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Are Theosophy and Rudolf Steiner Ron's Sources?

Madame Blavatsky and Rudolf Steiner were two "spiritual Leaders" of their day...

Did Ron "borrow" heavily from their ideas in creating Scientology?

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Blavatsky founded the Theosophy Society in 1875. In 1902, Steiner was appointed president for the German section of The Theosophical Society, but in 1913 he broke off and established his own organization, The Anthroposophical Society. Both were successful authors, teachers/lecturers and "opinion leaders" for their day. Read about them and their ideas expressed in the movements they founded, and decide for yourself:

From Wikipedia:
Madame Blavatsky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_Blavatsky

Theosophy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophical_Society

Rudolf Steiner: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner

Anthrosophy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthroposophy

So, are Theosophy and Anthrosophy some of the "spiritual movements" from whose root ideas Ron formed Scientology?

See what this article has to say about it:

From: http://www.uncletaz.com/hubbstein.html

Scientology vs. Anthroposophy
(Lafayette Ron Hubbard vs. Rudolf Steiner) by Tarjei Straume

Background - In December 1996, my co-editors in the Norwegian anarchist magazine Gateavisa asked me to research the scientology internet war concerning their copyrighted holy scriptures that had been authored by Ron Hubbard and write an article about it. ... I had been an anthroposophist for three decades and that I had never felt drawn to scientology, but always had a certain aversion against it. On the other hand, I wondered if Hubbard had borrowed concepts from Rudolf Steiner as well as from Helena Blavatsky and altered them to fit his own system. This led to a request ... to write an analytical comparison between anthroposophy and scientology. This project was started by me but never finished. The task is, after all, enormous.

Very recently I became aware of a fact that I find disturbing: Certain anthroposophists peddle Ron Hubbard's tech along with Rudolf Steiner's class lessons and Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. They even claim that representatives of The Anthroposophical Society should join forces with top brass scientologists to learn from each other for mutual benefit. In my personal opinion, this is very disturbing indeed. First, scientology represents a threat of spiritual pollution in the anthroposophical community if anthroposophists adopt and practice Hubbard's concepts and methods. Secondly, the Church of Scientology will undoubtedly exploit this opportunity to "gather intelligence" from the Anthroposophical Movement, especially its organized institutions. This intelligence may be used to harm, blackmail, or crush such organizations at any given moment. Anthroposophy is, after all, another "implant," another "lie,' as long as it is not identical with scientology.

The time must be ripe to publish my unfinished project on this website. The reader should keep in mind, however, that the following text was intended for an audience more or less familiar with Ron Hubbard's scientology but total strangers to Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy. - Tarjei Straume, December 1998

Introduction - Due to the instinct for truth in human nature, absolute lies are not as effective as some people think. With half-truths and quarter-truths, on the other hand, you can make people believe almost anything. This is my point of departure, and I will come back to it.

Mr. 'Source' borrowed his half- and quarter-truths from a variety of sources. Like several other cult leaders, he obviously read Helena Blavatsky (1831-91), Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), or both of these.

Blavatsky founded the Theosophy Society in 1875. In 1902, Steiner was appointed president for the German section of The Theosophical Society, but in 1913 he broke off and established his own organization, The Anthroposophical Society. The major reasons for this break were:

1) that the Theosophical leaders had no understanding or sympathy for Steiner's Christian teachings, and:
2) that these Theosophical leaders brought a scandal upon their organization by claiming that the Indian boy Krishnamurti was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and the saviour of the world. They founded a cult (in the twentieth century meaning of this word) on this idea, called 'The Star of the East', which Krishnamurti himself disbanded in 1930.

By this time, Theosophy had fallen into disrepute, but it continued to inspire innumerable new religions and cults (same definition as above) in America. New religious founders simply borrowed from Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled, and called these their own 'revelations'. Ever since that time, U.S.-sponsored New Age religions have become increasingly infected by ufology and flying saucers, and Jesus Christ has been made into an astronaut who is supposed to 'return' in a space ship.

Thanks to popular unfamiliarity with Rudolf Steiner, his works were even easier to abuse than those of Helena Blavatsky. Not only is he much more comprehensible and digestible to read, but his works are extremely voluminous, covering the most diverse of topics. Anthroposophy is primarily based upon the enormous body of occult knowledge he developed, consisting of 50 written books and 6000 lectures, totaling 350 volumes in the original German.

Steiner was apparently an excellent source for 'Source' Hubbard. From this treasure, which is almost unknown in America, there were plenty of morsels to choose from in order to feed people all kinds of secret little half-truths and quarter-truths to use as baits for his sinister scheme.

For this reason, it may be interesting to take a closer look at some of Steiner's teachings in order to compare them to Hubbard's version of Anthroposophical ideas. But when we are doing this, it is equally important to analyze the differences, especially where they stand in diametric opposition. And the principles of RS and LRH clash most violently in the ethics, or moral, department. Beria, Crowley, and some other sources were perhaps relatively close to Hubbard's code of ethics. Steiner, however, represents an entirely different school of thought when it comes to morals.

Many skeptical readers, ultra-rationalists, atheists, agnostics, orthodox devotees of traditional religions etc., may conclude that L. Ron Hubbard and Rudolf Steiner were both spaced out in their heads and were equally off the wall with their respective cosmologies. I accept and respect reactions of this kind, and this sentiment is modified only by my responsibility to prevent misconceptions about Dr. Steiner's moral character, ideals and motives.

Steiner's spiritual-scientific genius is of secondary importance. The most impressive aspect of this man is his exalted moral standard and his unselfish, self-sacrificing way of life, plus his ability to communicate this high code of ethics through inference and personal example without ever coming across as moralistic. And on this particular point there must be no room for misunderstanding or untruth.

In order for the reader to appreciate an analysis of the differences and similarities between Scientology and Anthroposophy, it becomes necessary to treat the subject in such a way that the presentation also serves as an introduction to the latter. It is assumed that the reader has become familiar with Ron Hubbard, Dianetics, and Scientology, while knowing very little, or perhaps nothing, about Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy.

Information about Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy is all over the web, with links to libraries, book lists, colleges, etc. Thus it should be easy to supplement this study with additional literature.

1. Control, lying, and religion

Let us take a look at the following two famous statements by Ron Hubbard:

1) 'The only way you can control people is to lie to them.'
2) 'Organized religion tries to control, so therefore must be lying.'

What is really being said here? Is lying to people really the ONLY way to control them? The answer would depend upon what is meant by control. We probably need some LRH 'word clearing' here. But it is obvious that Mr. 'Source' expressed one of his deepest convictions through these two statements. Because the point is that Hubbard must have desired to be in full control of himself. If you are going to control others, you must control yourself first. And if this megalomaniac wished to acquire control of himself, of humanity, of the planet and eventually the galaxy and the entire universe and be 'God Almighty', or 'Source' - well then he must have been lying to himself from the beginning.

This may appear to be a paradox. According to statement nr. 1, 'The only way you can control people is to lie to them.' Hubbard implies that a person who seeks to control people, DELIBERATELY lies to them. When you lie on purpose, you know that what you say is an untruth. But as long as you know this, you have not succeeded in lying to yourself, and according to LRH logic, you are not in control of yourself until you do.

Even if this does not necessarily explain why Ron believed his own lies, there is clearly a connection here. He obviously believed all of it -- not only his space opera, but even his bogus biography! In 1980, Gerry Armstrong found a lot of stuff that documented the true story of LRH. And how does the old chief react to this? With pride and enthusiasm, he tells Armstrong to go ahead and research his background and write his biography. When Armstrong discovers that the evidence at hand does not match the lie, he is expelled from the church and declared a Suppressive Person. So why hadn't Hubbard told Armstrong to burn the evidence and forget the research and the biography to begin with, UNLESS HE HAD BELIEVED IN HIS OWN LIES?

Why did Ron succeed in lying to himself? In order to be in self-control, of course.

What does Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), the founder Anthroposophy or Spiritual Science, have to say about lying? Interestingly enough, 'der Doktor', which he was called, claimed that a lie in the physical world (or universe, if you prefer), represents a murder in the spiritual world. In other words, if what Steiner said is an objective truth, Hubbard committed spiritual suicide.

Let's move on to Hubbard's statement nr. 2: 'Organized religion tries to control, so therefore must be lying.'

Hubbard claimed that ALL established religions were bogus 'implants' based upon lies in order to control people. All of them. (Except certain aspects of Buddhism, that is, because Ron had also been Buddha, remember? - but that's beside the point here.)

Hubbard also claimed that the most evil, deceptive and vicious spirit ever to tread the earth was Jesus Christ (the reincarnation of Xenu, of course).

On both of these points, Hubbard is on a total collision course with Steiner. The essence of Steiner's teaching is that all religions are true! And not only all major religions like Hunduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, but also all mythologies: Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Celtic, and Nordic! And fairy tales as well! In Steiner's view, a classical myth is a true story told in picture language. (He also called ancient astrology 'an absolutely true science', which later had degenerated into superstitious nonsense.)

Thus not only gods, angels, archangels, demons and cosmic spirits are for real, but also trolls, elves, undines etc. The earth, the solar system, the planets, the cosmos - everything is teeming with life according to Steiner, imperceptible to everyday sense-bound consciousness, but very real to clairvoyants and initiates. And all religions are true accounts of spiritual FACTS according to Steiner. These religions are very different, because each is a portrait of the same higher truth, seen from entirely different angles.

Still, Rudolf Steiner does have two distinct favorite religions: Christianity and Buddhism. If I had to attach a traditional religious label on 'anthroposophically oriented spiritual science' which he characteristically calls his system, I would have to call it 'Buddhist Christianity' or 'Christian Buddhism'. Yet many of Steiner's considerable contributions to Christian theology are so original that most people refer to it as 'Christology' rather than 'Christianity'.

The term 'Christology' is also an indicator of Steiner's thoroughly Christ-centered cosmology. He claimed that our account of time (years) since the birth of Christ was very appropriate because 'the Mystery of Golgotha' was the central, the pivotal, and the most awe-inspiring supernatural event in the entire evolution of the earth: A sacrifice by the the most exalted of beings, the Sun-God or the Sun-Spirit, who was worshipped in various pre-Christian cults ('cult' meaning 'holy communion with the spiritual world', of course), incarnated in the body of Jesus of Nazareth in order to redeem mankind, to enable man's gradual reunion with the gods through the course of future incarnations.

This 'Mystery of Golgotha', which is defined by the events recorded in the Gospels, beginning with the Betrayal and ending with the Ascension, - this was, according to Rudolf Steiner, an act of unconditional love and the most profound mystery of all time. In his analysis of history, Steiner traces the effects of the Mystery of Golgotha on humanity, which he calls 'the Christ-impulse'. By this 'Christ-impulse' is meant the evolution of compassion, love, tolerance, the capacity for individual self-sacrifice, and the emergence of new ideals such as 'Liberty, Equality and Fraternity'. In other words, all the noblest, purest and dearest capacities of the human soul that are evolving on earth, are, according to Steiner, the fruits of the Christ-impúlse, regardless of which particular religion or philosophy an individual may confess to.

In addition, Rudolf Steiner also claimed that all healing forces in nature, everything that contributes to health in plants, animals and humans, combatting and healing illesses, beneficial advances in the art and science of medicine etc., proceed from the Christ Being, or 'the Risen One', because this Christ Being is also the creator of our existence.

It should be obvious from the above that Steiner's cosmology was very Christ-centered indeed, and thoroughly Christian, though he is shunned and condemned by orthodox theologians because of his support of the reincarnation-idea and his positive views on pre-Christian Mystery-religions (paganism).

