aristotelians and platonists

182 Pages·2016·39.56 MB·English

ARISTOTELIANS AND PLATONISTS ARISTOTELIANS AND PLATONISTS

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Book cover: Dale Hushbeck (idea Luigi Morelli)
Editing: Melissa Merkling
Graphs and tables: Ella Lapointe.

ARISTOTELIANS AND PLATONISTS:

A CONVERGENCE OF THE

MICHAELIC STREAMS IN OUR TIME
ARISTOTELIANS AND PLATONISTS ARISTOTELIANS AND PLATONISTS
CONTENTS PART II: THE MIDDLE AGES
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CHAPTER 3: THE SCHOOL OF CHARTRES AND SCHOLASTICISM 65
INTRODUCTION 9
The Experience of Christianity: Schionatulander and Sigune 67

Hroswitha of Gandersheim 69
PART I: THE PREVIOUS AGE OF MICHAEL
The School of Chartres 71

Alain de Lille 75
CHAPTER 1: SETTING THE STAGE: FROM EAST TO WEST 19
The Cistercians and Platonism 83
Evolution of the Mysteries in the Post-Atlantean Age 20
Thomas Aquinas, Reginald of Piperno and Scholasticism 88
The Stage of Rudolf Steiner’s First Incarnation 24

From the Wisdom of the East to the Consciousness of the West 25
PART III: THE NEW AGE OF MICHAEL

CHAPTER 2: THE GREEK EPOCH 29 CHAPTER 4: GERMAN IDEALISM 97
I From the Oracles to the Mysteries 29 The Recurring Ages of Michael 97
- The Age of the Heroes 31 German Philosophers 100
- Dionysus the Elder and Dionysus the Younger 33 Fichte 101
- Dionysus, Plato and the Mysteries 37 Schelling 104
II The Birth of Philosophy 39 Schiller 108
- Cratylus and Mysa 40 Hegel 112
- Plato: Spirit and Matter 44 German Idealism: an Assessment 116
- Aristotle: a Search for the Spirit in Matter 51 Classical German Culture and Anthroposophy 120
- Alexander the Great 57
- Conclusions 60 CHAPTER 5: STEINER’S AND SCHRÖER’S WORLD TASKS 123
Steiner’s Initial Steps in Karmic Research, and the Cistercians 123
Schröer, Steiner, Platonism and Aristotelianism 126

Steiner’s Path of Sacrifice: The Hague Conversation 128

The Evolving Tasks of World Initiates 133
ARISTOTELIANS AND PLATONISTS ARISTOTELIANS AND PLATONISTS
Spirit Beholding and Spirit Recollection 139 CHAPTER 8: ARISTOTELIANS AND PLATONISTS
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Developing Imaginations of Self and Others: IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES 241
Steiner’s Karma Exercises 144 Rudolf Hauschka 241
Spirit Recollection and the Seven Life Processes 153 Dr. Edward Bach 257

Hauschka / Bach: Comparison and Conclusions 271
CHAPTER 6: ARISTOTELIANS AND PLATONISTS

IN THE NEW MICHAELIC AGE 159
CHAPTER 9: ARISTOTELIANS AND PLATONISTS
Acquiring Perspective on the Streams 160
IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 277
Shepherds and Magi 161
The Threefold Social Order from the Realm of Ideas 277
Grail and Arthurian Streams, and Platonism 163
Threefolding from the Ground Up 286
Old and Young Souls 165
Integrating Threefolding Ideas and Social Processes 302
Gathering All the Strands 170
Aristotelian and Platonist Approaches to
Platonists and Aristotelians: Some Characterizations 170
Social Sciences in Perspective 303
Towards the Convergence of the Michaelic Streams in Our Time 177
Social Life in the Views of van Emmichoven and Lievegoed 306
About the Number of Michaelic Souls 178
Aristotelians, Platonists and the

“Culmination at the end of the Millennium” 310
PART IV: MICHAELIC SOULS AFTER STEINER’S DEATH

