Freedom

From Anthroposophy

Background positioning

The spiritual hierarchies in creation make part of a complex cosmic fractal with cascading interdependencies as the cosmic breath of brahma pushes up and down like the cylinders in an engine, see eg Schema FMC00.274. Each hierarchy is structurally interconnected and channels through the energy of the Logos, thereby giving expression of characteristics at that level. This spiritual reality is such a complex multidimensional process that it is beyond comprehension for contemporary mainstream human waking consciousness.

Humanity is the first level in creation that has been set free from this pattern. Through a divine intervention on Old Sun (Schema FMC00.019) a Luciferic influence was created in the spiritual hierarchies that cascaded down (see war in heaven, and the origin of evil in the lower planes of creation) to finally cause, in the current planetary Earth stage of evolution, and due to the influence of backward Luciferic beings, the fact that Man was wrestled free from the guidance of the spiritual hierarchies. For illustrations, see Schema FMC00.612 and more on Transition between 4th and 14th century

This was a gradual process starting in the Lemurian epoch with the Development of the I, as it is the Luciferic influence that triggers freedom in the Human I, as for example depicted in Schema FMC00.472A. This event corresponds to the seduction by the snake in Fall described in the Bible and the Book of Genesis. Though it caused 'side-effects' as human karma, evil in the world, and the start of reincarnation .. this luciferic infection did contribute in a unique way to the divine plan of creation, and these things are the price to pay for the unique fact or capability of true freedom: Man is the first spiritual being that has freedom of choice, without being completely guided by higher hierarchies.

The reason and wisdom in this development is that Freedom is required for Love, as Love is about giving rather than receiving, and selflessness rather than selfishness, ultimately the selfless sacrifice of one's self for another. This requires consciousness to be able to choose freely for the one or the other, which is exactly the mission of the planet Earth and the Human 'I'.

This was achieved through a stepwise approach with divine impulses of Jehovah and Christ (see Schema FMC00.185) that combined and countered the Luciferic influences. Schema FMC00.428A below depicts how this relates to Freedom and Love.

A spiritual hierarchy which has Freedom as a pathway to becoming the creative spirits of Love, represents a breakthrough in the evolution of the cosmos, which is why humanity is the 'crown of creation' and the exciting plan of the Gods who are developing mankind into becoming Gods.

In this development, the human 'I' is thereby a 'sharp two edged sword' and will lead both to the highest and the lowest in Man.

The 'price to pay' for this freedom will require a major 'cleanup' in facing evil, not just in the current Postatlantean epoch but down to future planetary stages of evolution, a stepwise redemption with multiple phases. This is represented in an overview in Schema FMC00.427A (and Schema FMC00.425). Mankind will be split into good and evil subraces, whereby the greater good will face and redeem the greatest evil.

Current situation and future outlook

In current times, humanity as a whole is only mature enough to become free and independent in relation to the consciousness soul, an evolution that was initiated in the 15th century. In the future, the spiritual and moral influx will further permeate the intellectual soul and sentient soul, so people will find the impulses for the good flowing from their own soul and have a firm direction in actions and work.

Aspects

  • start of true freedom for humanity came with the development of the I and the withdrawal of the spiritual hierarchies in the 15th century
    • key extract 1921-10-06-GA343 (see Schema FMC00.612)

      The fact is that we as the human race have been living in the development of freedom since the 15th century. This life in freedom is only possible under the influence, the inner influence of mere intellectuality, which actually has no content. ... Intellectual concepts are actually empty in the face of reality; they are holes in the universe, and this is necessary for the development of freedom. .. this state of consciousness, which brings about freedom, could not be there if Man were inwardly filled with a content, for this content would have to be a divine one; and this divine content, which was to a certain extent the strongest in the beginning, had to decrease and reach its zero point here (a diagram is drawn), and now the intellectual development occurs. This gives Man freedom and in the further course of time, we will consciously give our soul content again.