Back to Hubbard. Let us take one more look at his statements about lying and control:

1) 'The only way you can control people is to lie to them.'
2) 'Organized religion tries to control, so therefore must be lying.'

Are these two claims by Hubbard one hundred percent untrue? Of course they are not. They are both half-truths, which proves my theory: Ron succeeded in lying to himself and in believing his own lies by mixing them with half-truths.

2. Right-handed vs. left-handed initiation

I never knew what Scientology was about before December 1996, when I collected and read all the Internet-documentation I could get my hands on in order to write my article on the subject for Gateavisa.

The first thing that struck me as very interesting was the concept of 'body thetans'. This is advanced occult stuff, I thought to myself. Where in the world did he get THAT from? It made me wonder what kind of man Ron Hubbard really was, how he acquired such concepts, and whether or not he had indeed succeeded in developing some kind of clairvoyance for himself by means of a 'left-handed initiation'. (I'll get back to Ron's BTs later.)

'Left-handed' and 'right-handed' are technical terms borrowed from Western occultism, and they warrant some clarification. Let's try to please Mister Source by doing our word clearing properly, shall we? Better not rush by any Misunderstood Words here!

Western occult tradition speaks of a right-handed and a left-handed occultism, which means, strictly speaking, white and black magic. The right-handed path, which it is called, is an extremely difficult and time-consuming approach, requiring enormous patience and endurance. It is based upon the moral purification of body, soul and spirit and the cultivation of total harmlessness and unconditional selfless love toward all living creatures. Because of the very lofty and difficult demands the candidate must make upon himself, it takes many life-times, or incarnations, to develop such spiritual-moral capacities to the point of initiation, or modern clairvoyance.

(Additional note: The technical terms outlined here should not, and must not, be confused with an individual human being being right- or left-handed in the literal sense. This preposterous and brainless suggestion has recently (i.e. in 2002) been made...)

All religions and idealistic philosophies that foster and encourage qualities of this kind, contribute to the preparation for a right-handed initiatory development.

According to Rudolf Steiner, such a right-handed occult development, or initiatory path, is entirely dependent upon the Christ-impulse, or the Risen One (the Resurrection Body). For this reason, it is also known as the Christian Initiation. The best tool, or technique, for this development - to Mr. Hubbard's fan club we could say, 'the standard tech' or 'the proper religious technology' - this is Buddha's Eightfold Path, according to Steiner. He claimed that Buddhism was the religion of the future, that would be properly understood by the mainstream culture only in the future. For this reason, it is very interesting to compare Rudolf Steiner's book, 'Knowledge of the Higher Worlds: How is it Achieved?' with Buddha's Eightfold Path. They are strikingly similar.

The advanced stages of this Christian initiation involve inner experiences with close ties to the events in the Gospels designated as the Mystery of Golgotha. 'The Crowning of Thorns' for instance, means that the candidate patiently endures the blaspheming and ridicule of everything that he holds most sacred. 'The carrying of the Cross' signifies that the candidate begins to feel his physical body as a cross which he carries around on earth. (This latter is an interesting idea to contemplate when we approach old age and the body becomes heavier to move.)

By 'initiation' is meant the awakening of latent clairvoyance and clairaudience as a result of inner development. There are many different stages of these supernatural conditions. In order to perceive non-material phenomena in such an objective way that research by the scientific method is made possible, an extremely high level of initiation is required.

Rudolf Steiner frowned upon the methods employed by the Theosophical Society. They used trance, hypnosis, crystal balls, mediumship and other spiritualistic methods. Steiner said that these techniques helped to re-awaken so-called atavistic clairvoyant faculties, and he implied that this kind of practice was a hindrance to the progressive spiritual evolution of mankind because they depended on reduced or suppressed awareness of self. Trance mediums, the most gifted among whom was the Russian-born Helena Blavatsky who founded the Theosophical Society, would become unconscious and enter a dream-like state. The 'revelations' thus received would have to be recalled from memory. Blavatsky had an exceptionally accurate power of recollection.

A major drawback with this technique was that it was subject to errors which could not be checked as long as loss of consciousness excluded the application of the scientific method. Besides, Blavatsky's books were rather badly written, and interspersed with all kinds of temperamental outbursts, especially against Christianity, for which she had no understanding whatsoever.

Still, Rudolf Steiner praised Helena Blavatsky as a scrupulously honest and highly gifted woman who turned out to be a pioneer. He endorsed her major outline of planetary evolutions, to which he added many clarifications and corrections through the years while applying the spiritual-scientific method....

Rudolf Steiner opposed the re-awakening of ancient clairvoyance through the use of methods that eliminated self-conscious, rational thinking. He claimed that modern clairvoyance should be developed in full consciousness by means of self-dependent initiation. Hypnosis was especially repugnant to Steiner, because according to him, the individual human will was inviolable and sacrosanct. Nobody should let himself be subjected to the will of a hypnotist or of any other human being.

Sexual magic was another technique which was adamantly opposed by Rudolf Steiner. This is a very important point, because the false rumors about Rudolf Steiner's involvement with sexual magic have their origin in the smear campaigns from his opponents during and after World War I. What has survived from this is the erroneous belief that he accepted an honorary membership of O.T.O. (Ordo Templi Orientis) for a limited time. This is not the case; Rudolf Steiner was never a member of O.T.O. -- the organization associated with Aleister Crowley.

3. Was L. Ron Hubbard a black magician?

I have pointed out that Western occult tradition speaks of a right-handed and a left-handed occultism, which is equivalent to white and black magic. I also explained that the right-handed path is based upon very demanding and time-consuming moral purification of body, soul and spirit and the cultivation of total harmlessness and unconditional selfless love toward all living creatures.

Throughout Rudolf Steiner's life and work, it becomes clear that this was the path and the method which he himself had chosen. But 'der Doktor' also gave some very interesting descriptions of left-handed occultism, or black magic. The levels he described appear to be quite advanced. (I believe that the proper Scientological term here is a 'high gradient'.)

When Steiner approached a topic of this kind, he always put a great deal of emphasis on the inner spiritual experiences of the person concerned; external techniques were secondary. A right-handed occultist, who is cultivating the power of selfless love for all creatures, will from time to time feel himself projected, so to speak, into the inner life of another being. This other being can be a loved one, a friend, an animal, or an invisible living spirit (a departed soul or an angel, for instance). The practitioner outgrows his self-interest through the fire of love and compassion for other creatures while yet retaining his self-dependent consciousness and rational thinking. This rational thinking has been acquired through the experience of egoism. Egoism has thus served its purpose, which the right-handed occultist, or white magician, no longer needs. This development will eventually open his higher faculties in relation to the spiritual world.

What external techniques are concerned, the role of the anonymous benefactor may be mentioned. The idea is to give anonymously, to individuals or to society, to benefit others, to relieve suffering etc. by any available means in such a way that detection of the benefactor or well-doer is impossible. It may also be a good idea to claim responsibility for the misdeeds of others if one is better able to take the heat than they are. ('Secret agents of Christ' perhaps?)

The black magician, or the left-handed occultist, seeks to strengthen the power of egoism. When he succeeds in doing so, he experiences an increase in his separateness from his fellow creatures, from the rest of life. It is important, therefore, that he learns to desensitize himself from the inner experiences of others and thus acquires the capacity to ignore, or to take pleasure in, the sufferings of fellow creatures. By using advanced techniques for this purpose, the black magician may acquire tremendous power. This may culminate in a left-handed initiation which gives him clairvoyance.

One of the techniques utilized for this purpose, also mentioned by Steiner, consists of deliberately causing pain and suffering to another creature in a deliberate, conscious, and technically prescribed way. (This is pro 'tech', folks.) The practitioner experiences an increased isolation of his ego and a new inner strength parallel with a radical cooling of his feelings....

During the first world war, Rudolf Steiner began to speak about his conspiracy theory. (He did not call it a theory, however.) He spoke about the 'secret brotherhoods of the West' and their behind-the-curtains manipulation of spiritual, cultural, and political developments. He claimed to be able to prove that the map of Europe that was drawn in 1918, had existed in England in the 1890's, and that the same secret brotherhoods had engineered the Bolshevik revolution in Russia as a 'social experiment'.

Steiner spoke openly about occult knowledge that these secret brotherhoods allegedly possessed. He said that possession of this same esoteric knowledge was the only possible protection from such sinister groups.

By the same token, a thorough investigation and increased public dissemination of L. Ron Hubbard's ideas, where they come from, and how they have been distorted and falsified in order to control, exploit and abuse people, should provide the best possible protection from Religious Technology Center, the Church of Scientology, Narconon, Criminon and all other brainchildren of LRH.

For this reason I wish to make it perfectly clear that my purpose in writing this text is NOT to turn readers into Anthroposophists, but to expose Rudolf Steiner's ideas in such a way that an increased understanding of Ron Hubbard and his organization may result from it. If the reader can discover such connections by reading this text, it will contribute to the potential solution of LRH as a riddle.

Lafayette Ron Hubbard was a paranoid psychopath who dabbled in the practice of black magic. He suffered from psychotic spells and suicidal depressions. His followers have left an unending trail of psychoses, suicides, murders and bizarre deaths.

I am very curious about whether Hubbard's flirtation with black magical practices were exclusively amateurish and elementary, or if he was a somewhat more advanced master of left-handed occultism. It would be very helpful to our common research of Scientology if anybody can contribute with clues or information of this kind.

4. Cosmic memory. The origin of man

'Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous,' said L. Ron Hubbard in 1949, 'If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.'

Compare this utterance with the one already mentioned, 'Organized religion tries to control, so therefore must be lying.'

Conclusion? Try this: Religion is a business. Religion is lying. Lying is business. The best way to make a million dollars is to start lying for a profit.

With this in mind, Hubbard concocted a highly original 'creation story' which he called a 'space opera'. As a religious myth, a space opera is highly original, though not necessarily for a science fiction story. Nevertheless, a 'creation story' is a misnomer, because thetans have never been created. They have always existed, and they leave no room for benign beings of a higher rank. Scientology has eliminated the concept of spiritual parenthood which is common to all other religions. Scientologists only talk about cannibalistic cosmic space-psychiatrists who used to breed thetans in order to eat their bodies.

The thetan who has not been created is an idea very akin to the traditional Roman Catholic idea about Christ. Those Christians who were influenced by Gnosticism and who believed that Christ was a created being, were persecuted as heretics.

For the record, Rudolf Steiner subscribed to the Gnostic concept on this point. Even though he supported the idea of higher hierarchies (angels, archangels, archai or time spirits, elohim og exusiai, cherubim, seraphim, etc.), he was a total evolutionist who voiced the opinion that non-created beings were an absurdity. All life, from the minerals to the Seraphim, has evolved from lower to higher levels of existence, including the Christ. Just like we love children because we have also been children, so it is with the relation of higher hierarchies to man.

5. Do we choose our parents?

Scientology does not appear to leave much room for love, empathy, compassion, or genuine affection, in spite of Hubbard's adoption of the idea that we choose our parents prior to conception. This is a view held by Rudolf Steiner. He asks his listeners to pay attention to how many young people begin to resemble their parents physically at age 17-20, when the adult ego is beginning to awaken, because of the special affection they have for them - a love which has been embedded deeply within the subconscious in the spiritual world before conception and birth.

Steiner does point out that we have known our parents from previous incarnations, but such personal relationships are not the only factors involved in our choosing. Preceding each incarnation, we seek out a particular heritage, and in some cases we may be in touch with our ancestors several generations back, participating in our geneology, especiallly when specific talents and abilities are required for a given task...

