The Tabla Rosa
From: holderlin66
Date: Fri Jan 16, 2004 3:41 pm
Subject: The Tabla Rosa
The Borca or organ of speech development is
very enhanced by the dexterity of finger play and actual Handwork.
In specific Speech essays Steiner had mentioned the Borca organ.
Stroke victims, depending on the right or left side of the brain
incapacity, develop different symptoms either in motor or speech
aphasia.
However it takes a different capacity for
the adult to tell if someone is speaking out of the left side
of their mouth or the right side of their mouth. In fact certain
facial distortions can appear, not only from a stroke but from
the abuse of speaking distortions out of the side of ones mouth.
W.C. Fields constantly brought to expression
a quality, a kind of an aside of Luciferic or Ahrimanic commentary
to go hand in hand with the funny situations he found himself
in. Groucho Marx also exhibited this quality of dual commentary.
But as an unconscious quality it can become imprinted into the
etheric gesture of the face. You can detect a cute little wrinkle
on one side of the face or the other, and naturally this doesn't
mean the person is speaking badly out of the side of their mouths,
but sometimes has wry sense of humor. However in certain used
car salesmen one should pay attention as the one side wrinkle
gets twitchy.
To further discover some of the unexplored
country that Steiner had given himself the task to explore, we
can applaud and merge with all that biology and neural science
can tell us about the pathways of brain formation and nerve developmental
skills that education can not only approach but sometimes correct.
There remains sensitive areas where the hardwiring of the brain
is still subject to correction.
All of this has to do with the argument of
the Tabla Rosa, the unwritten or the faintly borrowed etheric
scroll we enter life with. What is written, under the surface
of that ancient Etheric Scroll that humanity connects to and
what do they bring to it as individuals? What will the Astral
body write onto the hardwiring of the brain? And how can these
budding capacities lead themselves to rich common sense in the
upcoming emotional sentient soul development, intellectual soul
development and ripening Consciousness Soul development?
But this hardwiring of the tiny child and
the talent and capacity the child would like to develop remains
in constant warfare with our educational understanding. The Tabla
Rosa theory is one of the most interesting. Early pre-school
computer generated instruction pressures, or late developing
readers and spellers, are placed on the conveyor belt and instead
of keeping the (unexamined) etheric limber and malleable as the
astral seats itself, like a Dentist 'seats' a tooth, there is
a rush to hardwire the child and fix and solidify the formative
forces of the etheric with premature, pressed intellectualism.
Hurry Up and Be Just like us adults- get thee to the mall and
have fun. Share fashion tips with mommy at age six.
http://wn.elib.com/Steiner/Education/19190821a01.html
"Now when the child has
come forth on to the physical plane, we must realise what has
really happened for him in the transition from a spiritual to
a physical plane. Firstly, we must recognise that the human being
is really composed of two members. Before the human being comes
down to earth a union is entered into between the spirit and
the soul — meaning by spirit what for the physical world
of to-day is still entirely hidden, and what in Spiritual Science
we call Spirit-Man, Life-Spirit, Spirit-Self. These three members
of man's being are present in a certain way in the supersensible
sphere to which we must now work our way through.
And between death and a new
birth we do already stand in a certain relationship to Spirit-Man,
Life-Spirit, Spirit-Self. Now the force which proceeds from this
trinity permeates the Soul element in man: Consciousness Soul,
Intellectual or Mind Soul, and Sentient Soul. And if you were
to observe the human being when, having passed through the existence
between death and a new birth, he is just preparing to descend
into the physical world, then you would find the spiritual which
we have just described united with the soul. Man descends, as
it were, as Spirit-Soul or Soul-Spirit from a higher sphere into
earthly existence. He clothes himself with earthly existence.
In a similar way we can describe
the other member of man's being which unites itself with the
one just described. We can say: down there on the earth the Spirit-Soul
is met by what arises through the processes of physical inheritance.
And now the Soul-Spirit or Spirit- Soul meets with the Life-Body
in such a way that two trinities are united with two other trinities.
In the Spirit-Soul: Spirit-Man,
Life-Spirit and Spirit-Self are united with that which is soul,
namely: Consciousness-Soul, Intellectual Soul and Sentient Soul.
These two trinities are united with one another, and descend
into the physical world where they are now to unite with the
Sentient or Astral body, Etheric body and Physical body.
But these in turn are united
— first in the body of the mother and then in the physical
world — with the three kingdoms of the physical world: the
mineral, the plant and the animal kingdoms. So that here again,
two trinities are united with one another"
Bradford continues;
This is no empty glass. Nor can we say that
know what the Angels and the higher being of the child has decided
as their next capacity to further their higher development. Certainly
it is living in this age of hyper intellectual and techno/materialism.
No Child is exactly a Tabla Rosa, but something
carried and about to be planted, etherically, in the soil of
Earthly Destiny arises with the child in our midst. What has
time given to all of us, and what does time invest for the child
to carry us into the future, depends very much if the child is
educated on thorny ground; if the child has its innocence pecked
away by birds; if the child is stuck in the projects and high
rises on stony ground and can find no roots to grow into its
capacities..we face various destiny riddles that confound and
give mixed signals to educators.
It can be the case that the parents have a
materialistic outlook, but they are good parents and so the accelerated
climate of fashion, malls, technology, movies and celebration
of the beauty and normalness of their child, merely hands over
idealized materialism without giving them the tools to be different
and seek the undiscovered country of their souls and spirits.
Well at least they are nice materialists and who says everyone
has an interest in "The Twilight Zone" some people
just thrive on sappy love stories.
Previously I sketched the hidden etheric background
of the curriculum in this manner:
"We call Dr. Steiner's fully researched
and first of its kind outline of actual unfolding development
of how the uncoiling of the hidden memory of a pre-existing human
being, as it unfolds itself, uncoils itself, unwinds itself through
his/her etheric memory sheath that is connected to the cultural
epochs, that we all experienced in ancient times, part of the
scroll of the memory of humanity, we call this a Science. It
is not merely the change of teeth and a physical expression,
but the inner education of the child is unfolding in itself an
etheric memory of mankind. There look the Plant unfolds and at
first it is just green like every other plant, but we see, ah-ha,
it will be a Rose or a Lily..the etheric is the very nature of
us being particpants in mankind and human history. This is a
science.
The Waldorf Curriculum is the first of its
kind to understand that a child is not a Tabla Rosa or an empty
scroll, but hidden in the unfolding development of a child are
the lost experiences of ancient times. "
The quality of what we carry into a classroom
is an undetected climate and an atmosphere of light or grey shades.
This undetected light has a nourishing quality and is truly detected
by the children and students. They either thrive and find themselves
working in the glow; or they wrangle, are miscued and mixed up
in the foundations of human substance because the teacher cannot
integrate both science of spirit and science of matter in their
beings. The pointers are wrong and the compasses fail to detect
a true north.
Steiner;
"to perceive the significance
of the fact that man is effective in the world not only through
what he does, but above all through what he is. Truly, my dear
friends, it makes a very great difference whether one teacher
of the school or another comes through the classroom door to
any group of children. There is a big difference; and the difference
is not merely that the one teacher is more skilful in his practice
than the other. No, the main difference — the one that is
really influential in teaching — lies in what the teacher
bears within him, as his constant trend of thought, and carries
with him into the classroom. A teacher who occupies himself with
thoughts of the evolving human being will work very differently
upon his pupils from a teacher who knows nothing of all these
things, and never gives them a thought."
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From: golden3000997
Date: Fri Jan 16, 2004 5:00 pm
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] The Tabla Rosa
Isn't it "Tabula Rasa" - "Erased
Tablet?" or "Blank Slate" - hey do a Google on
Tabula Rasa!! What a variety of stuff!
But I like the Tabla Rosa (Rosy Drum) idea
- like a rosebud that has yet to unfold! Picture a Tabla style
drum - kind of an "hour glass" shape base (very feminine)
with a skin stretched over it. A vessel for rhythm - beat, beat,
softly the rhythm of heart and lung. The baby is born all rosy
and softly drumming its heart drum!
: ) Christine
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From: holderlin66
Date: Sat Jan 17, 2004 12:37 am
Subject: Re: The Tabla Rosa
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~hching/archives/000024.html
Tabla Rosa
my mind is empty.
a blank piece of paper,
for people to write on.
words go in, nothing saved.
invisible ink, disappearing in an instant.
tiny gnomes, erasing to their hearts content,
complete darkness, I space out.
my favorite pastime,
devoid of thoughts.
http://www.coe.tamu.edu/~epsy/cded/olexey1.htm
John A Locke's (1632-1704) two great works,
Essay on the Human Understanding and Some Thoughts Concerning
Education include ideas that remain influential in guiding educational
practices through contemporary times. Locke advocated the notion
that education should prepare an individual for practical life
through instruction in the manual and mechanical trades. His
concepts of the mind as a "tabla rosa" or blank slate,
the creation of working schools for poor children, and the importance
of physical exercise as a part of education remain part of his
legacy.