CHAPTER 7: ARISTOTELIANS AND PLATONISTS IN PSYCHOLOGY 181 CONCLUSIONS

Zeylmans van Emmichoven 183
Bernard Lievegoed 204 APPENDICES
Appendix 1: Rudolf Steiner’s 1922 Conversation
Lievegoed / van Emmichoven: a Contrast 220
with Walter Johannes Stein in The Hague 331
Forgiveness: One Question, Two Approaches 223
Appendix 2: Understanding of the Spirit and Conscious
- Prokofieff: The Occult Significance of Forgiveness 224
Experience of Destiny 337
- Rosenberg: Nonviolent Communication 228
Appendix 3: The Karma of Michaelic Souls in Modern Times 341
ARISTOTELIANS AND PLATONISTS ARISTOTELIANS AND PLATONISTS
Appendix 4:F. W. Zeylmans van Emmichoven, The Anthroposophical
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Understanding of the Human Soul, Table of Contents. 349
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Appendix 5: Bernard Lievegoed, Man on the Threshold: The Challenge of

Inner Development, Table of Contents. 351

BIBLIOGRAPHY 353
ARISTOTELIANS AND PLATONISTS ARISTOTELIANS AND PLATONISTS
development of anthroposophy. It is only after this last preparatory stage
! that Aristotelians and Platonists have! appeared in world history together.
They have never before worked side by side. And their doing so is vital for
the renewal of culture, as much as it is new to all of them and therefore a
great challenge. Steiner knew that a step of this nature would be far from
automatic, and he therefore warned us of the necessity of recognizing the
I streams as they manifest in ourselves and in the world, and of fostering their
NTRODUCTION
collaboration.
Anticipating the results of this research, one can say that it is the
collaboration between the streams and their different orientations to
anthroposophy, which render practical work and social impact stronger. It is
only when the two streams fully integrate cultural consciousness that one-
sidedness is avoided, and the work becomes therefore more sustainable.
When we look at the social world, both streams hold one part of the
Questions concerning Aristotelians and Platonists have engaged my equation, and here, more than anywhere else, only their joint efforts can
attention for some twenty years now. They were life questions forming offer solutions that are both inwardly coherent and fully viable.
themselves before I knew it. They came with my biography and my
relationship to anthroposophy itself. I lived the questions with curiosity, and My path to spiritual science came early in life but was not self-evident; no
confusion mixed with anguish. Somehow I felt this was immediately immediate recognition or lightning flash; rather a laborious step by step that
relevant, and that it was approachable even through direct experience. took place over one year at Emerson College in 1982-83. Having been
I know that the same, or similar, questions live in other people. So the trained in sciences I struggled for a whole year to know anthroposophy to
first questions could be “Why should these questions matter? And how do be a science. Certainly, being exposed to anthroposophy on a daily basis
they matter?” It is a common understanding, from Steiner’s spiritual accelerated the process. And doubts were definitely dispelled by the end of
heritage, that humanity is standing at the abyss of the death of culture. This that year.
is also the time in which a growing perception of the Christ in the etheric is It was some fifteen years after being introduced to Steiner’s work that
made possible for more and more aware human beings. It is natural that at I came across Karmic Relationships, Volume 3, in a study group. I felt an
such an important turning point in history all the opposing forces are immediate recognition in Steiner’s description of old souls and young souls.
growing in intensity. And in the process, my initial difficulties, and the way I reacted to them,
Platonists and Aristotelians prepared the advent of the Christ, whose received an adequate explanation. I could clearly recognize myself as one of
incarnation was made possible in the Jewish stream, but whose the soul types, which Steiner related to Aristotelians and Platonists.
understanding only Greek philosophy could foster. Again in the Middle Later in life, I have faced the tension of feeling a strong attraction to
Ages new evolutionary steps lay in store for mankind, and new dangers work done outside of anthroposophy, work done in the forefront of social
threatened the pursuit of knowledge and the development of individuality at renewal. I lived and worked through many important experiences (men’s
the time of a growing estrangement from the spirit. Here again the groups, support groups, interest in Twelve Step, Nonviolent
Platonists of Chartres and the Aristotelian Scholastics added their efforts for Communication, and later so-called “social technology” and Theory U). It
the renewal of Christianity in order to lay the foundations upon which the was only in stages that I could integrate the experiences, and frame them
Consciousness Soul could unfold and find its fulfillment. within a plausible anthroposophical key of understanding. One experience
And lastly, we come to modern times. Here the forces of renewal of made this possible at first: a three-month training I received in Adult
civilization appeared first in classical German culture, then in the Education at Engen, Germany in 2001 with Coen van Houten. A small part
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of the training was devoted to so-called Destiny Learning. The experience worse, the path that pioneer anthroposophists have walked ahead of the
