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Steiner
In his youth Steiner was so educationally advanced that it was said that
he had a good understanding of descriptive geometry, probability calculus,
and Kant's works by the age of seventeen; during his Polytechnic years he
re-wrote Fichte's theory of knowledge, page by page; and at the age of 21
was editing Goethe's scientific works for publication. However, this was
the smaller part of Steiner's extraordinary inner life; he dwelled in a
spirit world where from an early age 'he could follow the souls of the departed'.
Up to his mid-thirties he found the material and scientific world in which
he moved and studied less real than his spiritual life, and had to make
great efforts even to memorise basic scientific data. His 'religious' experiences
are those of the clairvoyant, in continuous contact with a world that most
of us have no access to, and no reason to believe in. He seems to belong
in the company of men like Swedenborg, and possibly Jacob Boehme. His stated
life's work, to unite the spiritual and the scientific, is not that dissimilar
to that of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, but took a profoundly different course.
Steiner was born in 1861 in what was then part of Hungary, moving to an
Austrian town where his father was station master and where Steiner spent
a happy childhood. At the age of eight he moved across the border again,
but went to school in Austria, leaving at the age of eighteen to attend
the Polytechnic in Vienna where he read biology, chemistry, physics and
mathematics. On graduating from the Polytechnic he was invited to help in
the editing of the scientific writings of Goethe at the Goethe and Schiller
archives in Weimar, Germany. This was a philological task, and one that
proved tedious at times, though his conscientiousness soon led to his reputation
as the leading expert in Goethe's scientific writings. Steiner missed Vienna,
however, and felt that the seven years he spent in Weimar on the Goethe
archives to be almost an exile. The period did lead to the publication of
nearly a hundred articles, and also led to a meeting with Nietzsche which
had a great impact on the young Steiner. The following passage tells us
something about the meeting, and also about Steiner's spiritual outlook:
There on the lounge lay the one with benighted
mind, with his beautiful forehead, artist's and thinker's forehead in one.
It was early afternoon. Those eyes which, even in their dullness, yet worked
with the permeating power of the soul, now merely mirrored a picture of
the surroundings which could no longer find access to the mind. One stood
there and Nietzsche knew it not at all. And yet it might have been supposed,
from that countenance permeated by the spirit, that this was the expression
of a mind which had all the forenoon long been shaping thoughts within,
and which now would fain rest a while. An inner sense of shock which seized
upon my soul was permitted to feel that it was transformed into understanding
for the genius whose gaze was directed toward me yet failed to rest upon
me. The passivity of this gaze, so long fixed, set free the comprehension
in my own gaze, so that it could cause the soul force of the eye to work
while it was not being met.
And so there appeared before my soul the soul
of Nietzsche, as if hovering above his head, already boundless in its spiritual
light, surrendered freely to spiritual worlds for which it had yearned
before being benighted but had not found; but still chained to the body,
which knew of the soul only so long as the world of spirit continued to
be the object of yearning. Nietzsche's soul was still there, but only from
without could it hold the body - that body which, so long as the soul remained
within it, had offered resistance to the full unfolding of its light.
I had before this read the Nietzsche
who had written; now I beheld the Nietzsche who bore within his body ideas
drawn from widely extended spiritual regions - ideas still sparkling in
their beauty even though they had lost on the way their primal illuminating
powers. A soul which, from previous earth lives bore a wealth of the gold
of light within it, but which could not in this life cause all its light
to shine [11].
This passage, while interesting in its views on Nietzsche, is also illuminating
of many of Steiner's concerns. Steiner was about 34 at that time, and shows,
firstly, an extreme sensitivity to the 'absent' personality of Nietzsche.
Secondly, his claims to 'see' Nietzsche's spirit, and also to have access
to his previous incarnations, are typical of Steiner's occult gifts. Thirdly,
the passage, to many, has a mystical overtone. I will return to this,
but want to add in passing that the passage also conveys an impression of
goodness - that Steiner is a good man. Those that argue that signs
of the mystical experience must include a moral elevation, could point to
the many indications of Steiner's high moral sense (which included for example
the free provision of educational workshops to working men's associations)
as possible confirmation of mystical status.
After his Wiemar period, Steiner found that the Theosophical Society, founded
by Madame Blavatsky, and run by Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater, was
to become an outlet for his spiritual researches. He moved to Berlin, where
Besant appointed him the secretary general of the German branch in 1901,
but from the start he presented his talks as lecture in anthroposophy.
In 1906 he found himself barred from the Theosophical Society because of
their adoption of Krishnamurti as the second coming of Christ (and/or the
Buddha Maitreia, the Buddha to come), which he rejected totally. He founded
the Anthroposophical Society as an independent entity in order to promote
his own teachings: an etymological move from a God-centred to a Man-centred
organisation. It would not be fair to say that the promotion of Krishnamurti
was Steiner's only reason for branching out on his own: he objected to much
of the 'spiritualism' of the Theosophists (a distinction that would require
more space than we have here to explore). However the following passage
relating to Krishnamurti in his autobiography is significant:
But, from 1906 on, manifestations appeared in the [Theosophical] Society
- upon whose general guidance I had not the least influence - reminiscent
of the aberrations of spiritism, which made it necessary for me to warn
members again and again that the part of the Society which was under my
direction had absolutely nothing to do with these things. The climax in
these manifestations was reached when the assertion was made about a Hindu
boy that he was the person in whom Christ would appear in a new earthly
life. For the propagation of this absurdity, a special society was formed
within the Theosophical Society, that of the "Star of the East"
[12].