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) combined
the works of Comenius and Locke
3(b). Tabula Rasa & Empiricism:
Ultimately, in his acceptance of the existence
of God, Locke was a dualist -- though only barely so; he did
not consider man to be a divine creature fixed with ideas on
coming into this world. Locke was an empiricist, viz., all knowledge
comes to us through experience. "No man's knowledge here
can go beyond his experience."
There is no such thing as innate ideas; there
is no such thing as moral precepts; we are born with an empty
mind, with a soft tablet (tabula rasa) ready to be writ upon
by experimental impressions. Beginning blank, the human mind
acquires knowledge through the use of the five senses and a process
of reflection. Not only has Locke's empiricism been a dominant
tradition in British philosophy, but it has been a doctrine which
with its method, experimental science, has brought on scientific
discoveries ever since, scientific discoveries on which our modern
world now depends.
Bradford comments;
Well I kinda like the unopened bud of an unseen
rose flourishing in the etheric. However Tabula Rasa is the coin
of the realm. Golden, magnificent on the John's outline. Now
we come to Locke and Comenius. Comenius and Bacon worked together
and as advanced thinkers, nobody could get upset with the idea
that a little child is a waxy, (read etheric) unwritten slate.
Back before chalkboards and notebooks, with
sharpened pencils they wrote on clay tablets with a stylus. This
transition to hardwiring, almost like going into a chip factory
and getting your own little pentium imprinted standardized educational
model for ready made hardwiring to the the mental landscape of
culture. Are we to see individual developments or mere standardized
low ceiling mind cavities filled with pleasant hypocrisy? Are
are there higher frontiers of inner and brilliant development
beyond this low ceiling?
Oh alright, so our concepts became a little
mechanized. Still Locke had good intentions. Comenius and Bacon
had good intentions. Comenius and Bacon go back a long way. Back
to Arab Islam taking tea with Woodrow Wilson. Comenius brought
Illustration for education. Printing up nice textbooks, certainly
has helped education.
So then comes the fine tuning of exactly what
is written and unwritten as the slip stream of the soul and spirit
glides into fusion with mineral/bone; plant;etheric; animal;nervous
sytem and hard wiring serving the Personality. WE can say plant/lymphatic
as well. We can say Animal/astral as well. The lower triad meets
up with the higher triads and builds a new personality, A Virgin,
unique Time Being.
Now naturally one can come to the conclusion
that we are just as well without these far reaching spiritual
scientific ideas as with them. Meaning, who needs to feel that
a child is coming from somewhere? Why is the curriculum of Waldorf
recalling, as in EDU-CATION a picture language of the ancient
past, to learn alphabet through picture consciousness? Is this
not recapitulation? Did we once have picture consciousness before
abstract intellect?
Why do we bring third graders into the Etheric/Light
and Biblical tales, even tales of the Saints? Why would we RE-COLLECT
the fragments of the Ether of civilization, where all humnaity
have their roots? And so the Curriculum of Waldorf unfolds a
tale of humanity and the child unfolds as it begins restoring
what it might have experienced in earlier culture epochs.
Because the blueprints of the Tabula Rasa
are massive memory imprints in the ether that are also carried
in the progressive stream of human development. But, as previously
stated, can't we just take the child as it is? Isn't it enough
that here is a little creature carried in the stream of the human
family? We realize that each of these little creatures bear something
that is very different even from their parents. They carry Time
and the Evolutionary development forwards. That there comes even
a struggle, or it did in the past, that the child may or may
not pursue their father's beruf or profession.
Then there is the Bach family Ear for Music
coming down the pike of very clear capacity and etheric forces
that were site specific to the Bach family and, to the elemental
forces of the Region around Wartburg where the Minstrel War and
Klingsor met the Grail singer Wolfram von Eshenbach.
Then there was a gathering of Grail and Arthurian
souls, following the westward rising of the Christ Sun. Were
some of those gathered there once gathered around the Last Supper?
Do our children carry unknown and specifc capacities that rise
to meet the higher deveopments of Consciousness Soul and Spirit
Self? Is there any value to seeing that beyond Intellectual brain
development, there is also thinking and Spiritual capacities
that will develop even higher phases of what we now pride ourselves
in as techno/materialism?
What experience do different languages, races,
cultures give to the unfolding soul? Questions upon questions.
But the scaffolding of the Waldorf Curriculum opens for all souls
a model of humanities wide, grand and heroic memory, and the
curriculum builds, builds toward stronger and stronger mental,
abstract and richer capacities intimate comlexities carried in
the Sentient, Intellectual and Consciousness Soul. These solid
individual Personality foundations make possible the seeds of
Spirit Self, Life Spirit and in the far distant future, Spirit
Man.
As this stage approaches, and even earlier
we have arrived at Saints, the Science of Saints and the mysteries
of matter that now we only guess at and are enamored and mentally
devoted more to the destructive potential of Light instead of
the super spiritual science of Love that each child will one
day mature into.
...................................................................................................................................
From: winters_diana
Date: Sat Jan 17, 2004 5:52 am
Subject: Re: The Tabla Rosa
Bradford, as usual, I may not really be following
you, and I confess I can't read your posts in their entirety.
But in reply to this:
This transition to hardwiring, almost like
going into a chip factory and getting your own little pentium
imprinted standardized educational model for ready made hardwiring
to the the mental landscape of culture.
My view is that there is a lot of paranoia
around technology and its supposed dire effects, talk of how
we all being standardized or turned into computers. I think every
culture hardwires people to a preferred mental landscape. Maybe
we get the culture we deserve? There is plenty to criticize,
but to some of us, what anthroposophy offers in contrast was
not an improvement.
Waldorf schools try to imprint the standardized
mental landscape of anthroposophy. They advise families to limit
TV, electronic media, and even books for as long as possible,
in order to keep the "blank slate" free for their
notions to be impressed. (Mainstream culture is their competition,
in other words.) The high-falutin' talk of universal spiritual
development is self-serving.
Why is the curriculum of Waldorf recalling,
as in EDU-CATION a picture language of the ancient past, to learn
alphabet through picture consciousness? Is this not recapitulation?
"Recapitulation" of pictorial consciousness
to learn the alphabet is useless, and a hindrance to literacy.
It goes against everything that is known about how children acquire
literacy. The letters are abstract symbols corresponding to sounds,
and do not relate to pictures of fish and waves and mountains.
Writing systems evolved over millennia, and are always imperfect.
To ask the children to "recapitulate their development"
is like asking them to invent the wheel every morning. Teach
them the code, instead, so they can read instead of meditate
on symbols.
the Curriculum of Waldorf unfolds a tale
of humanity and the child unfolds as it begins restoring what
it might have experienced in earlier culture epochs.
Maybe I'm a simpleton, Bradford, but for me
it seems enough for the children to learn their history through
reading and writing. We hope they can participate imaginatively,
and a good teacher aims for this, but to ask them to spiritually
re-enact earlier cultural epochs seems preposterous, and an imposition
on the children. Quit asking children to "carry Time"
and "Evolution." Narrow down the teacher's job description
a bit. We have a big literacy crisis in this country. Focus on
reading and math.
If people don't think anthroposophic dogma
is imposed in Waldorf schools, whew, Bradford . . .
Were some of those gathered there once
gathered around the Last Supper?
Please! A teacher looking at her/his students
wondering if some of these individuals were once gathered around
the Last Supper is nearly guaranteed to be a disaster in the
classroom.
In fairness to Waldorf teachers, I certainly
think most do not have time to spend on this sort of nonsense,
Bradford.
Diana
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From: golden3000997
Date: Sat Jan 17, 2004 6:00 am
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Re: The Tabla Rosa
Bradford writes:
Because the blueprints of the Tabula Rasa
are massive memory imprints in the ether that are also carried
in the progressive stream of human development. But, as previously
stated, can't we just take the child as it is? Isn't it enough
that here is a little creature carried in the stream of the human
family? We realize that each of these little creatures bear something
that is very different even from their parents. They carry Time
and the Evolutionary development forwards. That there comes even
a struggle, or it did in the past, that the child may or may
not pursue their father's beruf or profession.
********************
I don't understand what you are trying to
say, Bradford. There can't be any "blueprints" on a
Tabula Rasa - because it is BLANK. The "Tabula Rasa"
concept in Education is one of the main educational theories
still in use today in the general system. But it has been replaced
to a great extent by the educational theory of genetics. As Steiner
describes in "Study of Man", the prevelant educational
theory of his day and ours is that a child is like a great Head,
with something (the rest of the body) dangling down underneath
like a cuttlefish. The job of teachers (status quo) is to INSTRUCT
- to fill up this octopus head with information and get the child
to spit it back. What EDUCATORS must do, according to Steiner,
is to try to find what is already in there and to draw it out.
The basic assumption is the polar opposite of the Tabula Rasa.