  • gradual evolution of true freedom in the threefold human soul
    • humanity can only mature gradually: As humanity is now, human souls are only mature enough to become free and independent in relation to the consciousness soul .. but people are not yet ripe to become free in relation to the intellectual soul and sentient soul. However spiritual wisdom gradually leads to the intellectual and sentient soul also being freed, so that people no longer have to look to tradition and habit to find the good, but that the impulse for good flows from their own soul .. a time will come when Man will thus have a firm direction in his actions and work. (1911-01-08-GA127 - see also what flows from right to left below on Schema FMC00.431: the spiritual flows in through the consciousness soul first, and then to the intellectual and sentient souls, so it will penetrate the whole of the human soul in due time)
  • freedom and love as arising from a balance between and mutual permeation of thought and will (1920-12-19-GA202)
    • we attain freedom by irradiating the life of thought with will: pure thinking happens when our thinking attains such maturity that it is entirely irradiated by will; it no longer takes anything in from outside, but its very life is of the nature of will. Our inner life is constantly deepened when we permeate our thinking with will. We bring will into thinking and thereby attain freedom. Freedom dawns when we enable the will to become an ever mightier and mightier force in our thinking.This leads to 'moral imagination'.
    • we attain love by permeating the life of will with thoughts: when we developing in ourselves the force of devotion to the outer world. Devotion to the outer world, which pervades our actions with thoughts, is nothing else than love.
  • Necessity and Freedom
    • and the Moon (necessity) and Sun (freedom) as the two gates: the Moon endows us with Individuality (the past), the Sun gives access to the universal-human (the future), eg in the destiny and meeting between two individuals both are at work .. the connection before the meeting is determined by the Moon-existence (necessity), happenings after the meeting is determined by the Sun (freedom). (1924-01-25-GA240). The Sun is connected with our I and the angels (as future archetypes) , the Moon with our astral body (and moon beings as bookkeepers or recorders of our past) (1924-01-28-GA240)
  • Philosophy of Freedom
    • considered the most important book by Rudolf Steiner, published in 1894 in German as Die Philosophie der Freiheit, with a second edition published in 1918, and now GA004 in Rudolf Steiner's Gesamtausgabe (GA). The work has appeared under various English titles, including The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (the title Steiner proposed), The Philosophy of Freedom, and Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path.
  • freedom of thought and speech
    • about thoughts being free
      • 'Die Gedanken sind frei' ('Thoughts are free') is German song, the text goes back to at least 1780 (re wikipedia topic page)
      • German lyrical poet or 'Meistersinger' Walther von der Vogelweide (ca.1170–1230) already wrote: 'joch sint iedoch gedanke frî' ('yet still thoughts are free').
    • current and future
    • in the past: examples of the previous fourth Greco-Latin cultural age, with the roman catholic church as the then established powers:
      • the college for destruction of initiation, gnosis, spirit
      • effect of 869 on abolishing of the soul, and spirit
      • the Inquisition (imprisonment, put under house arrest, burned to death)
      • index of forbidden literature and banned books, called the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, or 'Index' in short.
      • more on: worldview wars
  • potential future scenario of evolution
    • Only under certain conditions which have not yet occurred but which may still come during the evolution of the Earth ... the possibility will arise for angels and archangels, to stray from their inner soul necessity, not in probability, but they would have the possibility to do so. (1921-10-06-GA343)

Inspirational quotes

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

(Elective Affinities, 1809 - origin quote tbc)

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

1908-06-30-GA104

freedom is inseparably connected with the idea of love.

It would be impossible for Man to develop either love or freedom without the possibility of sailing down into the abyss.

A man unable, of his own free decision, to choose good or evil, would be a being who would only be led on a leading-string to a good which must be attained of necessity and who had no power to choose the good of his own fully purified will, by the love which springs from freedom.

1918-09-28-GA273

That Man can acquire freedom of will ... is due to this exposure to evil, and his being able to choose between the evil that approaches him, and the good he can develop out of his own nature.

1923-06-24-GA277

Today everything revolves around human freedom, human will. Everything revolves around the independent decision of either going forward or backward, upward or downward.

Massimo Scaligero (On Immortal Love). Added here in context of the importance of self-initiation.

