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Wednesday, June 15, 2005




VON BALTHASAR AND TOMBERG

In a comments box a reader has posted a link to this discussion which includes a "teacher of European Studies at Cambridge." I think it is fair to say this is not without merit.

A portion of the discussion concerns Steiner's "Two-Jesus Boy" theory. From a Steiner lecture (scroll down to the lecture title "The Birth of Christ Within Us"):

"But this insight will dawn in those who understand the secret of the two Jesus boys. In the one boy there was present the power of the wisest of all men in pre-Christian times, namely Zarathustra. This boy represents the flower of the previous stages of human evolution; the aura of the other boy was illumined by the forces of the great Buddha. The body of the one boy springs from the noblest blood of the ancient Hebrew peoples; the soul of the Jesus boy described in the Gospel of St. Luke leads back to the earth's beginning. The soul of this Jesus boy was kept back, when, in the age of Lemuria, man came to the earth; this soul was guarded by the Mysteries until it was sent into the body of the Jesus whose birth is described in the Gospel of St. Luke. "...


There is a posting at the website about Karol Wojtyla's involvement with Steiner's mystery plays while a young man in Poland. Weigel documents Wojtyla's involvement in theater, but he does not mention Steiner's mystery dramas. (WITNESS TO HOPE, p. 34-35 & 62-66) Rather he talks of the work of Polish poets, including the occultist Mickewicz, a player in the Paris occult revival. In fact in this linked discussion is the first time I have specifically seen Steiner mentioned in connection with the mystery plays performed by Wojtyla, though Steiner is well-known for his mystery dramas.

This description of the Rhapsodic Theater gives the standard narrative re what Wojtyla and fellow actors were about.

Moving on to MEDITATIONS ON THE TAROT...

Tomberg writes:

Another example of an excessive accentuation of the knowledge of evil--and therefore of an occupation of consciousness with evil--is the preoccupation with the problem of the twofold (even threefold) evil amongst German Anthroposophists. Lucifer and Ahriman (and even Adzura), the two principles of evil, subjective and objective, the seducing principle and the hypnotising principle, have so taken possession of the consciousness of Anthroposophists that there is hardly a single thing which would not fall under the category of being Ahrimanic or Luciferic. Science is Ahrimanic in so far as it is objective; Christian mysticism is Luciferic in so far as it is subjective. The East is under the domination of Lucifer, because it denies matter; the West is under the domination of Ahriman, because it has created a material civilisation and tends to materialism. All machines--including the apparatus of radio and television--incorporate Ahrimanic demons. Laboratories are the fortresses of Ahriman; theatres--and churches, some believe--are the fortresses of Lucifer. And so on. Anthroposophists are led to classify thousands of facts from the point of view of the category of evil which is revealed through them--which suffices to occupy them for the whole day. And to so occupy oneself amounts to contact with evil and a corresponding reduction of living and inspiring contct with good. The result is a lame wisdom without wings, deprived of creative elan, which only repeats and comments to satiety what the master, Dr. Rudolf Steiner, said. And yet Rudolf Steiner has certainly said things of a nature to awaken the greatest creative elan! His series of lectures on the four Gospels, [of which I presume the quote from his lecture on the Gospel of Luke cited above is one] his lectures at Helsingfors and Dusseldorf on the celestial hierarchies--without mentioning his book on the inner work leading to initiation (KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS. HOW IT IS ACHIEVED?)--would alone suffice to inflame a deep and mature creative enthusiasm in every soul who aspires to authentic experience of the spiritual world. But it is the preoccupation with evil which has clipped the wings of the Anthroposophical Movement and which has rendered it such as it is since the death of its founder: a movement for cultural reform (art, education, medicine, agriculture) deprived of living esotericism, i.e. without mysticism, without gnosis and without magic, which have been replaced by lectures, study and intellectual work aiming at establishing a concordance between the writings and stenographed lectures of the master.(MEDITATIONS ON THE TAROT, p. 402-403)


There are 670 pages in the book. Much of it discusses occultism in its various forms. The structure of the book is an explication of the arcana of the tarot--the tarot cards.

Here are excerpts from Von Balthasar's Foreward which became the Afterword in the latest printing of the book.

Here is the picture of John Paul II with the book on his desk.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!



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