The working premise in Waldorf Education is that the "soul"
of the child comes into the body from a Pre-Natal existence and
therefore is not blank at all, but carries with it past knowledge
and experience. Of course, this cannot be utilized by the individual
until the body (or bodies) have developed enough to allow it
to unfold. The task of the Waldorf teacher and of course, Waldorf
Parents, is to assist in the development of the physical, etheric
and astral bodies in such a way as to allow for the optimum unfolding
of the pre-natal thoughts, intentions, sympathies and antipathies
of the individual who is the child in front of them. This is
the "Riddle of the Child" that Steiner spoke about
so often.
I was gently correcting you, Bradford in your
using the wrong words to begin your thesis with. They were so
wrong, that I was trying to take them as you wrote them and find
meaning in them, and I did. But the words you used were almost
polar opposite from what you were intending to say.
Now, today, education theory, inspired by
Ahriman, contradicts the concept of the Tabula Rasa, the Blank
Slate yet corrupts the meaning and reality of Pre-Natal existence.
In Ahrimanic education, the soul is still "blank" at
conception and birth, but the BODY is not. The Physical Body
contains the Blueprint - the DNA. Everything that the individual
can be and will be is already imprinted, laid out, Set in Stone!!!
The Genetic Code determines all. The Bach family was that way
because of a dominant gene that got passed down bodily, not because
of a Spiritual Soul Group of Individual Spirits united by their
mutual love of music who Decide before birth to get born into
the same family for mutual love, support and musical education.
Oh no!! This kind of thinking won't do in today's economy!! There
is no Empirical Proof of such a thing happening or even the possibility
of its happening. Whereas, "we" can Prove the Reality
of
Genetics!! How? By our ability to consciously manipulate genes
in a human body and get verifiable results. True, the results
we have gotten so far are limited, and the claims made for the
future of genetic manipulation are wildly speculative, but the
Reality of the Genetic Code has (in a relatively short time)
become Set in Stone as the Belief System of our age. It is also
the only widespread working paradigm in State and most Private
education.
To claim to Educate the Child with "methods"
that arise from a given pre-conception that he or she has a fully
"educated" soul already inside the body (it's there,
it just can't express itself yet) is a totally radical concept
for our day and age. In fact, really, for all of recorded Western
Civilization. Even in Greece, students
were pretty much "empty vessels" for the teachers to
pour their "wisdom" into. Think of Aristotle and Alexander.
True, some pre-natal existence was imagined in the form of "destiny",
but Aristotle didn't waste time on wondering what was inside
Alexander that needed to come out. He was only concerned
about what he could put into Alexander that would influence him
and be of value in his future decision making.
In the Middle Ages, a popular Educational
Theory was that if was most efficacious to beat ones students,
as not only were the vessels empty, but it was easier to pour
learning into them if you made a hole in their heads first, because
they were made of very dense material to begin with.
Please bear in mind that, apart from a MINUTE
few exceptions, we are talking about the education of MALE human
beings here. The education of females for anything but "gentle
occupations" is an incredibly recent development in human
society. And the WIDESPREAD education of females for unlimited
vocational possibilites is of the past 50 years at most. There
may have been other forms of education
in feminine tradition down through the ages, but it is not what
has been taught in colleges, traditionally.
As far as "taking the child as it is?"
(see above), we really can't afford to do that. In a way, that
is exactly what Ahrimanic Education does. It says "what
you see is what you get". There is the Genetic Blueprint
- Set in Stone. You can only better or worsen it so far. You
can test it, examine it by various means, medical, psychological,
sociological and determine the worth and capacities of each individual
at a very young age. After that, it's all just training to make
him or her fit into the most appropriate slot in society. And
if there are problems in behavior or cognition, our best scientific
minds will come up with drugs, behavior
modification techniques and discipline systems to help "make
it fit". If all that still doesn't work, well, there is
always the Army or prison.
My father, a military man ended his life riddled
by cancer and in an advanced stage of Parkinson's Disease. I
saw him LITERALLY TURNED TO STONE. And I remember my mother saying
that the doctors' primary theory is that the cause was
SOMETHING (they were not really sure WHAT, perhaps
a virus, but Something that enters a person's system at around
FIVE YEARS OLD!!!!! Do you GET that??? Something that enters
the human being at around 5 years old that can literally turn
him or her into STONE.
Go get out your Grimms - how many fairy tales
can you find where people are turned to stone?? Any bells ringing
yet?
By the way, has ANYONE read my articles on
Waldorf Education posted on both group sites? I uploaded a new
one "Religion in the Waldorf School" which I think
introduces the concept of pre-natal existence to Waldorf Parents
pretty well. I don't think that anyone on this planet has read
it yet, though. Want to be the first?
Christine
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From: winters_diana
Date: Sat Jan 17, 2004 6:12 am
Subject: Re: The Tabla Rosa
Christine,
Everything that the individual can be and
will be is already imprinted, laid out, Set in Stone!!! The Genetic
Code determines all.
This is a bit of oversimplification, don't
you think? Geneticists do not say, "The genetic code determines
all."
I uploaded a new one "Religion in
the Waldorf School" which I think introduces the concept
of pre-natal existence to Waldorf Parents pretty well. I don't
think that anyone on this planet has read it yet, though. Want
to be the first?
Christine, I gotta get away from this Ahrimanic
device I have spent the past 2 hours sitting at :) but perhaps
I will try this weekend to be among the first on the planet to
read your article. Thanks, I enjoy your contributions.
Diana
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From: holderlin66
Date: Sat Jan 17, 2004 11:03 am
Subject: Re: The Tabla Rosa
--- In [email protected],
golden3000997 wrote:
I was gently correcting you, Bradford in
your using the wrong words to begin your thesis with. They were
so wrong, that I was trying to take them as you wrote them and
find meaning in them, and I did. But the words you used were
almost polar opposite from what you were intending to say.
Now, today, education theory, inspired
by Ahriman, contradicts the concept of the Tabula Rasa, the Blank
Slate yet corrupts the meaning and reality of Pre-Natal existence.
In Ahrimanic education, the soul is still "blank" at
conception and birth, but the BODY is not. The Physical Body
contains the Blueprint - the DNA.
Bradford thinks, reeeall hard;
As for as I know, Ahriman is still trying
to locate the Soul. There is a new film out called "21 grams"..you
know the old idea about weighing the body before and after death?
If it weighs less, (21 grams) Jeff Foxworthy might say, "You
may have a soul". I think the jury is still out on Soul.
It is a beautiful, old, rustic, poetic word and one which is
quaint to sink and immerse ourselves in. As the dictionary describes
Francis Bacon.
Im*merse"\, a. [L. immersus, p. p. of
immergere. See {Immerge}.]
Immersed; buried; hid; sunk. [Obs.] ``Things immerse in matter.''
--Bacon.
http://www.indiewire.com/movies/movies_030908grams.html
Couch Potatoe is a good word for Soul. Sort
of a Vegetative lump of unwritten DNA, or as you said so wisely
Christine, My Genes made me do it! Fate, Matter has me by the
short hairs. I am a Pre-determined bio-carbon mass of jingling
wires and tendons. As Paul Harvey would say, now you know the
rest of the story.
Locked down cloning codes (not to be confused
with Locke) will cement the material 'Kid' into a form fitting
concrete overcoat he can't get out of. I hope you understand
my Socraticness, his Royal Socraticness, and I took yours the
way you took mine. I thought it nice to ask some simple questions.
And as usual I loved your uptake. As I would accuse you of, and
I'm sorry to have to bring it to you this way, Christine, but
you are quick on the uptake. There I said it.
Hardwiring is a nice term. Genetic and DNA
coded hardwired imperatives that determine as in determinism,
as in Fate, as in Allah made me do it or the Bible is a lump
of 2004 year old oatmeal that one should eat while young in a
trailer park, so that Goodness and Mercy shall follow you all
the days of your dumb a-- loaded down life.
21 grams of squeezed out Soul vapor,might
be some sort of gas that escapes, some say it smells like Roses,
some like a friggin out house. The thing I like about AT is addressing
the terms of our Time and not losing a hair of Michael School
boon.
The song quoted by our now departed Zappa
was simply, simply brilliant. Who would a thought that we could
catch up to our poets and turn in our Time Cards for Spiritual
Science with overtime. Accrued Interest on the initial investments,
and we have guys/gals who can see it, talk, walk and make such
entrenched boo-hoos in Ahriman's closet, almost wish they were
us. For this is not your parents dogma zone!
Now, don't you think that what goes out in
vapor is exactly what Dr. Steiner said goes into the Child as
embryo investment? In otherwords, by the logic of it, if 21 grams
goes out, 21 grams went in..Or..if there were 24 grams going
out, did that blubbering chunk of DNA gain something or lose
something? Is it better to weigh less when coming in or less
when going out? Questions - Questions - Questions.
Which brings me to Fifth Grade Egyptian drawings.
