Welcome to Mind Escape. Are you ready?
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Hello Mind Escapees, if you have not already, please go check out
my other channel Masters of Rhetoric.
I will have the link down below. It's also part of the Mind
escape link tree link. It's something I'm very
passionate about where I dissect the origins of Western thought
through the pre Socratic thinkers all the way to
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Today I'm joined by friend of the show and amazing Glass
artist Andrew Tischler. Andrew's been on the show many
times from the beginning, pretty much last episode I did with
him, we discussed The Bicameral Mind by Julian James.
Please go check out that episode.
It's phenomenal. And yeah, we're just going to be
talking about Rudolf Steiner today, and please go check out
his work. If you haven't already and
you're on Instagram, go check out Andrew's page at a Tischler
Glass. I will include a link down
below. As always, you can support my
escape by clicking our link tree as well.
So without further ado, here we go.
All right, welcome back on Andrew.
How are you? Good.
How's it going?
Good. Last time we spoke, or had I had
you on, we were discussing The Bicameral Mind by Julian James
and that went over very well. Very interesting topic at very
least. If nothing else, it's an amazing
thought experiment on how to think about consciousness and
language in the past and everything.
Yep. So if anybody doesn't know
Andrew, who's a friend of the show, he's been coming on kind
of since near the beginning of Mind Escape, which started over
8 years ago. And obviously this is a new
chapter, new Telos, but Andrew is a glass artist and a sick one
at that. So go check out his art at a
Tischler glass on Instagram. And I have a few of his pieces,
a couple of his marbles and yeah, amazing fractal work if
you you're into that kind of a thing.
All right, Well, today though, you know, we've talked in the
past about Rudolf Steiner, and I thought we'd revisit that since
I'm running that Masters of Rhetoric philosophy channel and
looking at the origins of Western thought.
You know, I think Rudolf Steiner is an interesting one in the
sense that he's kind of more spiritual, you know, and
actually looked down upon by other philosophers because of
that. So I think that it's an
interesting fox. I think a lot of people maybe
even consider themselves more spiritual than religious
anyways. So yeah, what are your thoughts
on Rudolf Steiner And kind of maybe actually give us a little
bit of a background and then we'll kind of work our way into
his philosophies. You know, he's born in 1860 in
Krawlyovic, which is, I forget what country it is now, but
right in the middle of Europe. And he went to like a technical
high school, which is like a sort of blue collar high school.
So he wasn't necessarily on like a super academic tract.
And his family wasn't rich or anything like that.
His dad worked for the railroad. He grew up in the country, you
know, hiked back and forth to school and all that kind of
thing. And he was already reading Kant
at 16. So at some point, you know, his
academic and intellectual gears just kind of kicked in.
And already in high school, he's thinking about problems of
philosophy and physics, science and all that kind of stuff.
So even though his family wanted him to sort of work as an
engineer, he was able to. He ended up getting a degree in
philosophy and again, studied science the entire time.
And super well-rounded guy. But yeah, background in
philosophy and science really before all the spirituality and
stuff started. So pretty technical guy.
Do you know what the catalyst was from him kind of switching
towards more of the materialist or scientific side of things
into more of the spiritual and non material things?
Yeah, that happened when he was about 40 years old, or at least
publicly. The switch occurred in his 30s.
He spent all of his 30s trying to establish himself as, like,
the heir, honestly, to Nietzsche, as like the eminent
German philosopher or as a sort of very public philosopher.
And because he never managed to attain that level, he didn't get
the sort of positions at universities.
He wasn't read by the people who wanted to be read by.
At 40, he was invited to speak by the Theosophists.
And if you, if your audience knows anything about the
Theosophist, they were, they were the spiritual people in
Europe at the time. And so he had been having his
spiritual experiences, you know, mostly well, most of his life,
but especially in his later 30s. And yeah, so publicly he sort of
pivoted when he was invited to speak and quickly took off in
that scene. Sorry, add on to he had a lot of
friends, you know, that were really annoyed with him and sort
of dismissed him even then when he started lecturing at these
weirdo theosophists about spirituality and didn't
understand why he'd sacrifice his reputation and stuff, you
know? But obviously he had a different
plan. For sure, when you look at I
think most people are that are familiar with them know about
anthroposophy. Can you describe, you know, it's
described as a spiritual science, You know, he's kind of
thinking about a new way to think about these things.
Can you kind of frame that in a way to the audience that they
might, you know, understand or break it down for us, please?
Yeah, I think something I'm thinking about with Steiner is
he's Hap. You know, all of his influence
is occurring right at the industrial revolution.
You know, so that is like, I think something we have to take
in account with Steiner is everything is post industrial
revolution. So people are realizing that
they're getting divorced from nature.
You know, the way that everything, the way that the
world works is changing. Everything is modernizing.
Technology is coming in and sensitive people are starting to
see that that's affecting, you know, the sort of spirituality
that they are feeling in their lives.
And so a lot of Steiner is giving advice for modern people.
A also he's trying to, he sort of, you know, puts himself in
the position to publicize esoteric traditions that had
been kept secret for hundreds of years.
So he's trying to square all at the same time, the Western
philosophical tradition that he learned at school with science
and materialism, with modernity and the industrial revolution
and technology and sort of indigenous, you know, European
spirituality and esoteric traditions.
And I think he's, you know, really plugged into all of those
streams. And he's the figure that's
trying to put them all together for us in a coherent way that
doesn't leave any of those things out.
And it's a huge task. Yeah.
You know, so I was thinking about like, who could I compare
him to? And like the ancient Canon of
philosophy or like the pre Socratics or Plato, Socrates,
Aristotle. And I would say he's kind of
like a more imaginative speculative Plato where Plato
was kind of focused his, even though he had the theory of
forms and this like I would say that's kind of comparable in the
spiritual sense of things. You know, I think Steiner was
more imaginative and just speculated a lot more based on
his meditations and things that he was experiencing in these
deep states of meditation and stuff like that is where Plato
kind of still based things off mathematic and logic or
mathematics and logic and things of that nature.