Johannes Hemleben, in his biography of Steiner,
explains why the Steiner was against the adoption of Eastern spiritual practices,
while acknowledging the profundity of the ancient wisdom of the Orient:
However, he was convinced that there was nothing
in the riches of the traditional wisdom of Asia that could give it the
power to overcome the scientific materialism that sets the intellectual
tone for the civilised world to-day. The power to do this resides in the
mind of the West itself. The nameless 'Master' who had said: "Only
he can overcome the dragon who can slip into the dragon's skin", pointed
the way.
Modern science is not human development on
the wrong track, as for instance the atomic physicist Jordan teaches, but
the human intellect's road to Golgotha, by which through the spiritualization
of this thinking man will achieve his resurrection and celebrate his Easter
[13].
This passage sums up many of the issues that
comprise Steiner's project: firstly that materialism is the greatest threat
to mankind, that science itself is the route to overcome it, through a spiritualisation
of science, and that the mystery of Golgotha is the metaphor and drama for
human progress. In fact Steiner makes the 'mystery of Golgotha' central
to his teachings about the spiritual life, and to the state between death
and rebirth, and to an understanding of the spiritual evolution of the individual,
the solar system, and of the universe. Anthroposophy, despite its title,
is a Christ-centred teaching, and Steiner is passionate that he must
come again:
To speak fundamentally: we must find our way
again to Christ. Christ must come again. This assumes that during the present
century there will be men able to understand in what way Christ will announce
His presence, in what guise He will appear. Otherwise terrible disturbances
may be stirred up by people who, having in the subconscious depths of their
being a premonition of this coming of Christ in the spirit, will represent
it to others in a shockingly superficial way [14].
Steiner wanted to initiate his followers into
a spiritual research, a form of investigation into the material universe
to uncover the spirits ever-present in rocks, trees, animals, humans, planets,
and stars; and to relate to the disembodied spirits or angels and the spirits
of those between incarnations. He believed in progress, or evolution, but
spiritual as opposed to a material one, and held that Christ was a central
force (or archetype) in this evolution. From 1905 to 1925 the Anthroposophical
Society revolved around his teachings and the implications of those teachings
on art, science, community life, education, agriculture and industry. His
teachings were also embodied in the extraordinary building called the Goetheanum,
started in 1913 in Dornach, near Basel. The architecture and materials used
in the building were unique, and its destruction by fire in 1922 was a huge
loss to the movement, and to the world. The original structure was built
largely of wood: its replacement (still standing today) was made of concrete.
One of the principles behind Steiner's architecture was the softening of
geometrical rectilinear design principles by the introduction of organic
curvatures: these work on the souls of the inhabitant or onlooker to counter
the deadening materialism of most modern buildings. Although the Goetheanum,
the centre of what was now a world-wide organisation, was rebuilt, Steiner
could not use it long, for he fell ill and died in 1925.
Jung
Jung was born in 1875 by lake Constance in Switzerland, studied medicine
in Basel, and began his psychiatric practice in Zurich. In his autobiography
[15].
Jung describes how his early inner experiences make him question his father's
constricting adherence to religious dogma, and lead him to the kind of wider
reading that we have seen with Nietzsche and Steiner. Jung was greatly impressed
with Goethe's Faust, and also read Schopenhauer, going on to read
Nietzsche, as well as all the philosophy and science he could lay his hands
on. Jung shared Nietzsche's difficulties over the direction his life should
take, but his eventual decision, as a medical student, to specialise in
the then unrewarding field of psychiatric medicine, proved to be the right
one: he spent his life in this field, and made extraordinary contributions
to it.
Jung's inner life was as intense as Nietzsche's and Steiner's, and led him
to a similar sense of isolation and occasional periods of acute loneliness.
Nietzsche's experience greatly worried Jung as he started to read him, as
he could identify with many of Nietzsche's struggles. Jung was a much more
robust character however, and survived a period of intense trauma in his
early thirties which formed the basis for much of his later theories. While
Jung shared the ambivalences of Nietzsche, both in his early career difficulties,
and in his psychological makeup, one has to say that Steiner seems to be
without them. Steiner's complete and innocent certainty about his inner
and outer worlds, while not making him either arrogant or uncaring, are
wholly at odds with Jung's multifaceted, contradictory, and evolving personality.
It is no coincidence that Memories, Dreams, Reflections ends with
an ambivalent statement, or that Jung took little interest in Steiner. Jung
mentions him in an article entitled Yoga and the West, as one who,
along with Mme. Blavatsky, attempted to develop yoga into an organised religion.
