Join us for the
Adventure…
- by Tim Nadelle
Two independent initiatives which have been in hopeful conversation
since September 2014 have now firmed up
their collaborative intentions. A
conference devoted to the exploration and experience of the path of knowledge
which is implicit in the Philosophy of Freedom will take place from Friday 23
October to Sunday 25 October 2015 at the Christian Community Church in Thornhill, Ontario.
Interwoven into the fabric of the conference, TQuest Productions of
Toronto will perform the first third of the Portal of Initiation, from the
prelude (Friday night) through scenes one and two (Saturday), up until scene
three (Sunday afternoon).
Accompanying us on this journey, Christian Community Priest Daniel
Haffner will open and close the conference with lectures which are intended to
awaken a spiritual dialogue between the two initiatives. Over the course of many years of study and
activity, Daniel has worked deeply with both of these works, lecturing and
leading workshops in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. Daniel recently delivered four stirring
lectures over the course of the festival and conference in August 2014 in
Spring Valley, NY, where all four mystery dramas were performed.
These two masterpieces which were developed so long ago - The
Philosophy of Freedom and the Portal of Initiation – are both works which carry
us into the distant future. In April 1922, Walter Johannes
Stein asked Rudolf Steiner: "What will remain of your work thousands of
years from now?" He replied: "Nothing but The Philosophy of Freedom.” The mystery dramas portray the life journeys
of a circle of individuals who are in the process of developing the imaginative
faculties of perception which humanity will increasingly evolve in the sixth
post-Atlantean cultural epoch.
Our assay to bring these works together creatively, our imagined
“Freedom Mystery Quest” is, therefore, an attempt to reach both backwards and
forwards and to fashion through their interweaving a present moment where a new
impulse can unfold, inspired by our anthroposophical heritage, yet carrying us
into the future.
Join Us for an Epistomological Quest with The Philosophy
of Freedom…
Rudolf Steiner wrote and spoke repeatedly throughout his life about the
importance of the Philosophy of Freedom.
For example, in the introduction to Occult Science he wrote, “…The path
leading through acquaintanceship with spiritual-scientific truths to sense-free
thinking is completely reliable. But
there is another even more dependable and, above all, more exact, through for
some people it may prove more difficult.
It is described in my books, The Theory of Knowledge Based on the
Goethean World Conception and The Philosophy of Freedom. These books point out what human thought
achieves when thinking becomes absorbed in self-activity instead of working on
impressions of the physical sense world…. A person who allows these books to
work upon his entire being is already experiencing the spiritual world,
although he perceives it only as a world of thought.”
As Steiner points out, this path is more difficult for some people
and in fact the struggles which many anthroposophists encounter when working
with the Philosophy of Freedom lead them to give it up altogether. Happily, there is a way forward for even
those who find the book too challenging to take up individually. That way forward is to take it up with
colleagues. Now one way to do so is, of
course, the study group and many people have found their progress quickened by
the stimulation of such communal engagement.
While recognizing the value of the study group, the avenue of
exploration we intend for the conference is different. Here we wish to take up some of the many
exercises for spiritual development which are implicit in the Philosophy of
Freedom, exercises the discovery and fashioning of which are a process of
individual, creative, epistemological experimentation. While the exercises themselves emerge through
working with the living content of the book, the performance of the exercises
leads to a rediscovery through experience of the truths to which the book
points.
And - in a surprising and encouraging discovery - the engagement
with such exercises is profoundly enhanced through working together. In this spirit, the conference is an
invitation to connect with others who wish to discover together how we can walk
the spiritual path which is implicit in the Philosophy of Freedom, to strive to
practice the Philosophy of Freedom. This process of mutual engagement is
essential to this endeavour, for the conference is not intended to be a sharing
of received wisdom. Rather, we are
looking for colleagues who wish to engage with us in the work. The work is experimental, not a finished
product.
And it is only a beginning.
There will be sufficient time at this conference to experiment with the
exercises which are implicit in the seven chapters which form the first part of
the book, entitled “Knowledge of Freedom”.
Whether we continue this work in a subsequent conference devoted to the
second part of the book “The Reality of Freedom” will depend upon the momentum
developed during this initial endeavour.
Join us for an Experience
of the First Third of the Portal of Initiation
The cast of the mystery drama has been toiling since September 2014
to bring the production of the first third of the Portal to life. Steiner said in a lecture on Oct. 31, 1910,
“I have stated the fact that many, many things of an esoteric nature would not
need to be described, that lectures would be unnecessary on my part, if only
everything that lies in the Rosicrucian Mystery [i.e. the Portal of Initiation]
could work directly on your souls… I
would have to use the enormous number of words necessary in my lectures and
speak for days, for weeks, even for years, in order to describe what has been
said and what could be said in the single drama…” The experience of the watching a mystery
drama is a unique and powerful experience, a kind of concentration of
anthroposophy. Anyone who sees one performed
will attest to how moving it is to experience it “live” as opposed to merely reading
it.
From another perspective, what’s unique about the mystery dramas is the
depiction of individual experience in
spiritual development. On September 17,
1910, Steiner said about the Portal of Initiation, “This Mystery Drama exists
now as a picture of human evolution in the development of a single person
[Johannes Thomasius]. I want to
emphasize that true feeling makes it impossible to throw a cloak of
abstractions around oneself in order to present anthroposophy; every human soul
is different from every other and, at its core, must be different, because each
one undergoes the experience of his own development. For this reason, instruction to the many can
provide only general directions. One can give the complete truth only by
applying it to a single human soul, to a soul that reveals its human
individuality in all its uniqueness.”
And later, on October 31, 1910 he observed, “In a book like How to Know Higher Worlds, one can only
speak about human development in a way that is more or less applicable to each
and every human being… That means that no matter how concrete such a
presentation is, it takes on a certain abstract – one could even say
theoretical – character. One thing we
need to keep in mind: development is not simply development in general! There is no development in and of itself, no
generalized development; there is only the development of this or that or a
third or a fourth or the thousandth person.
There must be as many processes of development as there are people on
the earth.”
Perhaps it is because the
drama portrays the unique development of a single, imperfect individual, who is
nevertheless on a spiritual path of development – that witnessing its
performance stimulates and challenges each of us at such a personal level. The experience of the painful progress of
Johannes Thomasius over the course of the drama is a deeply hopeful portrayal,
for are we not all fundamentally flawed individuals aspiring to spiritual
wholeness?
Actively Participate in
the interweaving of these 2 initiatives
This evocation of the development of a single individual in the Portal resonates deeply with the work our
planning group has been doing in preparation for the conference. We’ll be sharing the various exercises we
continue to discover in the pages of the Philosophy and inviting you to join us
in experimenting with them. However,
these exercises – as fruitful as they have been for us individually – are
merely examples. Our hope is that the
weekend will inspire participants to develop their own exercises, their own paths of exploration, with the
Philosophy of Freedom as their guide and treasure map.
Our imagination for the weekend is that conference participants will come to find in
the experience of the mystery dramas a path to freedom and to discover in the
Philosophy of Freedom a fundamental point of entry into the experience of the
mystery drama which is at the foundation of every individual’s life.
If you’re intrigued, please visit the conference website: www.philosophyfreedom.ca.
And if you’re interested in attending, leave your contact information. We’ll let you know when we’re ready to
receive pre-registrations.
Tim Nadelle