Well, I have to add that there's some lore with Steiner and if
you if you buy into the lore that one of his reincarnations,
you know, his past lives was as actually Aristotle.
But so then they they place a Goethe, which is Steiner's main
influence as Plato. So then you have this
relationship of Steiner, Goethe, Aristotle, Aristotle, Plato.
But I think you're dead on though, because, you know,
Aristotle was like the great systematizer, which is why
Steiner wrote 10,000 volumes. But because he's got the
foresight of all these other lifetimes, you know, if you
believe again, the lore, he's kind of, he's just integrated so
much. He's integrated Plato and
Aristotle in a way that the two were really not integrated, you
know, in their lifetimes. So yeah, I think I love the, I
think that we have both strong comparisons.
Yeah, that's interesting. I've never heard that before.
And yeah, to, to to add on to that point, because I do know a
lot about the ancient Greek philosophers.
You know, you had Socrates and a student Plato, and they used
mathematics and logic to drive their points home.
And then you kind of evolve into Aristotle and he kind of starts
his own thing where he's using biology to drive his points
home. And I think that that's kind of
where I would say the difference between Aristotle and Steiner
was Aristotle was more concerned about, you know, basically
materialism and biology and things that can be observed
within nature. And as you mentioned, Steiner
was a scientist early on. However, later on it got more
mystical and more mystical. So I think that that he started
to drift further away from those ideas, if you will.
Well, of course he would call it spiritual science, not
mysticism, so. But I have to completely take
your point. Yeah.
Well, I mean, to the to the average based on his own
terminology, but yeah, to the average person listening to him,
there's I don't think you can help.
And the first few times I listened like this dude's super
mystical, you know? So yeah.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Do you think Steiner's like method of inner observation or
what? What's it called?
Super sensible perception? Do you think it can be
reconciled with Western epistemology, or do you think
that they're kind of incompatible?
I mean, I know that he would view it as like the capstone or
like, yeah, as the capstone of epistemology or the sort of the
bridge or, you know, it's like science is in a is in a, a dead
end. So spiritual science is when you
turn back around like and continue to do science, but not
about the materialism you, you get out of the dead end that
we're in culturally. So I think I would think he
thinks they're compatible or I think vital or necessary to to
each other. Awesome.
As an artist, you know, how do you personally kind of navigate
or figure out? Is there some sort of line
between subjective experience and objective truth?
And do you think that like Steiner's philosophy kind of
bridges that, since he did kind of have both of those
backgrounds and, you know, in terms of science and philosophy?
Yeah, I think bringing in ideals like, you know, he really
discusses a lot about beauty or something like truth or, you
know, these things like love and freedom.
And these are like, to me, great pretty objective ideals, like
things that like beauty can be looked at as a being, you know,
like a divine being. So that's that's an experience
we can all share. However, we all approach it from
our own side of things. So I do think there is the yeah,
that bridge or a relationship between like, you know, looking
at a beautiful piece of art. In a way, art, a beautiful piece
of art is more objective. And then as we share in that
piece of art together, we all kind of come come together in a
sort of a similar direction, which makes it more objective.
So I think I think there is a relationship there for sure.
Interesting I. Hope that makes.
Sense Yeah, no, totally. You know, an aesthetics is kind
of like a weird thing too when you get in like you said,
breaking it down because I could you know, to you to what you
just said is there is truth there.
But then at the same time there's also I of the beholders
type stuff to where somebody can find beauty and things that are
maybe not really aesthetically pleasing to most people.
Yeah. When you're talking about his
ontology, he spoke about spiritual worlds being layered
within physical reality from an ontological perspective.
Do you think that he was describing metaphors for
interstates, or do you think they were literal dimensions of
being it's? A good question.
Yeah. I think that, you know, he'd
want to emphasize the sort of objective reality of these kinds
of beings, you know, So I think that's the primary answer.
But they are found in our experience.
But calling it inner experience, like I think, yeah, I think he
wants to kind of bring it more towards an objective experience
that they are, in a sense, out there or that they are real,
more real even than the sort of Maya of material, the material
world, or that, like you said, that they're just behind and the
cause of all of these material things.
So if you want to account for the whole world, you have to
account for them. Yeah.
That and that they are out there in a sense, yeah.
Does art reveal aspects of his philosophy or philosophy in
general that science can't? And that also could that be kind
of what Steiner was trying to do, if you will?
Yeah, he has a ton to say about art and I could have spent a lot
more time figuring out like all of the things that he wants to
take, you know, put forward. But as far as I can tell, like,
I think he recognizes that art that, you know, having an
experience with a piece of art in a way, is a, a good
preparatory stage for spiritual experiences.
And that we can have an experience with a, a piece of
art that is like, again, very different than we can have with
an experience of maybe a scientific experiment or a
scientific theory or scientific ideas like that.
That there's a power in art, just like there's a power in,
you know, like something like music or all of the different
forms of art that has to be felt and experienced.
And that he that it is preparatory for more spiritual
types of experiences in a really unique and important way.
Interesting, interesting. When you look at teleology, his
teleology, which means purpose or meaning.
And as I've discussed, this is new telos.
Now, he emphasized that humanity had kind of like a spiritual
purpose or a telos that was tied to freedom and consciousness.
Do you find that compelling or does that kind of can that
become too prescriptive? Well, yeah, that's a good
question. That's, that's a good point.