Jung goes on to explain why he is against the introduction of yoga to the
West, blissfully unaware that Steiner was similarly outspoken against the
adoption of Indian practices [16] . In contrast, Jung devotes the theme of his seminars
in the years from 1934 to 1939 to Thus Spoke Zarathustra, only breaking
off because of the war [17]. Steiner was lecturing throughout Europe when Jung
was in his thirties and forties, and built his Goetheanum less than a hundred
miles from Jung's home in Bollingen, Zurich. Strangely, Jung completed his
equivalent (he called it his Tower, and intended it as a structure that
would allow him to meditate on his interiority), shortly after the first
Goetheanum burned down. There is little evidence that Jung read any of Steiner's
voluminous publications, and he seemed to even lump Theosophy and Anthroposophy
together. All this is quite consistent with Jung's world view however: he
instinctively avoided religious teachers in the East, and so why should
he make an exception in the West? Jung travelled to India in 1938, and makes
these comments in Memories, Dreams, Reflections:
By that time I had read a great deal about
Indian philosophy and religious history, and was deeply convinced of the
value of Oriental wisdom. But I had to travel in order to form my own conclusions,
and remained within myself like a homunculus in a retort. (p. 304)
I had searching talks with S. Subramanya Iyer,
the guru of the Maharajah of Mysore, whose guest I was for some time; also
with many others, ... On the other hand, I studiously avoided all so-called
"holy men." I did so because I had to make do with my own truth,
not accept from others what I could not attain on my own. (p. 305)
These extracts show an important aspect of Jung's character. In a positive
light his unwillingness to expose himself to "holy men" can be
read as a desire for authenticity, and a desire to be scientific in the
sense of working only with data that he could test for himself. Amongst
the "holy men" themselves one can find as many who avoided other
"holy men" (both in their early and mature stages) as those who
sought them out, so Jung's attitude is not of itself indicative of much.
In a less positive light however, it could be read as a fear that
Jung was not willing to confront. We need to look back to his accounts of
early experience of the 'religious' to make more sense of this. As a child
he developed an early distrust in the Jesus of his father's church, and
an early interest in the Oriental. He had an intense inner life, and took
an interest in nature. Dreams from his childhood presented him with images
that he was absorbed with all his life. An important event in his inner
life was an experience in his twelfth year: he was struck by the beauty
of his local cathedral, but somehow it triggered a train of thought that
he dare not complete. He wrestled against the emerging thought, for he sensed
that it was blasphemous, and became almost ill with the struggle. He knew
that to think it was wrong, because one should avoid evil, but on the other
hand, why should nature or God urge him so strongly to complete this thought?
What was God's will here? He finally decided that it must be God's will
that he think it - that this was a test of his courage. The thought completes
itself: God, enthroned high above his cathedral, lets drop an enormous turd
that shatters it. The young Jung experiences a state of grace, and not the
expected damnation and guilt, a formative experience for him. Jung learns
from this that he is to follow his inner promptings, that Nature in the
broadest sense of the term is to be trusted, while the authority
of men and the Church is not.
Jung later goes on to identify the unconscious, and more precisely, the
collective unconscious, as the source of all religious experience. The connotation
of the term unconscious as being below the conscious mind is significant:
for Jung the profound, religious, and transformative experiences come from
below, and not from above. Thus, his religious and spiritual interests
have their origin in the primitive, the archaic, and the mythological, and
not in the transcendent, the downflow of grace, or the unitive. Jung prefers
to speak about gods rather than God, and finds a parallel between the gods,
and his archetypes, which are the 'messengers' from the collective unconscious.
One can read too much into Jung's cathedral 'vision', but is the turd really
an accident? In the place of grace from above we have a turd. Yet, it sets
Jung free, and on a lifelong exploration that leads him to mythology, alchemy
and Gnosis.
Looking again at his visit to India, Jung makes another revealing comment,
in the context of his preoccupation with good and evil:
I saw that Indian spirituality contains as
much of evil as of good. The Christian strives for good and succumbs to
evil; the Indian feels himself to be outside good and evil, and seeks to
realise this state by meditation or yoga. My objection is that, given such
an attitude, neither good nor evil takes on any real outline, and this
produces a certain statis. One does not really believe in evil, and one
does not really believe in good. Good or evil are then regarded at most
as my good or my evil, as whatever seems to me good or evil
- which leaves us with the paradoxical statement that Indian spirituality
lacks both evil and good, or is so burdened by contradictions that it needs
nirdvandva, the liberation from opposites and from the ten thousand
things.
The Indian's goal is not moral perfection,
but the condition of nirdvandva. He wishes to free himself from
nature; in keeping with this aim, he seeks in meditation the condition
of imagelessness and emptiness. I, on the other hand, wish to persist in
the state of lively contemplation of nature and of the psychic images.
I want to be freed neither from human beings, nor from myself, nor from
nature; for all these appear to me the greatest of miracles. Nature, the
psyche, and life appear to me like divinity unfolded - and what more could
I wish for? To me the supreme meaning of Being can consist only in the
fact that it is, not that its is not or is no longer.
To me there is no liberation a tout prix.