was important for me, and it seemed! even more important for the other times. It also reflects how and to what! degree the Anthroposophical Society
participants. What I felt was partly an echo of many things I had already has integrated the two streams of the Michaelic Movement.
known through my biographical interests; on the other hand much was In my first book, Karl Julius Schröer and Rudolf Steiner:
completely new. This experience brought an intensification of many Anthroposophy and the Teachings of Karma and Reincarnation, I
previous ones. For the first time what I had encountered in the various approached the matter of the world tasks of Schröer and Steiner. There the
interests I mentioned above, was mirrored from inside anthroposophical development of anthroposophy is contrasted with the spiritual-scientific
practice through Destiny Learning. I was experiencing a bridge between the understanding of karma and reincarnation. The goal of the writing was the
two worlds I belonged to. characterization of the whole impulse of karma and reincarnation. The term
What I saw in my own life-course seems to repeat itself in phenomena that was adopted in the book in relation to karma and reincarnation is “spirit
in the world, which I could characterize thus. When I look at people recollection,” an expression that was first found in the Foundation Stone
producing work in natural sciences, work in psychology or in the social Meditation. The book contrasts spirit recollection with the more familiar
field, it is again striking that two modalities are clearly recognizable. And it spirit beholding, which refers to the study of the natural world, human being
would be difficult, or simply impossible, to expect the same person to carry included, through spiritual science. Having done this, the book explores the
his work in the second modality if he works in the first, or vice-versa. I whole extent and field of activity of the impulse of spirit recollection.
offer examples of these in the last part of the book. This book takes the thread further. It moves from Aristotle/Steiner and
I was starting to create bridges between the two worlds that I had Plato/Schröer to Aristotelians and Platonists. The underlying question is one
carried in parallel for many years. A second key experience was the Global of integration. The goal is the understanding of Steiner’s “culmination” at
Presencing Classroom (an online training) in Theory U with Otto Scharmer. the end of the twentieth century, and what it means for all of us
All the experiences that I was trying to integrate acquired new meaning. anthroposophists, and for those who could come to work with us, from
And everything I pursued afterwards became all the more readily wherever they are at present in the world.
understandable and easier to integrate. The earlier book looked at Steiner and Schröer almost exclusively
from the biographical perspective. This new attempt will look at the karmic
The history of the development of anthroposophy first, and of the history of Aristotelians and Platonists. Unavoidably it will look at Aristotle
Anthroposophical Society later, offers us a microcosmos of world history. and Plato, their intermediate incarnations and those of Steiner and Schröer.
This statement should not surprise anyone who has studied Steiner’s work Before looking at the birth of the Michaelic movement, we will
at length. In parallel to the two turning points in my biography, I started explore the historical conditions that moved world evolution from the
noticing that what happens in the world at large and is reflected in modern ancient East to the West, through Greece. We will then look at three stages
trends, previously occurred in the lives of Steiner and the individuals more in the life of the Michaelic movement. The first is the earlier Age of
closely associated with him, and soon afterwards in the social laboratory Michael in Greece. The second will look at the Middle Ages, and offer a
that has been, and is, the General Anthroposophical Society. These were the contrast between the School of Chartres and the Cistercians on one hand,
revelations that came through Karmic Relationships, Volume 4, which and the Dominicans and Scholasticism on the other. The work of Alain de
closely follows Volume 3 in time. Here again, this came through a study Lille will be contrasted with that of Thomas Aquinas. It is at this point in
group. What I had read on my own only acquired greater depth when deeper time that an important layer of the Aristotelians/Platonists polarity takes on
study and conversation enlivened it. a new light. This is simply the effect that the Christ impulse has over the
To sum up: first in Steiner’s life, in the effort to offer the world initial twin impulses. In the Middle Ages, Aristotelianism and Platonism
anthroposophy, then in the life of the Society, the question of the whole of were Christianized. Chartres brought together the most various strands of
the Michaelic community is reflected, mirrored and set in motion for the culture and offered to the world the gifts of the cathedrals; the Dominicans
world at large. And what we see today in the world reflects, for better or for renewed culture and set the stage for the time of the Consciousness Soul.
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And we come finally to the New Age of Michael, with its preparation study group. The same question of forgiveness acquired another dimension