As you may remember Christine!!!! I have it on good authority
that you do remember, how Steiner thought it wise to make our
own books and drawings instead of just following the ready to
wear, mass produced idea of Pyramid national geographic color
shots - which are all so well done you know -, or, to my point,
MAAT. The Egyptian goddess MAAT.
But Comenius was a sincere soul and like Bacon,
set the ground rules for the education that we prize today. I
may have to pull out Comenius to let those who claim standardization
and pentium processed brain matter is just dandy.
How much does the Soul weigh when it vacates
the body and what the hell were these Egyptians Thinking? I think
things like this should not be taught in school, unless the children
can see a cadaver up close and personal and weigh it before and
aftewards. That is why Old people should come in and read fairy
stories to children, you never know when a perfect example of
croaking might reveal a major scientific discovery?
What good is Picture Consciousness, accept
as a little side issue of being able to Read or get a job at
DreamWorks? I think Socratic method is much different than dogma.
I mean anyone can play the fun and rewarding game, called "Steiner
Says stand on your head" - "Steiner Says, don't be
an Initiate when you tie your shoes or stand on one foot"
- "Weigh the soul as it comes out of the body" - Ah-ha,
I didn't say "Steiner Says".
So as Clint Eastwood would say, "The
question you should be asking yourself is, do you weigh more,
or do you weigh less when you leave your body?" Our mutual
many sided discussion on Tabula Rasa clearly is a subject by
which much pivots. Determinism and building pre-fab housing out
of the cast off lower ego fragments, to secure, medicate and
keep the nasty little bugger of Soul or 21 grams of sheer psychological
disturbance from wrecking whole neighborhoods, must be Ahriman's
job 1. Gotcha! I didn't Say "Steiner Says".
But what I am holding off for a later run,
is walking through the Curriculum as a support to the scaffolding
of the unfolding inner forces of physical, etheric, astral and
higher level I AM seating..Seating of Teeth, Seating of the I
AM on the journey of a Waldorf Model Educational system. So,
do I think Tabula Rasa is a dead issue? No. I think it is the
key issue and it is good to view it from several different angles.
But that is my NSHO.
Thanks again, you late night rocker, golden
mad, Christine.
...................................................................................................................................
From: golden3000997
Date: Sat Jan 17, 2004 6:17 am
Subject: Re: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Re: The Tabla Rosa
Dear Ms. Winters,
Please be so good as to read the article that
I have written and posted on our group site in the folder "Christine".
It is called "The Waldorf Approach to Reading" and
I think it will give you a bit different picture of what Waldorf
Education can accomplish in terms of real literacy.
Thank you.
Christine
...................................................................................................................................
From: golden3000997
Date: Sat Jan 17, 2004 12:39 pm
Subject: Reply to Bradford - I think
Bradford writes:
Subj: [anthroposophy_tomorrow] Re: The Tabla
Rosa
Date: 1/17/2004 2:27:10 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: holderlin66
--- In [email protected],
(ME) (From Before)
golden3000997@c... wrote:
I was gently correcting you, Bradford in
your using the wrong words to begin your thesis with. They were
so wrong, that I was trying to take them as you wrote them and
find meaning in them, and I did. But the words you used were
almost polar opposite from what you were intending to say.
Now, today, education theory, inspired
by Ahriman, contradicts the concept of the Tabula Rasa, the Blank
Slate yet corrupts the meaning and reality of Pre-Natal existence.
In Ahrimanic education, the soul is still "blank" at
conception and birth, but the BODY is not. The Physical Body
contains the Blueprint - the DNA.
(HIM)
Bradford thinks, reeeall hard;
As for as I know, Ahriman is still trying
to locate the Soul. There is a new film out called "21 grams"..you
know the old idea about weighing the body before and after death?
If it weighs less, (21 grams) Jeff Foxworthy might say, "You
may have a soul". I think the jury is still out on Soul.
It is a beautiful, old, rustic, poetic word and one which is
quaint to sink and immerse ourselves in. As the dictionary describes
Francis Bacon.
(ME)
Well, if he can't find it, maybe it's because
it is BLANK!!
(HIM)
Im*merse"\, a. [L. immersus, p. p.
of immergere. See {Immerge}.]
Immersed; buried; hid; sunk. [Obs.] ``Things immerse in matter.''
--Bacon.
http://www.indiewire.com/movies/movies_030908grams.html
Couch Potatoe is a good word for Soul.
Sort of a Vegetative lump of unwritten DNA, or as you said so
wisely Christine, My Genes made me do it! Fate, Matter has me
by the short hairs. I am a Pre-determined bio-carbon mass of
jingling wires and tendons. As Paul Harvey would say, now you
know the rest of the story.
(ME)
The above paragraph, I don't get at all. Are
you being facetious with your definition of "soul"?
The way I understand it, the "Soul"
is what arises in the interaction between the "Ego"
or "Spirit" or "Individuality" of the person
and a physical body on earth. The way I understand it, it is
something which lives, moves and develops. The way I understand
it, we "see" the soul of a person in its Expression
- the way the person walks, talks, looks, laughs, cries, makes
music, makes love, makes money, even! The way I understand it,
the Soul exists only in Time - like Music.
It is not static, like a painting, drawing or sculpture. It is
not measureable by weight or number, except as we measure Time
on earth. We can say "That soul lived on earth from 1927
to 1972." We can say "That soul produced paintings
from 1456 to 1499." But we can't say "That soul weighs
21 grams." If the soul had weight, even 21 grams worth,
it would then have a "place". It would exist in Space,
not Time. Its' MANIFESTATIONS exist in Space, but it's REALITY
exists in Time. It is a continuous blip on the Space/Time continuum
and it disappears from the Space Time continuum at death. At
Death, that which it has developed that is compatible with the
Spiritual World goes on with the Spirit or "I" of the
Individual. That which is compatible only with earth matter
and earth forces "dies" - becomes one
with the earth. The MANIFESTATIONS or EXPRESSIONS of the Soul
that are compatible with Humanity live on in the "Souls"
of Humanity living in the Space/ Time continuum.
To help the "Soul" of a child in
Education is to respect and honor the way it Expresses the Eternal
Individuality of the Child and any MANIFESTATION that it expresses
of that Eternal "I" which carries everything that has
remained of former Souls that was compatible with Spirit and
therefore able to be brought forward again. To try to "examine"
the Soul of the Child in a prurient desire for spiritual titillation
as I understand Ms. Winters to suggest, would be wrong on many
levels and an abuse of spiritual knowledge. To allow the Child
to manifest itself while, as I have said before, giving him or
her appropriate Forms of expression and appropriate social boundaries
of behavior, is to honor and support the continuing development
of the Soul in the present Body.
(HIM)
Locked down cloning codes (not to be confused
with Locke) will cement the material 'Kid' into a form fitting
concrete overcoat he can't get out of. I hope you understand
my Socraticness, his Royal Socraticness, and I took yours the
way you took mine. I thought it nice to ask some simple questions.
And as usual I loved your uptake. As I would accuse you of, and
I'm sorry to have to bring it to you this way, Christine, but
you are quick on the uptake. There I said it.
(ME)
What are you accusing me of, exactly? Being
too "quick" in my uptake? Or being so quick that I
am prone to error? If the latter, then please criticize the errors,
not the speed of delivery. I would probably make the same errors
slowly.
(HIM)
Hardwiring is a nice term. Genetic and
DNA coded hardwired imperatives that determine as in determinism,
as in Fate, as in Allah made me do it or the Bible is a lump
of 2004 year old oatmeal that one should eat while young in a
trailer park, so that Goodness and Mercy shall follow you all
the days of your dumb a-- loaded down life.
21 grams of squeezed out Soul vapor,might
be some sort of gas that escapes, some say it smells like Roses,
some like a friggin out house. The thing I like about AT is addressing
the terms of our Time and not losing a hair of Michael School
boon.
The song quoted by our now departed Zappa
was simply, simply brilliant. Who would a thought that we could
catch up to our poets and turn in our Time Cards for Spiritual
Science with overtime. Accrued Interest on the initial investments,
and we have guys/gals who can see it, talk, walk and make such
entrenched boo-hoos in Ahriman's closet, almost wish they were
us. For this is not your parents dogma zone!
Now, don't you think that what goes out
in vapor is exactly what Dr. Steiner said goes into the Child
as embryo investment? In otherwords, by the logic of it, if 21
grams goes out, 21 grams went in..Or..if there were 24 grams
going out, did that blubbering chunk of DNA gain something or
lose something? Is it better to weigh less when coming in or
less when going out? Questions - Questions - Questions.
(ME)
What'choo talkin' 'bout Willis? Talk about
quick on the uptake! Somebody put extra batteries in YOUR Bunny
today!
(HIM)
Which brings me to Fifth Grade Egyptian
drawings. As you may remember Christine!!!! I have it on good
authority that you do remember, how Steiner thought it wise to
make our own books and drawings instead of just following the
ready to wear, mass produced idea of Pyramid national geographic
color shots - which are all so well done you know -, or, to my
point, MAAT. The Egyptian goddess MAAT.