I I think the reason I love Steiner is that he's emphasizing
freedom. And it's actually, it can feel
like a contradiction is that how can you have something
purposeful that's also free? And I think that's the beauty in
Steiner's system and the way he defines freedom and purpose and
all these things is that you can have, you know, we can fail at
our purpose. So there's a, you can have a
purpose for something and it cannot reach that purpose.
And so to me, it's very compelling.
It would be sad to think that we are either sort of ignorant
observers or unattached observers.
You know, we're clearly here and we're conscious.
And so like a life without a purpose is like an odd idea, a
very modern idea. But I also don't want to be
compelled to a purpose. I don't want to be a slave to
God or, or to some, you know, like whoever.
'S and, and to that point too. So you said that's kind of what
you know, even if you took it super far, like some sort of
nihilistic or, you know, one of the ancient sophists, like
gorgeous or something and just take it to the absolute limit
that like you said, like nothing means anything or something
along those lines. And we're just cogs in this
machine. I kind of always come back to
kind of what you said, like we are here, we are conscious,
we're able to observe. So right there kind of indicates
at least some level, even if it's a biological level of
surviving or or being alive or whatever.
But I don't think you can arrive at that until you absolutely
entertain, you know, like a a Cartesian doubt or take it to
this level of like actually considering that that might be
the case, right? Yeah.
And I just, again, I get so stuck on Steiner because there
are critics of Steiner who will look at his early life when he
was in his 20s and like late teens.
You know, he, he was a huge fan of Nietzsche and he was a fan of
people like Max Sterner who are kind of, you know, absurdists or
nihilists or, and he like, you know, anti spiritual, like Max
Turner is this I, I, I don't know him that well, but he's
like all about, he's just a sort of free nihilism, like a
precursor to existentialism and just a really radical dude.
And you would never think that if you love Max Turner and you
love Nietzsche, like, you know, to, to come out and say some of
the things that Steiner went on to say.
And it feels like this huge contradiction.
But Steiner is able to see like the beauty, like you're saying,
you have to pass through these dark perspectives of and again,
even in the philosophy of freedom, like he's very clear
that we as soon as you're born, you have no predestined purpose.
You have to give yourself a purpose.
You have to decide upon a purpose.
So you have to go through purposelessness and really feel
what that means. I I I think you're exactly right
to go through that kind of muck and then discover purpose for
yourself. I think.
Yeah, that's the essence of the modern life, right?
What did he ever say anything about?
Some sort of objective purpose in terms of like, you know,
we're talking about purposeless and creating your own purpose.
And I think that that's kind of where a lot of people would
probably arrive at today. Like if you asked, is there an
objective purpose to humanity? I think a lot of people would
say we create our own purpose. But did he have anything to say
about some sort of actual reality or actual like objective
purpose for humanity? Yeah, I mean, I, I think the
simple answer is like is yes, despite our freedom, like there
is a plan for humanity. And I I just think the easiest
answer and the reason I can give it so easily is that the like
the plan is love or like, you know, if you think of if I just
like I'm imagining the person you're talking about, like, OK,
there's no set purpose. I'm going to give my life
purpose. Well, if you're really, really
serious, like you have to decide like, OK, you know, I can, I can
be a real estate agent. I can sell a bunch of people
houses. And that's my purpose.
And it's like, but, you know, as a philosopher, it's like, well,
does that hold water? Right.
So as you go about the process of defining the purposes in your
life, like you, you know, this is like the beautiful thing
about philosophy is that like, there are only so many good
answers. And we tend to come to them on
our own and that they can line up often with what then Steiner
might say is this plan. And then again, it's the plan is
that a bunch of spirits decide on their own that they want to
become more loving. And so it's a kind of a it, it
feels like a, a kind of catch 22 or even a contradiction or like
he's having it both ways. But I, I don't know.
I think even those people that want to go about their own way,
they end up in the same point is that they want to be loving
people and free people. And.
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I, I try and
understand my own cognitive biases and weed them out as much
as I can. But if you really, really go
deep into it and you've really thought about this, if you
applied all the logical fallacies, considered all the
cognitive biases, like there's almost nothing left that makes
us what we are. We are this like beautifully
flawed learning thing, and that's kind of part of it,
right? So it's kind of a weird
dichotomy because we do try and get things right as much as
possible, but at the same time, like I said there, you know, if
you reduced it to absolute nothing, there's really nothing
there, if that makes sense. Yeah.
Well, I think that's again, I think it's, we have to go
through that process and get to that place where we can even ask
like, is there anything like, and from that point of view, you
that's I think you're right, though, I think that's the
Ground Zero for where we start to build purpose is being able
to sit with the idea that maybe there's nothing to any of this.
But that, like you said, it dispels the illusions of like,
you know, of course, like have a family and raise children and
there's biological needs, there's biological purposes and,
you know, sociologicals, societal purposes.
But when you are, you know, into that kind of Buddhism and self
reflection and you start to strip all that away, is there
anything left? And I think what Steiner would
say is that you would discover, well, you first of all, you
know, I think for Steiner, we can get to towards the
epistemology thing too, is you discover the self.
You discover that there's this thing that is consistent.
You know, you meditate, meditate, meditate and all the
outside world is always changing.
And then there's this, this thing that's always there.
It's the self. And then you have to figure out,
well, what is, why is there a self?
What is the self? And I think that's where all the
the things start to flower out of that in a philosophical and
objective way, but also in a sort of internal, subjective,
spiritual way, you know? Yeah, for sure.
In your practice or your techni of being a glass artist, do you
experience art making as some sort of teleological or
purposeful process, moving towards something higher for
yourself or humanity? Or is it more just like open
exploration? Do you get what I'm saying?
Is it like open or is there more to like a fixed end of it?
I mean, I definitely want to be very clear, especially for like
young people and aspiring artists or any, any aspiring
artists at any age is like, there was never a plan for me as
far as my art making with the glass even.
