, like the ausuras, disappears, because
we are now truly meeting each other as struggling human beings,
in such a fine way that intellectual bull shit has no meaning
anymore.
10. (Back to #1) The very fact that someone
talks about Evil as an objective reality in the outside world,
they must by definition be wrong because it is not an objective
reality, only a reflection of the "evil" in the being
of the speaker i.e. the Double. The need for Discussions about
the Forces of Objective EVIL does NOT disappear!! It becomes
all the more pressing and even more effective among those willing
to face the evil within themselves. And I hear from many in this
group that they are more than willing to face that evil within
themselves. Then, more than ever do we need each other's encouragement
to go on in the face of it. If your "intellectual bullshit"
doesn't mean anything any more, Joel, why don't you take down
your website and just go work for AA full time?
warm regards,
joel
In response, I need to tell you that:
1. I know my Double very well with or without
a 12 step program and will admit and confess all of my faults
to my self or anyone else who cares to know.
2. I can see when other people's Doubles are
at work, but I don't have to put them down for it.
3. The 12 step
program has lots of flaws and the first step, admitting that
one is "helpless" to control one's addiction and that
one has to "surrender" to a Higher Power may be effective
but it certainly does not speak to working out of the EGO. "Let
Go and Let God" is a wonderful excuse for NOT accepting
responsibility for our lives and karma. It's like substituting
the addiction to God for the addiction to alcohol.
4. I never heard of the 12 step program as
being part of the Risen and Etheric Christ and if you say it
is so, you would have to seriously prove how.
5. YOU are not the judge and jury of ANYONE
other than yourself. And while I admire and respect your intelligence
and work on many subjects, this is not a church and you are not
our preacher.
6. Anyone who says that if one criticizes
their opinions - that in itself proves them wrong and suspect
- is of the side of the dark forces. That means you. It is using
a conundrum, a circular reference. It is a closed set. "You
criticize my opinion - anyone who criticizes my opinion is wrong
and suspect of evil, the act of criticizing my opinion is proof
of this - therefore you are wrong and suspect of evil - and if
you criticize my saying this, you are more wrong and more suspect
of evil."
7. You never deign to respond when I question
your pronouncements. In the last exchange that we had, I brought
up some points countering your definitive statement that prayer
could not be made through the body and you never replied. I think
because you find it impossible to admit anything that is not
already in your belief system - even though I was connecting
it directly to Eurythmy.
8. There is a lot of lower-ego satisfaction
in pretending to be humbly seeking the truth about oneself. One
gets LOTS of attention in a 12 step program - just think, a sponsor
that you can call any time of the day or night and he or she
has to listen to YOU and YOUR problems!!
9. I'm NOT putting down AA or 12 step. They
have a high rate of effectiveness and do much good in the world.
But a remedy for addiction is not something that one can apply
willy-nilly to every situation in the world.
10. Mother Teresa did more good in this world
than either YOU or I will do in this lifetime and she did not
sit around in neurotic agony pondering whether she should fight
with an external Evil or with her Double. Nor did she come up
with the conclusion that she had to be perfectly clairvoyant
and spiritually developed before she started fighting and working
- and FIGHT she did!!! She got ahold of people in power and shook
them by the collar with the Might of Truth and said - this NEEDS
to be done! DO IT! And they did! She didn't "save the world"
- she saved the lives of people lying on the street and she held
them in her arms as they died and she
did it one life at a time. So did Mother Jones and Many Such
Women (a few men, too, I guess, but mostly WOMEN) YEAH!!! - GO
EOWYN!!! GO SOPHIE SCHOLL!!! GO JEANNE D'ARC!!!
11. You remind me of the Judge (in the Disney
movie)/ Priest (in Victor Hugo's novel) of the "Hunchback
of Notre Dame" as he prays to Mary " I am so virtuous,
give me Esmerelda, or else - let her burn!" It is the JUDGES
that send the Michaelic Ones to the stake in the name of GOD
- RIGHT - THE CHURCH - ANTHROPOSOPHY! I accept you NOT as MY
Judge!
12. I say definitely and include my own Self
in this absolutely that we despise in another person exactly
what is a fault within our Self-s. Those who do not lie do not
recognize when someone else is lying to them. Those who are trustworthy
do not suspect other people are going to betray them. When we
find a fault with someone else, we must
sit down and say to our Self-s - WOW! How much of THAT do I have
in me, too? Am I, Christine, prone to be Judgmental? You bet
your ass - That's why I recognize it so well!
[Continued
in "The Twelve Steps"]
...................................................................................................................................
From: Steinerhead
Date: Sat Jan 10, 2004 1:12 pm
Subject: the Twelve Steps
In a message dated 1/10/04 8:25:25 PM !!!First
Boot!!!, golden3000997 writes:
3. The 12 step program has lots of flaws
and the first step, admitting that one is "helpless"
to control one's addiction and that one has to "surrender"
to a Higher Power may be effective but it certainly does not
speak to working out of the EGO. "Let Go and Let God"
is a wonderful excuse for NOT accepting responsibility for our
lives and karma. It's like substituting the addiction to God
for the addiction to alcohol.
4. I never heard of the 12 step program
as being part of the Risen and Etheric Christ and if you say
it is so, you would have to seriously prove how.
Hi Christine:
In a way, the Twelve steps lead me to the
door, so to speak; but it was Knowledge of Higher Worlds, and
the Philosophy of Freedom, that showed me the most effective
way to open it, and keep it that way.
And yes, the "let go and let God"
thing drives me nuts sometimes. I've watched so many people over
the years use it as an excuse to sit on their ass and wallow
in the pink cloud of religious zeal.