According to both Blavatsky and Steiner, we spend considerably longer stretches of time in the spiritual world, or 'on the other side of the threshold,' than we do between birth and death. In addition, we cross the threshold into the spiritual world each time we go to sleep. So if we live to be 75 years old, we have spent about 25 years among the gods.

If we live long enough to collect our pension, the average period of time between two incarnations is between 400 and 600 years. A child is no adult in a small body (like Scientology has construed it), but a newborn being completely transformed and renewed by the higher hierarchies. During the first years of life, the child continues to live in this higher, spiritual world before the awakening of self-consciousness, whereupon the hierarchies withdraw.

6. What is exteriorization?

In the aggregate, the amount of time we spend in the physical world, entrenched within the confines of our five senses and logical reasoning faculty, is only a small fraction of the time spent on the other side of the threshold. Still, claims Steiner, this physical condition is indispensable to our spiritual evolution.

This is a very important point, because it does not only establish the contrast between Steiner and Hubbard, but also between Theosophy and Anthroposophy on the one hand, and New Age on the other. New Age is primarily based upon 'exteriorized Theosophy'. In Anthroposophy, exteriorization does not mean 'leaving one's body' like in Scientology, but externalization of spiritual concepts, giving these a materialistic clothing....

The New Age exterorization of Buddhism and Theosophy has vulgarized the idea of reincarnation to such an extent that 'spiritual' Americans and their followers believe they simply jump in and out of bodies, spending virtually no time in the spiritual world. The short story, 'The Reincarnation of Peter Proud,' was a perfect example. In this way, the sci-fi religious systems of New Age are akin to atheism in their exclusion of the spiritual world and the higher hierarchies, of the Christ of the Spiritual Sun, and the reduction of higher beings to technologically super-advanced and spiritually stagnated humanoids. Take a look at the bizarre 'Unarius' cult in California, which is nothing but extremely exteriorized Anthroposophy. 'The Urantia Book' was another interesting sci-fi exteriorization, though not quite as materialistic as 'Unarius'. The most interesting aspect of this book is its rejection of reincarnation.

This rejection of reincarnation is an old policy which was initiated by certain occult fraternities in the nineteenth century. The attempt was made to prevent the idea of reincarnation from becoming rooted in Western culture. One of the sources of this opposition was the so-called High Church of England.

7. The spiritual schizophrenia in Western culture

These occult fraternities did their best to silence Helena Blavatsky. When she refused to keep quiet about her cognitive achievements, they succeeded in subjecting her to something that is called spiritual imprisonment, which made it impossible for her to continue those activities. Because of this, Blavatsky had to seek help elsewhere. Another occult fraternity, this one in India, restored her creative powers, but there was a catch. Just like the American and the English fraternities had a vested interest in maintaining dogmatic Christianity as the dominant cultural force, so did this Indian fraternity wish to combat Christianity by promoting a one-sided Buddhism.

Both of these two mutually opposing manipulations of the spiritual life of the West appear to have been successful in America. All New Age religions and cults that adopt traditionally Eastern concepts like karma and reincarnation have excluded the Mystery of Golgotha completely. At the same time they are becoming increasingly exteriorized under the influence of science fiction and materialistic technology, producing ufologies and physical travels in space.

On the other hand, we have the Religious Right, the Protestant Vatican we may call it, which clings to the Gospels in an irrational and illusory manner, brutally condemning all aspects of Oriental wisdom, Gnosticism, and the like. This wisdom is badly needed for the understanding of Christianity, just like the Mystery of Golgotha is needed for New Age. Yet the opposing interests involved here have pulled out the teeth from both. The result is a decadent, superficial, confused and materialistic gee-whiz teenage culture where anything goes what sci-fi religions are concerned. This is an excellent raw meat garden for the CoS....

8. Who was Buddha?

Ron Hubbard claimed to have been the Buddha and thus have the monopoly on the key to the only true religion. This is an interesting twist. Buddhism was not an implant, and the Buddha was not, like the Christ, a competitor who had to be 'dead agented' as a hot tempered, pedophile reincarnation of an evil galactic emperor Xenu. How Ron could be the Antichrist, the Buddha, and Source Almighty all at the same time is a different matter, but the selection is eccentric - and totally absurd.

According to Buddhist tradition as well as Anthroposophy, the Bodhisattva in question lived his final physical incarnation as Siddhartha, when he became Gautama Buddha after his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. He said so himself, that after many lifetimes as a Bodhisattva, he had reached Nirvana, and that he would never again incarnate in a physical body on earth.

Steiner pointed out that any claim to the contrary would be a misunderstanding of Buddhism. Anyone who said that Gautama Buddha had reincarnated or would be reborn, did not understand the Buddhist religion at all. By the same token, anyone who said that the Christ had appeared, or would appear, more than once on the physical plane, had no understanding of Christianity. The physical appearance of the Christ in the body of Jesus of Nazareth was a one time only event.

Yet Rudolf Steiner artfully and tastefully weaves these two religions together. In the first place, he portrays the Buddha as a forerunner of the Christ, explaining that the radically different characters of these two religions were due to the differences in the soul developments of the Indian and the Hebrew peoples. But the most important point was that the Buddha brought compassion into the world. This compassion was brought one significant step further by the Christ, who imbued it with love in action.

According to Steiner's interpretation, Christ spoke in the manner of Buddha whenever he used parables, or picture language, and like Socrates when he explained these parables to his chosen disciples, who had developed logical reasoning.

In Steiner's view, the gospel according to Luke is the most explicit link between Buddha and Christ. The angel who heralded the birth of Jesus to the shepherds in the field was none other than Buddha. Furthermore, Luke was himself a doctor, and his portrait of Christ is that of the compassionate healer. The entire gospel of Luke is saturated with love, compassion, and healing.

But what if Ron was Buddha and Antichrist at the same time? Well, then I guess he would have warned the shepherds against the birth of Xenu. But the Roman psychiatrists edited and censored the Bible, or Luke simply overlooked Ron's warning altogether.

9. Do we come from other planets?

According to Scientological cosmology, human beings are trapped in some kind of exile on Earth, or on Teegeeack as the planet is called, which is Marcabian for prison, having been involuntarily transported here seventy-five million years ago. Farther back in time, seventy-six trillion years ago to be exact, the first catastrophe occurred when humanity was tricked into occupying physical bodies. The only way out of this dilemma is to apply Ron's religious technology, or 'the tech,' to tread the Bridge to Total Freedom and clear the planet.

If we leave out the sci-fi space opera stuff, it is easy to find parallel concepts in various religious and occult traditions. Judeo-Christian lore speaks of the Temptation, the Fall, and the expulsion from Paradise. This Fall from Paradise, which is a euphemism for unencumbered spiritual existence, was the price to be paid for the knowledge or wisdom given by Lucifer, the Lightbearer. (Hubbard had aspirations about being Lucifer as well.) This Fall involved not only man, but all of nature, which meant a gradual densification or ossification. The evolving beings, called Monads by Helena Blavatsky, and Thetans by Buddha-Antichrist-Lucifer-Source-Hubbard, began to incarnate. In classical Greek parlance, these Monads or Thetans are called Entelechies.

The Vedic Scriptures of ancient India represent perhaps the oldest lore in the world, having been passed through generations for millennia by word of mouth before being recorded in written Sanskrit. This tradition speaks about how the souls of men and animals descended from the stars, 'the stars' meaning the planets in our solar system.

10. Is Theosophy racist?

Both Helena Blavatsky and Rudolf Steiner endorsed and elaborated Sanskrit lore. At a given time in its evolution, the Earth was almost uninhabitable, and only the sturdiest pioneers had descended. The rest of humanity used the other planets as spiritual habitats before they also descended and incarnated as the population increased. The continent where this took place has been given the name Lemuria. The development of different human races with distinct distinguishing physiological features, was partially due to the differences of the planets which had been inhabited by the respective groups of souls in the spiritual world, and which continued to be inhabited during sleep and between death and rebirth.

This factor, combined with the strong influences of climatic conditions upon the human physiology in earlier epochs, contributed to the formation of the seven races of Atlantis, which emerged after the destruction of Lemuria. According to Rudolf Steiner, races as such (in the external, physiological sense) have outlived their purpose since Atlantis, and the idea of human races in our time is in reality atavistic and without significance....

According to Anthroposophy, the laws of reincarnation and karma work in such a way that each individual will have varying life-experiences in respect to social and economic status, gender, culture, nationality, etc. in order for all people to reap every imaginable kind of human experience. What this entails is that we may have one life in Africa, another one in China, and the next in America. This concept in itself may be far-fetched and unacceptable to many readers, but it is certainly inimical to racism of any kind.

The Nazis adopted the basic structure of Blavatsky's concept of evolution, which they perverted beyond recognition. They mixed it with Ariosophy and pronounced European Aryans to be the master race of the earth, claiming that Nordic men had founded every civilization that had ever existed on the face of the planet. This 'Aryan Theosophy' which it was called, has later prompted allegations of racism against Helena Blavatsky and Rudolf Steiner.

Christian fundamentalists have taken deliberate advantage of these misconceptions by portraying Blavatsky as a Satanist whose evil philosophy prompted the Holocaust. Their main reason for going after Blavatsky is her praise of Lucifer at Jehovah's expense. Yet Rudolf Steiner makes a clear distinction between Lucifer on the one hand, who gave man his wisdom, his pride and his egoism, his independence and his freedom, and Ahriman or Satan on the other, designated in the New Testament as the Prince of this world, who gave man his intellect, his materialism and his atheism. Ahriman is 'the liar and the father of lies,' and the adversary of Christ, who is endeavoring to capture the planet for himself by seducing man through his intellect.

According to Rudolf Steiner, man has been given the task of capturing the intellect from Ahriman without being misled by his lies. By the same token, I believe it to be our task here to dissect, analyze, understand and expose Scientology in order to protect people from being seduced by this cult unwittingly and unprepared.

11. Ron Hubbard's war against Jesus Christ

A day of the week is a 24-hour period, based upon how long it takes the earth to spin in relation to the sun. A calendar year is the period of time it takes for the earth to make one complete circle around the sun. Our measurement of time is in other words dependent upon the mutual movements of heavenly bodies in our solar system.

For this reason, it is absurd to imagine that the six days of creation in the first chapter of Genesis designate 24-hour periods, because no sun or moon existed before the fourth 'day.'

By the same token, Ron Hubbard's idea about human beings beginning to incarnate seventy-six trillion years ago in a different galaxy, is a totally absurd contradiction in terms by any standard of logic or common sense. Our measurement of time is completely inapplicable beyond the surface of this planet.

At the next space-operatic apocalypse 'only' seventy-five million years ago, the evil galactic emperor Xenu transported his freeze-dried victims to Earth in space vehicles resembling commercial DC-9 airplanes, whereupon he thawed them by throwing them into fiery volcanoes and blasting them with hydrogen bombs. When the tough and resilient Thetans had survived this, Xenu proceeded to fill their souls with all kinds of implants, which in Ron's terminology is a euphemism for false and illusory images and concepts.

The most pernicious and damaging of all implants was Christianity. Xenu had incarnated as the obnoxious pervert Jesus Christ in order to enslave humanity even more with his preposterous religion. For this reason, the Church of Scientology has always endeavored to win as many converts from Christianity as possible. In Scientology, Christ is Xenu the seducer, enslaver, and liar, and Buddha-Antichrist-Lucifer-Source-Lafayette-Ronald-Hubbard is the liberator, the savior, and 'the best friend man ever had.' It's as simple as that...