But Comenius was a sincere soul and like
Bacon, set the ground rules for the education that we prize today.
I may have to pull out Comenius to let those who claim standardization
and pentium processed brain matter is just dandy.
How much does the Soul weigh when it vacates
the body and what the hell were these Egyptians Thinking? I think
things like this should not be taught in school, unless the children
can see a cadaver up close and personal and weigh it before and
aftewards. That is why Old people should come in and read fairy
stories to children, you never know when a perfect example of
croaking might reveal a major scientific discovery?
(ME)
Does this stuff have to do with our "Tabula
Rasa" discussion, or are you making some sort of reference
to my article on reading? If it's about the article, I didn't
say children should REMAIN in a Picture Conciousness!! I said
that it was a necessary developmental step toward good, fluid
abstract literacy.
(HIM)
What good is Picture Consciousness, accept
as a little side issue of being able to Read or get a job at
DreamWorks? I think Socratic method is much different than dogma.
I mean anyone can play the fun and rewarding game, called "Steiner
Says stand on your head" - "Steiner Says, don't be
an Initiate when you tie your shoes or stand on one foot"
- "Weigh the soul as it comes out of the body" - Ah-ha,
I didn't say "Steiner Says".
So as Clint Eastwood would say, "The
question you should be asking yourself is, do you weigh more,
or do you weigh less when you leave your body?" Our mutual
many sided discussion on Tabula Rasa clearly is a subject by
which much pivots. Determinism and building pre-fab housing out
of the cast off lower ego fragments, to secure, medicate and
keep the nasty little bugger of Soul or 21 grams of sheer psychological
disturbance from wrecking whole neighborhoods, must be Ahriman's
job 1. Gotcha! I didn't Say "Steiner Says".
(ME)
You know, Bradford, it's Saturday, I think
you should just have a beer and watch some football on TV. You
need to chill.
(HIM)
But what I am holding off for a later run,
is walking through the Curriculum as a support to the scaffolding
of the unfolding inner forces of physical, etheric, astral and
higher level I AM seating..Seating of Teeth, Seating of the I
AM on the journey of a Waldorf Model Educational system. So,
do I think Tabula Rasa is a dead issue? No. I think it is the
key issue and it is good to view it from several different angles.
But that is my NSHO.
(ME)
Um, could you just possibly, just this once,
simply admit that you made a spelling boo-boo?
(HIM)
Thanks again, you late night rocker, golden
mad, Christine.
(ME)
No problem, I already told you I don't have
a life!
...................................................................................................................................
From: holderlin66
Date: Sat Jan 17, 2004 5:37 pm
Subject: Bradford - (what) I think
--- In [email protected],
golden3000997 wrote:
(ME)
The above paragraph, I don't get at all.
Are you being facetious with your definition of "soul"?
Bradford responds;
I was not only being facetious I am knocked
off my rocking horse by what people consider SOUL and that they
dare to grin and laugh at us when we attempt to make education
and the development of the child REAL.
How rich it is to explore, draw, and tell
the tale of MAAT. The weigher of Souls. How rich and wonderful
it is for Waldorf students to create their own books, work on
painting, colored pencils and writing, rather than getting spoon
fed serial photos and stale ideas. There was MAAT and whole chunks
of humanity truly held MAAT - The weigher of Soul - The Jusitice
Scales, LibRA and the SCales of Justice in the Stars...as something
REAL. For Them, back then.
Imagine the idea of NUT - a FEmale who changes
form and position but actully spends her time in a kind of gymnastic
position and the stars are her body. Do we, I know we do, but
how can anyone not see how en-SOULed and potent becomes the sky
when we look up at it and find all the stars. Would this inspire
a future astronomer to love the Stars. Yes, and the seed is planted
right then and there. Sometimes you are right on the spot when
a wonder and awe tilts the souls, as if they have discovered
something of their lost selves.
There is much that research, science, public
school textbooks have that become even richer in the hands of
a good Waldorf Teacher. But most important, is how the child
discovers, lives into the Main Lesson or Specialty classes. What
they bring, watching them learn to shape, beautify and dignify
their pages. Watching how a Waldorf student matures into geometry
and is able to draw with such confidence and hold ideas in their
hands, their hearts and their minds.
Something meets the hidden ground of a child
when you speak about MAAT, who weighs the souls of the Dead.
We pause sometimes to consider what Doctors around Rembrandt's
time tried to think about the soul and we compare that to Egypt.
Just asking and looking at reality and how questions are brought.
Perhaps a favorite pet had just died and we imagine its journey
to the world of Maat and we imagine together how good and loyal
and wonderful was such a lost and treasured pet. Look you there,
Tweetie bird sitting on MAAT old feather.
What is a soul? Ah, the intitial question
might arise do animals have souls? Already the world tells us
one thing, but what do they have deep down inside of them? The
Waldorf Teacher poses questions. And their answers are their
answers, not good not bad, just allowed to hold the concept for
a split second and look at it. Sometimes the silence is richer
than anything we could express.
When they get dressed in Norse costumes and
struggle to play Odhin or Loki or Fenrir...they bring things
to the unfolding picture of how humanity has asked about Creation?
What powers are in creation? The Norse may have done one thing
and the Hindu's may have another.
Ah, are there patterns to both of them? Why
can the human form be measured exactly by the hand size going
exactly three times up the arm and the foot size going exactly
four times up the leg? Riddles, wonders and questions, mostly
integrated and brought into balance.
I brought an actual Wolf into my classroom
to show my students what a Wolf was, felt and looked like along
with our study of Rome. Wolves are big, they are not small. It
could bound in three steps the length of the room. Now, let us
see if the wolf will let us draw this specific wolf or is it
restless? A man in the park I met, while doing this block, had
a damned Wolf on leash, fairly tame. But it wasn't no little
puppy dog.
The student isn't a Tabula Rosa, the student
brings emotion, observation, warmth, beauty and SOUL out of its
deep inward self. These weave themselves, with color, song, math,
music and harmony into the Soul and Spirit foundations that the
child brought with them when they incarnated. Is incarnation
such a bad word? Do we have to run and hide from the word incarnation?
That something is brought with the child that now borrows the
one of a kind, form fitting, voice, bone, bright eyes of heredity
to discover what it really thinks, what does it/she/he want to
become?
Pardon me, but I consider people who fail
to see the eye to eye, and heart to heart relationship of an
Adult - an Adult who looks into the wide vistas of the World
and Paints, writes Poems, reveals stunning chalk drawings, enters
the mysteries of math and reveals patterns in numbers and meanings
in numbers and connects all the disconnected scattered ideas
and says, This Is a sample of an I AM. What shall you bring?
I consider such female/male representatives gardners of the SOUL
and Caretakers of the Spiritual.
And that dear friends is part of the rest
of the story.
...................................................................................................................................
From: holderlin66
Date: Sun Jan 18, 2004 5:39 pm
Subject: Tabla Rosa/ Tabula Rasa
--- In [email protected],
holderlin66 wrote:
Bradford discussed;
Why do we bring third graders into the
Etheric/Light and Biblical tales, even tales of the Saints? Why
would we RE-COLLECT the fragments of the Ether of civilization,
where all humnaity have their roots? And so the Curriculum of
Waldorf unfolds a tale of humanity and the child unfolds as it
begins restoring what it might have experienced in earlier culture
epochs.
Because the blueprints of the Tabula Rasa
are massive memory imprints in the ether that are also carried
in the progressive stream of human development.
Bradford continues;
Now lets open the Tabula Rasa argument up
wider and reveal its hidden sources. Since we don't pretend to
be Initiates we need to see the full value of what a Christian
Scientist thinks about the Waldorf methodology, or anyone for
that matter. There are justified Intellectual Soul complaints,
as Mike has clearly indicated. The Intellectual Soul or Rational
Soul, (not enough self knowledge in Critics to understand the
dangers of thinking the Universe is completed in the Intellectual
Soul, too much pride and mistaking cunning and cleverness for
the healthy capacity of the Intellectual SOUL) Certain things
rub Waldorf Critics the wrong way. That is understandable.
So where are the roots of the discussion on
Tabula Rasa? We are in the roots of the discussion but that doesn't
mean that the prejudicial antagonism in the intellectual soul
don't play a part. These complaints do play a part. The roots
of the discussion start right here and in the previous threads
of this topic. It originates in Socrates and Plato and is continued
in Locke. The discussion of the Tabula Rasa are part of the foundations
of what Plato and Socrates tried to indicate when the spiritual
world was closer than it is in today's Intellectual Climate.
Has Steiner modelled an educational process
that promotes the pro and con arguments that follow? Yes. Has
Steiner made a Science of the unfolding Etheric Body so that
we can see what the Soul/Spirit brings with it to the hereditary
stream? Yes. Is it a perfectly running system? Of course Not.