If it weren't for Anthroposophy, I might be
dead right now. I remember exhausting all concepts of a "higher
power" and standing on a bridge, wishing that I had the
courage to jump.
My experience is that many people are helped
by twelve step fellowships, to change certain behaviors. But
not many (in my experience) really take the steps to the door
of their true inner-selves. It took me Ten years to experience
an inkling of my true-self, and when I tried to explain it in
the groups, I could tell some were awed, and sorta knew what
I was talking about, but hadn't had the experience yet. There
have been very few that have come to me and looked me in the
eye, and hugged me, and knew what I was fumbling for words to
describe. Funny thing is that we then really didn't have much
to talk about. We just knew, and smiled, and sometimes shed a
tear or two.
Truth and Love
Mike
...................................................................................................................................
From: golden3000997
Date: Sat Jan 10, 2004 2:06 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] the Twelve Steps
Hi Mike!
Yes, it is a tool among many and a good and
useful one in lots of cases. But it is not a universal path to
salvation. My mother died a raving alcoholic. I grew up with
her like that and went through the first 18 years of my life
being abused by her. I would do anything I could for someone
who was addicted and asked me for help (for some reason). The
first thing I would do would be to direct them to AA where they
would be able to confront the situation in a supportive environment
and be with people who could serve as living examples. We all
need to find that in our lives in one way or another.
But I cannot concur with applying AA methodology
to a study of evil in all of its aspects. I agree with Joel that
we can use much more self-honesty and self-disclosure in this
movement, but I do not agree with judging other people's relationship
with their Self-s. The best we can do is wait for disclosure
and be ready to help if possible.
Anyway, there is plenty of bullshit being
flung around in AA meetings, too, in the name of "honesty"
Hah!
What about this - a person stands up and says
"my name is ____ and I am an asshole" now that is honest.
That's what my father told me on his deathbed. "I have been
an asshole." I was too stupid to ask him exactly what he
meant by that. I'll have to ask him next time.
Parsival was kind of an asshole, too, wasn't
he?
: O Christine
...................................................................................................................................
From: Steinerhead
Date: Sat Jan 10, 2004 9:42 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] the Twelve Steps
Hey Christine,
Yeah, I meant to say that I in no way (anymore)
think that Twelve step groups are the "one and only right
way," but I was in a hurry to get somewhere. I did go through
a phase where I did indeed think that though.... Arrggg, seems
pretty dumb now.
I'm still having trouble letting go of the
"Twelve Traditions" as a better model for a truly humane
self governing society though. Especially, "For our group
purpose, there is but one ultimate authority, a loving God as
he may express himself in our group conscience, [and here's the
kicker] OUR LEADERS ARE BUT TRUSTED SERVANTS, THEY DO NOT GOVERN.
Of course I might like to reword it a bit,
I'd say: For our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority,
the power of Love, as may be expressed in our group conscience,
our leaders are but trusted servants, they do not govern.
I worked on many service committees for many
years that used the twelve traditions as guidelines. It was in
these committees that I learned to value the process of developing
a "group conscience," painful though it was. Everyone's
demons would expose them selves; sometimes all at the same time
(I used to bring a big bottle of advil with me). There were often
shouting matches, and an occasional chair flying across the room
(Incidentally, In the early US congress there was an occasional
beating, and there was one incident where a gun was pulled).
But falling back on "the ultimate authority" idea,
would eventually bring us back to some kind of sanity.
I've seen many great things come out of these
groups that have helped scores of people. Including some excellent
up to date literature on working the Twelve steps. I sat on an
editing committee and happily rewrote a couple of paragraphs
once. When the book finally came out, I searched like crazy for
my profound writing. Unfortunately there were other editing committees
involved after ours, and my wonderful profound paragraphs were
rewritten again. Oh well, I probably couldn't have handled the
fame.
Anyway, can you imagine a government with
"trusted servants" that did the will of the people,
and did not govern? Ben Franklin did. I think he advocated very
low pay for government service. Probably something like what
teachers make today. Funny how the most important people in our
society are the least paid (almost).
Truth and Love
Mike
...................................................................................................................................
From: Joel Wendt
Date: Sun Jan 11, 2004 8:24 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Direct Response to Joel
Wendt
Dear Christine,
I've placed some comments below in [brackets].
warm regards,
joel
On Sat, 2004-01-10 at 13:24, golden3000997
wrote:
I had to do this in Word and then cut and
paste. I don't know if the formatting will get screwed up or
not.
Subj: RE: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Countering
Asuras
Date: 1/10/2004 1:18:16 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: Joel Wendt
Dear Kim,
What I was trying to point to was not to
be found in our trying to look at our "ideas" of the
human organization, as if we could label some aspects of this
"idea" as luciferic or ahrimanic (or asuric). Rather
I was suggesting that in order to know how evil works in the
world, we have to face our shadow, our double.
This is not about ideas at all, but about
what is working in our soul from the inside outward in such a
way that we really don't appreciate its true nature.
Mostly we don't self observe carefully
enough, or practice the relevant inner discipline by which we
would meet the double. Instead what happens is that we act out
of the double on a regular basis, but never see it - it is too
intimate, and being that intimate we'd rather be in denial of
it, than face it.
Now the activity of the double leaves all
kinds of hints and clues behind, but in order to perceive this
activity we have to be more focused on the beam in our own eye,
than on the mote in our brother's eye. Appreciating the double
is more an act of confession, than it is an act of describing
the world we perceive.
So when folks describe businesses or governments
or others as possessing evil qualities, we can generally assume
that they don't know what they are talking about, because this
focus on the "other" and the mote in their eye really
only tells us something about the speaker or ourselves.