I cannot be liberated from anything I do not possess, have not done or
experienced. Real liberation becomes possible for me only when I have done
all that I was able to do, when I have completely devoted myself to a thing
and participated in it to the utmost. If I withdraw from participation,
I am virtually amputating the corresponding part of my psyche. (pp. 305
- 306, MDR).
This extract shows that Jung wishes to draw a line between East and West
as surely as Steiner does. However, the East and West that Jung wishes to
distinguish, has in fact nothing to do with the religion of India: all of
Jung's above comments can only be addressed to Buddhist doctrine, or Buddhist-like
doctrines in India. The comments are typical of anyone, Occidental or Oriental,
who first confronts expressions of the zero-experience (to use Bharati's
term), whether from the East or West, and who fails to grasp it. The two
universal objections are raised: this takes me beyond good and evil, and
it is an amputation. We will return to this later. In the meantime
it is worth noting that Jung saw the Buddha as India's 'greatest light'
[18],
finding little in Hunduism to match it, and commenting that 'in comparison,
Islam seems to be a superior, more spiritual, and more advanced religion.'
[19]
Part of Jung's greatness was his continual reassessment
of his position: right up to the time of his death he was prepared to look
at things in new ways, though only within certain parameters it must be
said. In his memoirs he makes much of a period of crisis in his early thirties,
and the psychic material generated at that time as being the raw data on
which he reflected and developed his theories over a lifetime. In 1916 Jung
finds himself immersed in visions and dreams that threaten his sanity; he
finds himself, ironically, dealing with the 'stuff' of mental illness, which
up to then he had dealt with only in his patients. The crisis went on for
several years, but, comparing himself to Nietzsche, he tells us that he
'did not succumb', and that his family and career circumstances were a stabilising
factor. It is in his family home, with his family present in 1916, that
he experiences a haunting which he eventually deals with by writing 'The
Seven Sermons to the Dead'. This short tract is reminiscent of Thus Spoke
Zarathustra on several counts: he puts words into a dead prophet's mouth,
the prophet is unsure of his message and is harangued by his audience, and
the ending has an emotional parallel. (See Appendix A - the annotated Sermons
[20].)
Although Jung later regretted the Sermons as a youthful indiscretion
(though he was in his thirties at the time of writing them!) and one could
argue that they are not typical of Jung, the Sermons do in fact give
a clear picture of Jung's religious understandings. The explicit link to
Gnosis is via the use of Basilides as the protagonist, but Jung's presentation
of Gnostic elements such as the pleroma, Abraxas, and the opposites are
his own and in keeping with the extracts I have quoted above. The most important
elements in it are perhaps the attempt to explain nothingness, an attempt
that fails firstly because of a too-logical approach, and secondly because
of no direct experience of it. This is borne out by his attitude
to nirvana, shown above. The other element is the instinct for polytheism,
or the multiplication of religious entities. This is merely an expression
of Jung's instinctive anti-theistic stance.
Commonalities - their Relation to Nature
We have dwelled on some of the commonalities between the three men: early
religious influences, academically highly advanced from an early age, loners,
profoundly influenced by Goethe, set apart from any religious tradition,
deeply engaged in religious questions. One feature of their lives that we
have not dwelled on up to now has been their interest in and sensitivity
to Nature. This is pronounced in all three, though perhaps less immediately
obvious in the case of Nietzsche, whose descriptions of nature are sketchy
at best. The interest in nature relates to our attempts to determine their
possible mystic orientation: it is clear that a panenhenic orientation
may be discernible in each case.
Nietzsche echoes Whitman and Jefferies in praising the body; that they did
this at a similar point in European history is no coincidence, as the Victorian
morality and dread of the body's natural functions laid a dead hand over
the imagination of the great thinkers of that period. We live in a time
where the body is largely restored its natural place, or perhaps too greatly
emphasised even, and may find it odd that these writers should lay so much
stress on it. Let us look at some of Nietzsche's thoughts on the subject,
as expressed through Zarathustra:
Once the soul looked contemptuously upon the
body: and then this contempt was the supreme good - the soul wanted the
body lean, monstrous, famished. So the soul thought to escape from the
body and from the earth.
Oh, this soul was itself lean, monstrous, and
famished: and cruelty was the delight of this soul!
But tell me brothers: What does your body say
about your soul? Is your soul not poverty and dirt and a miserable ease?
('Zarathustra's Prologue')
Listen rather, my brothers, to the voice of
the healthy body, this is a pure voice and a more honest one.
Purer and more honest of speech is the healthy
body, perfect and square-built: and it speaks of the meaning of earth.
('Of the Afterworldsmen')
There is more reason in your body than in your
best wisdom.
('Of the Despisers of the Body')
Nietzsche is emphatic about Nature as a whole,
not just the body. He took a delight in nature as his long walks in the
woods during the gestation of Zarathustra show. He would often take
friend to the 'Zarathustra stone' a waterwashed boulder on the shore of
Lake Silvaplana and wax lyrical in the beautiful surroundings on the origins
of the book. There are not that many actual descriptions of nature in Zarathustra,
but he spells out his views in this passage:
The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let
your will say: The Superman shall be the meaning of the earth!