12. Ron Hubbard's Body Thetans vs. Rudolf Steiner's Elemental Spirits

Rudolf Steiner had a great variety of concepts that are very parallel to Ron Hubbard's BTs. The most important of these to mention, is the activities of the higher hierarchies when man is asleep. When we have been awake for an extended period of time, we must leave our bodies. We are tired, exhausted. We must leave our bodies in order for the angels and archangels to take over. They revitalize our bodies, healing various damages we cause with our lifestyles and our imperfect souls and spirits. Thanks to these invisible nurses and doctors, we wake up refreshed and invigorated. These Anthroposophical BTs are the invisible servants of Christ the Healer. Plants and animals, fishes and insects, all living beings that require sleep, are renewed in the same say.

Steiner also spoke of elemental spirits in nature, that have been portrayed in myths and fairy tales as elves, gnomes, undines etc. Some of these are linked to our physical and psychic existence in various ways. On the basis of his clairvoyant observations, Steiner described spirits who are attracted to cleverness and gather in libraries and universities, and who are vital to our clever thinking. He also described spirits who are quite hideous in appearance, but who cause us to be moved to the depth of our being, to tears in fact, by something beautiful. He explained how those muscles that we cannot ourselves move, such as those of digestion and similar bodily functions, are the activities of higher hierarchies.

There are so-called fallen spirits involved with our bodies as well, or demons as they are called in traditional religions, causing imbalances and illnesses, during which there is a struggle going on between retarded and progressive gods. (The conditions, or evolutionary stages, of cosmic beings are related to former planetary epochs, the descriptions of which are also to be found in the Vedas, or the Hindu Scriptures.)

This is why I was at first a little startled at Hubbard's system of body thetans, especially when I was confronted with his detailed description of how they should be talked to, how they should be 'blown', how they gather in 'clusters,' etc. Now I have come to recognize that Scientology auditing brings about some kind of schizophrenia, or multiple personalities called 'valences'. This makes it extremely difficult to analyze the BT phenomenon in Scientology by using Anthroposophical concepts as a tool of investigation. (I would welcome contributions to this.)

13. The Guardian of the Threshold. (Written January 1999)

I have received a mail from Michael Friedjung in France, an anthroposophist who has been involved with the Church of Scientology. He shares some interesting insights, and the most crucial is this:

"As far as I can see the process of becoming "clear" which involves the destruction of the "reactive mind" by "dianetics", that is the destruction of different sorts of unconscious inhibition, is in fact a destruction of the lesser guardian of the threshold. This is clearly an illegitimate way of crossing the threshold; other illegitimate ways involve doing something wrong with the guardians."

Rudolf Steiner describes a "Doppelganger," a "guardian of the threshold," as an obstacle to supersensible perception (clairvoyance and initiation) that must be conquered through proper spiritual training before the world of soul and spirit becomes manifest to wide awake consciousness. The "threshold" is what separates us as waking, rational beings from the realms of dreamless sleep and of death. The Guardian prevents our immediate access to these realms until we are thoroughly prepared through many years, even lifetimes, of spiritual training. In his written books to guide aspiring students, Rudolf Steiner emphasizes the development of lofty morals and the strengthening of a healthy soul condition.

Most people who possess a spiritually inquisitive and seeking nature have experienced this guardian of the threshold in one way or another, and one is inevitably led to the cognition when one grows older, that our mental health and well-being is wisely being protected by this arrangement, pretty much the way we prevent a child from running out in a dangerous street with heavy traffic.

If this be true, it is obvious that destroying this Guardian in order to force oneself into a clairvoyant perception of the spiritual world must entail serious damage to sanity, to mental health. (Isn't that what emperor Caligula did?) If this is indeed what the scientologists are doing, it explains not only why fear and hatred of psychology, psychiatry, and all "psych words" is so prominent among them . (75 million years ago, Thetans were eaten by cannibalistic psychiatrists, Christ is the Evil Psychiatrist, etc.) It also explains why ex-scientologists who were involved for very many years, have sued the CoS for causing them permanent psychological damage. This sheds a new light on the disturbingly high rate of psychoses, suicides, and strange deaths that haunt scientologists, especially when undergoing crucial OT-initiations.

For this reason, I have posted an extensive excerpt from Rudolf Steiner's "Outline of Occult Science." [Which follows] The passage is taken from the fifth chapter: "Cognition of the Higher Worlds. Initiation," and explains the basic things about the "Guardian of the threshold," also called the Doppelgänger.

But as Michael Friedjung also says: More research is needed! -Tarjei Straume"
 
From: http://www.uncletaz.com/friedjung.html

Scientology
by Michael Friedjung.

"As far as I am concerned, I heard about scientology at the end of the fifties through a book on self analysis by Hubbard which my father had, and especially from a description in "Fads and fallacies in the name of science" by Martin Gardener (from what I remember Gardener talks about Reich and Hubbard in the same chapter). At that time I had of course heard about anthroposophy, which then had a dogmatic and rigid image. The first books I read by Rudolf Steiner in 1960 described things in contradiction with official science and which were hard to verify. I did not have the moral level, stated as being necessary in "Knowledge of higher worlds and how to attain it"; I was afraid of death and and I did not not know how to have experiences proving survival after death. Then in 1964 a colleague also working for his PhD thesis in the astronomy department of Manchester university in England, asked me for information about anthroposophy. I lent him the cycle "Anthroposophy", which my father claimed to be a good intoduction. The colleague did not understsand it; he then told me that he was a scientologist and what could be known through scientology. I became interested in scientology at that point, which among other things seemed to be a good way to have a scientific proof of reincarnation. I even thought from what I remember, that it was possible to collaborate scientifically with scientogists.

I shall go into details about my experiences with the scientologists in the late sixties and then especially from 1980 to 1984. When I feel that people are trying to manipulate me (for instance to pay large sums of money) I become very angry. I broke pencils and an ashtray in their Paris premises. By 1984 I had become a member of the anthroposophical society, the scientologists had attempted to put pressure on me using disgraceful procedures and certain important people from the organization in Copenhagen wore miltary uniforms (I am an antimilitarist, while military unifoms have a very significant psychological role). A dream I had about that time was about a decision I had to make between taking an "automatic taxi" (I understood this was the scientologists) and going to the "Abbaye des bonnes soeurs" (Abbey of the good sisters or nuns, which I understood as being the anthroposophists).

Scientology is dangerous because it is not a complete lie. Though it is spiritually corrupt (it uses advertising. marketing and all sorts of psychological pressure), there is also some truth in it, inspite of the vulgar way in which it is stated. It contains certain thuths of Ahriman; it was a desire to learn these truths which led me to stay connected with scientology from 1980. However Ahriman, when approached in this way is very hard!

One partial truth of scientology is the "ARC triangle", that is a triangle of affinity, reality and communication. It is closely related to the feeling, the knowledge and the ability to act of a conscious being, that is what becomes for humans, feeling, thinking and willing. This helped me in my thinking about science. The four sorts of auditing, for what others have done to you, for you have done to others, what others have done to each other and what you have done to yourself, has helped me to understand what could be the 4 stages of human consciousness, related to the four states of planetary evolution, which have occurred according to Rudolf Steiner. Other examples also exist, which I cannot remember.

As far as I can see the process of becoming "clear" which involves the destruction of the "reactive mind" by "dianetics", that is the destruction of different sorts of unconscious inhibition, is in fact a destruction of the lesser guardian of the threshold. This is clearly an illegitimate way of crossing the treshold; other illegitimate ways involve doing something wrong with the guardians.
More research is needed.

Michael Friedjung."
 
From: http://www.uncletaz.com/doppel.html

The Doppelgänger

"The following text about the Doppelgänger (the Guardian of the Threshold) has been excerpted from An Outline of Occult Science by Rudolf Steiner (Anthroposophic Press 1972). It was translated by Maud and Henry B. Monges and revised by Lisa D. Monges. (Original title: Die Geheimwissenschaft im Umriss, GA 13.)

The excerpt is from Chapter 5: Cognition of the Higher Worlds. Initiation. The passage may be challenging when taken out of context like this; here are some references to previous chapters in the book (which is available from Anthroposophic Press in a newer translation: Outline of Esoteric Science.)

The attentive reader should still be able to acquire an understanding of the Doppelgänger and its vital role in Rudolf Steiner's path to Christian initiation on the one hand, and Ron Hubbard's way to "clear" on the other, from the text below.

If the student of the spirit ascends upon the path into the higher worlds of knowledge, he notices at a certain stage that the cohesion of the forces of his personality assumes a different form from the one in the physical-sensory world, where the ego effects a uniform co-operation of the soul forces, of thinking, feeling, and willing.

These three soul forces stand always in a certain relationship to each other in the conditions of ordinary human life. One sees, for example, a certain object in the outer world. It pleases or displeases the soul. That is to say, of necessity the visualizing of a thing will be followed by a feeling of pleasure or displeasure. One may, perhaps, desire the object or have the impulse to alter it in one way or another. That is, the power of desire and will associate with visualizing and feeling. that this co-ordination takes place is caused by the ego uniting visualizing (thinking), feeling, and willing and in this way bringing order into the forces of the personality.

This healthy order would not be interrupted if the ego were to prove powerless in this regard; if, for example, desire should elect to go a different way from feeling or thinking. A human being would not be in a healthy soul condition who might think that this or that is right, but who might want something if which he is convinced that it is not right. The case would be similar if someone did not want what pleases him, but rather what displeases him.

The human being now notices that on the path to higher knowledge thinking, feeling, and willing do indeed separate and each assumes a certain independence. For example, a certain thought has no longer an inward urge toward a certain feeling and willing. The matter is as follows. In thinking something may be perceived correctly, but in order to have any feeling or to come to a resolution of the will, we need again an independent impulse from ourselves.

During supersensible perception thinking, feeling, and willing do not remain three forces that radiate from the common ego-center of the personality, but they become three independent entities, three personalities, as it were; one must now make one's own ego all the stronger, for it is not merely a matter of its bringing three forces into order, but of leading and directing three entities.

This separation, however, must only exist during supersensible perception. Here again it becomes clear how important it is that the exercises for higher training be accompanied by those that give certainty and firmness to the power of judgment, and to the life of feeling and willing. For the person who does not bring these qualities with him into the higher world will soon see how the ego proves weak and unable to act as an orderly guide for thinking, feeling, and willing.

If this weakness were present, the soul would be as though torn by three personalities in as many directions and its inner unity would cease. If, however, the development of the student proceeds in the right way the described transformation of forces signifies true progress; the ego remains master of the independent entities that now form its soul. ­ In the further course of this evolution the development continues.

Thinking that has become independent stimulates the emergence of a special fourth soul-spirit being that may be described as a direct influx of currents into man, similar to thoughts. The entire cosmos then appears as a thought-structure confronting man as does the plant or animal world in the realm of physical senses. Likewise, feeling and willing that have become independent stimulate two forces in the soul that act in it like independent beings. Still another seventh power and being appears that is similar to one's own ego itself.

This entire experience is connected with yet another. Before his entrance into the supersensible world, man knew thinking, feeling, and willing only as inner soul experiences. As soon as he enters the supersensible world he perceives objects that do not express the physical-sensory, but the psycho-spiritual.

Behind the characteristics of the new world now perceived by him stand soul-spirit beings. These now stand before him as an outer sorld, just as in the physical realm stones, plants, and animals stood before his senses. The student of the spiritual can now perceive an important difference between the world of soul and spirit that reveals itself to him, and the world that he was accustomed to perceiving through his physical senses.

A plant in the world of the senses remains just as it is, whatever the human soul may feel or think about it. With the images of the world of soul and spirit this is, at the outset, not the case. They alter according to what the human being feels or thinks. In this way he gives them form that depends upon his own nature.

