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Alan speaks in a very symbolic and esoteric manner in some parts of his books. Although they can be read anthroposophically, passages speaking of Atlantis, archangels, gods, etc. do not need to be taken literarily to be meaningful. The more you read, the more you will realize he uses many different religions to express ideas in a symbolic manner and not in a religious manner. His writings are not religious. In some places his writings are meant to refer to religious events in a historical way. In some places he is using religious figures (from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Paganism, Ancient Roman and Greek Religions, etc.) in a symbolic manner. However, at no point is he promoting a specific religion or speaking from a religious point of view.
I have kept the writing as close to one-hundred percent original so you will also find that he speaks of Australia often and some spelling or manners of speaking may be cultural. Any words I have changed are presented like this: <word>.
Also keep in mind that these books are written by a Waldorf teacher with decades of experience who also studied with a Steiner student himself, so he speaks to an audience that is dedicating their lives to the Waldorf method without exception.
Because of this, all of his views are not reflected in the Earthschooling curriculum and not all of them may be ones you want to embrace or are able to use. In all of Alan Whitehead’s writings the opinions are his own and may not align with Earthschooling or Waldorf Books. In some cases, we will be updating some of these chapters in the future with additional and/or updated information.
Ultimately, however, as I read through these passages I find I can distill wisdom from even those paragraphs that do not resonate with me.
We invite you to read with an open mind and heart and with eagerness to learn and discuss…
Spirits of Fire
An Evolutionary Overview of a Steiner High School
EDUCATION TOWARDS FREEDOM
“Freedom of the will is experienced when there is a balance between physical and spiritual tendencies, when the upward force of levity works counter to the downward pull of gravity – when the angel holds the devil in check. If man can achieve equilibrium between these two opposites, then he is capable of making free decision.” – Rudolf Steiner, March 1924, Dornach.
Your author feels it necessary to present his credentials as a ‘freedom fighter’ before asking his readers to accompany him through the following tableau of humankind’s endless quest for liberty.
On May 6, 1964, he participated in probably Australia’s first truly altruistic ‘demonstration, that which became the catalyst for the whole ;60s social liberation protest movements to follow. This modest affair was in support of clack civil rights in the segregated southern states of the US. It was held outside the American Embassy in Wynyard Street Sydney. Actually the Ku Klux Klan should claim the lofty kudos as the first new-age revolutionaries, due to their earlier bombing of the 16th Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in which four innocent black girls lost their lives. This outrage was just too much, leading to strident protests throughout the civilized world, including Wynyard Street.
When one has the sweet taste of civil liberty on the tongue, no other social food tastes quite as good. Indeed, the whole a60s awakening was based on a surge of consciousness that embraced issues from women’s rights, to the peace movement, to equal pay, to sexual liberation, to equal opportunity, to…well, to new freedoms in just about every area of public and private life.
Actually, this struggle for emancipation from the strangling conventions of the past, whether spiritual or temporal, began a lot earlier for mankind: in the ancient apocryphal continent of Lemuria.
This was the biblical Garden of Eden, and thee was certainly no individual freedom there, with man being under the stern but benevolent rule of ‘God’. “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it.” He warned. No freedom thee! That is until Lucifer, that ‘subtle’ serpent, tempted Eve to disobey the Most High.
Ironically it was the reptilian ‘light bearer’ who offered us not only a refreshing repast, but the first taste of freedom. (Funny how the metaphors for this subject so often seem to be gustatory?). Actually our new liberty was more like the oversweet dessert of license, at this initiatory stage at least. Of course we paid heavily for this, being exiled from a divine but constrained existence.
On Atlantis, the continental epoch to follow, Ahriman took advantage of this new-found but harsh freedom (suddenly we had to feed ourselves) by offering the temptations of the corporeal body , the flesh. And we took it in both hands, as it were. Since then our quest from the ultimate freedom has been along this dangerous sentient path, one which winds its way between the seductions of the two essentially inimical to humanity begins, Lucifer and Ahriman.
However, there are helpful guideposts to freedom along the way provided by the great teachers of mankind. All of these are, whether doctrinally aligned or not, inspired by the universal Christ force in human spiritual evolution.