Is the model built upon Reality? More than any educational system
has ever attempted. All of Spiritual Science allows all that
Baconian Science brings, to Flower in the Spirit. Science like
our intellects cannot see themselves or what humanity is attempting
to grow towards. Spiritucal Science adds what is missing in Materialistic
Science and completes it.
In other words, we hold in our minds eye the
numbers of hundreds of thousands of souls that participated in
the ancient cultural epochs, who went to their kind of church
everyday, that had household altars, that studied in China -
In INdia; Felt warmed by the Courage of the Norse; Experienced
the dualism of Persia; Experienced Greek and Roman civilization;
Walked with Moses; Felt the wonders of the Stars in NUT and the
weighing of the SOUL and the after life in ancient Egypt. They
felt the stir of the Renaissance, as pictures of Leonardo and
Giotto and Raphael blew the doors off of "Picture This".
Even gassed WWI trench warriors are coming back. All of them
US.
Just common, shared and felt cultural experiences.
We could point out with incarnational clarity how Kepler had
expereinced the wonders of NUT, and these could be traced very
far back in time. But rather than start there, lets start at
the real expressed pros and cons that truly deal with Memory,
ReCOLLECTING and reawakening experience that million upon millions
of souls shared.
Real Arguments are justified as
a sample of them appears. We hope you know how to connect
to a two line address.
"Josh Wingenbach Sun,
Jan 12, 2003 8:25 PM (#1 of 10)
Socrates felt that knowledge
is like this analogy of mine: All knowledge and truth is in an
eternal realm like a giant ball of gasseous knowledge that everything
is at one time part of. After we are born we leave this realm
of knowledge and are still a part of the whole, but disconnected
with it. We then must remember everything as though we have amnesia.
One thing that I am not completely
sure on is the relation he makes to past lives or reincarnation.
If he sees truth as stemming from the previous this somewhat
opposes reincarnation. If we are to gain knowledge through reincarnation,
meaning we learn different things in different lives and have
to recall what we learned and learn more in the next, then this
seems to say truth is experience.
I do not agree with him completely,
depending upon my momentary outlook. Right now I feel as though
the slave could answer the mathematical problems because all
complicated things are comprised of simple things that lead up
to them. If someone has a basic understanding, then they can
be explained told how to do a complicated task by relating it
to something similar or by using general terms."
*******************************************
"Socrates believes or
at least intuit's that the the truth is within. Is this inner-truth
what I experience when I have an epiphany. When I'm reading something
that "rings true" and I go "Ah-Ha!" or "Eureka"
or "Holy Shit!" Is not that the greatest feeling, when
all of the sudden things make sence, the fog lifts, and it seems
to be that when this happens it is not some brand new idea that
you've never thought about before, at least with me it's not.
For me it is more of something being put in such a way, in a
context, that makes things make sence. Loose ends of the brain
suddenly tied together. Unresolved questions, unknot themselves
and sunshine is allowed in once again. At times like this I feel
the truth inside my self and the Truth in the world are finally
getting to connect because my brain has tuned itself correctly
so as to allow this to happen. Its not in our awareness, but
in our interpretation.
We get told a great many things
when we grow up about what is wrong, what is right. These things
are true, these are not, they say, and we nod our heads, and
write it in the space provided, and mark the correct circle with
a #2 pencil, being sure not to erase and sticking with the first
answer that comes to mind, because it is usually right, don't
stress, relax, its only the SAT's and only your entire academic
career on the line; there are five answers to choose from and
ONLY ONE OF THEM IS RIGHT. We get information from our parents
our priests our teachers our police officers our girlfriends
our elders. We get it from scientists, philosophers, acedemics,
commercials, poloticians and prophets. All of this is shoved
at us from every conceivable direction from day one. No wonder
are brains are muddled.
"The Truth is out There"
That's why we spend so much money on books and education and
more books and have teachers and preachers and therepists. The
Buddha has a little smirk on his face, as he sits there not complaining
about his ass getting numb, cause he's gotten his brain out of
the way and is enjoying his inner truth while people argue all
around him about the nature of reality. A guy from 874 (B.C.
or A.D. I have no idea) named Abu Yazid Al-Bistami said "This
thing that we tell of can never be found by seeking, yet only
seekers find it." You look and you look and you look. You
exhaust all possiblities and yourself and you were carrying it
around inside of you the whole time."
*******************************************
"I don't believe that
our souls know everything and we are just remembering what our
souls have experienced in the past, and our teachers are not
actually teachers at all, they are just tools to help us remember.
If this were true then people wouldn't be the individuals they
claim to be. And if this were also true, explain to me my inability
to grasp certain concepts on various subjects.
What I do believe is that
people think and come up with knowledge on their own. This is
why we have the technology and conveniences today and not 500
years ago. We take what other people have learned during their
lifetime and combine their knowledge with our own to make these
great inventions.
There are a few especially
gifted people out in the world who see more and comprehend more
than most average people, but this is not because they remember,
because if they remember then these thoughts have happened before
and they would not be unique to the person having them now. These
gifted people have a different way of thinking and comprehension
that surpasses us and this is why they excel and come up with
new inventions and theories."
*******************************************
anthony mckittrick (aj) Tue,
Jan 14, 2003 3:49 PM (#4 of 10) Socrates and what he feels as
knowledge are extremely different to the a-typical understanding
I have of the subject. Superficially I back up the modern dictionary
statement of knowledge being of understanding and comprehension,
granted thus far in my account Socrates would probably go for
this, it is on the subject. The key issue is how we learn not
what.
Socrates delivers knowledge
like a "midwife" when considering Plato's story about
the interaction that took place with Meno's boy slave. Socrates
prepares the questions prior to his asking with precision in
which he prompts the boy, urging him onward to recall prior questions
he asked in order for the boy to answer the question at hand.
The issue Socrates pushes is that of the human ability of recollection,
using this experiment concerning the mathematical approach, which
is argued to be `more' absolute than other approaches in terms
of having set limits and very defined answers, Socrates tries
to promote his idea to Meno.
Now, whether or not recollection
due to Socrates' belief of everything known at birth and the
only barrier to infinite knowledge is that of unlocking your
potential is neither right nor wrong. This is seen in the light
of trying to prove or disprove it, which is highly unlikely in
both cases. Socrates, one might say, foolhardily urges Meno to
see things his way, and trying to prove something as complex
as virtue and knowledge through recollection in something universal
in order to prove his point…he unfortunately for me, used
math.
Socrates and his universal
truth is the underlying scheme for such a choice as using math
for his idea as well as a slave boy. Nonetheless did the slave
understand what Socrates was trying to show him than do I understand
glacial motion. In my opinion, Socrates uses blatantly simple
directions that show the boy the correct answer, granted simple
questions help simplify problems. Yes, or no questions leave
a 50/50 chance of being right. Give me those odds everyday and
I'd consider myself a lucky guy!
Moreover on the yes or no
leading questions I think math and a slave are of an interesting
choice of subject matter. When I think of a slave I equate lack
of education when considering math, let alone geometry in which
Socrates uses. Socrates seems to understand the concept, but
who knows how well and deep his knowledge really runs in trying
to prod the boy in answering. Socrates for his day may have been
a genius by the days standards and possibly by today's standards,
however, who really knows how well his math helped lead him to
ultimate truths when numbers were not as widely and deeply studied
as they are today.
Socrates from my interpretation,
and I'm not a literary critique, is of a person truly in the
pursuit of universal answers to some of life's simplest questions.
In doing so, interesting points and arguments on both right and
wrong issues are brought to attention and he does extremely well
in delving into both sides.
*******************************************
Lucas "Patso" Logan
Tue, Jan 14, 2003 9:03 PM (#5 of 10)
I think we are avoiding the
question. Or else I am just not understanding everyone's points.
The origin of "truth"seemed
to be answered in the discussion on Monday. Socrates' experiment
with the slave is used to prove that the "truth" lies
deep within eveyone. That there is something deep within us all
that connects us to ultimate reality. However, the presence and/or
knowledge of the truth is absent in the majority of the human
race. It is the ability to exploit the ultimate reality that
is the real test. However, not the question I am going to(pardon
the football slang) tackle right now. But I must go off course
and first state an answer to the question(also in Monday's discussion)
to "Did Socrates prove that the truth lies within everyone,
whether they know it or not, in the slave experiment?
I believe that he did not
prove his theory. He took a slave and asked yes or no questions.
Any monkey can act like they understand what is being explained
to them. Socrates does open a door to seek further knowledge
by pointing out misconceptions to the slave but at no point does
he prove that the slave knew the answers therefore the knowledge
was hidden and needed to be (for lack of a better word) ignited
by a teacher. He did not prove, with a geometric problem, that
that each and every individual of the human race has the ultimate
reality stored deep within them. He might have proven to himself,
or Meno, that he is able to teach math to anyone he choses. He
did not prove that in the human race there exists a deep connection
to the "truth" in everyone that grants them the opportunity
to become virteous. All in all, it was an piss poor example pulled
out of the ass of a stubborn "temporary sophist" used
to confuse the mind of an intellectually inferior gentlemen."