OK Joel, let's see if I am understanding
you right. Are you saying?:
1. The very fact that someone talks about
Evil as an objective reality in the outside world, they must
by definition be wrong because it is not an objective reality,
only a reflection of the "evil" in the being of the
speaker i.e. the Double?
[Good question. Self observation reveals that
"thoughts" arise from our own activity, which can vary
from quite conscious, to quite unconscious. As thinkers, we form
"cognitions" about the world, that is we adorn the
world of our experience (percepts) with self created thoughts
(concepts). We create in this way what the world means. In ordinary
consciousness we form mental representations, which are generally
approximations of experience, usually known to us through what
is called "discursive thinking" (the spirit speaks,
the soul hears), that is we talk to ourselves inside our heads
(to use the common view).
The tendency in the soul is to form these
cognitions first in accord with education, culture and language,
and then secondarily in accord with our antipathies and sympathies.
The result is that we don't actually represent in these thoughts
the true nature of the world, but rather only our culture and
our emotional biases (antipathies and sympathies). This is pointed
to by Christ in the story of the mote and the beam.
These unredeemed thought judgments can become
an "object" of self observation. If we remain in ordinary
consciousness, and learn of Steiner's concepts about evil, we
have not changed the fundamental nature of the act of thinking,
but only have changed the given content. Instead of it being
given by our culture, or our own activity, we acquire steiner-thought,
and then adorn the world with this new set of concepts. So we
learn to think of evil in terms of the luciferic and the ahrimanic
and view the world through this dark lens (a kind of opposite
of rose-colored glasses). We see evil, not because it is there,
but because we have "thought" it there.
The Philosophy of Freedom is about becoming
inwardly free of those soul forces that cause us to impose on
the world something which is not there (the beam). When we wake
up inwardly to our active processes by which we think the world,
we can learn to first discard it (sacrifice of thoughts - see
what Christ said in Matthew 5:28), and then to "see"
free of pre-conception determined either by culture, or antipathy
and sympathy, or by Steiner. We can learn to think the world
thoughts, the thoughts that belong to experience (this is called
in Steiner's works: Goetheanism). When we learn to do this, then
we are inwardly free.]
Careful self observation reveals that we
adorn the world with ideas that are first produced in our own
consciousness, most frequently though unconscious processes.
We have a feeling of antipathy (or sympathy), and this unredeemed
feeling then serves as a driver for the thought content. I use
the term "unredeemed" to point to the fact that the
feeling is not within our conscious mastery (as might be a cultivated
mood of soul), but more likely the antipathy is a product of
the double itself.
2. You can tell others about the motes
in their eyes because you do not have a beam in your own?
[Another good question. If you read my essay
"pragmatic moral psychology, at: http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/stgfr5.html
you will find described what was my soul practice from even before
I met anthroposophy, and which has now been my practice for almost
thirty years. As I wrote to Peter S. on the WC list before Christmas,
this condition always needs to be maintained - we don't arrive
somewhere and don't have to work anymore. On the contrary, my
thought content at any given moment is always getting cobwebs
and dust, and needs to be kept clean by constant maintenance
and self observation. It is only because of being awake to the
constant recreation of beams, that I can speak from experience
about the problem. Until some future time when we no longer have
karma and no longer have anything to learn and have completely
purified physical, astral and etheic bodies, such housekeeping
in the soul will be required.
At the same time, familiarity with beams is
really the only basis for noting them in others. In the relevant
passage in Matthew, Christ goes on to suggest that we can in
fact help others with their motes, once we see the beams, but
only after we see the beams ("Thou hypocrite, first cast
out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly
to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."). It doesn't
mean I'm any more perfect, but it does mean I've been down in
this hole, and I know how to get out.]
The double influences how we see the world,
because until we can consciously take over that activity, and
thus the unfolding of our own karma, we are bound to the double
by necessity. We need the double in order to experience our karma.
So the initial difficulty is always within,
and our first clue as to the problem is when we find ourselves
seeing evil outside in the world (the mote), rather than facing
the more daunting task of facing our own shadow (the beam).
When Steiner first taught these matters,
he taught in a time in which the intellectual soul still predominated,
and mostly to a people (Central Europeans) who lived very much
in the ideal. This required that he give hints and point in certain
directions, but could not be very overt and blunt.
But that time is now long past, and as
we begin the new century, it becomes necessary to be more plain
spoken.
3. You are the only existing authority
on whether or not any other person is speaking from his or her
Double or not because you are the only person who has confronted
his Double?
[I take it from the whole of the above statement
(and the others preceding it), that you think I might be being
a bit of a obnoxious conceited asshole. or something akin to
that. You'd be right. Sometimes being an asshole is exactly what
is required - the question is whether you do it on purpose or
not. The real nature of your question above, however, ought to
be where are the discussions by others on this list about the
meeting with the Doubles? Forget that I have asserted the importance
of this - why isn't it being talked about. The way I read it
is that people aren't facing their doubles, or to the extent
they are, they haven't thought it through what the existence
of the double means for understanding the role of evil in the
world. If they were thinking it through, then it seems to me
the discussion regarding evil would have quite different aspects
- aspects reflecting personal experience, not just facile opinions
about whether this or that aspect of social reality is ahrimanic,
luciferic or asuric. If you know about the double in practice,
then one of the consequences of that knowledge is that your views
of the nature of evil in the world alters.]
At present the best example of work with
the double is in 12 Step groups, wherein a certain practice (authored
by the Ethereal Return of the Christ) has flourished. Here is
one more or less accurate version: http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/12steps.html
Were anthroposophists to combine this practical
and pragmatic (very American) method of "confession"
together with a study of Steiner's Theory of Knowledge, great
strides forward in esoteric development could be made. You see,
in reality it is not about ideas at all, but about deeds - in
this case inner deeds which are then joined together in some
kind of wise group process.