But back to Lemuria: while most of us journeyed into the west, to Atlantis, the progenitors of the Australian Aborigines went east, to the newly risen continent of Terra Australis del Espiritu Santo, as the Portuguese so aptly called it – “South Land of the Holy Spirit”.
One sobering thought in relation to this lofty ‘Holy Spirit; appellation is Rudolf Steiner’s prophesy that in the far future the mission of the continent of Australia would be to seed the new world after the old world had destroyed itself!
Here, over the ensuing eons, these primitive folk maintained a Lemurian spirit of freedom, physically at least. They could go where they liked, do what they liked, and even eat what they liked. Their spiritual law, however, was totally restrictive (like Paradise), with all aspects of tribal life being circumscribed. These laws were based on higher, if archaic, perceptions, on an aptly named Dreamtime consciousness; that which gave obeisance to their manifold gods and guiding spirits, most of them animal (Lucifer was a serpent).
Whereby we Australians of non-aboriginal origin are the opposite; we have maximum spiritual freedom, but are increasingly limited in what we can do physically – like driving on the wrong side of the road, to cite a trivial example.
The first impression the aborigines had of their visiting ‘white gods’ in 1788 was that they were essentially of two kinds; the ones with the red coats and the ‘boom-boom sticks’, and those dressed in rags with the chains on their arms and legs. No aborigine was ever bound, or ever had his physical liberty restricted (probably with the exception of tribal banishment; a practice initiated in Lemuria, as we have seen!).
Among the first structures of the new settlement were prisons, another incomprehensible concept to the dusky-skinned onlookers.
Alas, worse was to follow, when the bewildered indigenes themselves were routinely incarcerated. This first-time bondage was unendurable, and mostly the captives died, as do many wild animals when caged. Their will to live was (still is in some cases, as revealed in the ‘black deaths in custody’ scandal) intimately connected to the will of the earth, to the spiritual ‘song lines’ that sustain them.
Without access to these, they just pined away.
Atlantis was a different kind of experimental laboratory for freedom; but as the story of Noah tells us, wonton license prevailed instead; leading to ‘sin’, leading to a watery death for all!
The exception to this aqueous demise were the Elect, who formed (among others) the basis of the first post-Atlantean epoch, the Aryan.
This is not an exclusive racial term, on rather designating (by Steiner) the whole of humanity of the 5thEpoch. (The 1st Earth Epoch being Polaria, the 2nd Hyperborea, 3rd Lemuria, and 4th Atlantis)
The first civilization of the fifth epoch, Arya, was Ancient India, a land of generic Anarchy. This reflected the freedom of a new Garden of Eden in many ways. Even today, India is said by travelers to be one of the freest countries on earth – it is certainly the largest democracy…’democracy’? – I get ahead of myself. This spirit of liberty in the sub-continent is sadly only related to official statutes, as once again, like the aborigines, daily life is heavily restricted with cloying conventions and family obligations. One obscene example (not so trivial this time) is, in some areas at least, the duty of the wife to join her husband on his funeral pyre. Whatever, the Indians may try to steal your luggage, but they will respect your basic freedoms.
By the way, Anarchy, which simple means ‘against rulership’, does not mean revolutionary chaos; more rule of the self by the self. For instance, children at play base their governing structures on benevolent anarchy, with good sense rather than designated authority more often determining the game’s outcome.
How different when one travels further west to Moslem Iran; one of the most repressive countries on earth. Iran was Ancient Persia.
If Ancient India was a culture of Anarchy, in the positive sense, a land ruled by non-rule, then the second post-Atlantean civilization, Ancient Persia, was a Theocracy, a land ruled, nominally at least, by God. Persia was ruled by two gods actually, Ormazd Lord of Light, and Ahriman Prince of Darkness. Of course modern day Iran is still a theocracy. The grim-faced Khomeini clearly lay down the law that this suffering land is ruled, through the medium of the Koran, by Allah. Even today if a particular interpretation of the Koran supports the subjugation of women, then women will be subjugated, no matter how many modern-day human rights are abused.
The rule of god descended to earth in the 3rd Civilization, generically the Egypto-Chaldean (Han in the East), a regency embodied in the pharaoh, king or emperor, in Autocracy. This gave rise to the passing parade of chiefs, czars, sultans and shahs; and any number of lofty titles autocrats on onto their puffed-up chests. Autocracy is rule by the man for the people, but more often by the man for the man! The debate in Australia on Republic versus Monarchy is a struggle between modern and archaic consciousness.