Let us imagine that a certain picture appears before man in the world of imagination. If, at first, he remains indifferent to it in his soul, it then shows itself in a certain form. At the moment, however, when pleasure or displeasure is felt in regard to the picture, it changes its form. The pictures therefore, in the first instance, express not only what they are, independent of man, but they reflect what man is himself. They are permeated through and through by his own nature. The latter spreads like a veil over the supersensible beings. Although real beings confront him, he does not see them, but instead, his own creation. Thus he may have something true before him and, nevertheless, see something false.

Indeed, this is not only the case in regard to what man notices in himself as his own essential nature, but everything that is in him affects this world. He may have, for example, hidden inclinations that do not come into evidence in life because of his education and character; they affect the world of the soul and spirit, which takes on a particular coloring through the whole being of man, no matter whether he himself knows much about this being or not. ­

In order to be able to advance further from this stage of development it is necessary that man learn to distinguish between himself and the outer spiritual world. It is necessary that he learn to eliminate all the effects of himself upon his soul-spirit environment. This cannot be done otherwise than by acquiring a knowledge of what he himself carries into the new world.

It is therefore important that he first possess true, thoroughly developed self-knowledge, in order to be able to have a clear perception of the surrounding world of soul and spirit. Now, certain facts of human development demand that such self-knowledge must take place quite naturally at the time of the entrance into the higher world.

Man develops his ego, his self-consciousness in the everyday physical-sensory world. This ego now acts as a center of attention for everything belonging to man. All his inclinations, sympathies, antipathies, passions, and opinions group themselves, as it were, around his ego, and this ego is also the point of attraction for what may be designated as the karma of man. If this ego were to be seen unconcealed it would show that certain forms of destiny must still be encountered by it in this and in subsequent incarnations, according to the way it has lived in the preceding incarnations and has made this or that its own.

Invested with all this, the ego must appear as the first image before the human soul when the latter ascends into the world of soul and spirit. This Doppelgänger (double or twin likeness) of man must, according to a law of the spiritual world, emerge prior to everything else as his first impression of that world.

One may easily make the law underlying this fact understandable if one considers the following. In the life of the physical senses man only perceives himself in so far as he experiences himself inwardly in his thinking, feeling, and willing. This, however, is an inner perception; it does not present itself to the human being like stones, plants, and animals. Also, man learns to know himself only partially through inner perception. He has something in himself that prevents his having more profound self-knowledge. This is an impulse to transform immediately a trait of character if he, as a result of self-knowledge, must admit to and does not wish to deceive himself about himself.

If he does not follow this impulse, if he simply turns his attention away from himself, remaining what he is, then he, naturally, also deprives himself of the possibility of self-knowledge in the point in question. If man, however, penetrates into himself and confronts himself without deception with this or that trait, then he will either be in the position to improve the trait, or he will be incapable of doing so under the present circumstances of his life. In the latter case a feeling will creep over his soul that must be described as a feeling of shame. This is indeed the reaction of healthy human nature: it feels through self-knowledge various kinds of shame. This feeling has even in ordinary life a quite definite effect.

The normal thinking human being will take care that what fills him, through himself, with this feeling does not become evident outwardly in effects, does not manifest in outer deeds. Shame is thus a force that impels man to conceal something in his inner being and not allow it to become outwardly perceptible. If we give this due consideration, we shall find it comprehensible that spiritual research ascribes much farther reaching effects to an inner soul experience that is closely related to the feeling of shame.

This research finds that there is, concealed in the depths of the soul, a sort of hidden shame of which the human being is not conscious in physical-sensory life. This concealed feeling, however, acts in a similar manner to the feeling of shame in everyday life; it prevents the innermost nature of the human being from appearing before him in a perceptible picture. If this feeling were not present, the human being would perceive before him what he is in truth; his thoughts, feeling, and will would not only be experienced inwardly, but would be perceived outwardly just as stones, animals, and plants are perceived. This feeling is thus the concealer of man from himself, and at the same time it is the concealer of the entire world of soul and spirit.

Owing to the fact that his inner nature is concealed from him, he is also not able to perceive that by means of which he should develop inner organs in order to cognize the world of soul and spirit; he is unable so to transform his nature that it may unfold spiritual organs of perception. ­ If, however, through correct training man strives to acquire these organs of perception, what he himself is appears to him as first impression.

He perceives his Doppelgänger, his double. This self-perception is not at all to be separated from the perception of the rest of the world of soul and spirit. In everyday life of the physical-sensory world, the feeling characterized acts so as constantly to close the door of the world of soul and spirit to the human being.

Even the mere attempt to penetrate into this world causes the feeling of shame ­ which arises immediately, but of which we do not become conscious ­ to conceal the part of the world of soul and spirit that strives to appear. The exercises characterized open the door to this world. It is a fact, however, that this concealed feeling acts like a great benefactor of man.

For all that man acquires of power of judgement, feeling life, and character without spiritual-scientific training does not enable him to bear without further preparation the perception of his own being in its true form. He would lose through this perception all self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-consciousness.

That this may not happen, we must take the necessary precautions which we do undertake, alongside the exercises for higher knowledge, in the fostering of a healthy power of judgement, feeling-life, and character. Through this regular training man learns to know so much of spiritual science ­ as though without intention ­ and, moreover, so many means for the attainment of self-knowledge and self-observation become clear to him as are necessary in order to encounter his Doppelgänger bravely.

The student then only sees in another form, as a picture of the imaginative world, what he has already learned in the physical world. If he has first comprehended the law of karma properly in the physical world through his intellect, he will not be especially shaken when he now sees the beginnings of his destiny engraved in the image of his Doppelgänger.

If man has made himself acquainted through his power of judgement with the evolution of the cosmos and mankind and knows how, at a certain point in time of this evolution, the forces of Lucifer have penetrated into the human soul, he will bear it without difficulty when he becomes aware that the Luciferic beings with all their effects are contained within the image of his own nature. - We see from this how necessary it is that man does not demand entrance into the spiritual world before he has understood, through his ordinary power of judgement developed in the physical+sensory world, certain truths about the spiritual world.

The knowledge given in this book prior to the discussion about "Cognition of the Higher Worlds" should have been acquired by the student of spiritual science by means of his ordinary power of thought in the regular course of development, before he has the desire himself to enter into supersensible worlds.

In a training in which no attention is paid to the certainty and firmness of the power of judgment, of the life of feeling and character, it may happen that the student encounters the higher world before he possesses the necessary inner faculties. In that case the encounter with his Doppelgänger would depress him and lead to error. If, however, the encounter were entirely avoided ­ something that might indeed be possible - and man nevertheless were led into the supersensible world, he would then be just as little in the position to recognize that world in its true shape. For it would be quite impossible for him to distinguish between what he carries over as projections of himself into things and what they are in reality.

This distinction is only possible if one perceives one's own being as an image in itself, and if, as a result of this distinction, everything that flows from one's inner nature becomes detached from the environment. - For man's life in the physical-sensory world, the Doppelgänger's effect is such that he becomes immediately invisible through the feeling of shame characterized when man approaches the world of soul and spirit. As a result of this, he conceals the entire latter world also.

Like a "guardian" he stands there before that world, in order to deny entrance to those who are not truly capable of entering. He may therefore be called the "guardian of the threshold that lies before the world of soul and spirit." - Besides the described encounter with the guardian at the entrance into the supersensible world, man also encounters him when passing through physical death, and in the course of life between death and a new birth the guardian discloses himself by degrees in the evolution of soul and spirit. there, however, the encounter cannot depress the human being, because he then has knowledge of worlds quite different from those he knows in the life between birth and death.

If, without encountering the "guardian of the threshold," man were to enter the world of soul and spirit, he might fall prey to deception after deception. For he would never be able to distinguish between what he himself has carried over into that world and what in reality belongs to it.

A proper training must lead the student of spiritual science into the realm of truth only, not into the realm of illusion. This training will of itself be of such a nature that the encounter must of necessity take place sometime. For it is one of the precautionary measures, indispensable for the observation of supersensible worlds, against the possibility of falling prey to deception and the fantastic. - It belongs to the most indispensable measures that every student of spiritual science must take, to work carefully on himself in order not to become a fantast, a human being who might succumb to possible deception and self-delusion.

Where the advice for spiritual training is correctly followed, the sources that may bring deception are at the same time destroyed. Naturally, we cannot speak at length here of all the numerous details that have to be considered in regard to such precautionary measures. The important points can only be indicated.

Deceptions that have to be considered here are derived from two sources. They originate in part from the coloring of reality through one's own soul nature. In ordinary life of the physical-sensory world there is comparatively little danger from this source of deception; for here the outer world continually impresses its own form sharply upon our observation, no matter how the observer wants to color it according to his own wishes and interests. As soon, however, as man enters the imaginative world, its pictures are transformed through such wishes and interests, and he has before him, like a reality, what he himself has formed, or at least has helped in forming.

This source of deception is removed by the student's having learned to recognize, through his encounter with the "guardian of the threshold," his own inner nature, which he might thus carry into the world of soul and spirit. The preparation that the student of spiritual science undergoes before his entrance into the world of soul and spirit acts in such a way that he becomes accustomed to disregarding himself even when observing the physical-sensory world and to permitting the objects and processes to speak to him purely out of their own nature. If the student has thus prepared himself sufficiently, he can calmly await the encounter with the "guardian of the threshold." This encounter will be the final test to determine whether he feels himself really in a position to disregard his own nature also when he confronts the world of soul and spirit.

Besides this source of delusion, there is still another. This comes into evidence when one misinterprets an impression made on one. A simple example of this sort of delusion in the physical sense-life is the delusion that arises when a man sits in a railway coach moving in a certain direction and believes the trees and other objects of perception are moving in the opposite direction, while actually it is he himself who is moving with the train.

Although there are numerous cases where such delusions in the physical sense-world are more difficult to correct than the simple one quoted, still, it is easy to see that within this world one also finds the means of disposing of such delusions when, with sound judgment, one takes into consideration all that may possibly contribute to an adequate factual explanation.

The matter is different, however, as soon as one penetrates into the realms of the supersensible. In the world of the senses facts are not altered as a result of human delusions; therefore it is possible, by means of unprejudiced observation, to rectify the delusion by means of the facts. In the supersensible world this is not immediately possible.

If one wants to observe a supersensible process and approaches it with false judgement, one carries this judgement over into the process and it becomes so interwoven with the fact that it is impossible to distinguish the judgement from the fact. The error is then not within the human being and the correct fact outside him, but the error itself is made a component of the outer fact. It cannot, therefore, be rectified simply by an unbiased observation of the fact.

We are here pointing to what may be a superabundant source of delusion and the fantastic for those who approach the supersensible world without proper preparation. - The student of the spiritual, besides acquiring the ability to exclude the delusions that arise through the coloring of supersensible world-phenomena with his own nature, must also acquire the ability to make the second indicated source of delusion ineffective. He can exclude what comes from himself if he has first recognized the image of his own Doppelgänger. He will be able to exclude the second source of delusion if he acquires the ability to recognize, from the inner quality of a supersensible fact, whether it is a reality or delusion.

If the delusion were to appear exactly like the actual facts, then a distinction would not be possible. This, however, is not the case. Delusions of the supersensible world have qualities in themselves by which they are to be distinguished from realities, and it is important that the student of the spiritual know by which qualities he can recognize realities.

Nothing is more self-evident than the fact that anyone ignorant of spiritual training may ask, "How is it at all possible to protect myself against delusion, when its sources are so numerous? And he may continue to ask, "Is there any proof for the student of the spiritual against the fact that all his professed higher knowledge is not something based on mere delusion and autosuggestion?"