I entreat you, my brothers, remain true
to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of superterrestrial
hopes! They are the poisoners, whether they know it or not.
They are despisers of life, atrophying and
self-poisoned men, of whom the earth is weary: so let them be gone!
Once the blasphemy against God was the greatest
blasphemy, but God died, and thereupon these blasphemers died too. To blaspheme
the earth is now the most dreadful offence, and to esteem the bowels of
the Inscrutable more highly than the meaning of the earth. (Prologue)
The modern ecologists could well take his slogan 'To blaspheme the earth
is now the most dreadful offence', as prophetic.
Steiner was sensitive to nature in a conventional way, as this passage suggests:
The scenes amidst which I passed my childhood
were marvellous. the prospect embraced the mountains linking Lower Austria
with Styria: Schneeberg, Wechsel, Raxalpe, Semmering. the bald rockface
of the Schneeberg caught the sun's rays, which, when they were projected
onto the little station on fine summer days, were the first intimation
of the dawn. The grey ridge of the 'Wechsel' made a sombre contrast.
The green prospects which welcomed the observer
on every side made it seem as if the mountains were thrusting upwards of
their own volition. The majestic peaks filled the distance, and the charm
of nature lay all around [21].
In addition to this conventional appreciation Steiner had an occult
appreciation of nature. This meant that he saw everything, from minerals
and rocks, through plants and animals to humans, as possessing a spirit.
In the following passage Steiner is explaining how in early times Man related
to nature:
A man in those days had a feeling of intense
sadness when looking at all that was most lovely in the sense-world. He
looked at the flowers, springing out of the earth in their wonderful beauty,
and watched the blossoms unfold. And he saw also how beneficent the flowers
were for him. He saw the loveliness of the springs bubbling forth in shady
places, and his senses spoke to him of their refreshing powers. But then,
then, he said to himself: "It seems as though all this has fallen
- fallen though sin from the world I bear within me and which I have brought
down into physical existence out of the spiritual worlds." So the
teachers in the Mysteries then had the task of explaining how in the flowers,
in the rippling waters, in the woodland murmurings and the song of the
nightingale - everywhere spirit is working and weaving, everywhere spiritual
beings are to be found. They had to impart to men the great truth: What
is living in you lives also outside in nature. For a man looked upon the
external world with sorrow, with pain, at the very time when his sense
were freshest and most responsive - a time when least of all the intellect
spoke to him of natural laws, and he looked upon the outer world with primitive
senses. The beauty of its sprouting and budding forced itself upon his
sight, his hearing and other senses but all he felt was sorrow; for he
was unable to reconcile it with the contents of his pre-natal existence,
which still lived on in his soul. Thus it was incumbent upon the wise men
of the Mysteries to point out how the divine-spiritual dwells in all things,
even in those of the senses. It was the spirituality of nature that these
teachers had to make clear [22].
This fragment of Steiner's teachings contains
wonderful descriptions of nature, the statement of the spiritual in nature,
and also the strange (to us) sense of sorrow that early man had in nature.
Jung was also sensitive to nature, with perhaps a glimpse of the spiritual
that Steiner talks about. The following passage is typical of him:
And although I admired science in the conventional
way, I also saw it giving rise to alienation and aberration from "God's
Word," as leading to a degeneration which animals were not capable
of. Animals were dear and faithful, unchanging and trustworthy. People
I now distrusted more than ever.
Insects I did not regard as proper animals,
and I took cold-blooded vertebrates to be a rather lowly intermediate stage
on the way down to the insects. Creatures in this category were objects
for observation and collection, curiosities merely, alien and extra-human;
they were manifestations of impersonal life and more akin to plants than
to human beings.
The earthly manifestations of "God's world"
began with the realm of plants, as a kind of direct communication from
it. It was as though one were peering over the shoulder of the Creator,
who, thinking himself unobserved, was making toys and decorations. Man
and the proper animals, on the other hand, were bits of God that had become
independent. That was why they could move about on their own and choose
their abodes. Plants were bound for good or ill to their places. They expressed
not only the beauty but also the thoughts of God's world, with no intent
of their own and without deviation. Trees in particular were mysterious
and seemed to me direct embodiments of the incomprehensible meaning of
life. For that reason the woods were the place where I felt closest to
its deepest meaning and to its awe-inspiring workings.
This impression was reinforced when I became
acquainted with Gothic cathedrals. But there the infinity of the cosmos,
the chaos of meaning and meaninglessness, of impersonal purpose and mechanical
law, were wrapped in stone. This contained and at the same time was the
bottomless mystery of being, the embodiment of spirit. What I dimly felt
to be my kinship with stone was the divine nature in both, in the dead
and the living matter [23].
This passage is interesting from many points
of view. His descriptions of nature, and his attitudes to nature are sensitive,
and also couched in the God-as-Creator terminology of his culture. He goes
further than this where he sees animals and humans as 'bits of God'. While
not exactly pantheistic, this outlook is consistent with the panenhenic.
