“Now is the Time …” (to LOVE)

Yes, Anonymous d’Outre Tomb did not consider it valid or possible to separate Esoteric and Traditional Christianity. And as I emphasised yesterday, he thought it ***NECESSARY*** that we who aspire to Hermeticism begin to concede this …

‘Begin to concede?!’ It is this and it is MORE than this: ‘Now is the time’ he writes ‘for the Hermetic movement to make true Christian peace with the Church.’ This he says will take – ‘love’. A love, which is ready to abandon pretensions:

“May the pretension of certain Hermeticists evaporate in smoke – namely to have the authority to found small churches under their own leadership, and to set up altar against altar …”

Yes … it will take love that blazes not only with this kind of **humility** – but also with compassion, with warmth, with forgiveness, with understanding, and not least - with determined **commitment**.

The time is now, says the Catholic anonymous author ‘d’Outre Tomb’. And he says it, I feel, with immense HOPE in the face of a world situation he well understood.

And personally, I believe it is this same situation to which Rudolf Steiner pointed, when he said that Rome ‘alone in fact is awake.’ And again, the same situation (as I said some time back), of which the man who is now our Holy Father warns: ‘a future in which it is no longer possible to be truly human’ for ‘the population of an entirely planned and controlled world are going to be inexpressibly lonely.’

Yes all of this is to do with why I believe Anonymous d’Outre Tomb said: the time is now.

To continue in this vein, I resume quoting Rudolf Steiner from 1920. I wish to repeat that no endorsement of Anthroposophy is intended here. I simply feel that Rudolf Steiner in his profound thinking and magnificent love deserves listening to with respect.

Now what we have had to do with so far, is Steiner’s conviction that Rome has long been awake to the fact that a philosophically materialistic civilisation will inevitably lead to disaster. Whether capitalist or communist does not matter. We have then, according to Steiner - three choices before us:

We can continue heading down the road to an ever more soulless and brutal society.

Second, we could choose ‘Roman domination’. In his era, Steiner predicted mainstream Protestantism would wither – but the Catholic Church DID have the resources to offer an alternative to Communist and Capitalist Materialism.

His evaluation of the potency of pre-Vatican II Catholicism will sound truly bizarre to many today. However, my own still fragmentary research suggests the power – for good AND ill - wielded by pre-Vatican II Catholicism is far more significant than is realised.

I have in mind here not only places like the Latin countries, Poland, Ireland – but even America. For example, in his well researched history book American Catholic, Charles Morris documents the ascending influence of Catholic culture in 1940’s and 1950’s America – to the point that many **alarmed**, yes truly alarmed Protestants voiced public concern that America might no longer remain a Protestant society.

‘My fragmentary research’ - this is but a fragment of a larger picture, I am working with. But after a Christmas break, it may figure more in this webblog. I will just say now that I suspect Vatican II helped to derail the ascending Catholic culture again for good AND ill in America and elsewhere. And that far, far more has been lost in the destruction of the liturgy than is ever commonly seen.

Thus in returning to the SECOND choice of ‘Roman domination’ – so-called, Rudolf Steiner said:

“There is **one** [Steiner’s emphasis] power ready to deal with [the fatal consequences of continued Capitalist/Communist materialism] and that is the power of Rome. It is only a question of how it will be done. Rome can establish a dominion; it has the necessary means for this.

Thus the only real question is, not whether Bolshevism or Anglo-Saxon bourgeoisie [rightly or wrongly, Steiner saw the threat of global capitalism, principally focused through the Anglo-American establishment] will get the upper hand, the question is whether there will be anti-social chaos [again either Communist OR Capitalist]; Roman domination or …”

And he then goes on in technical Anthroposophical terms to outline his vision of a THIRD way. A vision that is far beyond this single entry’s scope. But which concerns many elements, which have been touched on here in previous weeks – including epistemology.

Essentially, Steiner is saying we must behold the Mystery of Christ again – in a way that is impossible, he maintains, under ‘Roman domination’.

For myself, I cannot help but feel that eighty years after Rudolf Steiner died, Anthroposophists must confront the VAST gulf that exists between Steiner’s hopes for his attempted THIRD way, and the present world, which it seems to me, more and more conforms to his dark ‘Ahrimanic’ vision. A vision that is also indicated by the words of the Holy Father.

Now this dark vision is – again – one, which Steiner is claiming that certain Christians – both Anthroposophical and Catholic – could clearly see. I believe the Roman Catholic author, Anonymous d’Outre Tomb could also see this vision – and that this is why he said to us: ‘Now is the time.’

Now is the time in which one can contemplate a FOURTH way. A way that is not Capitalist/Communist materialist domination. That is not Catholic domination. That is not the failure of Steiner’s vision.

But something else again. It is something that I have been approaching throughout the last weeks of this blog. It is something that John Paul intimates with a Church that ‘proposes’ – and vigorously so – but ‘never imposes’. It is something intimated in ‘now is the time … to make true Christian peace with the Church’ … through LOVE.

But I will confess to you, my friends, that it is also something still fragmentary in my own vision. But which I shall be contemplating over these Holy Nights to come. A little more will be said these next two days, and then we shall take a break …