Self-thinking

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Harun al-Raschid receives the delegation of Charlemagne (Julius Köckert 1864)

Self-thinking or thinking for oneself, the independent intellectual thinking of man not based on revelation or inspiration, as already aspired to by Aristotle and then first taken up by Arabism, only unfolded in Europe when the cosmic intelligence renounced Michael and arrived in the earth region in the 8th century AD (Lit.:GA 240, p. 184).

„One would like to say: Before, if one wanted to know what intelligence was, one had to look up to the Sun through the Mysteries. Now intelligence was not yet so visible on the Earth, but it gradually became known that people who have self-thinking, have self-intelligence, are developing on the Earth. One of those who, within the European civilisation, had, I would say, the first sparks of independent thought springing up in their souls, was Scotus Erigena, whom I have often discussed. But he was already preceded by others who had their own thinking, no longer merely inspired thinking revealed from above. And more and more this independent thinking became widespread.

But there was a possibility in the development of the Earth to put this thinking of one's own into a special service. Think of it: this thinking of one's own was the sum of the impulses that descended from Michael's region in heaven to Earth. Michael was first called to let this Earth Intelligence develop further on Earth. He was not yet part of it; he was not to join it again until the year 1879. At first, this earthly thinking developed in such a way that Michael could not yet take over its dominion. He could not yet impulse the people who were independent thinkers, for his dominion, his time, had not yet come.

This, which was like a deep secret in the development of humanity on Earth, was known in a few individual oriental mysteries. And so, in these few individual oriental mysteries, individual disciples could be initiated into this great secret by people who were fundamentally spiritually inclined and trained. And by a coincidence of the kind that is difficult to understand for the ordinary earthly mind, it just happened that this secret, which was well known to some Oriental Mysteries, touched that Ruling Court of which I have spoken at the Goetheanum and in other places. It was precisely in the 8th and the beginning of the 9th century that this court of rulers ruled in Asia under the rule of Harun al Raschid. Harun al Raschid had emerged from the culture of Arabism, from the Mohammedan culture. The secret of which I have just spoken had reached his initiated or at least to a certain extent knowledgeable advisors. It was precisely because the Baghdad court under the rule of Harun al-Rashid was touched by this secret that this court was so brilliant. Everything that existed in the Orient in terms of wisdom, art and profound religiosity was concentrated at the court of Harun al Raschid, albeit with a Mohammedan touch. While in Europe at the court of Charlemagne, who was a contemporary of Harun al Raschid, people were busy compiling the first elements of a grammar, and everything was still half-barbaric, in Baghdad was the residence, the brilliant planting place of oriental, Near Eastern intellectual life. Harun al Raschid united around him those who knew about the great traditions of the mysteries in the Orient. In particular, he had a counsellor around him who had been an initiate in earlier times, but on whose spiritual impulsiveness the earlier incarnations still had an effect and who became the organiser of everything that was cultivated at the court of Harun al Raschid in the fields of geometry, chemistry and physics, music, architecture and other arts, but especially in the brilliant art of poetry. There was a more or less conscious sense of this in the widely brilliant assembly of sages at this court: the intelligence of the Earth, which had descended from heaven to Earth, must be put at the service of Mohammedan intellectuality!“ (Lit.:GA 240, p. 170f)

According to Rudolf Steiner, Harun al-Raschid was reborn as Francis Bacon.

„Harun al Raschid re-embodied himself, founded in his re-embodiment the impulse of materialism, appeared as Baco of Verulam. The universality of Baco of Verulam is from Harun al Raschid, but also that which lives in Bacon in terms of intellectuality, in terms of materialism, is from Harun al Raschid. Bacon appeared as the re-embodied Harun al Raschid. His counsellor, who made the other way, appeared in the same age as Amos Comenius.“ (Lit.:GA 240, p. 305)

With the fifth subsidiary exercise (impartiality, unbiasedness), which serves the formation of the spirit self, self-thinking is overcome:

„At the fifth stage we develop manas or spirit self. There, we must not fixate on what we have seen, learned and heard so far. We must learn to refrain from all that, to keep ourselves completely emptied of everything that confronts us. Manas can only be developed when we learn to perceive everything we have acquired through our own thinking as something inferior to what we can acquire by opening ourselves to the thoughts that flow in from the God-woven cosmos. Everything that surrounds us has arisen from these divine thoughts. We have not been able to find them through our previous thinking. That is where things hide it from us. Now we learn to sense this divine behind everything like a hidden riddle. More and more we learn to see in humility how little we have fathomed of these mysteries so far. And we learn that we must actually remove from our soul everything we have learnt so far, that we must approach everything in a completely unbiased way, like a child - that the divine riddles that surround us only present themselves to the unbiasedness of the soul. The soul must become childlike in order to be able to penetrate the realms of heaven. The hidden wisdom - Manas - then flows towards the childlike soul like a gift of grace from the spiritual world.“ (Lit.:GA 266c, p. 244f)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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