It was never like, I know I'll be more spiritual if I do this
everyday. I didn't have to commit to it.
It definitely felt especially, you know, for, for early on as
I, I only was interested because it was fun and I was exploring
and playing. And then even for a long time, I
would think like, you know, OK, here I am reading all this
philosophy, all the spirituality, and I'm making
this art, but I don't see that they're related.
And I want to, I was sort of jealous of other artists that
could really put beautiful messages to their work.
And I was like, I just make these, you know, these pieces of
glass. And I had friends and family be
like, dude, but like your glass, you're in your glass.
Like these things that you're talking about are there in some
way, which was very relieving. But even then, it wasn't very
conscious that I was putting them there.
It was only later that I realized that I was following an
aesthetic sensibility and that I, you know, I was bringing my
whole self into what I was choosing to make.
And that sort of put me in a certain direction and my work
looked a certain way. And so I started to realize
slowly as I stuck with it, that it was becoming, you know, a
practice. And that the play, which is easy
to do is what I want to emphasize is that find stuff
that's fun and that you play with.
And it starts as play. But you know, as it continues to
grow, it can become more of a practice.
And I think it does. I, I, I wouldn't, I, I don't, I
don't want, I want to demystify it a little bit because if you
start out with such a lofty goal, it might become like hard
to even approach it. But when it starts as play and
then grows into that, But I, I, and again, like, yeah, not not
doing it on purpose, but I think you're absolutely right.
I do think it becomes a practice and starts to sort of prep
again, preparatory stages for meditative and spiritual
experiences. So I think it's a great point.
Interesting. Yeah.
And so obviously, I mean, I'm not a glass artist, but I have
been a consumer of a lot of glass art in my ears.
It's kind of a dog eat dog community.
There's a lot of cool people, there is a lot of crossover
people collaborating, things like that.
But then there is this element of like, oh, this dude stole my
technique or this dude's, you know, taking something that was
like a famous technique and kind of making, you know, like
there's a lot of that kind of a a vibe too.
I mean not to get too off topic but I was just wanted to hear
your thoughts on that. Yeah, I think that's just a
reflection of the world that we live in and the society we live
in. And you know, we're in this
hyper capitalist sort of collapsing society where I
always just imagined a world where if we all had our basic
resources and we, we didn't need to fight for everything, then
there wouldn't be those people that need to RIP off someone
'cause they got to feed their kid or their dog or their selves
or whatever. And I, I think it's a reflection
of the society that we're. In do you think it is tied to
real quick though, not to cut you off?
Do you think it is tied to money though?
Or do you think that like partially it is ego 'cause I can
say from like as being a musician too that I can speak
to, you know, if you take somebody's like riff or
something like that, you know, there's an ego thing tied to it
where it's not necessarily about how many records or plays or
anything like that. It's like I'm the one I want to
be known for this and less about the actual monetary side of it.
Yeah, it's a great point. I mean, I'm thinking of now like
skateboarding, like I heard just recently someone say like, look,
if I can, if, if someone can just like figure out how I'm
doing it and they can recreate it in like 2 days.
Well, then what I was doing is only two days worth of skill.
So maybe I should do something that's so skilled that they
can't do it. And that the only if you want to
be ego, you know, you can do something that I can show you
100 times and you're not going to get it because you got to,
you know what I mean? That's so I, I kind of respect
that. And it's a tricky thing.
Yeah, yeah, I think, yeah, I think there has to be some of
that. And I it would be really nice to
just be able to give everything away and not have to worry.
Yeah, I think it's probably a bit of both for sure.
But yeah, I just think that the material circumstances effects
everything, right. Like, not to be a Marxist or
whatever, but like even our egos is tied up in the fact that
we're all struggling so much. So yeah, I think they they feed
into each other. Yeah, I, again, I want to say
that I've met a lot of cool people, lots of people that are
against that kind of behavior and thinking and everything.
And actually I will say the most successful people that I've met,
glass artists or whatever in related industries, they've all
been like the best ones are super cool with like 'cause they
know that they can do what you said, which is create something
that takes a lot of skill or maybe a lot of time and effort
as where somebody could copy some crazy technique, you know,
a couple days that make it look great.
But really, is there a soul in that or is it just kind of, you
know, ego based? I mean, that's the point though,
is that I, I always thought that, you know, if you're
skilled enough to be into glass, but your whole aim is to make
money. So you're looking at techniques
that you can figure out which one you can do and sell the
most. I just think like that's all
fine, but you're actually robbing yourself of the
opportunity to have that more spiritual relationship with the
artistic process. I think that's like, I think
it's like, again, if we could all just have, you know, Ubi,
basic income, if you I would give people advice is really the
thing to focus on is that spiritual aspect.
And and that will bring you up in the rest of the elements of
life too. But people are often not are too
worried about material stuff to to believe that that can work or
that have faith in that. And but I just think that's it
is that they're missing an opportunity to sort of to have
this relationship that grows into something more.
Yeah. Awesome.
So Steiner saw art as kind of like a bridge to the spiritual
world. Do you think that there's still
kind of this valuable role for art being spiritually tied in
the modern world, or do you think that it's, you know, too
far gone in that regard to salvage that?
No, I mean, I'm kind of an optimist.
So I think the more things get difficult, the more we need art
and the the things that bring us back to nature and to
spirituality. It's just what's fascinating.
Yeah. And so Steiner's whole thing is
to be really aware of all of the problems with modern society,
all of the sort of, yeah, things that can make us less spiritual.
But he wants us to develop our arts and our spirituality to be
so robust that it overcomes all those things.
So the answer is always that it needs to be more robust.
If if anything, it's like, let's make better art more affecting
art. So really the question is like
what? What kind of art can match the
state of the world that we're in and help us overcome the other
problems in it? He described colors as almost
like a living thing or like an autonomous force.