in German classical culture, and with! the birth of anthroposophy itself. At in the work of Marshall Rosenberg k!nown as Nonviolent Communication,
that time, Plato’s and Aristotle’s eternal individualities reincarnated, in which I have trained, practiced for many years, and offered trainings.
respectively in Schröer and Steiner. Here their relationship will be Chapter 7 presents a second set of contrasts, in the work of Rudolf
examined again, but this time from a more epistemological perspective than Hauschka and of Dr. Edward Bach. What made this comparison possible is
was the case in my earlier book. This focus highlights the evolution of the accessibility of their work and their biographies. Hauschka’s work met
initiates themselves. The tasks that they embrace are those that humanity at my biography with one of the first anthroposophical books I read in natural
large later embarks upon. sciences – The Nature of Substance – which captivated me; many of the
Chapters 6, 7 and 8 look at what is happening at present. The question most striking assertions, or experiments, have remained with me ever since
of the differences between how Aristotelians and Platonists operate in the as initial revelations of a different way of looking at the natural sciences.
world, lived in me in an instinctive way. I could sense it, rather than bring it Bach’s Flower Remedies have accompanied me for some twenty years. I
to clear expression. I placed it in perspective in the book A Revolution of both read as much as I could about them, and progressed in the
Hope. What I intuited in that work is fleshed out in this work against a understanding of their use. Dr. Bach’s biography exerted a deep fascination
historical background. that I also could not help but research.
A year ago I realized that what I was searching for in the present had Finally, I look at the expression of threefolding in the twentieth
constantly been the object of my interest and studies, though I could not yet century. I met threefolding early on in my anthroposophical studies.
recognize it and articulate it. Through this realization I could easily revisit Immersed as I was in activist approaches to social change, I had initial
very familiar material. It is clear that I have no insight into the incarnational difficulties in overcoming my biases and opening myself up to its concepts.
paths of any of the individuals mentioned in Chapters 6, 7 and 8, other than Very soon, in the years that followed, the experience of running a business
what some rare ones disclose. What I offer is the perception of very showed me how naïve were some of the assumptions I carried from my
different approaches to the same fields of inquiry that continue the trends of youth. I reread books on threefolding some ten years after my first attempts,
centuries and that present the polarities of Platonists and Aristotelians in and everything acquired new meaning.
ways that correspond to the characterizations of the two streams made by Five years ago I deepened my interest in so-called
Steiner. Over the centuries these polarities have obviously metamorphosed. “social technology,” various approaches to facilitation that are used for
I offer in Chapters 6, 7 and 8 three sets of contrasts of work done in processes of social transformation in organizations or communities. I
psychology, natural science and social science. The first tableau compares completed a Mastery in Technology of Participation through the Institute of
the life and work of Willem Zeylmans van Emmichoven and Bernard Cultural Affairs (ICA). I was simply pursuing my life interests a step further.
Lievegoed, two contemporaries who interacted with each other for some In the middle of my training I came across the so-called “Social Process
thirty years. We have access to both their biographies and their literary Triangles,” in which familiar ideas about threefolding had emerged from a
estate. We can characterize their legacies as two complementary gestures. very unfamiliar place in the world, and in a seemingly unorthodox way.
Bernard Lievegoed has exerted a continuous influence over my life and What ICA articulated is the equivalent of a threefolding that is born from
work. I came across Zeylmans van Emmichoven some ten years ago. I experience. It is this that I contrast with the imaginations that Steiner has so
found his The Foundation Stone to be one of the most thorough, insightful eloquently left us.
and succinct overviews of the Christmas Conference. This motivated me to In the previous chapters the contrast between Aristotelians and
read his Understanding of the Soul and his biography. Platonists is brought into the present. This statement brings us to the
The chapter will also look at something that came into my biography concluding set of questions. What is it that Platonists need to learn from
at important turning points: the question of forgiveness. I first met it in Aristotelians? And what is it that Aristotelians need to learn from
Prokofieff’s Occult Significance of Forgiveness, a great source of Platonists? From these two emerge yet other questions. What is it that we
inspiration, and a book that I have read three or four times and explored in a need to do as members of the Michaelic Movement to bring its poles closer
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to each other? And what is it that needs to happen in order for the
culmination at the end of the century t!o become a reality, even if with some !
delay? It is my keenest wish that this book will inspire a