4. The 12 step program supplants all of
Anthroposophy as a means of achieving Knowledge of the Spiritual
World within yourself?
[No, and I don't think you read me carefully
enough. If The Philosophy of Freedom were practiced, knowledge
of the double would be everywhere in anthroposophical circles,
because where that Path leads is right up to the threshold, where
the doubles are the lower guardian. But discourse about evil
in the Society and Movement focuses almost entirely on the "seeing"
of evil in the world, and not on the confession to the existence
of evil in the own soul. In this sense, then the 12 Steps are
far more evolved, in a realm where the anthroposophical movement
has become lamed. You'll find this discussed in Catherine's article
that Tarjei has been defaming.]
It is the company we keep as we struggle
to understand and master the doubles that brings us forward into
the future along well grounded spiritual pathways. We could study
Steiner lectures, read all manner of books of ideas and ideals
about spiritual life, and never take the most dangerous step
at all - looking honestly at ourselves.
So on this list we talk about spiritual
as if we could see it in society, see lucifer here, and ahriman
there, and michael behind that, when the real serious work remains
undone - inside our own souls, in that place were ideas and feelings
are to become the conscious product of deeds - to will in the
thinking, and think in the willing.
But confession is hard to do. The last
thing our very protected and still too childish egos want to
do, is to confess to ourselves, much less to others. Far easier
to point fingers and blame, especially when someone has the temerity
to suggest we are full of shit.
Yet, of all the gifts another person can
give us, telling us when we are full of it is quite very much
one of the best. Hard to take - of course. Which is the main
clue to its real utility.
At the same time, groups need to be formed
where this is understood as a way of practice. No one goes long
to a truly functional 12 Step group without finding out about
confession and confrontation. "Hello, my name is Joel, and
I'm an addict" pause "hello Joel" says the group.
Confession and welcome, for we are brothers and sisters here,
all of us striving to overcome what seems beyond us to overcome.
5. One cannot be an Anthroposophist unless
one is in a 12 step program? How well do YOU take being told
that you are full of bull?
[No, I am not saying that. I am saying that
we could learn a lot from this experience, which is clearly born
in the activity of the Etheric Christ. I am also saying the if
the word "anthroposophist" is to have an real meaning,
it has to mean something connected to the problem of knowledge
in its epistemological sense, and in the sense of self knowledge.
If all that an anthroposophist is, is someone who can quote Steiner,
but has no self knowledge of the kind he pointed toward again
and again, then that word has lost any meaning that might have
connected it to the original impulse.
As to me being full of bull, don't mind hearing
it at all. You just need to know what you are speaking of, and
not just be saying it because I have said something you don't
like. That's why "experience" is so crucial, as against
"ideas". I have written elsewhere of the problem of
what I call percept-less concepts (ideas not based upon experience).
These are illusions, and as Steiner pointed out in a previous
statement to which I referred, it was his view that these false
ideas have life in the spiritual world, and need to be "eradicated".]
So personal stories get told, and some
stories are from new people, and familiar to all for that reason,
and then once in a while someone who has been working the Steps
for twenty years gets up and speaks, and wisdom flows into the
circle - hard won wisdom - wisdom won through pain, and error,
and trial by fire.
6. I have well over twenty years of "wisdom"
or at least experience, won through pain, error and trial by
fire and I do not need to have done it through a 12 step program
for it to be valid. On the other hand, I do not claim to be "wise"
or to know what is best for anyone else, or even (most of the
time) for myself. You want to hear my story Joel? From Physical
Pain and Abuse as a Child to Emotional Pain and Abuse as an Adolescent
to Mental Pain and Abuse as a Young Adult? You want to hear it
Joel? You want to hear about my Meeting with Michael - a REAL
EVENT at age 15 Joel - before I had ever heard of Rudolf Steiner?
What I prefer to tell is about the men and women I met at Threefold
Farm who received me with open minds and open hearts and gave
me help and advice and instruction without even a TINGE of judgmentalism
in it. And there was PLENTY to judge! That is what Anthroposophy
IS to me, Joel. Truth without Judgment. Discernment, not Damnation.
[Wonderful passion and anger. No niceness,
very 12 Step. But what if the truth is something you don't want
to hear? Do I fail you if because I sense you don't want to hear
it, I don't say it? (This is Gordienko's point, that we have
to be properly critical if we are going to care about the "destiny"
of our fellow path-walkers, so that if they error, we have to
have the courage to point that out, niceness be damned) What
you are experiencing as judgmentalism may just be truth you don't
want to hear.
I'm not contradicting your experience, but
I am insisting that if the term anthroposophy is to have any
meaning in the sense of being "spiritual science",
then certain truths follow from that fact. If it is "science"
then it has to have a fully valid experienceable epistemology,
and we have to criticize the abuse of its methodology (the substitution
of opinion about the asuras, for real knoweledge about the asuras,
especially when much more important knowledge of evil is right
in front of us within our own soul.]
Nothing from books here.
Now the 12 Steps have a weakness, in that
it wasn't possible to speak of the double in a blunt way - human
consciousness in the early years wasn't quite ready for this.
But now, as we more and more need to understand evil in order
to have any kind of intelligent civilization, it becomes necessary
to speak plainly of the double. For this anthroposophy was introduced
into the world, because our "psychological" paradigm
had to grow so as to better reflect the truth here.
7. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but didn't
Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 step program come into existence
After Rudolf Steiner was alive, thereby indicating that the double
could be spoken about at that time, because he did do so?
[He did speak of it, but in the follow on
failures of the AS, this message got lost in the noise. The 12
Step people don't speak of the double, but they do work with
it (all the Steps are about mediating the effects of the doubles).