Do you think that that's useful or do you think about that at
all when you're you're making glass or have you thought about
that? I think it is useful.
Again, I, I, I have such an intuitive approach that I, when
I try to cram in like, you know, clever ideas, it just, I
struggle with that, which is why I envy artists that can do that.
So for my own practice, it's hoping that the intuitive
process brings about this the right.
Yeah, I think the more I grow as an artist, I'd like to be more
intentional. But as far as his ideas about
the sort of autonomous nature of color, I I do think that they're
really interesting. And I think, again, they're
relevant because our culture has kind of left even those
experiences behind, which is an interesting question, is we we
no longer experience color the way that sign describes people
experiencing it in past times. And we've also forgotten that it
has that effect or if anything, it's just gone to such a
subconscious level. But be giving the centers so
much about freedom and bringing things back to the conscious.
You know, it makes sense that he's trying to remind us of
these things that yeah, about color and and everything else.
So I mean, when Mind Escape started and it was super woo,
you know, Now I've obviously trended it more philosophical
and I'm running masters rhetoric, a little bit more
academic style stuff. I mean, my, my views have
dramatically evolved over doing this podcast and doing so I
think, you know, has made me a better, more understanding
person of the world and, you know, even loving.
But at the same time, I think that, you know, when I look at
his philosophy, some of the stuff's pretty out there.
Like the, you know, I don't know if you've, there's a lecture
where he's talking about like architecture and how each
ancient Egyptian architecture is kind of like, you know, very
tall columns and open ceilings. And, you know, it evolves, you
know, kind of slowly over time. And then he gets to the Greeks
and kind of goes through time like that.
And, you know, and he also talks about like Atlantis and Lemuria.
And look, I mean, I've had this debate with some of the ancient,
you know, fringe people or the pseudo archaeology fans or
whatever about Atlantis. Initially I thought maybe, you
know, there's something, but then, you know, 'cause if Troy
was actually found and people didn't think Troy was a real
place. So like, let's look, is there is
there any, you know, but then you read Plato's dialogues and
I've read Plato's dialogues a lot and it just seems like more
of like an allegory for how civilization goes.
So like if we're talking about like allegory of The Cave, well,
that's an allegory to show some sort of paradigm shift or
paradigm shifting event is where Atlantis, I would say is some
sort of allegory for what can happen to a civilization if, if
people aren't aware or careful kind of a thing.
Right. Yeah, it's a tricky one with
Steiner. And I'm also kind of I trip up
on it and I'm fascinated by the question and I'm constantly
asking people in the community for their take on it.
You know, can we square what natural science and material
science has to say about how the planet evolved and how, you
know, just like, you know, the the modern DNAII think Steiner
would have been sort of just too early to get all the insights
the DNA is providing us about the issue of humanity.
So it's there's that side of it. And I, I do, I do have, I still
hold out like a kind of confidence that what Steiner is
describing sort of is a part of the human story of evolution and
that, you know, OK, it's just I I still have sort of a grey area
with that with Steiner about. Was there an island called
Atlantis or El Lumeria? And all this kind of stuff with
Steiner is so rigorous that if you take parts of his system as
like credible, well, they, they inform the rest of the parts.
And so you need, you know, you need ancient Saturn for Steiner
and you need Lumeria to get to ancient Greece and to explain it
all. And so he at least, you know,
you can try to follow the threads about why he's saying
these things had to be there and all that kind of stuff.
But again, I'm with you is that it's easy to take those things
and extrapolate and, and sort of become really entertaining and
how you talk about them and, and have all that occur.
And it sort of gets away from my my through line is that Steiner
is describing the evolution of consciousness.
And so as far as like the material history of those
civilizations, that's a much harder problem.
So I, I, I tend to focus on like how he describes that our
consciousness is evolving through those stages.
And again, that's how I can make sense of it and why they had to,
why he has to postulate such strange steps in the process and
all that kind of stuff. So it's a tricky one with
Steiner. Well, and, you know, you're
talking about Theosophy, Madame Blavatsky.
Like these were mystical people that were kind of in tune with
these, whether they're pseudo archaeology, like we've come so
far. Now we can kind of look at
things from an archaeological standpoint or a scientific
standpoint using scientific method and to where, you know
what he was saying, you know, I'll, I'll compare it to this.
And I'm not saying that like their philosophies or anything.
But when I listen to like a Steiner lecture, it reminds me
of like a manly P Hall or like a Alan Watts style rant where he's
just riffing on, you know, the spirit or spirituality kind of a
thing. It does that make sense or do
you get those vibes? I get it with Steiner though.
You just have to, I, I, you know, with Manly P Hall, he's an
academic, so he's relating ideas he read somewhere else.
Same with Alan Watson. With Steiner, I just have this
impression that he's trying his best to relay direct spiritual
experiences that he had often the night before or whenever
formative experiences. And if with Steiner, you're just
getting direct accounts and I I think that's the difference.
And yeah, he, he's trying to give birth to an entire system.
Yeah. Whereas do people like Manly P
Hall has the you know, he gets to summarize, whereas Steiner's
giving birth piece by piece to this huge system.
So in in that regard to like, you know, you could say, does
that say something about human beings?
So like if you listen to a Rudolf Steiner spiritual
lecture, rant or whatever and you identify with it, obviously
there's some common thread, whether what he's saying, like
if forget Alanis or Lemuria, like just take that out of the
picture. Obviously something he's saying
hits home with you. Do you think that could be tied
to like, maybe our mythological, like storytelling past and that
he's tapping into a part of the imagination where that it is
spiritual? Because it does go back 10s of
thousands, if not longer years, you know?
