Executions, Bjørneboe, Orwell,
Steiner, Tucker
From: Tarjei Straume
Date: Thu Apr 29, 2004 12:20 pm
Subject: Executions, Bjørneboe, Orwell, Steiner, Tucker
I believe it's healthy for us to stimulate
our moral imagination a little bit by focusing on the most sinister
aspects of Western civilization and politics.
I am reminded of Jens Bjørneboe (1920-1976)
- http://home.att.net/~emurer/
- the original anarchosophist (legendary anthroposophist, author,
Waldorf teacher, poet, social critic, pornographer, alcoholic)
- the fiercest of social critics who stood up for the junkies,
the prison inmates, the prostitutes, the outcasts, the outlaws,
etc. Throughout his licentious and self-destructive life, Bjørneboe
applied his sweet venom and his hilarious sarcasm against the
police, the prison wardens, the smugness and hypocrisy of the
bourgeosie. He depicted the poet and the prison warden as diametrically
opposite types of human beings. His main theme was man's inhumanity
to man, not in distant corners of the world, but right here at
home, in Norway, in our police stations, our back alleys, our
prisons, our mental hospitals, our schools, in the military,
etc.
Ordinary, well-adjusted anthroposophists,
i.e. bourgeois, middle and upper class staid etheric dreamers,
couldn't understand why Bjørneboe bothered to take an
active interest in such topics, about human rights for the "untouchables"
of society. And yet today, there isn't a Waldorf school in Norway
that doesn't have books by Bjørneboe on the shelves in
the teachers' room. In no way did Bjørneboe exemplify
an esoteric path; on the contrary, he drank himself to insanity
and committed suicide, destroyed by the very demons he had been
busy exposing. (He is not the first among highly gifted authors
to go down this way; just think of Jack London and Ernest Hemingway
for starters.)
Some people have the impression that I am
very familiar with Bjørneboe's works and have read all
of it, but nothing could be farther from the truth. I haven't
read any of his novels; only some of his essays and poetry. Our
views and perspectives just happen to coincide on central points
- something I discovered at an early age when I heard him interviewed
on television. So although "anarchosophy" is a word
I have coined myself, I can safely apply it to this man post
mortem.
I once received a mail from a very spiritual
anthroposophist who held the opinion that my website expresses
too much anger, and that I ought to work on that. My immediate
response was that it's not anger, but holy wrath. I've given
his objection a great deal of thought, however, and my present
study is devoted to a lecture of Rudolf Steiner from October
21, 1909 in a Danish translation with the title "Vredens
mission", i.e. 'The Mission of Wrath' (from the cycle "Metamorphosen
des Seelenlebens", no GA given). In this lecture, Steiner
speaks about the "noble wrath" against the ignoble,
the unjust, the foolish, and the immoral that meets us from the
external world. He speaks about how this noble wrath educates
us, how it lifts us beyond ourselves and our selfishness. If
we are not affected by such wrath, we succumb to selfish indifference.
Visualize a man on death row saying goodbye
to his family while those kind and compassionate doctors and
nurses give him his medication so he can have his cute little
nap. Lethal injections are so clinical and clean , aren't they
- such a bloodless, undramatic, civilized alternative to the
guillotine, the firing squad, and the gallows. (Wouldn't it have
been better with the dignity of a lethal cocktail, like they
gave to Socrates?)
Here is a report from 1931, written by another
voice for the underdog: George Orwell. He wrote a lot of essays
about the time when he was an imperial police officer in Burma,
and one of them bears the title, "A Hanging":
http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/index.cgi/work/essays/hanging.html
Here is an appropriate excerpt, another "Dead
Man Walking":
It was about forty yards to
the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching
in front of me. He walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite
steadily, with that bobbing gait of the Indian who never straightens
his knees. At each step his muscles slid neatly into place, the
lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed
themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who
gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid
a puddle on the path.
It is curious, but till that
moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy,
conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the
puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting
a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying,
he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body
were working - bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails
growing, tissues forming - all toiling away in solemn foolery.
His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when
he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live.
His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain
still remembered, foresaw, reasoned - reasoned even about puddles.
He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing,
feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with
a sudden snap, one of us would be gone - one mind less, one world
less.
Nothing is worse, in my opinion, than listening
to anthroposophist who speak about karma and death row convicts
getting what they've got coming and so on. It's so incompassionate,
so out of synch with the Christ, and with the spirit of Rudolf
Steiner, about whose eyes
F.W. Zeylmans van Emmichoven said the following
- http://www.uncletaz.com/zeylman.html
The eyes recede deeply under
the shadow of the heavy brows. One might say that these eyes
are dark brown, but that would tell very little of their true
nature. How can we describe them? Sometimes they appear unfathomable.