Ancient Greece made a great leap forward in the freedom stakes when it incarnated Democracy into the world – ‘people rule’.
Well, some of the people at any rate, certainly not the legion slaves, women, foreigners and other unworthies upon whose toiling backs the greatness of Hellenism was built. Greek Democracy was governance by the people for the people, or some of them at least!
With these exceptions, the Greek citizen, under the all-important Solon Reforms, did indeed participate in government in an immediate and meaningful way, with everyone being required to vote on everything. Hence this was the only nation-scale (city really) pure form of democracy that ever existed.
Not so in Rome, or the later stages of the Elmire, at least. Here we had essentially a Plutocracy, government by the wealthy for the wealthy – not so different from aspects of our own society, really.
As lord of the Underworld, Pluto is an eternal symbol of materialism, of earthly riches. As such, he expressed the reality that the path of consciousness had descended right down into the inner earth. In this godless context, the worst form of government is a Crimocracy, a society ruled by the morally corrupt! After the fall of Rome, the freedom path began to gradually ascent again into the sunny uplands governed by the teachings of Christ.
These express an archetype of freedom, owning nothing, wandering where one will (like the aborigines), and obeying the law of God (sadly as well as man – ‘give unto Caesar). The Church that in time coagulated around, and besmirched, these sublime principles once again established a Theocracy, like Persia, but now his Churchocracy went hand-in-hand with Autocracy – these two anachronisms creating an especially unholy alliance in the middle Ages. Although there was a new spirit of physical freedom in this new Christian regency, with the tyrannical sandal of Rome having been removed from the neck of the – especially non-citizen – populace, there was a new and unprecedented restriction on spiritual freedom: in contrast, the Romans were reasonably tolerant of other beliefs and cultures – if you paid your taxes, that is! The feverish pursuit, capture and incineration of heretics, witches and other suspects in medieval Christian Europe was the most popular spectator sport of the time. One was simply presented with the devil’s alternative: complete submission to the church or be burned at the stake – so much for freedom!
Thankfully the centuries leading to the 21st have gradually sloughed this repressive theocratic rule, being replaced, in most western countries at least, by a benevolent Oligarchy, rule of the Elect – in both the literal and metaphorical sense. We who have the good fortune to live in a liberal democracy fondly think that we have democratic government. Alas, this is true only one day every three or four years.
Polling day is really the only time we can exercise our democratic rights to rearrange our masters. For the rest of the time a select oligarchy of elected politicians determines virtually every major social, cultural and economic condition under which we live. This is okay as far as it goes (after all, who wants, as in Ancient Greece, to have to turn up to vote on every bill presented to parliament?), as our various governments are subject to a series of constitutional and legal checks and balances to prevent excessiveness and irresponsibility.
There has been observed a seasonal swing between Autocracy and Democracy, with voters electing statistically more autocratic (conservative) governments in summer, more democratic (reformist) in winter. This has certainly been the case in Australia. Winter is felt as a more feminine, embracing time of the year; while summer cultivates, politically at least, the more assertive and masculine. In the Yin Yang spirit of cosmic duality, democracy is always thought of as feminine, autocracy as masculine.
How fortunate that the world center for (feminist oriented) Anthroposophy is the fanatically democratic Switzerland, the most international – Michaelian – country on earth. That’s why the country has been chosen also as the home of the Red Cross (with their Templar emblem), the Olympics, international banking, and various United nations activities like UNESCO – and of course it was the seedbed of the all-import Geneva Conventions.
The decision to site the Goetheanum in Dornach probably saved Spiritual Science form being dragged into not one, but two world wars! During WWI Steiner frequently has to lecture to the background boom of cannon to the west in France and Belgium!
So we have evolved through a series of rulership from Anarchy, through Theocracy, to Autocracy, to Oligarchy (which we erroneously refer to as democracy). It does indeed seem that over the ages we have got the governments we deserved! If anarchy reigned in today’s consumer obsessed society, chaos would be the result, with all the social infrastructure built to maintain our physical and economic security over the centuries being destroyed in a generation: whereas, an oligarchic Ancient India would have been impossible.