Yeah, I mean, I can, I can definitely, you know, I, I
speaking to my experiences is that what brings me back time
after time is that he'll drop these Nuggets that I haven't
heard anywhere else that like you're saying, sort of an aha
moment that brings a bunch of pieces together for me.
That sits true with me. And I have to imagine that
that's what people are are coming back to.
I mean, this is a very personal example.
Reminds you if you ever listen to Aesop Rock the really the the
hip hop artist that does all those complicated songs.
And people have asked him, like, you know, it sounds like there's
no meaning to your songs. They're just a bunch of
gibberish. And he says, like, well, if it
was just a bunch of gibberish, why would anyone listen to it?
Like, I'd have to be really clever to get people to listen
to this stuff over and over again if it didn't mean
anything, if it wasn't connecting to something about
their lives. And I suppose Steiner is a bit
like that where it seems like he's just throwing a bunch of
stuff at the wall, but all of a sudden you leave with some kind
of coherence, you know, something that makes sense.
And. Yeah.
So I think that that's what I would, yeah.
Yeah, no, I, I, like I said, I, I, I think that you have to go
into listening to his stuff or reading his stuff with kind of
an open mind. Because even if you're a
spiritual person, there might be ideas that are kind of
conflicting to your own ideas of what spirituality are for sure.
And, and he's his own to, to his own philosophy.
If each person creates their own purpose and his purpose is is
coming through, sharing these direct experiences, that's still
kind of subjective, right? I mean, there might be Nuggets
that tie to humanity or other people or that, you know, some
sort of common thread, but it kind of is still his own thing
too. So I think like we have to with
anybody, you know, I don't know what's going through your head
right now. You know, I know what
consciousness is. I know how I interact with the
world. But at the end of the day, how
my idea of how I think about things might be dramatically
different from, you know, in the internal workings as somebody
else. So.
Yeah, I was having a debate with, you know, another Steiner,
a person that is interested in Steiner and and his his idea was
that Steiner misinterpreted his sort of karmic duty in this
lifetime, that he got the idea that he was supposed to do
objective spiritual research and share it with humanity.
But maybe more of what you're talking about is that Steiner
can can dig out and present all the stuff that's going on in his
spirit, in his soul. And whatever value that has to
us is all the value it has. And it doesn't have to be
considered gospel or truth. And I think that's what he would
say is if it has any value, then good.
But you know, if you're living by it, you're already
contradicting it because it's this is a philosophy of freedom,
not a philosophy of anything else.
And so I think there's something to that.
I think he definitely thought he was giving objective information
and again, he's working within certain traditions.
So he's sharing tradition, you know, information that's been
around for 1000 years that we just wasn't given to scholars or
a public access or whatever. And so it I I understand and
there are certainly many Steiner people anthroposophist that take
him to literally. Yeah, I've I've seen you.
I think, I mean, I don't go much on Facebook pretty much at all
anymore once in a while for like, you know, check out family
stuff, whatever. But I remember for a while I was
watching you comment and some of those like Steiner forums on
there and some of these, some of these you just ask like some
basic question. People would just like flip out.
So it's like while he has a tight knit fan base, I think
some of the people, like anything else, will take
dogmatic approaches to things that are said or gospel if you
will, or something like that. Steiner has a specific issue
where he spoke about almost every topic.
So if you're a gardener, you'll hear about Steiner because of
biodynamics. If you're a teacher, you do with
the Waldorf. If you're an artist, you're here
because of this and that. So people will approach Steiner
from 7000 different angles. And for me, I approached it for
his philosophy. And I, I, I think that's a bit
of a skeleton key. It lets you move a little more
freely through the rest of the material because you, I don't
know, I, it's, I, I feel a little more detached from things
like the biodynamics or Eurythmia or all these, you
know, or again, Atlantis or what he says about vaccines or all
this stuff. Like I, I, I'm, I'm at a sort of
philosophical and a free freedom thinking kind of starting point.
But when you come at it with like in his medicine and you
think that he has to be right about everything, I I just take
for granted. I'm a little bit naive at how
many people in the Steiner circles that I would fight and
disagree with. So yeah.
Well, and, and, and when you here's the thing that I, we're
talking about anybody spiritually related or spiritual
leader or religious or whatever, I think the problem that I
always run into is we're always learning new stuff, right?
So my philosophy is an ever evolving philosophy.
That's, that's not going to change because the second that
changes, if that, if the world ever slows down or just stops,
that would be OK. Maybe we'll talk about it.
But as time goes on, we're constantly learning new things,
new takes. So this idea that there's some
like, I think people get lost in the eternal truth thing.
And I think they think that, oh, this is true 3000 years ago and
it's true now. And that there is Nuggets of
truth that are like that, like from philosophy, whether it's
Socratic method or Platonic thinking or whatever, there are
things within that that yes, they still ring true to this
day. But how do we know that that's
going to ring true 1000 years from now?
How do we know all those ancient thinkers that we identify with
are going to be ringing true with the five next generations
because we discovered something new or whatever, you know what
I'm saying? So it's like, that's the problem
I have with a lot of this stuff, is these people dig their heels
in on a certain person or topic and then they're not willing to
budget or think more deeply. Like if he was the end all be
all, he'd be the end all be all. But we're still here.
We're still learning, we're still figuring things out.
I, I think you really cleared it up there because it gets to the
point of like, why are you engaging with these ideas?
And Austin, fear motivates people and it motivates them in
all these different ways and they fear, you know, when you
have this sort of overwhelming fear of something, you want
certainty. You want to, That's where the
certain, the need for certainty comes in is often I'm kind of
skipping steps, But the root of it all is you're going through
something and you need certainty.
And so you turn to these things for certainty when any, anyone
you turn to and any time you'd use that attitude, you're asking
for trouble because that's the you you want to dig the heels in
because you're afraid of something, you know, and you
have to sort of settle down and you shouldn't.