Now, in our time, for those who bother to pass through the trials
connected to the Philosophy, and do then meet the doubles - it
now becomes our task to speak again of that which Steiner spoke
of, but which his more immediate students basically didn't come
to terms with. If the meeting with the doubles had occurred,
we'd never have had the splits in the AS following Steiner's
death. But, for whatever reason, this "social-moral"
aspect of development did not mature, and instead fell to the
side. Catherine's article gives an excellent explanation of why
things fell to the side.]
Unfortunately, the anthroposophists have
fallen into Steinerism, into dogma and sectarianism, and a kind
of lame theological thinking. The hard part of anthroposophy,
looking squarely at one's self, and making self knowing the essential
goal, this has not come to pass as much as it needed to.
So we enter the new century a bit lamed
- something is missing. Anthroposophists don't know how to "confess",
how to meet each other as true ego beings (as I-ams with flaws
and doubles and all kinds of tendencies to error and stupidity
- that is as human beings). Instead we are on this high path,
students of the great doctor, far above the messy stuff of life.
Our dialogs are competitions in knowing (which one has the better
handle on the questions in the New Testament, or which one sees
social life more clearly), when they should be cooperative arts
of sharing (c.f. M. Spock's Group Moral Artistry).
8. (Refer to #3) You are the only existing
authority on whether or not any other person is speaking from
his or her Double or not because you are the only person who
has confronted his Double? YOUR dialogues may be competitions
in knowing, as for me, I have found a tremendous amount of give
and receive and mutual support and respect here.
[You've taken it out of the context, which
begins with my finding inadequate Targei's remarks about the
asuras, and then following that up with comments to Kim's reply
to my suggestion that there was more to be learned by looking
within, than by looking without. Yes, give and receive and mutual
support, but if this path we seem to share is "science",
then that is simply not enough. You don't want science, then
don't call it anthroposophy.]
Anyway, Kim, I can't really be supportive
of what your wrote below - it is still about the mote, not the
beam. Were you to tell us a story of how you finally noticed
how badly you treated your first husband, because you were more
interested in your own career than in his welfare, and how you
have began to see how this impulse still lives in you today and
that you need help in mastering it. And if you then related that
you had begun to pray to the Holy Mother on a regular basis,
for help from your higher power in dealing with this unredeemed
soul flaw which you have now confessed to having. Then further,
how you began to be able to notice this impulse rising in your
soul, very subtly as a kind of temptation whispering to your
spirit, your I-am, and that now you could recognize that this
was an aspect of the double complex in the soul, this temptation,
so now you could see it, and you were grateful to the Holy Mother
for this help, and truly humbled by how flawed you could now
see that you were. So then you went to your former husband, and
sought to make amends, because you knew that you had to at least
ask for his forgiveness (which it isn't necessary to receive)
before you can truly forgive yourself. Then after going through
this trial, which took several months and involved much agony,
you found that in your prayer life, you began to have better
insights into how to love your current husband better, in fact
you could place questions during prayer and receive answers.
9. (Back to #2) You can tell others about
the motes in their eyes because you do not have a beam in your
own? How DARE you tell Kim how to deal with her own Karma and
what to Pray? Not as a loving suggestion, but to tell her that
unless she had done things the way you said they should have
been done, then her own experiences and
intuitions must be wrong!
[Again, love your passion. Don't think Kim
needs defending, though. I am talking in a very practical way
about how to learn to see evil in the world in a spiritually
scientific way. This requires that we know things about how our
inner life works, especially in the sense of the epistemology.
Lots of folks don't like this, its far easier to substitute materialistic
theories with spiritual theories, than to change how you think
(not just what you think), and bring will and self knowledge
into that activity. I did not tell her how to deal with her karma
or what to pray, I only gave an imaginative example of what might
be done if someone stopped painting the world with concepts borrowed
from reading Steiner, and became more active inwardly and more
consciously morally responsible for the thought content by which
they view the world. I'm not trying to be popular and nice and
kind, but to honor the truth, in an environment in which the
truth is not often honored. Steiner said a lot of these same
things. I'm (just as Catherine was) being much more blunt, after
our shared American plain speaking fashion. As to being "wrong",
I'm wrong several times a day, it goes with being human. We run,
we fall. If we play at spirituality by reading and discussing
Steiner lectures, we shouldn't be surprised if some adult stops
by the playground and says, time to put away childish things.]
If you were to tell such a story (which
is entirely made up by me of course, and isn't meant to do anything
but serve as an illustration) to others, this would not only
serve your own development indirectly, but also be an example
to others. Then if we were in a group that worked together in
this way, with many stories, we could begin to see that in practice
we now had started to understand the Gospel of John, and the
beginning steps outlined there - the washing of the feet, and
the scourging for example.
Then the need for discussions about things
we don't know anything about, like the ausuras, disappears, because
we are now truly meeting each other as struggling human beings,
in such a fine way that intellectual bull shit has no meaning
anymore.
10. (Back to #1) The very fact that someone
talks about Evil as an objective reality in the outside world,
they must by definition be wrong because it is not an objective
reality, only a reflection of the "evil" in the being
of the speaker i.e. the Double. The need for Discussions about
the Forces of Objective EVIL does NOT disappear!! It becomes
all the more pressing and even more effective among those willing
to face the evil within themselves. And I hear from many in this
group that they are more than willing to face that evil within
themselves. Then, more than ever do we need each other's encouragement
to go on in the face of it. If your "intellectual bullshit"
doesn't mean anything any more, Joel, why don't you take down
your website and just go work for AA full time?