One looks into them as into an abyss, standing dazzled at the
brink. At other times it is a depth like a dark night, when no
stars are visible, yet their presence is felt. But most of the
time the eyes are radient with a warm light. A golden glow lives
in their dark brown color. An infinite goodness speaks out of
them: A love for all creatures.
A love for ALL creatures, including murderers.
Rudolf Steiner warns against the danger of
egoism among anthroposophists/theosophists in
"Love and its Meaning in the World":
http://www.uncletaz.com/lovemeaning.html
"The effect of Spiritual
Science may be an extension of egoism beyond the bounds of this
present life, and therein lies danger. Thus if wrongly understood,
Spiritual Science may act as a tempter - this lies in its very
nature."
"Lack of interest in
the world is egoism in its grossest form. Interest in all existence
is man's bounden duty. Let us therefore long for and love the
sun with its creative power, its love for the well-being of the
earth and the souls of men!"
"Let us imagine that
there is a man who knows nothing of the name of Jesus Christ,
nothing of what is communicated in the Gospels, but that he understands
the radical difference between the nature of wisdom and might
and that of love. Such a man, even though he knows nothing of
the Mystery of Golgotha, is a Christian in the truest sense.
A man who knows that love is there for the paying of debts and
brings no profit for the future, is a true Christian. To understand
the nature of love - that is to be a Christian! Theosophy alone,
Spiritual Science alone, with its teachings of karma and reincarnation,
can make us into great egoists unless the impulse of love, the
Christ Impulse, is added; only so can we acquire the power to
overcome the egoism that may be generated by Spiritual Science.
The balance is established by an understanding of the Christ
Impulse. Spiritual Science is given to the world today because
it is necessary for humanity, but in it lies the great danger
that - if it is cultivated without the Christ Impulse, without
the impulse of love - men will only increase their egoism, will
actually breed egoism that lasts even beyond death. From this
the conclusion must not be drawn that we should not cultivate
Spiritual Science; rather we must learn to realize that understanding
of the essential nature of love is an integral part of it."
This is why it is so important that anthroposophists
don't reflect about an execution in a manner that accepts it,
but in a manner that George Orwell did. Orwell was was an atheist,
but some of his thoughts, and his uncomprimising honesty, put
anthroposophists and other Christians to shame. In an intuitive
moment, through the eyes of the artist, he discovered the very
ugliness and immorality of the death penalty.
The radical difference RS points to, is between
wisdom and might on the one hand, and love on the other. And
what is more expressive of might than violence par excellance,
performed by governments, by Caesar? Steiner has also pointed
out somewhere that there is an irreconcilable emnity between
"the kingdom within" that Christ represents, and the
political factor represented by the Roman soldiers. An irreconcilable
emnity!
We need to express ourselves about things
that stir up our sense of morals, of justice. I'd like to close
this post with a few magical words about justice by the eminent
American anarchist Benjamin R. Tucker, who was hailed by Rudolf
Steiner as "the greatest champion for freedom of all times",
about trial by jury:
"What with the ignorance
and servility of the average juror, the impudence and ignorance
of the average judge, and the insolence and pernicious zeal of
the government attorneys, the administration of justice is becoming
a delusion and a snare."
"Well, it does seem a
bit irrational, until we inquire what the purpose of statute
law is, or ought to be. If the purpose of statute law is the
attainment of a rigid, inflexible, stiff-backed, cast-iron justice,
then perhaps the special jury system is an excellent method of
achieving it. But I declare to you that no such justice is wanted
in any civilized community. We want justice, not rigid, but elastic;
we want justice, not stern, but tempered with mercy, sympathy,
and common sense; we want justice, not blind, but with eyes sharp
enough to detect causes, conditions, and circumstances; we want
justice, not superficial, but profound."
(Quoted from Tucker's magazine "Liberty".)
Tarjei
http://uncletaz.com/
...................................................................................................................................
From: holderlin66
Date: Mon May 3, 2004 6:35 pm
Subject: Re: Executions, Bjørneboe, Orwell, Steiner, Tucker
Tarjei Straume wrote:
Nothing is worse, in my opinion, than listening
to anthroposophist who speak about karma and death row convicts
getting what they've got coming and so on. It's so incompassionate,
so out of synch with the Christ, and with the spirit of Rudolf
Steiner, about whose eyes
F.W. Zeylmans van Emmichoven said the following
- http://www.uncletaz.com/zeylman.html
A man who knows that love
is there for the paying of debts and brings no profit for the
future, is a true Christian. To understand the nature of love
- that is to be a Christian! Theosophy alone, Spiritual Science
alone, with its teachings of karma and reincarnation, can make
us into great egoists unless the impulse of love, the Christ
Impulse, is added; only so can we acquire the power to overcome
the egoism that may be generated by Spiritual Science.