And speaking of India, this was not the case for the Disciple Thomas, who, as his apocryphal gospel tells us, was dispatched by Jesus to India to evangelize. He finished up in prison instead – “Free at last!” he exclaimed. Free to do what in a six-foot cell? – To at least have limitless time to develop his inner meditative life, of course – the realm of true freedom. This was far preferable to the tedium of haranguing the indifferent populace to convert to Christianity!
The four-fold divisions of the main governmental principles relate to the four bodies thus: Anarchy is the Physical Body; Theocracy the Etheric; Autocracy the Astral; and democracy is an expression of the Ego. All are under the regency of the lofty Thrones, Spirits of Establishment or Power, third ranking beings of the First Hierarchy.
As usual, things are not always simple in these matters. For example, an Australian can be a ‘citizen’ of three systems. If a Roman Catholic, he can be subject to the Theocracy of the church; while living in a Democracy; which is nominally a Monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the titular head of state. Titular? Not so; the stark reality of real royal power was seen with the dismissal of the duly elected Whitlam Labor government by the Queen’s man, the Governor General Sir John Kerr, on November 11, 1975 – some democracy!
On the whole, urban-progressive communities embrace ‘freedoms’, rural-reactionary tend rather suppress them. Whatever, in Australia both city and country cherish their democratic institutions, no matter how flawed. Or as Norman Mailer said: “Democracy is a state of grace that is attained only by countries who have a host of individual not only ready to enjoy freedom, but to undergo the heavy labor of maintaining it.” A ‘state of grace’ indeed!
It is imperative, however, that the Anarchy-Oligarchy cycle begins again. This will be with a new age of – spiritually-informed – Anarchy, rule of the Self by the Self; a form of governance that serves, as no other, the needs of our ever-evolving Individuality. Actually, the seeds of this were first sown in 1879, the dawn of the new 300-year Age of Michael; the ultimate advocate of freedom – the year Rudolf Steiner turned 18 and began his all-important ministry of the Spirit.
Another major plateau of the rocky path up Freedom Mountain was the abolition of slavery in America in 1861 – same year Steiner arrived on earth! In fact The doctor’s first book, that with which he obtained his Doctorate of Philosophy, was aptly called “Philosophy of Freedom”; an alternative title being, again apply, “Philosophy of Spiritual Activity”. Freedom and spiritual activity of course are synonyms; one cannot exist, in a higher sense at least, without the other. Anthroposophy is indeed a philosophy of freedom, there being no compulsory rituals, obeisances, membership practices, or allegiances. Beware those who would insinuate religious rituals or cultic imperatives into spiritual science!
No child can be free, or held responsible, until about the age of 21 (18 being more practicable), as the Ego, that upon which true freedom is based, has not yet fully incarnated. Children can’t be ‘free’ in Steiner schools (or anywhere else for that matter) but can gradually be guided on a path of personal liberation, especially in high school.
As Rudolf Steiner so wisely stated, ours is “an education towards freedom”. To allow children or adolescents to do as they like” (a common criticism by the uninformed of Steiner Education) is to provide them with potentially disruptive license, not freedom.
Mankind turned ‘21’ at the beginning of this fourth planetary incarnation, Earth. The Earth, with it specific mission of midwifing the human Ego into existence, is the long-term arena of freedom. But we still have a long way to go before this still incipient Ego is a fully conscious, fully moral, fully responsible – fully free! – entity.
Animals have no incarnate ego, so they can never be free. In spite of ‘born free’ sentiments of film-makers and others, they can only be responsive or reactive. Though to sit like a lump of rock on the beach and watch the wheeling gulls, it’s hard to remember this truism!
American, Land of the Ego, and appropriately, Land of Liberty, is home to another important landmark in the evolution of freedom, Thomas Jefferson’s 1776 Declaration of Independence. This historic document was created under the shadow of the persecutions of pioneer America by the ‘mad kin’, George III of England. Its “all men are created equal” ideals still resound today – even more ringing if anything! – as does “certain inalienable rights”, including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.
How sadly similar this scenario is to Ancient Greece, with the highest ideals being totally ignored in practice. Like the Greeks, the worthy Revolutionists referred only to themselves. Where the women (…all men are…”)? Where the slaves (of which Jefferson, a Virginian, owned many)? Oh, and where the “merciless Indian savages” so gratuitously mentioned in the same document!