[Again, the question is one of understanding
the actual causal relations by which evil enters the social world
we observe. Ahriman doesn't stand astride the world forcing people
to do things they don't want to do, but through a series of gloves
within gloves within gloves (Steiner's metaphor), offers temptations
within the soul. Human beings accept this tempting, and because
this is the Age of Ahriman, all the major characteristics of
the Time are ahrimanic, because we are all being tempted in soul
to behave ahrimanically. Steiner explained it the way he did,
precisely because this was the only way it could be heard. People
thought materialistically, that is they conceived the world as
filled with forces that acted at a distance, and so to speak
of the "forces of opposition", Steiner had to materialize
his concepts in many cases. In the True West, America, where
Ahriman has a kind of natural home, if he is to be defeated here,
it will be because we learn to fight the battle at the level
of the double within ourselves, without the foolish delusion
that "objective" evil works in the same way as we suppose
gravity works.
Ben-Aharon, in his remarkable new book: America's
Global Responsibility: individuation, initiation, and threefoldness,
quotes William Irwin Thompson, from Thompson's book: Evil and
World Order, as follows: "There can be no love in one who
does not love himself, and one can only love himself if he has
the compassion that grows out of the terrifying confrontation
with one's own self. To look into one's shadow is to learn compassion
for the shadow of others, and if one has no compassion for himself,
then he can have not compassion for others."
What this means is that when you learn about
the beam, then you understand much better the mote. You just
want me to candy-coat the truth here, when "compassion"
and love require instead - blunt honesty.]
warm regards,
joel
In response, I need to tell you that:
1. I know my Double very well with or without
a 12 step program and will admit and confess all of my faults
to my self or anyone else who cares to know.
2. I can see when other people's Doubles
are at work, but I don't have to put them down for it.
[you mistake bluntness for putting down, a
common kind of mistake when people believe being spiritual means
being nice.
3. The 12 step program has lots of flaws
and the first step, admitting that one is "helpless"
to control one's addiction and that one has to "surrender"
to a Higher Power may be effective but it certainly does not
speak to working out of the EGO. "Let Go and Let God"
is a wonderful excuse for NOT accepting responsibility for our
lives and karma. It's like substituting the addiction to God
for the addiction to alcohol.
[Actually, it sounds to me like you don't
know much about the double, because when we confront the double,
we are helpless before it. It is precisely because the double
can supplant the will of the ego, that it helps us to face our
karma (we would run away from our karma if the ego were to not
have the aid of the double). Then in this realization of helplessness
we begin to prepare for spiritual experience because in heaven
(the world of spirit) all is about cooperation, and we have to
let go our egoistic belief that we can do everything by ourselves.
We need intervention from below (the divine Mother), because
it is Her to whom the doubles own obedience. She walks with us
(via the higher ego) as we learn to master those un-redeemed
aspects of our astrality that we have to master before the double
can leave us (so we cross the lower boundary of the threshold)(Tomberg's
Meditations on the Tarot, refers to this as the Mother going
with us as we cross the realm of the false Holy Spirit - or from
the lower guardian to the higher guardian, Christ). We have to
be awake enough to carry the weight that was before carried by
the double.
The purpose of these trials is for the I-am
to truly understand humility and limits (not as powers do we
enter the world of spirit, but as beggars). Of course, people
do cross the threshold in other ways, but those are often by
grace, or by atavistic forms of initiation, and they don't necessarily
all get to the same "place".]
4. I never heard of the 12 step program
as being part of the Risen and Etheric Christ and if you say
it is so, you would have to seriously prove how.
[Well, the idea of proof is very curious,
and I would expect that you apply it quite selectively. Would
you demand "proof" of those things you believe in Steiner,
Bradford or Targei? I expect not, so if you don't mind I am not
going to bother trying to prove anything to you.
However, here is a quote from the Big Book,
about Bill W's story, in his own words: "These where revolutionary
and drastic proposals, but the moment I fully accepted them,
the effects was electric. There was a sense of victory, followed
by such a peace and serenity as I have never known. There was
utter confidence. I felt lifted up, as though the great clean
wind of a mountain top blew through and though. God comes to
most men gradually, but His impact on me was sudden and profound."
Having had the same experience as one of my
three grace given meetings with the Etheric Christ, I don't doubt
for a moment what had happened here. But, I can't do anything
about your doubt, and wouldn't try. I don't have to satisfy you,
only myself. And, by the way, I haven't told all of the story
at all - there is a lot more, but I won't waste it on your doubt.]
5. YOU are not the judge and jury of ANYONE
other than yourself. And while I admire and respect your intelligence
and work on many subjects, this is not a church and you are not
our preacher.
[Nope, I am just someone compelled by the
truth to speak it. You can read that as preaching if you want,
or not. Its up to you.]
6. Anyone who says that if one criticizes
their opinions - that in itself proves them wrong and suspect
- is of the side of the dark forces.
[What? Are you saying I said something like
this. Could you kindly quote me if that is your assertion. As
to the "dark forces", what are those? More action at
a distance causal activity of Beings of the hierarchy of the
left, working somehow outside the effect of the doubles?]
That means you. It is using a conundrum,
a circular reference. It is a closed set. "You criticize
my opinion - anyone who criticizes my opinion is wrong and suspect
of evil, the act of criticizing my opinion is proof of this -
therefore you are wrong and suspect of evil - and if you criticize
my saying this, you are more wrong and more suspect of evil."
7. You never deign to respond when I question
your pronouncements. In the last exchange that we had, I brought
up some points countering your definitive statement that prayer
could not be made through the body and you never replied. I think
because you find it impossible to admit anything that is not
already in your belief system - even though I was connecting
it directly to Eurythmy.