This is why it is so important that anthroposophists
don't reflect about an execution in a manner that accepts it,
but in a manner that George Orwell did. Orwell was was an atheist,
but some of his thoughts, and his uncomprimising honesty, put
anthroposophists and other Christians to shame.
In an intuitive moment, through the eyes
of the artist, he discovered the very ugliness and immorality
of the death penalty.
We need to express ourselves about things
that stir up our sense of morals, of justice. I'd like to close
this post with a few magical words about justice by the eminent
American anarchist Benjamin R. Tucker, who was hailed by Rudolf
Steiner as "the greatest champion for freedom of all
Bradford adds to Tarjei's wonderful Post:
THE CARAPACE or THE MAKING OF A NEW HEAVEN
AND A NEW HELL
When we execute a sinister and psychologically
deranged criminal as portrayed in Silence of the Lambs, (of which
more and more are coming) something far worse can be generated,
because the psychic and intellectual cohesion of the personality
does not dissolve with mere execution.
In the case of John Wayne Gacy, a mass murderer
from Chicago who killed nearly 34 people, a strange and foolish
blunder was made in the timing of his execution. In May of 1994
at midnight John Wayne Gacy was sent through the gate of death
by lethal injection. The actual passage and expulsion of his
soul from a confined body in a Chicago prison cell to the release
and expansion of the subconscious contents of his criminal psychology
was timed to a total Eclipse of the Sun. It would be interesting
to note the trajectory and path of the effective eclipse across
north America at that time.
By examining such details and measuring our
statistics on criminal surges over the next 21 years something
could be observed. In any case, observing it or not, the dumping
of the toxic waste of John Wayne Gacy into the cosmic field of
a Solar eclipse merely sends the toxic waste back, into the psychic
structure of seething seeds of potential, already latent in the
subconscious of living personalities here on earth.
Unhatched intentions and incubating psychic
diseases are far less lethal when the life force, life sentence,
has not terminated the criminal. If the life forces, biographically
and biologically are left over, if the criminal or psychopath
has not died of old age, in solitary confinement, but is killed
with life force still unused, the remainder goes to feed incubating
psychic disease fields in others. If the life forces are still
there, then the psychically charged, disturbed field seeks another
or other hosts. Loki is gathering all these dynamic forces that
make a new heaven and a new hell, as well as the meaning implied
on the opposite spectrum of a new heaven and a new earth. We
have to decide what new heaven and what new hell we would rather
have. These are some of the decisions worth thinking about, when
we are faced with Christ or Ahriman.
By using the spring board of a Solar eclipse,
the moon re-ignites these unused immoral astral intentions and
re-injects them back into souls on earth who carry an attraction
to similar deeds in their already disturbed psychological structures.
Parasitical astral forces quantum leap up to legion in no time
at all. The ugly and diseased psychology does not disperse when
life force is still running, rather, it rains down into already
infested psychological pockets that are latent in living people.
A multiplication of psychic criminal inspiration is projected
and diffused over a wide territorial field. The math and physics
of the soul here is called Legion, in biblical terms, the swine
used by Christ to absorb the deadly psychic toxins were pigs.
If we expel and dislodge the demonic forces,
as in the example of Christ and the madmen, the force and dynamic
does not angle out away from the earth, on the contrary, it fuses
and leaps back into the most receptive field. Using the moon
to project it back into the psyche is horribly dangerous form
of enhancement. When Christ used the swine, they buffered the
damage of evil and could assist in absorption of the negative
psychic forces. These demonic infestations appear as viral fields
in human epidemiology as well as tendencies toward dark pathologies.
Here lies an amazing clue that could be used medically.
In a TIME magazine cover story of September
12, 1994, titled REVENGE OF THE KILLER MICROBES, swine were depicted
as an integral part of human diseases. "Perhaps the most
ominous prospect of all is a virulent strain of influenza. Even
garden-variety flu can be deadly to the very old, the very young
and those with weak immune systems. But every so often, a highly
lethal strain emerges-usually from domesticated swine in Asia."
We have not progressed far enough to allow
us to vacuum clean the incubating psychic illnesses in individual
criminals and guide them into a heavy and neutral medium like
that of the swine in the biblical story. It is wiser for us to
consider not killing the psychotic infestations that have leached
themselves onto the bodily/psychic structure of our various killers.
It is better that they serve life sentences and have their life
force dry up, so that what they carry may not prematurely find
new hosts that are readily available in our already sickened
society. It might even be suggested by means of sympathetic transfer,
to inject the blood of these criminals into selected herds of
swine. These of course would not be used for human consummation.
