Steiner Predicts

Following the Seventh Epoch and the dissolution of the material universe, we will proceed to the Seven Stages of Form. (Please understand that by “we,” I mean the consequent development of the good races and/or the higher races and/or the good component of humanity that will use the Moon forces to help out the laggards, who will then become also good: purified, incorporeal superhumanity.) The Seven Stages of Form are (in no particular order, IMO) Higher Spiritland, Lower Spiritland, Astral Stage, Physical Stage, Small Pralaya, Perfected Astral Stage, Intellectual Stage (Lower Spiritland), and Archetypal Stage (Higher Spiritland). [1] The Big Pralaya is AWOL.

Take the following Steiner statements for what they are worth:

“We are in this higher spiritland when experiencing the splitting of the ego, and the ordinary ego in memory only. It is here that one is first able to form a true estimate of man on earth. As one looks back one begins to know what man is in his inmost being. There, too, it is first possible to come to an experienced judgment concerning the course of history. Human evolution that has been experienced becomes for us the progress of the soul as an ego being [sic]. Standing out from the general progress are leaders in the advancement of humanity. [Gee, I wonder where Steiner placed himself]  Here one actually experiences what I described in the second lecture, that is, the impulses that are continually flowing through the initiates who, wherever they may be, have to leave the life of the senses and go to spiritual worlds so that they can give out these impulses.” [2]
 
“From the lower spiritland one sees the whole being of Christ Jesus! So that, looking back in a purely human way [?], and holding fast to what is present in remembrance, you have a memory of Christ Jesus and of all the events that have taken place in connection with him, that is [cop out], if the other conditions of which I spoke in the second lecture [you could look it up [dull]] has already been fulfilled [there's always a catch]. The truth about the other initiates [i.e., beside Steiner and all the little Steinerites], however, you experience for the first time in the higher spiritland." [3]
 
"Each of these conditions [of form] is divided into seven conditions of life [you've got to take this stuff on faith or with great handfuls of salt]—usually called 'rounds' [sic]; rounds are the same as conditions of life. And those now called conditions of life were formerly called 'globes' [sic; what's going on here is that Steiner is appropriating Theosophical teachings, especially those of the fraud, Madame Blavatsky, and by using new nomenclature he tries to make them his own; doesn't really work, though]. The latter [i.e., former] expression is extremely misleading, for it leads to the idea that these seven globes are side by side [sic; the Steinerian diagram presented here shows a V-shaped formation, like geese or UFOs].
 
"These conditions, from the most remote form, which was formless [sic], down through the physical and up again to the formless, are not seven globes existing side by side [sic], but seven successive conditions. The same globe [sic: Steiner continues to use the misleading terminology about which he warned us] that is now physical was first of all spiritual, then it became denser and denser. It is the same globe [sic] simply condensed. Then a portion of it became astral, then a portion physical; it is always the same globe [sic]. It dissolves again like salt in warm water, it again becomes astral. Thus we have ascended to this astral stage where, in the Apocalypse [i.e., the Book of Revelation], the vials of wrath are described: there the earth becomes astral again." [4]
 
"By Moon, we mean a former state of the earth that existed in the past [got it: a former anything would be in the past] and then, just as a human being passes through a spiritual state after death, went through a spiritual state called pralaya [a footnote defines this as dissolution, i.e., a state of rest]. Just as the human being reincarnates, so this lunar planet [sic] reincarnated as Earth. Further, what we have characterized as this lunar planetary state is, in fact, the reincarnation of a still earlier state, which we call the Sun [sic]." [5]
 
Steiner is exhausting. Let's go back to Seddon (who, I admit, was nearly as trying): "In lower spiritland everything takes the form of thoughts, as dense as those that originally formed the brain [sic: Steiner taught that matter evolved from spirit and thought, not vice versa]...Intuition [i.e.,, paranormal perception] no longer sees the movement of the planets but hears clairaudiently [sic] the music of the spheres...There are still [note: present tense: confusing: this is the future not the present] materialists who are slaves to their animal instincts [Steinerian evolution entailed devolution: spirit produced matter, and humans produced animals by shedding certain undesirable bits of themselves: that's what most higher animals are, inferior bits of us that we tossed aside; humans who still contain within themselves animalistic qualities have not evolved as highly as those who have shucked these qualities; we came from spirit worlds and are trying to evolve back up to them—seems like a lot of fuss and bother—why didn't we just stay put?—but we will be much more spiritual someday, so our quadzillion reincarnations will not have been in vain]...It is they [materialists, i.e., lower forms of human beings] who worship the beast that arises from the (sub-astral [sic]) sea..." [6]
 
"Although personal karma [sic] has already been balanced (p.76 [sic: Seddon has this weird way of referencing his own work, i.e., the very book in which the referral is made]) any karmic effects produced objectively as grotesque astral beings [sic] must still be adjusted [so we still have our evolutionary work cut out for us]." [7] (this is from a section titled "The Perfected Astral Stage" [sic: it won't yet be perfected until the animalistic and the grotesque are cleaned up—this harkens back to the inferior human races that exercised Steiner so much—although in the distant future Seddon is discussing races that as such will have long since been eliminated—diversity and mutual respect never figured much in Steiner's work).].])
 
In quoting Seddon, we implicitly accept his reading of Steiner. Is this correct? Not exactly. But since both guys were shoveling manure, what odds? Think of it like this: Did Seddon correctly describe the coherent (but loopy) vision of the future that Steiner had according to Seddon? R. Seddon had to scramble far and wide, pulling together quotations and "indications" from widely scattered R. Steiner essays and paragraphs. He treated R. Steiner's early work as consistent with R. Steiner's later work, when R. Steiner himself argued that he learned and grew as he went along, correcting early errors (not his fault: the Theosophists palmed these off on him: and R. Steiner really hardly ever admitted to errors as such: R. Steiner was generally quite impressed by the statements made by R. Steiner). R. Steiner had  to claim virtual omniscience in order to be the the seer and fountainhead he claimed to be. But we can see Steiner forcing his early works into the Procrustean bed of his mature Anthroposophical doctrines. Seddon went even farther, which is something Anthroposophists have been known do, following Steiner's indications either carefully or not — sometimes they wind up traveling far afield. But Seddon generally stuck with the master's generally apparent meaning.  [8]
 
I'll wrap this up by saying I won't try to rebut R. Steiner (or R. Seddon's version of R. Steiner's teachings). There clearly is no point. But I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Steiner's gag writers. They were the best. I suspect, but cannot prove, that they later reincarnated as the writers of SEINFELD. Or maybe they congealed to become Robin Williams. It's hard to say.
 

 

ENDNOTES

[1] TFOHATEAFBRS, p. 132.

[2] Rudolf Steiner, INITIATION, ETERNITY AND THE PASSING MOMENT (SteinerBooks, 1980), p. 107.

[3] Ibid., p. 108.

[4] Rudolf Steiner, THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN: Lectures on the Book of Revelation (SteinerBooks, 1977), p. 179.

[5] Rudolf Steiner, THE SPIRITUAL HIERARCHIES AND THE PHYSICAL WORLD: Reality and Illusion (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996), p. 53.

[6] TFOHATEAFBRS, p.97.

[7] TFOHATEAFBRS, p. 93.

[8] Actually, Seddon wasn't far off. Tracking down his references in Steiner's work is tedious, but it shows that Seddon did his homework.