Despite his frequent use of the term 'God', Jung is more comfortable with
gods, and in particular, with the archetypes, which can be seen as
his reinvention of the gods. In fact, despite his professed belief in God
(which he often equated with the unknowable aspect of the collective unconscious),
it does not have anything of the flavour of the theistic mystic, as the
following quote indicates:
The question then arises: What will become
of Thee [God] and Me [Jung]? of the transcendental Thou and the Immanent
I? The way of the unexpected opens, fearful and unavoidable, with hope
of a propitious turn or a defiant 'I will not perish under the will of
God unless I myself will it too.' Then only, I feel, is God's will made
perfect. Without me it is only his almighty will, a frightful fatality
even in its grace, void of sight and hearing, void of knowledge for precisely
that reason.
Note that this passage (from a letter written by Jung in 1943) is quoted
by Aniela Jaffe, in support of her contention that Jung is a mystic [24]. Note
also the equal capitalisation with Thee and Me: this is a clue to the tone
of the passage, a tone that is a million miles from that of the theistic
mystic. God's will alone is anathema to Jung.
The Project of the Mystics
Before attempting to characterise in more depth the projects of Nietzsche,
Steiner and Jung, let us look briefly at the project of the mystics. At
its simplest their project lies in two halves: first the attainment of the
One (however we define this), and secondly the teaching of this attainment.
For some, the two halves go hand in hand (that is they teach along the way),
for others the first phase is noticeably absent (e.g. Krishna and Lao Tzu),
and we can only assume that some mystics who attained the One remained silent,
and therefore remained unknown to us.
We have indicated earlier that the orientations of the mystics can fruitfully
be distinguished as monistic and theistic, and that a panenhenic orientation
can also be observed, though possibly reducing eventually to either monistic
or theistic. We have observed no obvious monistic or theistic mysticism
in Nietzsche, Steiner, or Jung, but a possible panenhenic orientation. Attempting
to go further, one can ask the question: is this a heart- or head-oriented?
In each case we note little serious engagement with a God, or at least not
a devotional engagement. In fact we are more likely to encounter gods than
a God in each case (arguably a panenhenic symptom). In each case, therefore,
we are left with a monistic panenhenic orientation, that is to say
a type of head-oriented nature mysticism, if they are on the mystic path
at all. According to my earlier discussion then, we would expect similarities
with a man of the Richard Jefferies type.
One might object that Nietzsche and Steiner are more clearly head-oriented
than Jung, who seems to project a warmer image. I would simply offer this
quote to dispel the idea that Jung is heart-oriented (and remember that
I do not intend the term head-orientation to mean lacking in warmth, love,
and compassion):
I asked him [a Pueblo Indian] why he thought
the whites were all mad.
"They say that they think with their heads,"
he replied.
"Why of course. What do you think with?"
I asked him in surprise.
"We think here," he said, indicating
his heart.
I fell into a long meditation. For the first
time in my life, so it seemed to me, someone had drawn for me a picture
of the real white man [25].
A heart-oriented person (white or otherwise)
would not have asked the question that Jung asked in this passage, would
not have been surprised at the answer, would not have needed to meditate
on it, and would already have a picture of the white (head-oriented) man.
(The whole subject of how educated Westerners have their heart-orientation
stifled is fascinating but too big a subject to tackle here.)
Returning for now to the project of the mystics: if we leave out the teaching
aspect, how can we further characterise it? Agehananda Bharati's views may
be useful here. His definitions can be legitimately attacked for being framed
in such a way as to make him, by his definitions, a mystic; on the other
hand his definitions are useful because of his mystical experiences, and
his encounters with mystics. The first part of his definition - a mystic
is a person who says "I am a mystic", or words to that effect,
consistently [26] - is not that useful, and would rule out Whitman
and Jefferies for a start. However, it could be usefully re-framed to indicate
that a mystic will not usually make an attempt to deny that he is a mystic.
We note that Jung consistently denied it. The second part of his definition
is more useful: (the mystical experience) is the person's intuition of
numerical oneness with the cosmic absolute, with the universal matrix, or
with any essence stipulated by the various theological and speculative systems
of the world. He goes on to say that this alone is the mystical effort
and that the mystic pursues it as his overwhelmingly central avocation.
Elsewhere in the book he reinforces this idea by quoting mystic's behaviour
as obsessively focused on this goal, to the extent of having little small-talk,
and even of discouraging the curious with rudeness and stone-throwing.
The Projects of Nietzsche, Steiner and Jung
Nietzsche
We have seen that in the course of Nietzsche's life he struggled with his
direction: firstly as pastor, secondly as philologist, and lastly as philosopher.
Bertrand Russell classes Nietzsche as a literary philosopher: I would go
farther and say that in fact his project in the end was artistic
(though expressed in a literary way) and not philosophical at all. Nietzsche's
contributions to philosophy are not that interesting or influential (in
an academic sense), but his greatest work, Zarathustra, is a work
of art, and one that derives from a fevered and doomed imagination at that,
and highly influential on mid-European artists and intellectuals. If we
take the thrust of his earliest work The Birth of Tragedy seriously,
then we can see the persona of Zarathustra as the music-making Socrates,
and to even see Thus Spoke Zarathustra, as having a common ground
with music making. We cannot ignore the aphoristic nature of Nietzsche's
project, or its prophetic pretensions, but where the work succeeds is as
art.