The spirit will not suffer any obligation nor human design, it is like the wind that no-one knows where it comes from, nor where it goes

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.612: illustrates the start of Man's true freedom in the 15th century, after the ancient clairvoyance faded over millenia, and the spiritual hiearchies withdrew, so in the end Man was disconnected from the spirit world.

In the future, a new clairvoyance will develop in Man as a free and conscious being.

See also topic pages for Transition between the 4th and 15th century and Christ in the etheric

For a similar illustration, see Schema FMC00.054 on Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha

illustrates the start of Man's true freedom in the 15th century, after the ancient clairvoyance faded over millenia, and the spiritual hiearchies withdrew, so in the end Man was disconnected from the spirit world. In the future, a new clairvoyance will develop in Man as a free and conscious being. See also topic pages for Transition between the 4th and 15th century and Christ in the etheric For a similar illustration, see Schema FMC00.054 on Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha


Schema FMC00.428A adds the explanation from Rudolf Steiner's narrative in the sources listed, against the background of Schema FMC00.428.

It shows how "the Christ Impulse triggered a reversal of the influences of the two crossing streams", and gave Man independence in love and allowed for a spiritualization of love, as love without true freedom is not love.

Note: all texts originate from the GA244 sources listed, but were aggregated into a single schema explanation.

FMC00.428A.jpg

Lecture coverage and references

1886-GA002

already covers 'human freedom'

1890-11-30 letter

Also, excerpt from essay by David W. Wood on The Johannine Question

In a letter from Weimar dated 30 November 1890, the 29 year-old Rudolf Steiner quoted to his correspondent Richard Specht the following words by the philosopher J. G. Fichte:

“life is love, and the entire form and force of life consists in love and arises from love.

What I have just said expresses one of the deepest principles of knowledge […].”

This excerpt is from the opening pages of Fichte’s 'The Way to the Blessed Life' (1806).

After citing this passage Steiner then briefly outlined his own philosophical conception of freedom, writing how he drew his inspiration not only from J. G. Fichte, but from J. W. von Goethe as well:

Whoever does not merely understand this [passage in The Way to the Blessed Life] with the dead intellect but is able to grasp it in a living manner, such a person lives a wholly independent life. And only he who is capable of doing this can understand the freedom that I would so dearly like to make into the pivotal and unified point of my entire philosophizing. It is wholly remarkable to me how Fichte and Goethe work their way in from two sides and meet together at the summit in perfection. I believe I understand my epoch very well when I say: the idealism of Fichte and Goethe must bear its final fruit in a kind of freedom philosophy. Because ‘freedom’ is the correlative of that concept for both of them.

1891-GA003 Ch 8

see: Man and the macrocosmos#1891-GA003 Ch 8

1894-GA004 (Philosophy of Freedom)
1908-06-30-GA104

In answer to these questions, we might, to begin with, say something abstract, theoretical, and it already signifies a great deal for one who can grasp this theoretical statement is his feeling:

It is extremely wise that [Divine] Providence has taken care that this terrible fate is possible for a number of men. For if it were impossible for man to sink into the abyss of evil, he would not have been able to attain what on the one hand we call love and on the other freedom; since ... freedom is inseparably connected with the idea of love.

It would be impossible for Man to develop either love or freedom without the possibility of sailing down into the abyss.

A man unable, of his own free decision, to choose good or evil, would be a being who would only be led on a leading-string to a good which must be attained of necessity and who had no power to choose the good of his own fully purified will, by the love which springs from freedom.

If it were impossible for man to follow in the trail of the monster with the two horns, it would also be impossible for him to follow God out of his own individual love. It was in accordance with a wise Providence to give the possibility of freedom to the humanity which has been developing through our planetary system, and this possibility of freedom could be given on no other condition than that man himself has to make the free choice between good and evil.

1916-01-02-GA165

What people call freedom in the age of materialism is the very opposite of all freedom; but things are so arranged that people hardly notice it. Those who have some insight into how things are do no more than combat this bondage by that which must be forbidden, others again cast sheep's eyes at those in power and seize in their grasp everything that ought to be as free as the flowers that grow in the fields.

...