Anyone who asks such questions does not realize that in true spiritual training, through the very manner of its occurrence, the sources of delusion are stopped up. In the first place, in preparing himself the true spiritual science student will acquire sufficient knowledge about what may cause delusion and autosuggestion, and thus be in a position to protect himself from them.

He has, in this regard, more opportunity than any other human being to make himself prudent and capable of judgement on the path of life. Everything that he experiences causes him to disregard indefinite premonitions and suggestions. This training makes him as careful as possible. Besides this, all correct training leads first to concepts about great cosmic events, and thus to things that make necessary the exertion of sound judgement, which becomes, at the same time, more refined and acute.

Only someone who might refuse to go into such distant realms and preferred to abide with "revelations" of a world near at hand might lose the strengthening of that sound judgement that gives him certainty in distinguishing between delusion and reality. All of this, however, is not yet the most important. That lies in the exercises themselves that are used in a correct spiritual training. These must be so arranged that the student is always consciously aware of what takes place in the soul during inner meditation.

In order to bring about imagination, a symbol is first formed. In this symbol are still contained mental images of outer perceptions. The human being is not alone responsible for the content of these mental images; he does not make it himself. Thus he may delude himself in regard to its origin; he may interpret its origin incorrectly. But the student of spiritual science removes this content from his consciousness when he advances to the exercises of inspiration. Here he contemplates his own soul activity only, which has formed the symbol. here also error is still possible. through education, learning, and through other means man has acquired the character of his soul activity. He cannot know everything about its origin. The student of spiritual science now removes even his own soul activity from his consciousness. If now anything remains in his consciousness, nothing is attached to it that cannot be surveyed. Nothing can intermingle with it that is not to be judged in regard to its whole content.

In intuition, the student of spiritual science has thus a criterion enabling him to recognize how a clear reality of the world of soul and spirit is constituted. If he now applies the signs of soul and spirit-reality thus recognized to everything that comes under his observation, he is able to distinguish between illusion and reality. He may be certain that by employing this law he will remain protected from illusion in the supersensible world just as it cannot happen to him in the physical-sensory world to mistake an imaginary piece of hot iron for one that really burns.

It is taken for granted that one only takes this attitude toward the knowledge one regards as one's own experiences in the supersensible worlds, and not toward what one receives as communications from other persons and that one comprehends with one's physical intellect and sound feeling for truth.

The student of the spiritual will take pains to draw an exact line between what he has acquired in the one way and what he has acquired in the other. He will receive willingly, on the one hand, the communications about the higher worlds and seek to understand them by means of his capacity to judge. If on the other hand he states something as his own experience, his own observation, he will have tested whether this has confronted him with precisely the qualities he has learned to perceive by means of unerring intuition.

After the student of the spiritual has encountered the "guardian of the threshold." further experiences await him as he ascends into supersensible worlds. First he will notice that an inner relationship exists between this "guardian of the threshold" and the soul-power that, in the above description, has resulted as the seventh, and has shaped itself into an independent principle.

Indeed, this seventh principle is in a certain regard nothing else but the Doppelgänger, the "guardian of the threshold" himself, and this principle sets the student of the spiritual a special task. He has to direct and lead with his own new-born self what he is in his ordinary self and which appears to him in an image. A sort of battle against the Doppelgänger will result. The latter will constantly strive for supremacy. To establish the right relationship to this Doppelgänger and not permit him to do anything that is not under the influence of the new-born ego strengthens and fortifies man's powers. - In the higher world, self-knowledge is different, in a certain respect, from self-knowledge in the physical-sensory world. Whereas in the physical-sensory world self-knowledge appears only as an inner experience, the new-born self presents itself at once as an outer soul phenomenon.

Man beholds his new-born self as another being standing before him, but he cannot perceive it completely. For whatever stage he may have reached upon the way into the supersensible worlds, there are always still higher stages. At these stages he will perceive ever more and more of his "higher self." The "higher self" can thus only partially reveal itself to the student of the spiritual at any of these stages. the temptation is extremely great which overtakes the human being when he first becomes aware of some aspect of his "higher self," so to speak, from the standpoint he has gained in the physical-sensory world. This temptation is even good and it must appear, if development is to proceed in the right way.

We must observe what appears in the Doppelgänger, the "guardian of the threshold," and place it before the "higher self" in order to note the contrast between what we are and what we are to become. Through this observation the "guardian of the threshold" begins to take on quite a different form. He presents himself as an image of all the hindrances that the development of the higher self must encounter.

The student will perceive what a load he must drag in the form of his ordinary self, and if he is not strong enough through his preparations to say, "I will not remain stationary here, but unceasingly strive to reach my higher self," he will slacken his efforts and shrink back before what is in store for him. He has plunged into the world of soul and spirit, but now gives up his efforts. He becomes a prisoner of the form that, through the "guardian of the threshold," now stands before the soul. What is important here is the fact that in this experience he does not have the feeling of being a prisoner.

On the contrary, he believes he experiences something quite different. The form that the "guardian of the threshold" calls forth can be of such a nature that it causes the impression in the soul of the observer of having before him, in the pictures that appear at this evolutionary stage, the entire compass of all imaginable worlds, of having attained the pinnacle of knowledge, with no need of striving further. Instead of feeling to be a prisoner he may feel himself as the immeasurably rich possessor of all the world mysteries.

The fact that one can have such an experience that depicts the very opposite of the actual facts will, however, not astonish a person who keeps in mind the fact that, when he experiences this, he stands already in the world of soul and spirit and that it is a peculiarity of this world that that events may present themselves in reverse order. This fact was pointed out earlier in this book when life after death was discussed.

The figure that one perceives at this stage of development shows the student of the spiritual something in addition to what appeared to him in the first instance as the "guardian of the threshold." In this Doppelgänger all the peculiarities were perceived that the ordinary self of man has in consequence of the influence of the forces of Lucifer. Now, however, in the course of human evolution another power has entered the human soul through the influence of Lucifer. This is the power that was designated in an earlier section of this book as the power of Ahriman. It is the power that prevents the human being during physical sense-existence from perceiving the soul-spirit beings of the outer world lying behind the veil of the sensory. the form the human soul has assumed under the influence of this power is shown in a picture by the shape that emerges in the experience described.

The person who is adequately prepared for this experience will be able to interpret it correctly; very soon thereafter another form will appear that we may call the "greater guardian of the threshold" in contrast to the already described "lesser guardian." This greater guardian tells the student of the spiritual that he must not remain stationary at this stage but must energetically work on. He calls forth in the observer the consciousness that the world that is conquered becomes truth, and is not transformed into illusion, only if the work is continued in an adequate manner. - If, because of incorrect spiritual training, a person were to enter upon this experience unprepared, then, in the encounter with the "greater guardian of the threshold," something would pour into his soul that only can be compared to the "feeling of immeasurable horror," of "boundless fear."

Just as the student of the spiritual in his encounter with the "lesser guardian of the threshold" is afforded the possibility of testing whether or not he is protected against delusions arising from the intermingling of his own being with the supersensible world, so can he also test himself by the experiences that finally lead to the "greater guardian of the threshold" whether he is capable of mastering the delusions described above as coming from the second source. If he is able to withstand the gigantic illusion that has been conjured up before him - that the picture world he has gained is a rich possession, while in reality he is only a prisoner - if he is able to resist this delusion, he is then, during the progressing course of his development, guarded from mistaking illusion from reality.

The "guardian of the threshold" will assume, to a certain degree, an individual shape for each human being. The encounter with him corresponds indeed to the experience by which the personal character of the supersensible observations is overcome and through which the possibility is given of entering a region of experience that is free from personal coloring and applies to every human being. - Rudolf Steiner"
 

RogerB

Crusader
I read Madame Blavatski a long, long time ago :biggrin: and also Rudolph Steiner. Both quite arcane, and maybe the translation, or maybe the language style at the times they were writing . . . but Jezzuzz it is thick stuff.

Bottom line, they, like Hubbard were addressing the elemental spiritual truths of existence. So it really should be no surprise that there would be some similarities. There are even similarities with very much earlier spiritual endeavors and religions.

What set Hubbard apart is that he developed a series of processes to practice . . . it was not simply all theorizing or philosophizing.

But to answer the question posed by the OP, I have to say I don't see any "pinching of ideas or such" by Hubbard from these two. Though it is possible Hubbard got the idea for his publicity stunt of demonstrating plants feel from Steiner:biggrin:

I have written before on Steiner and his work on ESMB. Indeed I was a guest at the world headquarters of the Anthroposophists, in Dornach, Switzerland for a couple of weeks in 1965. This at the behest of the then Director of the Goetheanum, Dr. Pooplebaum.

Steiner first lectured on the truth that plants have a "spiritual presence and life-force" in around 1905. His Biodynamic agricultural farming and agricultural methods are amazing and brilliant. The best!

As recently as a few years ago, I introduced Virginia to the "Waldorf School" in upstate NY . . . Steiner had also founded a system of schools and education. Wonderful stuff that treats the whole student/person. This as a comparative to Virginia's studying of the Montessori method of teaching.

Personally, I find both Steiner and Blavatski go around and around in their work and not get too far . . . certainly not as precise and on the point of putting one at cause of one's own spiritual existence as I find is possible with other bodies on knowledge.

There is (or was) a Rudolph Steiner Center on the road to St. Hill out of East Grinstead. In the late '60's early '70's there was some sort of order down from the GO that "they" were anti-scientology . . . . and bisides, getting involved with them was to be "mixing practices" :ohmy:

Needles to say, that did not make for friendly relations.

So, in simple terms, I have to say Hubbard did not pinch stuff from them unless it was the simple view that we are more spiritual in the eastern tradition than in the western Christian tradition. And he could have gotten that in a number of other places.

They have no processes comparable to Scn processes that I am aware of.

Rog
 

Vittorio

Patron Meritorious
I read Madame Blavatski a long, long time ago :biggrin: and also Rudolph Steiner. Both quite arcane, and maybe the translation, or maybe the language style at the times they were writing . . . but Jezzuzz it is thick stuff.

Bottom line, they, like Hubbard were addressing the elemental spiritual truths of existence. So it really should be no surprise that there would be some similarities. There are even similarities with very much earlier spiritual endeavors and religions.

What set Hubbard apart is that he developed a series of processes to practice . . . it was not simply all theorizing or philosophizing.

But to answer the question posed by the OP, I have to say I don't see any "pinching of ideas or such" by Hubbard from these two. Though it is possible Hubbard got the idea for his publicity stunt of demonstrating plants feel from Steiner:biggrin:

I have written before on Steiner and his work on ESMB. Indeed I was a guest at the world headquarters of the Anthroposophists, in Dornach, Switzerland for a couple of weeks in 1965. This at the behest of the then Director of the Goetheanum, Dr. Pooplebaum.

Steiner first lectured on the truth that plants have a "spiritual presence and life-force" in around 1905. His Biodynamic agricultural farming and agricultural methods are amazing and brilliant. The best!

As recently as a few years ago, I introduced Virginia to the "Waldorf School" in upstate NY . . . Steiner had also founded a system of schools and education. Wonderful stuff that treats the whole student/person. This as a comparative to Virginia's studying of the Montessori method of teaching.

Personally, I find both Steiner and Blavatski go around and around in their work and not get too far . . . certainly not as precise and on the point of putting one at cause of one's own spiritual existence as I find is possible with other bodies on knowledge.

There is (or was) a Rudolph Steiner Center on the road to St. Hill out of East Grinstead. In the late '60's early '70's there was some sort of order down from the GO that "they" were anti-scientology . . . . and bisides, getting involved with them was to be "mixing practices" :ohmy:

Needles to say, that did not make for friendly relations.