[Well, you misread what I said. I was talking
about the processes of the Consciousness Soul, which you can
read about in Theosophy, regarding the encounter with the Eternal
common to this Age. This is an inner experience of the spirit,
active in the soul, with the body at rest. Eurythmy, while interesting,
is not about "thinking", but about moving the will
with the etheric stream. Certainly it could be prayer or worship,
depending upon the intention of the eurythmist, but when was
the last time you heard of an Eurythmist "asking, seeking
or knocking" and then receiving, or entering.
At the same time I can understand you remarking
upon my "pronouncements". I state facts as facts, and
try to discipline myself to not indulge in opinions. I've spent
over 25 years in introspective activity. Of course, if what I
offer as facts disagrees with your opinions, then it is hardly
surprising that you have difficulty considering that what I am
relating might be based upon experience.]
8. There is a lot of lower-ego satisfaction
in pretending to be humbly seeking the truth about oneself. One
gets LOTS of attention in a 12 step program - just think, a sponsor
that you can call any time of the day or night and he or she
has to listen to YOU and YOUR problems!!
[This is just plain cruel to all those whose
lives are in the trial by fire that leads to addiction and alcoholism.
Clearly you speak of things you know nothing about. I would suspect
that your antipathy to my remarks is driving your thinking, but
not your conscious will.]
9. I'm NOT putting down AA or 12 step.
They have a high rate of effectiveness and do much good in the
world. But a remedy for addiction is not something that one can
apply willy-nilly to every situation in the world.
[Not applying it willy-nilly, but I guess
you are not really noticing what I have been saying.]
10. Mother Teresa did more good in this
world than either YOU or I will do in this lifetime and she did
not sit around in neurotic agony pondering whether she should
fight with an external Evil or with her Double. Nor did she come
up with the conclusion that she had to be perfectly clairvoyant
and spiritually developed before she started fighting and working
- and FIGHT she did!!! She got ahold of people in power and shook
them by the collar with the Might of Truth and said - this NEEDS
to be done! DO IT! And they did! She didn't "save the world"
- she saved the lives of people lying on the street and she held
them in her arms as they died and she
did it one life at a time. So did Mother Jones and Many Such
Women (a few men, too, I guess, but mostly WOMEN) YEAH!!! - GO
EOWYN!!! GO SOPHIE SCHOLL!!! GO JEANNE D'ARC!!!
[Whatever.]
11. You remind me of the Judge (in the
Disney movie)/ Priest (in Victor Hugo's novel) of the "Hunchback
of Notre Dame" as he prays to Mary " I am so virtuous,
give me Esmerelda, or else - let her burn!" It is the JUDGES
that send the Michaelic Ones to the stake in the name of GOD
- RIGHT - THE CHURCH - ANTHROPOSOPHY! I accept you NOT as MY
Judge!
[Sorry you don't like what I have been saying.]
12. I say definitely and include my own
Self in this absolutely that we despise in another person exactly
what is a fault within our Self-s. Those who do not lie do not
recognize when someone else is lying to them. Those who are trustworthy
do not suspect other people are going to betray them. When we
find a fault with someone else, we must
sit down and say to our Self-s - WOW! How much of THAT do I have
in me, too? Am I, Christine, prone to be Judgmental? You bet
your ass - That's why I recognize it so well!
[Okay, if you say so. When you get around
to it, if you have time, how about you discuss your understanding
of the epistemology, or the how that works in practice, or how
you deal with your double, instead of just commenting on my words.
Don't you think it better if you had something real to say out
of your own experience, then spending all your time telling me
how wrong I am?]
--
Joel Wendt
...................................................................................................................................
From: golden3000997
Date: Sun Jan 11, 2004 4:56 am
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] the Twelve Steps
Hi Mike,
Number One, don't think it was "dumb".
It was a worthwhile learning experience for you, helped you tremendously
and gives you a means of comparison for other forms of group
work you may participate in now and in the future.
Number Two, maybe positions like politician,
teacher, doctor, lawyer, etc. should become "vocations"
and treated like the medieval concept of monks and nuns (I say
concept because the reality is something different many times).
I mean vows of Poverty, Chastity and Obedience. And the "higher"
one rises in one's vocation, the stronger and more strict those
vows become. THEN, whoa, then - only people who really have a
deep burning desire to serve their fellow human beings would
put themselves up for that kind of work. What a different world
it might be then!
The only danger, of course is if it were done
in "the name of God" or some other such concept which
would limit and bind the freedom of the individual. As you illustrated
regarding AA, the time for group work that tries to unify under
an abstract concept that one has to surrender one's will to is
long past.
The only "ideal" would have to be
to see what actually needs to be done and to do it to the best
of one's ability. "Steiner says" (oh yeah) that people
do not want to do deeds of love because they are all paying off
debts to the world.
They store up nothing for ourselves. No "Brownie
points" in heaven. There needs to be a real selflessness
and the only motivation is a desire to serve Humanity and to
foster its development in the light of the Spirit.
One more thing, you often say "Love"
and I say "Truth". We are not differing, at least in
my mind. I just like to add it lest anyone reading these posts
take love in the mushy sense. I already shared with you my definition
of love as "love-in-action" in the sense of Madeline
L'Engle's "A Wind at the Door" - "Silly Human,
love is not a feeling - love is what you do!" Thinking -
Feeling -
Willing all need to be activated and become
"Conciousness" or "Christ Conciousness" which
is, to my belief system - LOVE or LOVE IN ACTION. Words like
Love and Christ are so overused today that one has to be semantically
cautious, I think. When I use Truth, you can substitute LOVE
IN ACTION or CHRIST CONCIOUSNESS and it would be the same thing
to me, semantically.
Happy Sunday!
Christine
PS - How old are your kids? : )
...................................................................................................................................