Bradford concludes;
Intelligence is a fine thing, but inability
to re-COGNIZE, understand and RE-COLLECT the depth of these arguments
that enter into Locke and Comenius, Bacon, Socrates and Plato
and merely standing there pointing at Something so novel and
incredible, as Touching into nooks and crannies of the previous
holy, tragic, life changing and Destiny Awakening experienes
of the entire scroll of mankind, reveals a dried up Intellectual
Soul experience. Individual Souls bring with them Individual
experiences just as we can concretely point to "The Youth
of Nain son of the Widow" and connect his coma directly
to an Initation experience he had in Egypt.
Most Waldorf Students come through richer,
more saturated and with rich certainty that they can restore
the missing pieces of their humanity. They can grasp the ideals
of humanity. We now have before us a model of the physical, etheric,
astral and higher self Seating of the Personality that not even
Socrates could have completed.
So, another Clint Eastwood question: You have
to ask yourselves, did Steiner take all that the Great Socrates
and Plato attempted to do and bring it into workable form? Better
than anyone has yet dared to think. But still, I know, we prefer
to admire smaller minds, but it can be shown just how big this
mighty Science of Etheric, Astral, Ego development is and how
it contributes and helps Science flower into its own highest
intentions. Steiner builds on humanites highest contributions
and brings to Flower, intentions in Science that could hardly
have been thought without Steiner.
Bradford
...................................................................................................................................
From: holderlin66
Date: Mon Jan 19, 2004 1:55 pm
Subject: Hebdomad
"The paradox of anthroposophy
resides in the fact that something that is in reality a myth
of the second order is proclaimed in the name of science."
Bradford comments;
What we have estabished thus far is that Locke,
Socrates, Plato and Comenius have contributed to models of education.
What makes Waldorf different in theory, is that Socrates tried
to establish the idea that Truth, and the substance of Truth
is something that we have come from. i.e. a Spiritual World.
That indeed we carry the navigational equipment to understand
Truth because we have lived and are even made of the substance
of Truth.
It is verified in countless ways, that when
the soul has had a brush with death, a brush with the threshold
of the spiritusl world, a loosening of the etheric body takes
place. This loosening of the etheric body was part of immersing
and nearly drowning people in Rivers, as the John the Baptist
experience has taught. The etheric would suddenly be loosened
and one would see the Scroll of our life before our eyes and
understand some of the secrets of biography.
There by in many different instances one could
say that one has an Etheric body and that we bring with us various
individualized experiences as well as 'a chip off the ole block'
of the Etheric HUmanized Christ Being, that is in the little
children. Suffer the little children for they are integrating,
with Christ's help, their Etheric bodies into the steam of matter.
(Unlike his model, Comenius, Steiner also
subdivides each hebdomad into three further sections of two years
each.)
Johannes Amos Comenius (1592-1670) regards
the plants to the education, virtue and Froemmigkeit as innate,
which are however only unfolded by the education. The task comes
to the education to obtain according to the entwicklungsstufen
of the child these first bases from knowledge to.
Comenius developed first the tasks and the
structure of a uniform educational system and derived from this
the requirements and the concept of the nut/mother school. It
recommends mothers during the first 6 lebensjahre, the mental
and mental development of their children on the areas of the
understanding, to the work, the arts, the language, to promote
the custom and virtues and the religion.
The meaning Comenius for the development of
the infant drawing lies in it that it submitted a scientifically
justified concept as the first, the all-round promotion of the
child covered. However its influence on the Kleinkindpaedagogik
remained small, since its writings came to a large extent due
to the 30jaehrigen of war into oblivion.
WHAT IS A HEBDOMAD?
Hebdomad, Heptagon, September.] One more than
six; six and one added; as, seven days make one week. Seven sciences.
See the Note under Science, n., 4. -- Seven stars (Astron.),
the Pleiades. -- Seven wonders of the world. See under Wonders.
-- Seven-year apple (Bot.), a rubiaceous shrub (Genipa clusiifolia)
growing in the West Indies; also, its edible fruit. -- Seven-year
vine (Bot.), a tropical climbing plant (Ipom&oe;a tuberosa)
related to the morning-glory.
[weblink]
Thus each individual has a
spiritual nucleus which comes down before birth from the spiritual
worlds to unite with the physical and mental envelope; at death,
it detaches itself from man to be manifested again in his next
life on earth. In the next reincarnation, and as a consequence
of karma, i.e. the interweaving of successive human lives, the
soul picks up on its thread of activity from the previous life.
Steiner sees Karma as a question of individual development and
thus follows up on the ideas first voiced by the German idealist
E.G. Lessing. In Steiner's anthroposophy, the law of reincarnation
leads to a fundamentally changed understanding of death and birth,
of historic and social experience.
In the newborn infant, the
parents encounter a primeval individual being with unknown dispositions
that it is so far unable to express in its new physical incarnation.
Education becomes an aid to incarnation, to assist and harmonize
the growth of the spiritual being into itsphysical form determined
by genetic and moral factors and defined by karma even before
the act of birth itself.
In Steiner's scheme of things,
the drama of crisis, transformation and rebirth is revealed in
the changing manifestations of the child, following the cosmic
rhythm of seven-year periods. At the end of the first seven years,
the structure of the child's organism has been completed by the
ethereal forces of growth from the tips of the toes to the new
teeth.
These physical growth forces
are now born, i.e. they are metamorphosed into forces of learning;
the child develops its inner senses and is ready forschool.
In the second seven-year period,
astral spiritual forces that are still hidden shape the world
of drives,passions, and feelings. These astral forces are liberated
at sexual maturity and transformed into abilities of conceptual
thinking and human judgement. They help the hidden ego forces
to attain intellectual and social maturity that is achieved with
the birth of the individual personality at the end of the third
period of seven years.
In this perspective, Steiner
therefore understands development in the platonic sense as a
strictly successive process of upward movement. First the outer
senses are formed by active imitation, and then the inner senses
are formed by imitative imagination.
Following this, the categories
of reason are developed through personal thought, while the ideas
of the universe are finally reflected in the individual personality.
An eternal spiritual ego moves
down into a new body and shapes it—in a seven-year cycle—from
the head via the heart to the hands. When the third seven-year
period begins, this spiritual ego will have taken over the whole
body down to its extremities. The spiritualization of the soul
and conceptual world can now begin.
Like the premises themselves,
the temporal dimension of the educational process is also structured
rhythmically. The outlining frame is formed by the seven-year
periods of development, or hebdomads that are marked by the birth
of the new essential forces, e.g. when the adult teeth begin
to grow and sexual maturity is reached.
As we have already seen, education
during each of the seven-year periods is addressed to a different
part of the personality of the pupil, moving as it were from
the outside inwards. Each seven-year period is dominated by a
different method of learning and teaching, from the external
activity of imitation via the internal process of emulation to
formal and abstract independent thinking.
From the seventh school year
onwards, starting out from the world of solid matter, a gradual
introduction is made to the abstract causal- analytical dominant
knowledge of modern physics. Natural scientific training in the
Rudolf Steiner school is thus all-round environmental education.
It attempts to keep the bond between man and nature alive in
pupils for as long as possible and to restore that bond in their
later thought process through educational knowledge of nature.
...................................................................................................................................
From: holderlin66
Date: Mon Jan 19, 2004 4:29 pm
Subject: Magnificent Tableau and mental midgets
It is very hard, or very humbling to admit
that what Education and the Intellect have brought forward so
far is far more flawed than that which Steiner has built his
house upon.
Steiner did not build his house upon sand.
We have looked into the Tabula Rasa, the scroll, the etheric
body and now we need a sample of "The Life Tableau".
These experiences are all thrust away from
Intellectually clever who arm themselves with left handed and
right handed and utter nonsense, like so many chickens pecking
in the yard. My own Intellect refuses and stubbornly denies facts.
Our failures in thinking are our own errors.
Naturally as spoiled children of the Mind
or Rational Soul, we crave attention and subjective affirmation
that we haven't bought the farm and built our flawed thinking
on a mere foundation of Sand. But the facts are we have built
our foundations on the flawed constructs of science that are
incomplete and fail to meet with reality. You can have whole
clubs, congregations of critics drawn together out of the Church
of the Failed Intellect and all of them remain snivelling cowards.
They are cowards because they choose to avoid confronting their
own limitations in thinking and education.
The Intellect loves to play devils advocate
and place itself as a critic, as the intellect is prone to do,
with a list of complaints against Waldorf Education. The complaints
are sometimes justified in that Teachers and general social conditions
of individuals and a lack of sound education has all of us starting
from a flawed relation to facts. Facts stand right before us
and the mules of the Intellect and the Churchs of the Failed
Intellectual Soul point their fingers, laugh and mock the mountain
of Facts in front of them.