So, in simple terms, I have to say Hubbard did not pinch stuff from them unless it was the simple view that we are more spiritual in the eastern tradition than in the western Christian tradition. And he could have gotten that in a number of other places.

They have no processes comparable to Scn processes that I am aware of.

Rog

Great post Roger and I second that.

I would also say that Hubbards system requires the individual taking responsibility for his own case whereas the other two have stuff about angels and spirit guides and "masters in tibet".

All three subjects contain a certain amount of white magic, but also a certain level of the 'dark' stuff as well as gobbledygook. Hubbard being a black magician and the practise of Scientology being black magic are too different things. To try and improve yourself through self review is white magic. To try and harm others from a distance without consideration for the space in between is black magic. I have experienced both in Scientology. In fact the liability formula in ethics could be considered black magic where an "effective blow" is struck to others.
 

Gadfly

Crusader
Thank-you for the posts S & L.

Rudolf Steiner was early for me this life in terms of spiritual intake. I always found his words uplifting.

I disagree with Roger completely about the value of the Scientology "processes".

Scientology completely omits THIS point:

The evolution of compassion, love, tolerance, the capacity for individual self-sacrifice.

There is NO spiritual evolution without THAT. And, THAT is non-existent in the philosophy, practices and results of Scientology.

Simply, one could toss away ALL of the "processes" of Scientology, and simply work to "apply" compassion, love, tolerance, and the capacity for individual self-sacrifice, and be FAR BETTER OFF. I am sure some will disagree, but then those who disagree probably have little understanding of this whole realm of "compassion, love, tolerance", and HOW it relates to one's spiritual "improvement".

As I see it Hubbard's system IS entirely of the left-handed path. Involvement with Scientology often and usually EXAGGERATES the personal ego. That is part of the philosophy and practices (big beings, power, control, expanding spheres of responsibility, etc.).

Hubbard was a supreme goofball. He had NONE of the qualities of a beautiful soul like Buddha. And, Hubbard LIED and LIED and LIED, and he taught his followers to lie and lie and lie.

As I grow and mature, each passing day finds me with LESS and LESS interest of anything related to Scientology. I find so LITTLE of value, and I find LESS of value every day. Scientology is the "religion" for the modern materialistic ego-obsessed idiot of the West.

But, I DO find great value in the words of Rudolf Steiner and many others who spread the basic valid spiritual message of compassion, love, and tolerance.

Roger, you are correct in this:

"What set Hubbard apart is that he developed a series of processes to practice . . . it was not simply all theorizing or philosophizing."

But it is meaningless because it does NOT CREATE anything of value in any human being. And, it almost ALWAYS results in growth of the ego, growth of the inner universe of significances, and immersion in "mind".

Involvement with Scientology omits THESE entirely - "the noblest, purest and dearest capacities of the human soul that are evolving on earth."

Scientology NEVER brings about a "moral purification of body, soul and spirit and the cultivation of total harmlessness and unconditional selfless love toward all living creatures". In fact Hubbard's theories and practices turn one into an ENEMY and ANTAGONIST of a great many things. The notion of desiring to bring about "harmlessness" in self to ALL other living things is completely alien to Scientology. The notion in Scientology is to is TO BE WILLING TO HARM ANYTHING TO REALIZE ONE'S GOALS. Scientology is a philosophy and practice of separation and isolation from life. The idea that Scientology is a game where everyone "wins" is just another PR lie of Hubbard's. And, Scientology formats and frames everything into a game or contest with everything else. I have no doubt that to Hubbard and most Scientologists it would seem insane or criminal to actually WANT to achieve a state of total helplessness to all life! But then, Hubbard and Scientology never did "get it".

Nope, Scientology is not at all derived from the same ideas as Steiner and Theosophy. Sadly, and badly, for Scientology.

The raw basic "thrust" of Scientology is NOT at all aimed in the same direction as that of legitimate spiritual heroes like Jesus and Buddha.

Scientology is a DISTRACTION to real spiritual development. That is all it is. To give it any more value than that is an error in judgment. :yes:

This is another key point that Scientology fails to address, and actually also causes to INCREASE (not a good thing in terms of spiritual advancement):

'The Crowning of Thorns' for instance, means that the candidate patiently endures the blaspheming and ridicule of everything that he holds most sacred.

Scientologists and Hubbard himself, are/were entirely incapable of "blaspheming and ridiculing everything that he or she holds most sacred". In the path to eradication of the "personal", one must be able to allow ALL significance to vanish. All meanings, all biases, and all opinions must go. One must be willing to hold NO idea above LOVE. Try to get ANY Scientologist to ridicule (criticize) any of many ideas of Scientology - it can't be done, and Hubbard's philosophy itself makes that impossible. A Scientologist who follows Hubbard's therories and practices is totally BLOCKED from this sort of "advancement".

The scary thing about Scientology is that people actually found any value in it at all in the first place. Which says MUCH more about the people than it does about the subject and practices of Scientology.

I did have "experiences" with auditing that were "nice". But, they had NOTHING to do with any sort of meaningful "spiritual advancement".

There is so MUCH more going on in this and other universes than the TINY and FRACTURED version of reality that Hubbard "gave" to his nutty followers.
 
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Gadfly

Crusader
Bottom line, they, like Hubbard were addressing the elemental spiritual truths of existence. So it really should be no surprise that there would be some similarities. There are even similarities with very much earlier spiritual endeavors and religions.

Rog

Hubbard was PRETENDING to address the "elemental spiritual truths of existence".

Just as he pretended or "mocked'up" just about everything in relation to himself. His view was that one could MAKE UP just about anything, and have it be "real" if enough people would AGREE. And, THAT is what Scientology is, and THAT is the true sources of the subject of Scientology. It is based largely on fictions (interwoven with some basic truths). But, one has to dig deep to extract the "basic truths" from the great amount of decrepit shit.

To me, Scientology is such a tremendous JOKE as a "spiritual endeavor". It is so very lacking in "substance". And, just as the subject of Scientology, most Scientologists I have ever known are/were horribly contrived, fake, largely robotic believers and superficial. When it comes to Scientology & most Scientologists I have ever known, for the most part, the slogan "all PR and no product" is quite apt.
 

RogerB

Crusader
Actually, Rudolph Steiner was quite an "adept." Quite a phenomenally aware spiritual Being. A tremendously ethical Being.

And as my mate GadFly says, without the decency and positive traits Steiner conveyed in his work, Scientology and Hubbard's effort turned destructive.

In the 1920's, I don't have the exact date from memory, but Steiner became aware that Adolph Hitler had set plans afoot to have Steiner assassinated. The reason being was that Hitler was insanely wanting to snuff out any other "power" he felt would jeopardize his insane plans. Steiner, like Hitler, was Austrian. And Steiner had by that time developed quite a large and influential following of ethical Beings and was having a positive affect on German society. It was for a German corporation and municipal authority that Steiner had developed and written his Waldorf School materials . . . named after the corporation and town who asked for them.

Steiner's response was to make no changes to his schedule or life and nor did he take any counter-actions against Hitler.

A particular assassination attempt was planned at a train station (from memory) in Munich. Steiner resolved to go forward with his trip as planned, and when asked why, He said it would be unethical to use his heightened spiritual awareness to alter the course of time from whatever it might contain.

As it turned out, for whatever reasons, the assassination attempt failed. I don't recall the precise details. But I do recall learning of the principles of the man, the extent of his ethical conduct.

Quite a man.
 
Thank you Roger, for sharing this information.

The Waldorf Schools and educational methodologies of various progressive sorts deserve their own thread...someday! :eyeroll:

A little busy now, but good for folks to examine them in light of COS claims for study technology as the be all and end all of educational systems.
 
Actually, Rudolph Steiner was quite an "adept." Quite a phenomenally aware spiritual Being. A tremendously ethical Being.

And as my mate GadFly says, without the decency and positive traits Steiner conveyed in his work, Scientology and Hubbard's effort turned destructive.

In the 1920's, I don't have the exact date from memory, but Steiner became aware that Adolph Hitler had set plans afoot to have Steiner assassinated. The reason being was that Hitler was insanely wanting to snuff out any other "power" he felt would jeopardize his insane plans. Steiner, like Hitler, was Austrian. And Steiner had by that time developed quite a large and influential following of ethical Beings and was having a positive affect on German society. It was for a German corporation and municipal authority that Steiner had developed and written his Waldorf School materials . . . named after the corporation and town who asked for them.

Steiner's response was to make no changes to his schedule or life and nor did he take any counter-actions against Hitler.

A particular assassination attempt was planned at a train station (from memory) in Munich. Steiner resolved to go forward with his trip as planned, and when asked why, He said it would be unethical to use his heightened spiritual awareness to alter the course of time from whatever it might contain.

As it turned out, for whatever reasons, the assassination attempt failed. I don't recall the precise details. But I do recall learning of the principles of the man, the extent of his ethical conduct.

Quite a man.

Quote: "...A particular assassination attempt was planned at a train station (from memory) in Munich. Steiner resolved to go forward with his trip as planned, and when asked why, He said it would be unethical to use his heightened spiritual awareness to alter the course of time from whatever it might contain....."


Steiner may have been ethical, and he may have been all sorts of other things..he may have been brilliant.

But... He claims that if he does not follow his schedule that he will be altering the course of time, and he should not do that. Don't we all "alter the course of time from whatever it might contain" whenever we change our plans? So is he saying that whenever we do this we are being unethical, and that he never does it and so he is ethical? Or does he only refrain from changing his plans when his life his threatened. Frankly I call that stupidity. Another point here is that if he did alter his plans to avoid a known suicide plot then that itself, would be an event that is contained by the course of time. So, he is claiming to "follow the will of God" so to speak, in a very (apparently humble way) but by implication he claims to know that he is NOT supposed to change his plans. Why? Supposedly because it is unethical.
Really?.. unethical to protect one's own life and the live's of others who may be killed in a skirmish?

I don't know if Steiner actually said what he has been quoted as saying but if he did it makes Steiner look like a pompous idiot. Superior to others, and in control over destiny and the course of time, by an idiotic and twisted argument based not on logic or sense but on personal attributes. Perhaps Steiner wasn't that arrogant, and was sincere (but idiotic) with his reason for not changing his plans, without claiming superior ethics for it,...the cultic pumping up of his "ethics" by use of this anecdote might not be attributable to Steiner.
 

cayce-case-um

Patron with Honors
Interesting thread.

I think LRH borrowed from many sources -- including psychology (by forbidding psychology, he impeded followers from seeing the links to regression and talk therapies.).

Some of his thoughts seem echoic of other philosophies. Thomas Edison, for example, believed that the body was made up of lots of little creatures ("life units"). If I recall, some ancient Greeks held a similar belief. Reminiscent of body thetans?

Or take Gurdjieff's "kundabuffer" organ, implanted at the base of the human spine that blocked humans from spiritual development (it was implanted by angelic beings from above -- Marcabians, anyone? -- and though it was eventually removed by kinder angels, it ended up in our DNA and its behavioral patterns are passed via genes that so predispose us. Genetic entity?

Hugh Urban, in his book on Scientology, makes a case that Hubbard was a bricoleur -- someone who cobbled together ideas from many sources, synthesizing them into a new creation.

I remember one taped lecture where if I recall, Hubbard spoke poorly of Blavatsky. That makes me think maybe he did borrow from her!
 
Quote: "...A particular assassination attempt was planned at a train station (from memory) in Munich. Steiner resolved to go forward with his trip as planned, and when asked why, He said it would be unethical to use his heightened spiritual awareness to alter the course of time from whatever it might contain....."


Steiner may have been ethical, and he may have been all sorts of other things..he may have been brilliant.

