The following excerpt is from Rudolph Steiner speaking about the Anthroposophical Society, of which he was the leader:
It would be utterly senseless to ask: "What do you anthroposophists believe?" It is senseless to imagine that an "anthroposophist" means a person who belongs to the Anthroposophical Society, for that would be to assume that a whole society holds a common conviction, a common dogma. And that cannot be. The moment a whole society, according to its statutes, were pledged to a common dogma, it would cease to be a society and begin to be a sect....It may be asked: "Who are the people who come together to hear something about anthroposophy?" To this we may reply: "Those who have an urge to hear about spiritual things." This urge has nothing dogmatic about it. For if a person is seeking something without saying, "I shall find this or that," but is really seeking, this is the common element which a society that does not wish to become a sect must contain.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Society or Sect?
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7 comments:
It's useful to know how others seekers after truth find themselves placed, and how other organisations tend towards similar obstacles.
A friend of mine who is a member of the Gurdjieff Society tells me of discussions there about
'institutionalisation'.
Useful because it normalises conversations about the direction of the School - any school.
Useful because it clarifies the nature of a sect - and what is not a sect. There's been a lot about that recently and I welcome guidance on the matter.
And really useful because it indicates that dogma is the killer of enquiry. V mentioned Jaiswal saying that answers - as distinct from questions - were not in the tradition.
I don't know myself whether that's true or not, but it's a question, isn't it?
Hi Laura
Yes I think it's useful to see that this is something common to many organisations, as the William Isaacs excerpt speaks of. This also helps to de-personalise the issues. If we are to not attack the individual ahankara, then we should probably refrain from attacking the organisation. But just understand, impersonally, that we wouldn't be alone in seeing an element of sect
or 'collective ahankara'?
This latter concept has arisen here quite a lot. If the individual ahankara is simply the thought/identification, "I am this", then the collective ahankara is, "we are this". Look at companies, football supporters, nationalist movements, sectarian divisions between religions etc.
I suspect there is a fear amongst many in the school or other organisations of leaping out of the frying pan of individual ahankara into the fire of collective ahankara?
On the subject of answers & questions, mentioned by Laura here, I think the point is that an answer to a question is different to a dogma. A statement of dogma is something that all members must give their faith to, if they are to be members.
In the old days - let's say 15 years ago - I certainly felt obliged to believe that Darwin was wrong about evolution, not because it was unreasonable or reasonable, but because that was the leader's view. There's still some of that kind of thinking about.
An answer to a question, on the other hand, is what satisfies the heart and mind of the person who asks. Of course answers are part of the tradition, but they're never, as Chris Tarrant says, "the final answer".
I don't think that most people who call themselves "students" are necessarily studying anything much either, whether it's at the University of Bognor Regis or at Taliban HQ, deepest Afghanistan.
What do the semantics matter? Maybe they indicate something. Personally I wouldn't use the word "member" to refer to any of the group I tutor, because I don't want them to "sign up". Signing up is the beginning of the end for enquiry. Anyone who signs up will either have to resign later, or be kicked out for their own good.
I've seen a lot of card-carrying "members" over the years, generally looking down their nose at people like me who didn't "accept the teaching as true", as one put it, at people who kept asking questions. A decade on, and we're still here, still asking questions, but many a loyalist member is gone ... dismembered, as it were.
If member isn't the word for me, I don't think of myself as a student either. I'm not sure that I really want or need a label such as that. A student has to have a tutor - permanently.
Your are Excellent. And so is your site! Keep up the good work. Bookmarked.
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I say briefly: Best! Useful information. Good job guys.
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