Given this interpretation of Nietzsche's project, how close does it come
(if at all) to the mystical project? Are there elements in his pastoral,
philological, philosophical, and, finally, literary (musical) works that
can be described as mystical? Is the poetry and wide sweep of inspired language,
symbol, and metaphor in Zarathustra arising from a mystical impulse?
The gestation of the work, on the shores of Lake Silvaplana, suggest that
he had some kind of mystical experience there, and indeed that the music
of the work may have its roots in the mystical. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh chose
to interprets Zarathustra in a mystical way, making it the subject
of a lecture series [27], and ignoring the negative aspects. This is in keeping
with robust style of Rajneesh (modelled in part on Gurdjieff), but he does
not look at the whole picture. Nietzsche's project is undeniably ecstatic,
but it tips far too often into the frenzied and the rabid. You could not
catch the 'Buddha disease' from him; his bite will sooner send you to the
insane asylum.
Steiner
Steiner's project, from beginning to end, can be described as occult.
This term is open to many interpretations, but in Steiner's case it could
be characterised as a social form of occultism: the occult nature
of his spiritual development and teachings was to be harnessed for the good
of society, starting with the elementaries of life, from the growing of
food, to housing, to education, and on to some kind of spiritual development
of the race. Steiner's project is forward-looking, speaking of the spiritual
evolution of man (we saw in an earlier quote how he could relate this to
the earlier spiritual states of man). It is also scientific, though his
attitude to technology is sometimes hostile (he cites the phonograph as
the most pernicious invention of the twentieth century).
Steiner as an individual the most mysterious and enigmatic of the three
men discussed here. Nietzsche's mystique arises out of the depth of his
artistry, but once this is realised, he takes his place with many other
creative geniuses: as a society we are relatively comfortable with them.
They are beyond the pale of course, but enrich us, and our trade with them
is economically sound: they are tolerated, even venerated, in return for
the products of their minds. If they go mad, so much the better, it adds
piquancy to the product. Jung by comparison is downright homely - all his
photographs suggest an avuncular fellow - terribly erudite of course, but
not unlike many a college professor. Steiner seem to come from another planet.
Perhaps he does.
Steiner's project seems to be mysterious, not mystical.
Jung
Jung's project is psychological and scientific. It is psychological in a
clinical sense, where his discoveries of the archetypes, the collective
unconscious and the process of individuation are used to help recovery in
mental patients. Perhaps the most telling remark about his clinical work
is his comment that his breakthrough was in getting at the patient's 'story'
[28]. In the treatment
of physical ailments there are only fractures, lesions, bacilli, viruses
etc.: the 'story' is mostly irrelevant. Jung's deep insight was that the
'story' for mental patients was everything, and the tools he employed can
be seen as a way of entering the story, for both analyst and analysand.
Jung's project was also scientific, and, I think, less successful than the
clinical side. His discoveries, or perhaps inventions, were effective in
treatment, but as a body of scientific 'knowledge' rather problematic. Where
Steiner was forward looking, I would suggest that Jung's project is backward
looking in nature.
In his memoirs Jung is preoccupied with the past: his personal past, the
feelings of 'deja vu' he has in connection with places and people, mythological
past, and racial past. He is comfortable with the occult, but only to a
certain degree (more than Freud, less than Steiner). The goal of his project
is individuation, the freedom from complexes that comes through identification
with the archetypes. The emphasis is always on the past, and Jung has little
suggestion as to what the fully individuated person engages with.
Conclusions
If we ask the straight question: were Nietzsche, Steiner, or Jung mystics?
the straight answer would be no in each case. While it is possible to relate
their orientations to that of a certain type of mystic (a panenhenic monist)
there simply exists in none of them the obsession with the unitive.
By applying a form of Occam's Razor: do not needlessly multiply religious
entities, we cut them out of the category of straight mystic. Each of
them may have had mystical experiences, but mystical experiences do not,
alone, make a mystic: we must also examine their orientation and project,
in short their relation to the One. By examining their orientations and
projects in more depth we can learn more, both about these men, and about
what exactly the territory of mysticism is.
In the case of Nietzsche his orientation as a head-oriented panenhenic can
be analysed further. He was a recluse, a characteristic shared by many mystics,
and showed his bile mainly in his writings, which are of course terminally
the worse for it. The mystic impulse that is at the root of Zarathustra,
expressed itself, not as a unitive urge in the silent or devotional sense,
but in an artistic, conquering sense. Whether he was finally overwhelmed
by a disease that was completely organic in origin, or whether it was a
spiritual breakdown, will always be a matter of debate, but there are signs
in Zarathustra that as a vessel Nietzsche was simply not strong enough
to deal with his insights and creativity, both of which may well have arisen
from mystical experience. This is an important lesson in mysticism: a channelling
of the mystic urge into the artistic can lead to madness. As an expression
of his age - the need to conquer - may also have contributed to his breakdown,
for the drop cannot conquer the ocean, even if it expands into a mighty
torrent. However, Nietzsche's project is important to the mystics:
if he had succeeded in realising the 'numerical oneness' his insights and
artistry would have left us the most extraordinary testament. Returning
to the question of humility or sensitivity, we have a deeply sensitive man,
but not a humble man, at least in some important respects. This single quote
may sum up his attitude to the divine:
But to reveal my heart entirely to you, friends:
if there were gods, how could I endure not to be a god! Therefore
there are no gods.