Perhaps as yet we can do nothing in our age to stem the course of the unfree materialistic tone of the day. But at least we must learn to feel it a bondage. Here it is that a beginning must be made. We must not be taken by illusion.

For, if the world proceeds in its evolution according to the wishes of this materialistic impulse we shall gradually enter an evolution in which

  • not only will anyone be forbidden to do anything for the health of humanity unless he is certificated, but
  • no one will be allowed to say a word regarding science of any kind, except one who has taken a vow to speak only of such things as are patented with the stamp of the materialistic order of thought.

At present the constraint of the things forbidden is not much felt. But a time is coming when, just as every effort for the healing of mankind that is not stamped and certificated will be forbidden, so every word will be forbidden that is said otherwise than in the form patented and guaranteed by the materialistic powers.

If people do not perceive the whole course of what is coming about, they will enter full-sail into this future ‘freedom.’ This will consist in promulgated laws forbidding people to teach differently from what is taught in a recognized school. Everything will be forbidden that recalls in the most distant way what, for instance, is taking place amongst us here.

Because people do not see how the course of evolution is tending, they do not realize this.

see also other lecture references and extracts on:

Contemporary worldview war#Contemporary and future realities - techniques of 'the powers that be'

1916-01-25/27-GA166

on necessity and freedom

1920-12-19-GA202

title: The Path to Freedom and Love and Their Significance in World-Events

Now it is possible to attain complete freedom of our inner life if we increasingly efface and exclude the actual thought content, in so far as this comes from outside, and kindle into greater activity the element of will which streams through our thoughts when we form judgments, draw conclusions and the like. Thereby, however, our thinking becomes what I have called in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity: pure thinking. We think, but in our thinking there is nothing but will. I have laid particular emphasis on this in the new edition of the book (1918). What is thus within us lies in the sphere of thinking. But pure thinking may equally be called pure will. Thus from the realm of thinking we reach the realm of will, when we become inwardly free; our thinking attains such maturity that it is entirely irradiated by will; it no longer takes anything in from outside, but its very life is of the nature of will.

By progressively strengthening the impulse of will in our thinking we prepare ourselves for what I have called in the Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, "Moral Imagination." Moral Imagination rises to the Moral Intuitions which then pervade and illuminate our will that has now become thought, or our thinking that has now become will. In this way we raise ourselves above the sway of the ‘necessity’ prevailing in the material world, permeate ourselves with the force that is inherently our own, and prepare for Moral Intuition. And everything that can stream into man from the spiritual world has its foundation, primarily, in these Moral Intuitions. Therefore freedom dawns when we enable the will to become an ever mightier and mightier force in our thinking.

Now let us consider the human being from the opposite pole, that of the will. When does the will present itself with particular clarity through what we do?

  • When we sneeze, let us say, we are also doing something, but we cannot, surely, ascribe to ourselves any definite impulse of will when we sneeze! When we speak, we are doing something in which will is undoubtedly contained. But think how, in speaking, deliberate intent and absence of intent, volition and absence of volition, intermingle. You have to learn to speak, and in such a way that you are no longer obliged to formulate each single word by dint of an effort of will; an element of instinct enters into speech. In ordinary life at least, it is so, and it is emphatically so in the case of those who do not strive for spirituality. Garrulous people, who are always opening their mouths in order to say something or other in which very little thought is contained, give others an opportunity of noticing — they themselves, of course, do not notice — how much there is in speech that is instinctive and involuntary. But the more we go out beyond our organic life and pass over to activity that is liberated, as it were, from organic processes, the more do we carry thoughts into our actions and deeds. Sneezing is still entirely a matter of organic life; speaking is largely connected with organic life; walking really very little; what we do with the hands, also very little.

And so we come by degrees to actions which are more and more emancipated from our organic life. We accompany such actions with our thoughts, although we do not know how the will streams into these thoughts. If we are not somnambulists and do not go about in this condition, our actions will always be accompanied by our thoughts. We carry our thoughts into our actions, and the more our actions evolve towards perfection, the more are our thoughts being carried into them.