sense of hope in those who read it that new efforts, literary and/or practical,
will arise, addressing the question of the convergence of the Michaelic
streams in our times.

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PART I:

THE PREVIOUS AGE OF MICHAEL

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CHAPTER 1 Before beginning, we’ll set the stage for Steiner’s first incarnation in
! the post-Atlantean age. !

Evolution of the Mysteries in the Post-Atlantean Age
S S :
ETTING THE TAGE
After the Flood of Atlantis, the great Manu of the Sun oracle led those who
had started to form the rudiments for the faculty of thinking first out of
F E W
ROM AST TO EST
Atlantis, then toward Central Asia. Two major streams evolved from the
Atlantean migrations, those that Steiner called the Northern and Southern

Streams, characterizing two paths of knowledge: the path to the macrocosm
and the path to the microcosm, respectively.

Maya (or illusion) has a twofold aspect. The first is met in the sense
world, the second in the soul life. Behind the sense world (the world of
space) are those beings who have their center in the Sun. The path to the
soul life was taken under the guidance of Lucifer, by which is meant only a
In order to set the stage for our explorations it is important to understand the part of the luciferic beings. The two different paths were known at all times;
momentous transition that led to the passage of traditional Mystery and a distinction was made between the upper gods who lead beyond the
knowledge from the East to the West. It led to the kindling of the cultural sense world, and the lower gods who lead into the soul life. The path to the
mission of Europe, the birth of philosophy, and some of the prerequisites upper gods was taken by those following the Northern Stream; the path of
for the events at the turning point of time and its understanding by the descent to the underworld was taken by the people of the Southern Stream.
generations that followed. Although our exploration follows both The Northern Stream moved through England, Northern France,
Aristotelians and Platonists, it is clear that we have more material Scandinavia, Russia, into Asia and India. This development led to the birth
concerning Aristotle/Steiner’s incarnations than we do of Plato/Schröer. We of the primeval Indian civilization of the first post-Atlantean epoch. The
will therefore turn primarily to the first, and occasionally to the second, people who migrated along this route were more adapted to the use of the
though we will look at the expressions of Platonism in depth. And when we senses for external perception. Some cultures remained behind to take on
speak of Steiner’s eternal individuality’s path in time, we cannot do so tasks for later epochs of humanity. A group among these created the
without looking at the soul who accompanied him every single step of the foundations for the Mysteries of Hibernia (the Mysteries of the West),
way. which preserved ancient Atlantean wisdom; and another formed the
It is remarkable how two individuals—Rudolf Steiner and Ita “waiting culture” of northern Europe (Germany and Scandinavia) whose
Wegman—have been closely associated in all their incarnations. Bernard task would unfold only in later millennia.
Lievegoed defines these two as “sister souls” who reincarnate to further Steiner called the Hibernian stream the last of the Great Mysteries
their world tasks and influence world karma.1 These two souls, remarkable because it preserved the unity of the inner and outer paths within one
as they may be on their own, could not have achieved their tasks without unified stream, as had been the case in Atlantis. These Mysteries were later
each other. Steiner compares them to a blind man and a cripple: they could continued in the Druid Mysteries. In the time after Christ they were
help each other because of their great differences and one-sidedness.2 preserved in the Arthur stream and in the Celtic Church. The second stream,
which was waiting for the future, developed in the north of Europe. The
Celts developed warrior qualities, in a culture emphasizing courage and the
Bernard J. Lievegoed, The Battle for the Soul: The Working Together of Three Great perfecting of the brain under the influence of external forces. From the
L!"!!e!a!!d!!e!!r!s!! !o!!f! !H!!u!!m!!!a!!n!!i!t!y!.! ! ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Celtic culture the later cultures of Germany and Scandinavia developed.
!Rudolf Steiner, Occult History: Historical Personalities and Events in the Light of
S#piritual Science, December 28, 1910, lecture.
!
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