The maladjusted disturbances from the murders,
wars, ethnic cleansing and unacknowledged spiritual agony that
has left its fatal mark in our psychic atmosphere, has a precedent.
The initiate Algernon Blackwood has something to add to this
picture.
"You do not quite gather
what I am driving at; and it is not to be expected that you should,
for you, I suppose, are the nominal Christian with the nominal
Christian's lofty standard of ethics, and his utter ignorance
of spiritual possibilities. Beyond a somewhat childish understanding
of `spiritual wickedness in high places,' you probably have no
conception of what is possible once you break down the slender
gulf that is mercifully fixed between you and that Outer World.
But my studies and training have taken me far outside these orthodox
trips, and I have made experiments that I could scarcely speak
to you about in language that would be intelligible to you...
I cannot explain to you in a few minutes the nature of such things,
for you have not made the studies that would enable you to follow
me; but I have reason to believe that on the dissolution at death
of a human being, its forces may still persist and continue to
act in a blind, unconscious fashion. As a rule they speedily
dissipate themselves, but in the case of a very powerful personality
they may last a long time... And, in some cases...these forces
may coalesce with certain non-human entities who thus continue
their life indefinitely and increase their strength to an unbelievable
degree. If the original personality was evil, the beings attracted
to the left-over forces will also be evil... thought is dynamic,
and that it may call into existence forms and pictures that may
well exist for hundreds of years. For, not far removed from the
region of our human life, is another region where floats the
waste and drift of all the centuries, the limbo of the shells
of the dead; a densely populated region crammed with horror and
abomination of all descriptions, and sometimes galvanized into
active life again by the will of a trained manipulator..."
Medicine and the Justice system have failed
to understand the eclipse factor in the moon, nor the full neutral
alignment of swine biology with human biology. Medicine may view
swine as incubators of viral factors but they do not link viral
factors to borderland entities that might gain force from a polluted
psyche like that of John Wayne Gacy.
Humanity seems not yet mature enough to consider
the escalating viral fields and their relation to swine as gateways,
doorways or neutralizers. Swine are themselves poison absorbers
that closely resemble the structure of human beings. Blood plasma
is still made from swine because of the human affinity. The Hebrews
abhorred eating swine because they knew that they absorbed these
intense parasitical and viral forces into their systems.
There certainly is a way through injection,
not lethal injection of the psychopath, but injection into animals
like swine that would re- direct the parasitical astral beings
into something we can control. Contained by something that demons
cannot feed off of, that is, an active human psyche with immortal
potential for damage.
"When he came to the
other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes, two men
who were possessed by demons came out of the tombs and stood
in his way. They were exceedingly dangerous, so that no one could
pass along that road. And see, they called out loudly: `What
is this power between us and you, Son of God? Have you come here
to discipline us before the time is fulfilled?' Far from them
a large herd of pigs was feeding. And the demons begged him `If
you cast us out, send us into the herd of pigs.' And he said
to them: `Depart.' And they fled and went into the pigs. And
see, the whole herd rushed down the steep incline into the sea
and perished in the waters."
St. Matthew 8: 28-33
What has been imprinted into the psychological
structure of the personality dissolves after death or is condensed.
To execute a concentrated psychological killer is to spawn forces
into the subconscious of ten thousand potential serial killers,
who, because of their affinity of disposition, attract and feed
off the diseased remains in the psychic field.
Adolf Hitler was gassed in world war I and
suffered near fatal illness from the trenches and their unsanitary
conditions. What incubated in Hitler later went unobserved and
hidden for years. His example was a viral, biological warfare
hazard. We have ten thousand of them coming up on us every day,
including the Gulf War Syndrome victims.
When we speak of execution and the death penalty,
we must be very clear what this means. Executing and thereby
releasing, through their deaths, super-charged viral forces that
go rushing towards the putrid immune systems and weak psychic
structures of individuals, amounts to sinister sub-entity invasive
virology. This is the reason why the death penalty has inherent
and ghastly dangers in it. Loki and Ahriman thrive off this disturbing
population and with our laser disc technology we have managed
to provide mass produced island homes for them. Devachan forces
are eroding while we slowly suck down the light which belongs
to a much greater mystery. Hell can truly be sucked down onto
Earth and earth can be sucked clean out from under humanity.
...................................................................................................................................
From: heather
Date: Mon May 3, 2004 7:22 pm
Subject: Re: Executions, Bjørneboe, Orwell, Steiner, Tucker
--- In anthroposophy_tomorrow@yahoogroups.com,
holderlin66 wrote:
Hell can truly be sucked down onto Earth
and earth can be sucked clean out from under humanity.
Oh Bradford,
how your writings rattle my guts (and I'm
lovin' every minute of it!!) And to think, I almost had pork
tonight for supper!
thank you,
Heather
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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