Our inner life is constantly deepened when we send will — our own inherent force — into our thinking, when we permeate our thinking with will. We bring will into thinking and thereby attain freedom. As we gradually perfect our actions we finally succeed in sending thoughts into these actions; we irradiate our actions — which proceed from our will — with thoughts. On the one side (inwards) we live a life of thought; we permeate this with the will and thus find freedom. On the other side (outwards) our actions stream forth from our will, and we permeate them with our thoughts. (Diagram IX)

But by what means do our actions evolve to greater perfection? To use an invariably controversial expression ..

How do we achieve greater perfection in our actions?

We achieve this by developing in ourselves the force which can only be designated by the words: devotion to the outer world.

The more our devotion to the outer world grows and intensifies, the more does this outer world stir us to action. But it is just through unfolding devotion to the outer world that we succeed in permeating our actions with thoughts. What, in reality, is devotion to the outer world? Devotion to the outer world, which pervades our actions with thoughts, is nothing else than love.

Just as

  • we attain freedom by irradiating the life of thought with will, so do
  • we attain love by permeating the life of will with thoughts.

We unfold love in our actions by letting thoughts radiate into the realm of the will; we develop freedom in our thinking by letting what is of the nature of will radiate into our thoughts. And because, as man, we are a unified whole, when we reach the point where we find freedom in the life of thought and love in the life of will, there will be freedom in our actions and love in our thinking. Each irradiates the other: action filled with thought is wrought in love; thinking that is permeated with will gives rise to actions and deeds that are truly free.

Thus you see how in the human being the two great ideals, freedom and love, grow together. Freedom and love are also that which man, standing in the world, can bring to realization in himself in such a way that, through him, the one unites with the other for the good of the world.

We must now ask: How is the ideal, the highest ideal, to be attained in the will-permeated life of thought?

Now if the life of thought were something that represented material processes, the will could never penetrate fully into the realm of the thoughts and increasingly take root there. The will would at most be able to ray into these material processes as an organizing force. Will can take real effect only if the life of thought is something that has no outer, physical reality. What, then, must it be?

..

1921-10-06-GA343

includes a question on whether humanity could have reached freedom without original sin. (re evo sl 186)

It is in this lecture where the start of true freedom is described in the 15th century. This is related to the withdrawal of the spiritual hierarchies and the advent of the consciousness soul. See also Transition between 4th and 14th century

A participant: I would like to ask

whether original sin was a necessity for the development of humanity, or whether humanity could also develop freedom without original sin.

Another question is: whether there are beings, prehistoric men, who did not fall into this original sin?

Rudolf Steiner: Well, the question must actually be answered like this: You see,

supersensible knowledge can never actually be pure teleology, but it is observational, and therefore in supersensible knowledge the questions actually fall away, for what purpose or for what something is.

That is something that was in your question: Could people also come to freedom without original sin, or have human beings incurred original sin in order to attain freedom?

The fact is that we as the human race have been living in the development of freedom since the 15th century. This life in freedom is only possible under the influence, the inner influence of mere intellectuality, which actually has no content. Descartes's maxim 'Cogito, ergosum” is actually wrong. The sentence should actually read: Cogito,ergo non sum, I think, therefore I am not, because thinking never illuminates a reality, but on the contrary, it is the destruction of reality.

Only when one approaches the I through imagination, inspiration and intuition, does the real certainty of the I exist.

When we have become accustomed to applying the criteria of being to our surroundings, we must say: I think, therefore I am not. It is precisely in this non-being that the possibility of receiving something new lies. This is what lies in intellectuality. Intellectual concepts are actually empty in the face of reality; they are holes in the universe, and this is necessary for the development of freedom.

You can see the rise of intellectualism. It comes up through such thinkers who were still contemporaries of Nicholas of Cusa. Then it goes further, but especially Galileo, Copernicus, Newton are the real intellectualists.

Now, this state of consciousness, which brings about freedom, could not be there if Man were inwardly filled with a content, for this content would have to be a divine one, and this divine content, which was to a certain extent the strongest in the beginning, had to decrease and reach its zero point here (a diagram is drawn), and now the intellectual development occurs.