('On the Blissful Islands')
Jung, as a head-oriented panenhenic, has made
the clearest statements about the One: he considered nirvana as a
form of amputation. However, he describes all kinds of mystical experiences
in his memoirs, though there is no evidence that it changed his project.
The fact that his project is backward looking is as irrelevant to mysticism
as Steiner's forward looking. His focus on individuation, with its resonance
(for me at least) with Gurdjieff's concept of crystallisation, suggest an
impulse to the unitive, but sought in the realm of the psychological - the
realm of the manifold, the realm of the ten thousand things. The multiplication
of entities is necessary in this realm, but I would suggest that in Jung
it was habit forming, and that his whole edifice of symbol and myth are
far removed from the mystical project because of it. Like with Steiner,
we could however view Jung's project as a preparatory phase in the mystic
life.
Like Nietzsche, Jung is mixture of sensitivity and lack of humbleness in
respect to the divine at least. This quote sums the point up (for me):
This is quoted by Jaffe (from a letter by Jung
in 1952), again as evidence of Jung's mystic status! [29]
Steiner is, for me, the most problematic of
the three. As a head-oriented panenhenic he is social, and forward looking.
Although I have characterised his project as occult, the fact is that, in
relation to the mystic project, his project may not be comprehensible. A
botanist responds to nature by multiplying entities (i.e. naming and taxonomising),
whereas a panenhenic mystic responds to nature through silence and a sense
of union. Steiner is responding to a spiritual world (that few of us have
access to) by multiplying entities, instead of silence. But what is his
project exactly? There is nothing in the zero experience, or the mystic
state as described down the ages, to suggest that mankind evolves as a whole,
or that if he does that it is relevant. If Steiner's project is some kind
of spiritual evolution for the race as a whole, then this is irrelevant
to the mystical. If, however, he is, like Gurdjieff, seeking to prepare
the ground for individuals to enter the unitive state, then his project
may be wholly relevant to the mystical. It is also worth noting that the
arrogances of Nietzsche and (to a lesser extent) Jung are not so easily
detectable in Steiner.
While Nietzsche and Jung help us in the study of mysticism, by helping to
delineate what is not mysticism, Steiner probably deserves deeper
study. This could be done in terms of the relevance of Steiner's project
in the training of the mystic, if such a thing is possible. Jung's project
may only be relevant to the degree that it allows sensitive individuals
a degree of accommodation with their pathologies: sufficient to allow them
to turn their energies to the unitive.
References and Notes for Part 2
[11] Steiner.
R. The Course of My Life, New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1969 ,
pp. 189-190
[12] Steiner.
R. The Course of My Life, New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1969, p.
314
[13] Hemleben,
J. Rudolf Steiner - A Documentary Biography, Henry Goulden, 1975
pp. 80-81
[14] Steiner.
R. The Evolution of Consciousness, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1966, p.
193
[15] Jung,
C.G., Memories, Dreams, Reflections, London: Fontana 1993
[16] Jung,
C.G., Psychology and the East, Ark Paperbacks, London and New York,
1991, p.77
[17] Jung,
C.G. Nietzsche's Zarathustra, Princeton University Press, 1988, three
volumes.
[18] Jung,
C.G., Psychology and the East, Ark Paperbacks, London and New York,
1991, p. 97
[19] Jung,
C.G., Psychology and the East, Ark Paperbacks, London and New York,
1991, p. 91
[20] The
translation of the Sermons in the Appendix is taken from: Segal,
Robert A. The Gnostic Jung, including "Seven Sermons to the Dead",
London: Routledge (Princeton University Press)1992
[21] Hemleben,
J. Rudolf Steiner - A Documentary Biography, Henry Goulden, 1975,p.
10
[22] Steiner.
R. The Evolution of Consciousness, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1966, pp.
49-50
[23] Jung,
C.G., Memories, Dreams, Reflections, London: Fontana 1993, p. 86
[24] Jaffe,
Aniela, Was C.G.Jung a Mystic? and other essays, Ensiedeln (Switzerland):
1989, p.21
[25] Jung,
C.G., Memories, Dreams, Reflections, London: Fontana 1993, p. 276
[26] Bharati,
Agehananda, The Light at the Centre - Context and Pretext of Modern Mysticism,
Ross-Erikson / Santa Barbara 1976, p.25
[27] Rajneesh,
B.S. Zarathustra - a god that can dance, Cologne, Stuttgart, Hanover:
Rebel Publishing House GmbH, 1987
[28] Jung,
C.G., Memories, Dreams, Reflections, London: Fontana 1993, pp. 135
- 138.
[29] Jaffe,
Aniela, Was C.G.Jung a Mystic? and other essays, Ensiedeln (Switzerland):
1989, p. 20
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