‘A Virginian’? Virginia, Land of the Virgin as it literally means, was America’s original name. When the first formal English settlement was established at Jamestown in 1607, they called this brand new world Virginia – the same as the state today. The original Royal Charter for Virginia was a grant for most of the unexplored lands west to the Mississippi – and beyond. Pretty well all of today’s United States in fact. They named it in honor of Elizabeth the First, the so-called ‘Virgin Queen’.
However, the deeper esoteric reason was to impress on the unblemished matrix of the colony the high Christian moral values implicit in The Virgin, mother of Jesus; and by extension that of the constellation of Virgo, the generic form of the same Mystery. The seat of the US government was eventually established just across the Potomac River to the north, Today’s Washington DC.
It was the Roman Catholics who managed to change the name to America. They simply couldn’t miss the opportunity to have one of their own immortalized, especially as their dream – compulsion more like it – was to re-establish Catholicism in 17th Century England, and by logical extension, the New World. So America it became, named after not even the continent’s putative discoverer, Columbus, another catholic (though sadly discredited), but a relatively minor figure.
This was the Italian Amerigo Vespucci. The name America was first use for the continent of South America only. In some ways this was justified, as the doughty Vespucci was the first to determine, after sailing down the east coast of South America, that the Americas were not merely an extension of Asia, but a New World in their own right.
So in esoteric terms at least, the South should be America proper, not ‘South’ America, and the North should be called the original Virginia. Alas, the most noble of intentions are often foiled by political or religious opportunism. The history of the world was forever changed by this name subversion, as the new appellation brought in a distinctively ‘male’ factor to the country, as evidenced by its obsession with ultra-macho guns, the wild west, the military and the like. The greatest loss was that of the New World being a potential sanctuary for the feminine mysteries, the Mysteries of Muliebrity, from the Latin mulier, woman. How more compassionate a country America might have been today if it were called Virginia.
Indeed, Virginia State’s most vital role – indispensable indeed – in the terrible Civil War was as a bridge of reason between the North and the South – another protestant-catholic conflict; the South being mainly catholic as it was. In fact Sir Francis Bacon, who formally established Virginia, chose as the state seal the same that Virginians so proudly display today; an image of Pallas Athene, the archetypal goddess, the original ‘virgin queen.’ Most people think this beautiful seal is merely a nice decorative feature: not so, it has the deepest esoteric meaning. But all may not be lost; the Virgin-obsessed protestants conquered in the end; especially in the masonic-inspired design of Washington DC. There are over twenty zodiac – pagan! – depictions on monuments and other significant public places scattered around this ostensibly Christian city; and on every one, the sign of Virgo is prominent. If America itself failed in its mission to become the Land of the Virgin, Washington may still have the chance, being in many aspect the City of the Virgin. Though of course this title can also be given to New York, with its Statue of Liberty.
Here it is again, the concepts of ‘liberty’ and the Cosmic Feminine embodied in the very symbol of America (Virginia!), Land of the Free. This wonderful edifice, earlier known as “Liberty Enlightening the World”, was given to the city/country by the French government and its generously donating people. The tablet in her left hand carries the date, July 4, 1776, the same as the Declaration of Independence.
The engineering for this massive structure, with its powerful Ego uprightness, was by Alexandre-Gustav Eiffel.
If Washington is the City of the Virgin, and America the Land of the Virgin in the New World, then France has surely the same esoteric status in the Old World. This is due to the specific location of the main Notre Damecathedrals across the country. Notre Dame means of course ‘grand lady’, or in a literal sense, the Virgin Mary.
These towering, awe-inspiring buildings are all sited to collectively create an earthly mirror of the heavenly sign of Virgo, with the main star, Spica, being the mighty Reims Cathedral. Other Virgo – though not commonly names – stars are reflected in the cathedrals of Bayeux, Evreux, Chartres, Rouen, Abeville, Amiens, Laon, L’Epine, Etampes; and of course, the famous Paris Notre Dame. (More details of these Feminine-Virgo-Pallas mysteries in my book Ancient Saturn to Atlantis). But this Virgoan relationship between America and France is not surprising, as it was basically the same people who initiated both the American and French Revolutions (1776 and 1789 respectively). Theirs’s was a Lodge primarily devoted to the mysteries of muliebrity; as were the Medieval cathedral builders. What a wonderful world it could have been – and still could be – if these holy Virgin virtues were the dominant spiritual force in America, or even France, today.