Now the facts are that each human being has
a physical, etheric, astral and I AM structure. The facts are
that in enhancement and metamorphosis the faculty of Toes to
Teeth, the child's Etheric/physical body, frees up forces for
the child to begin to approach the abstract learning of school.
The arguments against Waldorf or Spiritual
Science or Steiner attack the wrong areas of reality. The reality
is that parents and teachers are not familiar with facts. They
have never heard of such facts. While every hospital will tell
you that Near Death Experiences tell the same tale over and over
again to the Doctors and Nurses. That each person immediately
becomes loosened from the physical bodies and steps outside the
genetic determinism projected in the physical body. This genetic
determinism is suddenly loosened, sometimes very dramatically
and the Review of OUR LIfe is suddenly a visual and emotional
calming, and obviously stunningly intimate inner experience that
verges on the Religious.
Now the WC and the rest of the world have
the capacity of Intellect and choose, many times, to throw the
baby out with the bath water. The model that Steiner created
for Education is not some arbitrary indoctrination program. It
is a cooperation with the Living Laws of the Soul/Spirit and
Material World. The laws of the Science of the living human being,
that the pride and infection of the intellect prefers not to
deal with.
Are the teachers flawed? Yes. Are the intellects,
loaded with the pride of their churches, their much prized educational
degrees flawed? Yes. Do they have a grasp of the spectrum and
dimension of thought out, well studied, deeply researched reality
that Steiner attempted in throwing together a Waldorf School
from a cigarette factory? No.
Critics run like scared rabbits and hide behind
nonsense piled upon nonsense and build huge ant hills out of
the mighty rain storm of substance that Steiner delivers. Ants
at least take the effort to dry out the flood and rebuild their
washed out structures.
Sand is Sand and the opinions built on intellectual
Sand and the edifice of Science has become a much prided cancer.
But at least, you might say, it is my cancer and I am proud of
it. I'll just pass this cancerous thinking onto my kids.
Most infantile critic attacks are based on
false assumptions and encounters with their own prejudical pet
beliefs. Projecting their pet beliefs or materialism onto their
children, however diluted and modified remains stuck on the side
of thinking that cannot get through their own limitations.
There are definite Intellectual Soul and Sentient
Soul problems that come with teachers, parents and all of us.
They are nothing to do with the objective integration of gene
theory, heredity and the inception of the soul and spirit that
meets with the gene stream that Steiner presents. These are just
unwanted facts.
The trumphed up accusations against a living
Science of the Human Being and running Steiner down as DD or
PS might tend to do, really reveals an infantile failure to understand
reality. Socrates was correct and Steiner has produced a technically
correct understanding of the Etheric body and the Life Tableau.
Further he unfolded an objective curriculum based on deeply profound
facts of the etheric body.
Now for those who have trouble understanding
the difference between failed science and Intellectual Soul theories,
emotional and sentimental theories that we cling to regarding
the Living Science of the Human Being and that which Science
stops short of revealing, I will give some examples.
No matter how many examples are given, critics
still rest on the flawed content of their own thinking. You can
rant and rave about Racism all you want. You can call the legitamte
Science of Spiritual Science a Cult all you want. Why do objective
thinking individuals need to paddle around in the pathetic examples
of polluted materialistic thinking?
You either have to admit you know nothing
of reality, religion or the secrets of Life or you must kick
and scream at everyone who puts your nose in your own dung. You
can have your Intellectual tantrums and think you are Seeing
Reality all you want. All you are seeing is the intellectually
flawed content of our own soul life.
http://www.doyletics.com/arj/tposervw.htm
"Think of a papaya tree,
but any tropical plant or tree will suffice for this metaphor.
After a freeze, the tree becomes a corpse, its trunk dissolves,
it separates into water and a papery tube as the etheric body
that kept it alive leaves it. The collapsed tube lays on the
ground, a corpse, with no life left in it. If we have removed
the papaya fruit before the freeze, the fruit of the tree can
live to create a new papaya tree in the next season. This is
something we perceive, not something that we would say that we
believe, even though it has the air of the incredible about it
if we think deeply on the subject of how a pea-sized black seed
might grow into an eighteen foot papaya tree in a mere nine months.
"When a human dies, the
body becomes a corpse when the etheric, astral, and Ego bodies
leave it. [During sleep, only the Ego and astral bodies leave
and the etheric and physical bodies remain behind.] Like the
papaya tree, there is only dead tissue and body remnants left
behind; in other words, the physical bodies of the dead papaya
tree and of the dead human both dissolve into the physical body
of Earth.
What is the human equivalent
of the fruit of the papaya, however? Even though humans are more
evolved than papaya trees, there is a human equivalent of the
fruit of the papaya tree. We said the etheric body of the dead
papaya tree is gone, but when we inspect the fruit that we removed
earlier, we find that there is incipient life - an etheric body
- inside of the fruit, a fact that we can easily confirm by planting
its seeds in the Earth and watching it grow. The papaya is simpler
than the human - it has only etheric and physical bodies. The
plant adds an etheric body to the purely physical body of the
mineral. The animal adds an astral body. The human adds an "I"
or Ego body to its astral, etheric and physical bodies. This
represents the condition of minerals, plants, animals, and humans
during the current Earth epoch of evolution.
"With this prologue,
dear Reader, you are ready to read the following passage and
perceive the spiritual realities that infuse your life. Steiner
is describing what happens when one dies. First the etheric,
astral, and Ego bodies leave the physical body with the etheric
and Ego bodies nestled inside of the astral body. Directly one
experiences a memory tableau of one's life for the longest time
that one stayed awake during one's life, about two days for the
average person. In this tableau one sees as in a diorama the
events of one's life spread out before one's eyes all of a piece,
one's life from beginning to end spread out before one. Time
becomes space in the tableau.
[page 2] Then the etheric
body leaves the astral body, in which the ego is living. All
three had been connected from the time they left the physical
corpse, but now the etheric body separates itself from the other
two and becomes an etheric corpse. However, today's human beings
do not lose their etheric body completely but take an extract
or excerpt along with them for all the times to follow. So in
this sense the etheric corpse is cast off, but the fruit of the
last life is carried along by the astral body and by the ego.
If we want to be quite precise, we will have to say that something
is taken along from the physical body as well: a kind of spiritual
abstract of this body - the tincture medieval mystics spoke about.
However, this abstract of the physical being is the same in all
lives; it merely represents the fact that the ego had been embodied.
On the other hand, the essence of the etheric body is different
in all lives, depending on what one has experienced in a life
and on the degree of one's progress in it.
"If one produces fruit
in one's life, then the spiritual economy conserves that fruit
for a later life, similar to the papaya with its seeds. As the
owner of a papaya tree that is very fruitful, a tree that makes
plump and delicious fruit, one would be more likely to plant
the seeds of that papaya than the seeds of papaya trees that
made small, hard, or inedible fruit. This point is best kept
in mind as one reads later about the etheric and astral bodies
of spiritually advanced human beings that are preserved by the
spiritual world for later use in future incarnations. In this
thought lies the essence of what Steiner refers to as spiritual
economy"
http://www.vermontel.com/~vtsophia/fifthgos.htm
After death, the etheric body
expands and slowly disperses into the etheric sphere over a period
of about three days. During this time, like the familiar tales
of the drowning man, the entire life-tableau of the deceased
person passes before the soul's eye, in a series of pictures
in reverse order. A holographic kernel of this life tableau,
as eternal moral memory, remains over to accompany the soul into
kama-loka or purgatory.
In STUDIES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
Valentin Tomberg explains the source of the distinct life of
Christ with an explanation never touched upon by Steiner. He
says that Jesus at His death renounced the vision of His life
tableau. "He gave it up to humanity" and it later became
the content of what the apostles saw in vision during the Pentecost
event. This description gives many very important insights.
First, it explains the "source"
of the "Life of Christ" that the apostles, Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John, used to write down their gospel stories.
A very strong argument has always been made by critics of the
New Testament that how could the apostles write in the gospels
about the passion and crucifixion of Christ if they (except John)
were admittedly, not present to watch these events? This is a
very poignant criticism.
However, at the Pentecost
event, when the Holy Spirit descended, the flame, first raised
the consciousness of the apostles from a human/angelic level
to that of an arch-angelic level. Second, by the light of the
flame of the Holy Spirit, the apostles saw in Imaginative vision,
the entire life of Christ as reflected in His etheric life tableau,
that did not disperse back into the etheric sphere at His crucifixion,
but was preserved and "given back to humanity."
For the ordinary man, our
etheric body after death, disperses back into the general etheric
sphere and our life tableau becomes part of the lower, historical
Chronicle. But for the Christ, His etheric life tableau did not
disperse back into the etheric sphere and become part of the
lower Chronicle . His life tableau was preserved intact and given
back to humanity as a separate higher Chronicle, known as the
5th Gospel. The effect of this occult fact serves three important
purposes."
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