From: eyecueco
Date: Mon Jan 12, 2004 11:33 am
Subject: Re: Direct Response to Joel Wendt
Hi Joel,
I do not disagree with what you are saying
about how it is so much easier to focus on the evils outside
us rather than to take a look at ourself, and I, too,
find what is being ranted about on the evil doings
in the world disturbing and to only be adding to the darkness.
I do not understand how those, specifically Bradford, so easily
claim to be special, more advanced, one of the chosen few, a
member of the Michael School (now in the past, btw, not the present
nor the future). I guess that I would think that if one is working
on the path that leads to redeeming the astral then one does
not rant and rage about the evil one sees all around them, but
rather works very hard at the disciplinary practice of looking
for the "white teeth in the dead carcass".
However, I must say that I do, indeed, share
Tarjei's opinion about the ill advised article Catherine produced.
I am surprised to learn that this article is still
up, given what Catherine said around a year or so ago.
I mostly agree with you about the 12 Step
program potentially leading one to face their own double, however,
given my own long term experience ACOA (adult child of an alcoholic)
I would have to say the focus is not on what anthropops would
see as the double so much as being about forgiveness, assuming
individual responsibility to try and not pass on the damage to
the next generation,and finding ways to heal.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not say that there
is NOT a threshold experience in forgiveness, of course there
is, but, I wonder if you aren't putting an emphasis on the double rather than the emphasis in all AA programs
of coming to admit that one is powerless without daily help from
a higher power - whatever the individual wants and needs that
higher power to be called.
You are putting Christ in there and while
that does not bother me personally, the reality is Christ is
not discussed, nor the Etheric Christ, and not the double. The
higher power in AA is to defined by the individual.
Nor is there the confrontation of others about
beams and motes that you seem to be implying. What is given in
AA meetings is a safe place to speak up. Cross-talk and opinion
is absolutely forbidden. The only thing that is allowed in terms
of feed-back at meetings is a group "Thank You" to
the person after he or she has been willing to speak up and share.
The AA 12 Step programs gives one a working blueprint, but, the
tools one uses to build their new dwelling is up to each individual
and the time pace is also individual. The confrontation of which
you speak does not come from another individual pointing out
ones motes and beams, even with a sponsor.
I guess I just see you putting emphasis on
aspects of the AA programs that I don't really see as existing
and I speak from having been a group leader for Alateen a few
years ago, also.
I would underscore the positives of AA as
being emphasis on forgiveness, taking personal responsibility,
and working the program, i.e., admitting one is powerless over their addictions, (whatever those addictions
might be-drugs, alcochol, co-dependency, food, sex, pain, whatever),
turning to a higher power for help one day at a time and, raising
one's consciousness during these one day at a time periods of
waking day consciousness so that one is more aware of oneself
and others, feeling levels, responses, reactions, etc. The trials
of the day for the alcoholic is going to be different than the
trials of the day for the child of the alcoholic, teen or adult,
and the trials of the day is going to be different for the individual
married to an alcoholic.
The weaknesses of the AA programs, imo, come
from a danger of exchanging one codependency for another, and
especially becoming dependent on the program itself. I have seen
people who don't move on at all for years and decades, inappropriate
clicks formed, equally inappropriate personal relationships develop
and any number of old problems merely exchanged for new ones
coming out of these groups, so I don't think it at all possible
to put AA upon a pedestal as The answer. Frankly I think that
the AA12 Step program works the most affective in the effective
domain for the alcoholic, and after all what is why it was impulsed
from the higher worlds in the first place, (and I doagree with
you that Bill W. did have an Etheric Christ experience).
At any rate, the 12 Step program, just as
with Unity's Daily Word, the Our Father prayer, Steiner's recommended
meditations, Buddhist meditation, personal therapy, etc., is
only affective in the effective domain with consistent application
and brutal self honestly.
Kind regards,
Paulina
Information isn't Knowledge, and Knowledge isn't Wisdom
...................................................................................................................................
From: Jo Ann Schwartz
Date: Mon Jan 12, 2004 7:01 am
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Direct Response to Joel
Wendt
--- Christine wrote:
I had to do this in Word and then cut and
paste. I don't know if the formatting will get screwed up or
not.
Followed by LOTS of good stuff. You go, girl!
Merrily,
JoAnn
...................................................................................................................................
From: Daniel Hindes
Date: Mon Jan 12, 2004 4:22 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Direct Response to Joel
Wendt
At the same time, familiarity with beams
is really the only basis for noting them in others. In the relevant
passage in Matthew, Christ goes on to suggest that we can in
fact help others with their motes, once we see the beams, but
only after we see the beams ("Thou hypocrite, first cast
out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly
to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."). It doesn't
mean I'm any more perfect, but it does mean I've been down in
this hole, and I know how to get out.]
There is another interpretation of this passage.
In another context, Christ said "Let he who is without sin
among you cast the first stone." The logic of this was,
first, no one was without sin, and secondly, even if anyone was
without sin, why would they wish obtain sin by casting a stone?
Likewise let us enter the parable of the beam
in the eye. First of all it has been pointed out how absurd the
image of a beam in the eye indeed is. This is not just an issue
of translation; the original is also means "really huge
piece of wood". It has been suggested that Christ used this
ridiculous image of a beam in the eye intentionally. What would
a person look like with a really huge piece of wood in their
eye? Blind. And after removing a beam from their eye, how well
would they see? Would they really be worried about motes in other
peoples eyes? Or in a position to fish them out? To me the point
of the parable is not that once you have removed a beam from
your own eye you are suddenly ready to start working on other
people's motes. Rather, the point is that there are better things
to do than fish motes out of other peoples eyes.
Daniel Hindes
The Twelve
Steps
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