To Heal the World …

Rudolf Steiner … John Paul the Great … Two Great Doctors of Humanity – with a similar diagnosis, but a world of difference in treatment.

Or is there? The answer it seems to me is both yes and no. Now whole volumes could and I feel, will need to be written about the worlds within worlds I approach here. (To date, the greatest one, which we have, is unquestionably, Meditations on the Tarot).

But in this humble space, I can indicate a few fruits of my own reflection in this regard. As Unknown Friends in the comments to this webblog have most helpfully pointed out, the post-1958 trajectory of Rome IS very different from what Steiner knew in his day.

In 1958, John XXIII ascended the throne of Peter, and proceeded to convene the Second Vatican Council. Nothing has been the same since.

And rumours of a restoration of pre-Vatican II Catholicism are flawed at best. As this webblog has endeavoured to illustrate, in certain respects at least, John Paul was far more radical than any of his predecessors.

And this is not least the case with his 1984 call for the Church to be a 'house of glass' with full transparency and again, a Church that only ‘proposes [but] imposes nothing’.

There are many paradoxes with John Paul’s pontificate – which hopefully can be addressed somewhat as we proceed. For now, let it suffice to say that I for one, have no doubt at all about John Paul’s IMMENSE sincerity.

His work for freedom in the Church spans decades - from his own Vatican II innovations as Polish bishop to his long, truly **extraordinary** Papacy.

Yes, what is meant by freedom here may be a little different from a reductionist idea of ‘negative liberty’ (present, for example, in Anglo-American libertarianism) which seeks to overcome authority as much as possible.

For John Paul certainly does not divorce freedom from a not-intimidated, but rather **voluntary** and **conscious** obedience to authority.

But John Paul’s **massive** accomplishment also stands in contrast with the anti-modernist Catholic Church Rudolf Steiner had in mind, a church of which he could accurately say in his day: ‘in the Catholic Church, there is no such thing as revolt’.

Here is Rudolf Steiner again from the lectures we have drawn upon. Steiner is speaking of a time gone by in which ‘free discussion’ was still possible in the less centralized Church of an earlier era: “This free discussion has gradually been completely eliminated. Free discussion was something, which the Catholic Church could not stand. And why not?

Because quite a new consciousness was arising in humanity. This was the transformation of consciousness in humanity, which took place … in the middle of the fifteenth century.

The human being wants ever more and more to form his own judgment from the depths of his own soul. In the Middle Ages that was not so. Humanity then had a kind of communal consciousness, and only a few learned people, the real scholars could get beyond that.

They were able to evolve out of this [pattern] because they had been trained in Scholasticism [or]rabbinical teaching. In general, however, humanity’s consciousness was uniform. It was a community consciousness, a family consciousness. But the individual consciousness was developing more and more …”

Thus Rudolf Steiner is essentially calling for a free Christian spirituality in the modern era, which lamentably, he sees impossible under ‘Roman domination’.

Now I want to re-emphasise here the phrase I used above: ‘worlds within worlds’. I am hardly competent to address all of these worlds and continually work to deepen my understanding of them. In the upcoming Holy Nights of Christmas, I shall be pondering these things as deeply as I can.

More tomorrow. Today I will just say that Rudolf Steiner considered free esoteric Christianity impossible with Rome. But decades later, Anonymous d’Outre Tomb, considered this not only possible, but **NECESSARY**. Necessary I think, for so much, not least the healing and hope of the world ...

And in the very first, opening paradigmatic sentences of his Magnum Opus, he indicated to the ‘Cher Ami Inconnu’, the dear Unknown Friend, his work for a way ‘que unit l’esprit de libre recherché au respect de la Tradition’ – unites, that is, the spirit of FREE research with respect for the tradition …