It's just, it's really dangerous to approach spirituality with
through that fear, through the lens of fear.
And I think that's often what happens.
And, you know, there's all sorts of glowing beacons like Steiner
that people will welcome you in and say we have all these
answers. And when you and your attitude
is 1 of curiosity and open endedness, you don't run into
that problem. And you can walk into the
Steiner circle and you can walk out of it.
And you can walk into, you know, an atheist circle and you can
walk out of it. And I think that's, to me, that
what clears it up is that you have to have the right attitude
to any of these things. Absolutely.
And actually what you said rings true.
Like anybody struggling with like mental health or like, you
know, I had severe OCD, the one of the things causing these
thoughts or these, you know, looping ideas in my own head is
the idea of uncertainty. So like when you take, when you
have like let's say OCD, anybody that has OCD, they want to be
reaffirmed that what they're thinking is either incorrect or
wrong, but then they'll still think about it to a certain
level after that. So it's like what you're saying
has a certain truth to it from a standpoint of like, you know,
mental health and things like that, because we all want
certainty with certain things. However, I think part of this
journey, at least for me, has been embracing the idea of
uncertainty and just accepting that there's things that we
either can't know, won't know, or it's just not in the cards,
you know? So it's accepting that while
also understanding what's going on, if that makes sense.
I love it. Absolutely.
Yeah. And when you can't accept it,
you live in a world that's like, mysterious and wonderful and
open-ended, you know, whereas, yeah, closing down and certain
certainty makes things pretty small and pretty finite.
And yeah, often that illusion gets shattered at some point
because it's just not real. That certainty is.
Yeah. So.
Yeah. And in terms of when you're
looking at things like that, it's, I think most people it's a
potent drug, religion or spirituality.
I remember when I was going through my spiritual awakening 8
years ago when I started mine to skip that was kind of part of
the catalyst for this whole thing and eventually led me kind
of away from the more spiritual things through knowledge and
this quest through investigating these things.
Not that I don't have thoughts on things or not that I don't
have had weird experiences that I can't explain or have heard
other people's testimonies to their own experiences and things
like that. But just when you can take that
burden off your shoulders and you believe in that moment or
within, you know, a certain time in your life or something that
there's a higher power or somebody's got your back or
something like that. It's super potent.
And it frees you up to kind of live this like joyous life.
But I think it's short lived because life happens, right?
Like the other things are going to come up or they're, you know,
maybe just enjoy that period for what it is 'cause it's, it's not
going to last forever. When you look at the whole Canon
of Steiner's work, is what part of it do you like the most, or
does it resonate most with you? Yeah, I think for me it was and
always will. Well, you know, his philosophy.
I I, I think, you know, if anyone asked me, hey, what
should I read with Steiner? My bias is like, start with the
early philosophy stuff because it he doesn't bring up Atlantis.
He doesn't ask you to listen about Christ or, you know,
ghosts or whatever the spooky stuff, you know, Akashic Records
and reincarnation like so you know, with the philosophy, he
really, you know, intentionally kept it pure philosophy.
And for me that's the skeleton key because you pick up his
ideas about freedom, which are his ideas about love.
And when I started reading Steiner, I was an atheist.
So when he, when I found out he talked a lot about Christ, it
really urged, irked me or whatever.
But it for me, all I have to do is replace this idea of this
being of Christ with a being of love, you know, being of truth,
a being of wisdom. And I, I can believe easier that
there is a being of, of love that exists and that we, you
know, that that's our, our sort of guiding light.
And it's like, OK, cool. And you understand that without
having to read any of his woo woo stuff at all.
And I think there's a version of Steiner that is just, well,
there was a version of Steiner that was just the philosopher.
And had he just given that to the world, it would have been
enough. And he says as much as that the
philosopher of freedom contains everything else that he said.
It's, it's all there if you can just put it together.
So for me, it's the philosophy. But if I had to give the runner
up it, it is his ideas about religion and, and Christ and
Christianity And just as an atheist, you know, former
atheist, whatever, like I would have never been convinced I
would talk about Christianity. So for an atheist like Steiner
is the Christian to go to because he leaves out just all
the junk and he fights against the junk that makes it so hard
to even use words like Christianity for me.
So but yeah, I, I would, I think you can read Steiner as just a
philosopher and you can leave it there.
But if you want to go for yeah. What do you he, you know, the
second stuff is just as good as the first.
But yeah, I guess that's my answer.
What's your take on his idea of the Araman, if you can describe
that to people? Yeah.
So for Steiner, you know, we are tasked with becoming beings of
love and freedom and wisdom, but that doesn't happen without a
sort of catalyst. And for actually the catalyst
is, is Araman. So Arman is, is death and
illusion and materialism. And I was just reading that we
can view Arman not as some devil, something evil, although
it is evil, but it's actually a a it's a it's a whole host of
beings. Arman is not a single being.
It's a whole any being that is the beings of darkness that sort
of become our trip. We we trip over them.
We are made stronger by them. They are like the counterforce
to love. And so there are beings tasked
with being this, these counter forces to love and they're there
to strengthen us and to make our resolve towards love stronger.
And so all all of the energy in the universe that's like sort of
adversarial. And so he he gets really into
very detailed things about it, like Arman or the Arman
experience will use things like technology to sort of entrap
humans and to trick them. And he's the sort of
Mephistophelian figure, sort of what's the, the gurta sort of
deal with the devil kind of thing.
Like he, he's all these pictures.
But ultimately it's, it's the forces against love that will
strengthen us. So people often make him out to
be this, you know, very again, like if you're a typical
Christian, you'll talk about the devil and it's in hell and it's
just scary. But Steiner gives a a far more
nuanced approach to our Amman, which is that it's we should be
thankful for all of the sort of evil in the world because it
makes us more loving. So do you think it's his idea?