But... He claims that if he does not follow his schedule that he will be altering the course of time, and he should not do that. Don't we all "alter the course of time from whatever it might contain" whenever we change our plans? So is he saying that whenever we do this we are being unethical, and that he never does it and so he is ethical? Or does he only refrain from changing his plans when his life his threatened. Frankly I call that stupidity. Another point here is that if he did alter his plans to avoid a known suicide plot then that itself, would be an event that is contained by the course of time. So, he is claiming to "follow the will of God" so to speak, in a very (apparently humble way) but by implication he claims to know that he is NOT supposed to change his plans. Why? Supposedly because it is unethical.
Really?.. unethical to protect one's own life and the live's of others who may be killed in a skirmish?

I don't know if Steiner actually said what he has been quoted as saying but if he did it makes Steiner look like a pompous idiot. Superior to others, and in control over destiny and the course of time, by an idiotic and twisted argument based not on logic or sense but on personal attributes. Perhaps Steiner wasn't that arrogant, and was sincere (but idiotic) with his reason for not changing his plans, without claiming superior ethics for it,...the cultic pumping up of his "ethics" by use of this anecdote might not be attributable to Steiner.

Dee Bee, I have some ideas and want to respond to this, but have no time at the present...let me keep thinking about it and I'll get there eventually! Sorry for having time constraints! :)
 

Student of Trinity

Silver Meritorious Patron
Whatever their ideas, Steiner and Blavatsky were mid-range celebrities in the first half of the twentieth century, who showed that it was possible to make a living in a western country by leading a new spiritual movement. Myth-making would pay. That doesn't necessarily mean that they weren't sincere, at least up to a point. If I were in their line of work, I would certainly make it a point to be sincere.

I don't know that much about Blavatsky and a bit less still about Steiner, but my impression is that they did pioneer a certain technique that I see in Hubbard as well, of offering a cunning mixture of impressive tricks and untestable claims. Blavatsky used to arrange for letters from her supposed Tibetan advisors to suddenly fall from the ceiling, with the implication that they had just materialized up there; but she was careful not to put too much weight on such tricks. Her safer ground was offering spiritual insights and accomplishments that were profound according to her system of doctrine but completely untestable outside it — visions of pre-human civilizations, for example. She took chances when she had to, to get people in, but once she had them in, she tried to get them onto the pure myth as quickly as possible, because myth was completely safe and cost her nothing.

She had a good run. If Hubbard didn't learn from her, he wasn't paying attention.
 

RogerB

Crusader
Whatever their ideas, Steiner and Blavatsky were mid-range celebrities in the first half of the twentieth century, who showed that it was possible to make a living in a western country by leading a new spiritual movement. Myth-making would pay. That doesn't necessarily mean that they weren't sincere, at least up to a point. If I were in their line of work, I would certainly make it a point to be sincere.

I don't know that much about Blavatsky and a bit less still about Steiner, but my impression is that they did pioneer a certain technique that I see in Hubbard as well, of offering a cunning mixture of impressive tricks and untestable claims. Blavatsky used to arrange for letters from her supposed Tibetan advisors to suddenly fall from the ceiling, with the implication that they had just materialized up there; but she was careful not to put too much weight on such tricks. Her safer ground was offering spiritual insights and accomplishments that were profound according to her system of doctrine but completely untestable outside it — visions of pre-human civilizations, for example. She took chances when she had to, to get people in, but once she had them in, she tried to get them onto the pure myth as quickly as possible, because myth was completely safe and cost her nothing.

She had a good run. If Hubbard didn't learn from her, he wasn't paying attention.

Well, SOT, I know you're sincere in your scientific pursuits, I'd say you'd actually find it interesting and enlightening to visit a Biodynamic farm run on the Biodynamic farming principles and practices developed by Steiner.

I've seen 5,000 cares of wheat grown that way . . . no chemical fertilizers, no chemical bug or fungus killers . . . just the honest and clever application of nature.

I've visited and researched a lot of Biodynamic farms. In the case of the 5,000 acres of wheat, the guy had an abundant full crop whereas his neighbors on the other sides of the fences around him using the best of "modern ag techniques, chemicals, fertilizers and anti-fungucides" were losing a third of their crop to the fungus known as "rust" and this to boot on top of having way less abundance on each actual plant that survived.

By objective test in the real world his principles delivered.

Rog
 

Student of Trinity

Silver Meritorious Patron
Possibly so; I'm no agriculturalist, but I know it's complicated, and I wouldn't be all that surprised if some non-standard method worked well.

But the difference between science and pseudo-science is that in science you bend over backward to check stuff. You don't just take a win when you find what looks like a nice bit of evidence for the view you like best. How typical was this one farmer? Were his neighbors perhaps idiots, as well as non-biodynamicists? Was the biodynamic guy blessed with better land, or better luck?

Of course there's very probably no way to answer any of those things, with any one case. So you need to do large studies, so that you'll be able to get some independent handle on a lot of the probably relevant factors by finding many examples in your sample for each kind of case. Then you'll still have lots of little details that your data doesn't resolve, but you can hope that in a large enough sample, their effects will all tend to average out.

That still doesn't guarantee certainty by any means, but it brings you a lot further than just one case. I'm still not an aggie, but I'd be surprised if there haven't already been quite a few studies like that done on Steiner's methods. And farmers are pretty pragmatic folks as a rule. Few of them are likely to pass up an opportunity for better yields and higher grade crops just because some white-coated professor tells them Steiner was unqualified. So if biodynamic farming is so great, why isn't every farm doing it?
 
Quote: "...A particular assassination attempt was planned at a train station (from memory) in Munich. Steiner resolved to go forward with his trip as planned, and when asked why, He said it would be unethical to use his heightened spiritual awareness to alter the course of time from whatever it might contain....."


Steiner may have been ethical, and he may have been all sorts of other things..he may have been brilliant.

But... He claims that if he does not follow his schedule that he will be altering the course of time, and he should not do that. Don't we all "alter the course of time from whatever it might contain" whenever we change our plans? So is he saying that whenever we do this we are being unethical, and that he never does it and so he is ethical? Or does he only refrain from changing his plans when his life his threatened. Frankly I call that stupidity. Another point here is that if he did alter his plans to avoid a known suicide plot then that itself, would be an event that is contained by the course of time. So, he is claiming to "follow the will of God" so to speak, in a very (apparently humble way) but by implication he claims to know that he is NOT supposed to change his plans. Why? Supposedly because it is unethical.
Really?.. unethical to protect one's own life and the live's of others who may be killed in a skirmish?

I don't know if Steiner actually said what he has been quoted as saying but if he did it makes Steiner look like a pompous idiot. Superior to others, and in control over destiny and the course of time, by an idiotic and twisted argument based not on logic or sense but on personal attributes. Perhaps Steiner wasn't that arrogant, and was sincere (but idiotic) with his reason for not changing his plans, without claiming superior ethics for it,...the cultic pumping up of his "ethics" by use of this anecdote might not be attributable to Steiner.

this raises some very interesting and profound questions. there was an interesting short story in Omni in 1980 titled "Fivesight" which gets into it. of course this is especially pertinent to christian philosophical inquiry as by the account we are given the nazarene entered jerusalem knowing the fate that awaited him, knew as well in the garden of gethsemane his betrayer.

here in our own time i can attest american intelligence was not so incompetent about 9-11 as has been portrayed as i personally received a red alert in san francisco in august which resulted in my deploying to boston where i had a role to play in the aftermath. there is in fact some indication we could have thwarted the attack. however, had we done so we would have been unable to thwart a more serious attack.

i do not have hard information to substantiate this statement

steiner is almost unknown in the mainstream as noted but he is quite a legendary figure. good to see so much writing from this congregation
 
Well, SOT, I know you're sincere in your scientific pursuits, I'd say you'd actually find it interesting and enlightening to visit a Biodynamic farm run on the Biodynamic farming principles and practices developed by Steiner.

I've seen 5,000 cares of wheat grown that way . . . no chemical fertilizers, no chemical bug or fungus killers . . . just the honest and clever application of nature.

I've visited and researched a lot of Biodynamic farms. In the case of the 5,000 acres of wheat, the guy had an abundant full crop whereas his neighbors on the other sides of the fences around him using the best of "modern ag techniques, chemicals, fertilizers and anti-fungucides" were losing a third of their crop to the fungus known as "rust" and this to boot on top of having way less abundance on each actual plant that survived.

By objective test in the real world his principles delivered.

Rog


Here's more than anybody wants to know about it :biggrin: : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodynamic_agriculture
Actually, it was through this that I first learned about him, way back in the 60's-70's. :thumbsup: (My parents were organic gardeners, I was raised with a hoe in my hands, turning the compost pile. :)) Then I learned about his promoted educational theories and methodologies. :biggrin: Reading all the mysticism and esoteric stuff came later. :biggrin:
 
Possibly so; I'm no agriculturalist, but I know it's complicated, and I wouldn't be all that surprised if some non-standard method worked well.

But the difference between science and pseudo-science is that in science you bend over backward to check stuff. You don't just take a win when you find what looks like a nice bit of evidence for the view you like best. How typical was this one farmer? Were his neighbors perhaps idiots, as well as non-biodynamicists? Was the biodynamic guy blessed with better land, or better luck?

Of course there's very probably no way to answer any of those things, with any one case. So you need to do large studies, so that you'll be able to get some independent handle on a lot of the probably relevant factors by finding many examples in your sample for each kind of case. Then you'll still have lots of little details that your data doesn't resolve, but you can hope that in a large enough sample, their effects will all tend to average out.

That still doesn't guarantee certainty by any means, but it brings you a lot further than just one case. I'm still not an aggie, but I'd be surprised if there haven't already been quite a few studies like that done on Steiner's methods. And farmers are pretty pragmatic folks as a rule. Few of them are likely to pass up an opportunity for better yields and higher grade crops just because some white-coated professor tells them Steiner was unqualified. So if biodynamic farming is so great, why isn't every farm doing it?

OH, YOU SWEET LITTLE BOOKWORM, YOU! :) I'll bet you have never read Mother Jones, Organic Gardening or Mother Earth News in your life, have you? :biggrin:

To answer your question: Corporate farming = corporate greed, plain and simple! Major Chemical companies lobbying for Big Ag subsidies for chemical herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, and fertilizers. Not to mention genetically engineered plants and seeds. Monoculture= better crop yield = more profit = sicker environment and people. Much profit to be made. :no:

The biggest issue is that biodynamics is good for biodiversity, which is an important survival issue for us and all species. Lots of small and mid sized farmers (not big Corporate Farms) are devoted to this...Check it out! : http://www.seedsavers.org/

Believe it or not, this is five colored Swiss Chard! :yes:

GetImage.axd.jpg


These are Dragon Carrots:

GetImage.axd


And Moon and Stars Watermelons!:

GetImage.axd


:happydance:
 
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there is science which works quite well. there is pseudoscience which can be profitable and there is also parascientific inquiry. scientific method works very well with MEST which has shown itself to be quite fastidious in it's habits. when you get to biology consistency of result diminishes slightly. by the time you get to psychology you have at best a soft science and sugarplum when you go after a study of the spirit you have entered the theatre of the unique
 
there is science which works quite well. there is pseudoscience which can be profitable and there is also parascientific inquiry. scientific method works very well with MEST which has shown itself to be quite fastidious in it's habits. when you get to biology consistency of result diminishes slightly. by the time you get to psychology you have at best a soft science and sugarplum when you go after a study of the spirit you have entered the theatre of the unique

And sometimes also the theatre of the absurd, Birdy...

...but it's all pretty interesting, isn't it? :)
 
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