Of course the Cosmic Masculine can’t be forgotten altogether; and it wasn’t, by the aforementioned Eiffel at least. His remarkable Eiffel Tower, as strong a symbol for France as the Statue of Liberty if for America, is an unapologetic image of the male principle, a lofty western lingam! This serves much the same purpose, though in a modern context, as the do the Egyptian obelisques? Ironically, the skylines of both Paris and Washington are both pierced by these majestic galactic priapic antennas. Anyway, the French Revolution’s “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity”, and Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, are two of the most ringing paeans in the evolution of Wester-consciousness.
However, in spite of what subsequently ensured, the new Virginia-America truly did have a ‘virgin birth’, free as it was from the anachronistic encrustations of centuries of European civilization.
The timeless epithet of the French Revolution of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity must have been lost in the small print in, like the American just two decades earlier, the travesty of the persecution of indigenous people under subsequent Gallic colonization.
As mentioned, in spiritual terms the birth of an enterprise is its single most important factor. Alas, as in the Matthew Gospel version in Bethlehem, with its ‘flight into Egypt; (the Egyptian connection again!), ‘Virginia’s’ was a virgin birth immediately besieged by the powers of darkness. As they say, Ahriman (the practice) rides on the heels of Lucifer (the ideals)! The Christ contribution to the progress of human freedom is neither vapid idealism, nor expedient pragmatism, but Truth, as in – “the truth will make you free”. Truth, in this context at least, being spiritual knowledge. This Christ element is the ‘equilibrium; referred to in the Steiner quote at the beginning.
So often we simplify this infinitely complex concept as a singular freedom. But as man has seven ‘bodies’, or incarnational principles, he actually has seven fundamental freedoms, each one expressing, and indeed serving the needs of, a separate and integral body.
The Physical Body is supported through Free Trade; the freer the trade, all other things being equal, the more flourishing the community. Trade restrictions and subsidization protect the few at the expense of the many. How unlucky we are as a global community to be continually groping through the labyrinth of trade embargos, repressive import duties, and the like. How lucky we are as Australians to live in aa country where our founding fathers guaranteed in the Commonwealth Constitution a policy of free trade between states (illegal products excepted, of course). In fact the greatest political bun fights of the era were between the Free Traders and the Protectionists Thankfully the former prevailed. In no small way is Australia’s prosperity due to this incipient wisdom. With Protectionism, it is usually a case of the rich get rich and…! In purely physical body terms, we are indeed a free people. This important fact should often be alluded to in a high school social science program: as should the ‘freedom of association’ we so often take for granted.
Freedom of Association is of the Etheric Body, that which especially expresses through ‘community’, through social interaction.
The erstwhile Premier of Queensland, Joh Bjelke Petersen, tried desperately to repress this cardinal right in the Sunshine State’s protesting people when they took to the streets in outrage at his increasing right-wing oppression. Luckily he failed. Australia, as in the case in most Western societies, virtually guarantees this etheric ‘association’ freedom (criminal consorting laws notwithstanding). The Menzies federal government’s failed attempt to banish the Communist Party in Australia in the 1950s, and it complement, McCarthyism in America, were both an offence against this vital freedom.
Guaranteed also is our Astral Body freedom, that of Marriage and Family. In Iran and other female repressing Moslem countries, arranged marriages are the norm. In China each couple is permitted one child only. This soul body freedom even extends to laws on sexuality, such as homosexuality; this being illegal in Tasmania until recently; as were mixed marriages between black and white in South Africa. Of course sexual liaison with minor and such, is – rightfully – still against the law. After all, there has to be some limits!
The Ego, the fourth ‘body’, manifests through Freedom of Vocation. Again in Australia any person, dependent on talent of course, can pursue any career they wish; or any hobby for that matter (again within the law – bomb-making, for instance, being verboten).
In many countries, especially of a communist persuasion, one is benevolently ‘guided’ into the career path that best serves the State, rather than the individual (Ego). One may feel compelled to be a dancer, but the government needs sanitary engineers – tough luck!