So Armand's basically you could kind of equate it to like demon
or demonic. But do you think though it's
closer to Damon, like the ancient Greek, which is just
like an entity that you kind of play off of and and think about
and interact with in that way? Or do you think that it is
closer to some sort of demonic actuality?
Yeah, well, so with Steiner, you have also have to mention
Lucifer. So he he has two opposing devils
to to love, you know, and one is an upward one, which is Lucifer
and the other one is the downward 1.
So with, with Arman, you are talking about darkness, you're
talking about death, and also you're talking about illusion
and you talk about materialism and, and all this kind of stuff.
And then there's the Lucifer, which is like the light bringer.
And I, I think what you're describing almost reminds me
more of Lucifer, which is you, you know, again, you have a
positive relationship with these things, even though they're
sometimes, well, there are wholly negative forces.
So, but now Armand should be regarded as, as pretty dark.
It just shouldn't be scary, you know?
Well, yeah, I mean, and you, you could look at like a later
psychologist, philosopher, almost like a Carl Jung and, you
know, actually investigate and play with your darker side or
your darker nature and understand that that's kind of
part of it too. Because without these kind of
dichotomies, you know, without, I know it's cliche, but without,
you know, evil, there is no good.
And without dark, there is no light.
So the universe kind of is a balancing act, if you will, of
these different forces. That's it.
So for Steiner, you got the darkness on the left, you got
light on the right, but then you have the middle, the balancing
thing, which is what he's calling Christ, which again, if
you consider Christ a loving balancing being, you know, it's
just something with these positive attributes.
Yeah. All right.
Before we wrap it up, we got a little bit of a new segment.
Are you ready, Andrew Tischler? Excited.
Let's see if I'm ready. Yeah, let's go.
All right, I am going to ask you 5 philosophical questions and
just answer them the best you can.
You ready? What is something that you
believe in that you know is probably wrong or illogical, but
you are just not being honest with yourself?
Something I believe in that I think probably isn't true.
Is that it? But I want it to be true.
Oh my gosh, I'm the worst at these kind of open-ended things
because I'll just think about it for like 1/2 an hour.
Let's see something that's it's just tricky because I used to be
a lot more nihilistic and I, I have a lot of I, yeah, I have a
lot of options. Well, like what's something that
you have like an inkling, like it doesn't even have to be like
a religion or something, but just something that like you're
kind of fooling yourself to believe that the you know, like
you said, nihilism like is like maybe this means nothing, but we
you you trick yourself into thinking that there, you know,
doesn't have to be that, but just something that's.
Probably for me, it is that like, I, I, I guess I do get
worried that, yeah, that there's something compelling to
nihilism. I mean, I, this all started when
I was a kid. I was just so afraid, like, like
being existing doesn't make a lot of sense.
And I, I was in touch with that for since I was 5 or 6 years
old, that it doesn't make a lot of sense that I'm sitting here
staring at these stars and that they're all gasp, things
burning. And I came from bugs and I
evolved. Yeah.
It's like I would just happen to be here.
And that really scared me and it kind of started me on the path
of philosophy. So the idea that that is true,
you know, I when I dip back into sort of the atheism YouTube and
the hyper scientific YouTube and that they their arguments are so
compelling. And yeah, I suppose it would be
really scary to to slip back into that perspective of that
there's not something spiritual. I guess that's it that, that
there is like if I think there is a spiritual element to
humanity, to to to myself, and if that weren't true, that would
be a tough thing to swallow. It's like, I guess it's yeah,
believing in a spiritual I, I think it is, yeah.
Like the TLL logical thing. OK, OK.
Do you think there is an objective purpose for humanity?
And if so, what? What is it?
I always think it's love. I'm I'm pretty comfortable with
love. And of course, for me, love also
means freedom, but it means also knowing.
So you don't just get to say I'm loving, you also have to be a
scientist and a philosopher. You have to know.
So Yep, I, I, I think because because it has the caveat of
both freedom and knowing I'm comfortable with the answer of
love as the objective explanation to yeah, that's my
Trinity. OK, OK #3 do you think humans
are special or separate from the rest of nature?
And if your answer is yes, please give me your best example
of why. I, I would say, I think I
emphasized the yes more than the no.
And the simple thing is that we have complex language and that
we create art and technologies and culture, and that our
culture is so complex and beautiful that it does transcend
things that the animals are up to and that there is a very
clear delineation between humans and animals.
Now, I will point out that there are proto versions of everything
you just said, meaning that, you know, some and you know, like
chimps have kind of like a culture, you know, animals have
been known to what people think might be art, you know, things
like that. So I just want to point that
out. While I kind of, you know, agree
with you, those things do separate us as terms of like how
sophisticated and how complex they are.
There are proto versions of that found in nature.
Well, I'll refine my answer because there's I think there's
something that there is no proto example of which is that there
is no animals that say I to themselves.
OK, yeah, that's that's the, yeah, yeah.
OK, what do you think happens when we die?
I think we rejoin our higher self, which is a complicated
entity that has lived many lives, and we start to plan for
our next life because we are not enlightened yet.
And yeah, I think that there's a dying process.
I think we are. We review our past life and then
we prepare for our our next life.
I think it's about 800. And to end it on a more positive
note, how do you or do you or what should I say, what do you
hope happens when we die? So I asked you, what do you
think happens when we die? But what do you hope happens
when we die? I like it.
I like, I, I hope that we get in touch with, you know, pure love
and pure wisdom and, and joy and truth and that we are sort of
refilled. And yeah, I hope that instead of
hell or even a sort of sort of bureaucratic heaven, that now we
we just meet our loved ones and these great ideals.
And yeah. And then we gather energy to to
get back involved in the whole cosmic plan.
Awesome. Thank you so much, Andrew.
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