PSE16 - Political Divide II

Continuing the theme began in PSE15, today I speak with recurring guest Barb for her thoughts on what is there for us humans to do when facing each other with our differing views — even our seemingly divergent understandings of ‘truth’. Do we bear responsibility towards one another as human beings co-evolving?

We start with an overview of the ever-elusive ‘3-folding’. Is this an idea whose time has come and gone? Or could it be that its time has not yet arrived, given the present level of human development?

Mentions this episode:

• previous Barb episodes PSE4 & PSE12

• Edward Udell book

• Manicheism

• Christine Gruwez

• GA 131 re Christ as Lord of Karma (paragraph 8)

• the six subsidiary exercises

• “Everybody’s a little bit right…” GA122 — the Steiner reading which lead me to fathom a Darwinism/Creationism unity

• Anthropological Astrology

• Steiner on polarity

• Robert Karp

• New View magazine

• The Mani quote Barb read, plus the next paragraph; Rudolf Steiner from The Mission of Manicheism:

Christian esotericism is derived from the Manicheans whose founder, Manes, lived on the Earth three hundred years after Jesus the Christ. The essence of Manichean teaching relates to the doctrine of Good and Evil. In ordinary thought, the Good and the Evil are two irreducible qualities, one of which—the Good—must destroy the other—the Evil. To the Manicheans, however, Evil is an integral part of the cosmos, collaborating in its evolution, finally to be absorbed and transfigured by the Good. The great feature of Manicheism is that it studies the function of Evil and of suffering in the world.

To understand the development of humanity, it must be viewed in its whole range. Only so can we see its high ideal. To believe that an ideal is not necessary for action is a great error. A man without ideals is a man without power. The function of an ideal in life is like that of steam in an engine. Steam comprises in a small area a vast expanse of ‘condensed space’—hence its tremendous power of expansion. The magic power of thought is of the same nature. Let us then rise to the thought of the ideal of humanity as a whole, guided by the thread of its evolution through the epochs of time.

[entire lecture series entitled An Esoteric Cosmology GA94]

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Practical Steiner is a podcast addressing the question “What might Steiner say?” about this or that topic that is of interest to me, the host. I am a fairly new Steiner student and have felt in these past three years that finally, after decades of wondering about the “why” of many things, I have finally come across someone with comprehensive knowledge enough to answer many of those questions.

My podcast is conversations - the more candid and honest the better - with various people who have been studying at least as long as I have and who have taken up Anthroposophy, in one measure or another, as a way of living. My over-arching interest is not in presenting “expert” opinion/interpretation of Steiner’s body of work but rather lies at the interface of the guidance from Steiner’s books and lectures with how someone lives their everyday life.

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