In many ways the Ego expresses the sacred “I AM” principle of Moses – Initiate of Individuality – through what a person does in the world: “I am a carpenter” – “I am a child carer”. Without a career, or meaningful vacation of some kind, one feels a large empty space in the shrine of the Self. Included in this is freedom of education. Steiner didn’t call his school in Stuttgart the Free Waldorf School for nothing.
This freedom of vacation/education principle has led to most modern western countries being meritocracies, rule by the worthy.
Spirit Self is of Speech, and the freedom thereof. This includes the freedom of the press (or media in general). The reader is able to read this oft-contentious material only because of Australia’s freedom of speech values (as opposed to laws, of which there are none, as in America’s Bill of Right). Within the confines of our defamation, libel and slander statues, we have achieved a fine balance between the right of the public to know, and the right of individual privacy.
Freedom of speech assures that one can mount a soapbox and criticize (sans indecent language) the Prime Minister with impunity, a priceless liberty indeed! Voltaire, one of the framers of the French Revolution’s principles, said it best: “Even though I don’t agree with what you say, I will defend to the death your right to say it.”.
When people burn books it’s not long before they’re burning bodies.
Again we turn to Islam to find the opposite; just two examples being the fatwa on Salman Rushdie, and the blackmail of rioting against the recent Danish cartoons featuring Mahomet in unflattering guise. (For my view of these admittedly insulting drawings, see Voltaire above.)
Next we have Freedom of Movement (and residence): again in Australia we can travel anywhere without fear of apprehension, or without nervously flashing papers at border crossings, or without having to pay an entry fee to visit another state. In countries like China, a person can barely move from their own village without government approval. What’s more, we can even live anywhere we choose, unlike the hapless blacks of Apartheid South Africa, who were shunted off to desolate and distant euphemistic named ‘Homelands’: all in order that the white suburbs could remain just that, white. Freedom of movement gives us a sweet taste of the glories of Life Spirit. In fact the freest movers I know are eurhythmics; exponents of the art of Buddhi as they are. (As I write, my eurythmic wife Susan has just swanned off to Paris, leaving me stuck here at home on the keyboard!) Rudolf Steiner lamented that he could travel freely anywhere in Europe in the 19th Century without papers of any kind, the ultra-sphincteric 20th Century being the opposite.
The last, Spirit Man, is to fully evolve even further into the future; yet its basic freedom we still enjoy today – Freedom of the Spirit, or religion – philosophy even. So here we find that resounding duality again, freedom and Spirit. How lucky we are in the liberal democracy West to be able to worship whom we like, to joining what we like, or indeed reject what we like. In other words, we can lead our lives with spiritual integrity, a freedom only truly realized when free of external interference, state trespass or obligation of any kind. In Afghanistan recently, a man was sentenced to death of changing religions form Moslem to Christianity. He was later allowed to leave the country only due to the international pressure exerted from mainly Christian nations, This religious outrage taking place in a country we had just liberated from the uber-evil Taliban! It seems we Christians know a thing or two more about freedom than those of Mohammad!
These seven fundamental freedoms, trade, association, marriage, vocation, speech, movement and religion, contain all others many of which have been bequeathed to the global community in the form of the 1948 United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
How proud are our high school students to learn that it was an Australian, Doctor Herbert Vere Evatt, who was not only the founding President of the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, but the main initiator of the UDHR> How apt that his rallying cry to freedom, and its partner in virtue, the Declaration of Independence, were both penned in the same general area, Washington being quite close to New York – and both in the Land of the virgin, seminal home of freedom.
Virtually all countries at the time signed this manifesto of liberty; alas, none has been able to live up to it. This is again because low pragmatism over-rules high principle. But will it always be so?
Well, from the time of Christ, He who brought the possibility for man to realize his true mission on earth to become the Tenth Hierarchy, the Spirits of Freedom, there has been considerable progress. We only hope that with profound guideposts like the UDHR, and Rudolf Steiner’s massive codex of freedom, the high ideals of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity can be realized.
I certainly hope so; those freedom fighter street protests can become tiresome after a while!
POLICE STOP DEMONSTRATION
Your author (circled) at the Civil Rights demonstration at the American Embassy in Sydney, May 6, 1964. Note the gratuitous and inaccurate S.M.H. headline.
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