This gives Man freedom and in the further course of time, we will consciously give our soul content again.

So passing through [the zero point], being thrown down into matter, which certain occultists, for example, call the 'fall into procreation', was absolutely necessary for freedom.

One can only say it afterwards: because human beings fell into original sin, they attained freedom. It would be quite wrong if I were to hold back these things from you here, even if they are slightly shocking for a present-day consciousness.

Beings who know nothing about original sin, who do not learn about it, do not attain freedom either. Such beings are, for example, those who belong to the stages immediately above Man. These beings have a greater wisdom than men, and also have a stronger power, but they do not come to freedom, their will is always actually the Divine Will. Only under certain conditions, which in the evolution of the world have not yet occurred, but which during the evolution of the Earth may still come - they lie in a certain future – there the possibility will arise for these beings, which Catholicism calls angels and archangels, to stray from their inner soul necessity, not in probability, but they would have the possibility to do so. But nothing can be said about this, because it will depend on what the whole world constellation is like. So we have beings who have nothing to do with original sin.

Even those entities, which were now the actual tempters of men in the course of Earth development, which are represented by the snake in paradise, also these entities have nothing to do with original sin but with a sin freely committed by them. Only in Man does it become original sin. It is that which is called original sin .. and then again called freedom, that which is actually specific to Man.

One finds in general that the establishment of every level of existence in the entire universe has its good meaning, so that nothing is repeated in a vertical direction. So what is with the animals is not with the humans, and what is with the humans is not with the angels, and so on.

1922-08-22-GA214

Could human beings be free, so long as spirits were indwelling them? No, they could not. For spirits directed them in everything; everything was due to them.

We could only become free when spiritual beings no longer directed us — when we had mere pictures, mere images, in our thoughts.

In the age when intellectuality puts only thoughts into our heads, freedom can arise because thoughts have no power to compel.

If we allow our moral impulses to be only pure thoughts — as described in my book, The Philosophy of Freedom — then we can achieve true freedom in our age. The intellectual age, therefore, had to arise.

Yet strange as it may sound, in essence the time is already past in which it was right for us to develop mere intellectuality, mere thinking in pictures.

Along with the nineteenth century, that has become a thing of the past.

If we now continue to develop mere thoughts as images then our thoughts will fall prey to Ahrimanic powers. The Ahrimanic powers will then find access to us and, having just reached our freedom, we will lose it — lose it to Ahrimanic powers.

Humanity is confronted with this danger right now.

Human beings today are faced with the choice: either to comprehend the spiritual life — to understand that the kinds of things I have described to you today are realities — or to deny this.

But if we deny the spiritual today we will no longer be able to think freely. Rather Ahriman, Ahrimanic powers, will then begin to think in mankind. And then all humanity will undergo a downhill evolution.

1923-10-24-GA351

[Regular (<-> necessity) and irregular (<-> freedom) influences], and eg link with cyanide/comets

see: Working of substances and their forces#1923-10-24-GA351

1923-10-27-GA351

physiological aspects of substances like iron as connected to free will in Man,

see: Working of substances and their forces#1923-10-27-GA351

Discussion

Related pages

References and further reading

  • Hans Erhard Lauer: 'Lebensfragen des Zeitalters der Freiheit : Freiheit, Wahrheit, geistige Führung : zwei Vorträge' (1963)
  • Hermann Poppelbaum: 'Destiny and freedom'
  • Frederick Hiebel: 'The epistles of Paul and Rudolf Steiners philosophy of freedom' (1980 in EN, original in DE 1946 and 1959 as 'Paulus und die Erkenntnislehre der Freiheit')
  • Otto Julius Hartmann:
    • Der Mensch im Abgrunde seiner Freiheit (1932, 1979)
    • Freiheit: wodurch? wovon? wozu? (1977)
  • Edward Warren: 'Freedom as spiritual activity' (1994)
  • John van Schaik, Christine Gruwez: 'The Impulse of Freedom in Islam' (2013
Philosophy of Freedom resources:

see also: Navigating anthroposophical resources#Note 1 - Study companions for GA volumes

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