Knowledge Of The Higher Worlds And Its Attainment By Rudolf Steiner

"It is the soul which exercises the faculty of cognition." --Rudolf Steiner, "Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment"

The Loss of Innocence

Something I wrote a few years ago.

I'm calling it, The Loss of Innocence.

What do you get when you treat an innocent child's mistakes when they don't know better, and treat them like they know all too well, or ought to by now?

Emotional, social, moral, and spiritual delinquency--the appearance of which is subject entirely to the lifetime experience of the beholder.

What happens when you are unable or unwilling to educate a child why a taboo topic is considered taboo and, therefore, unmentionable?

They will find out on their own. Without your help. Without you.

Never assume a child's experiences, nor their experience of them. Nor an adult's, for that matter.

When a child born into a state of complete ignorance of innocence, they are completely oblivious to society's collective opinions and eventual expectations of them. And so, they tend to do more or less whatever they can until their actions come up against one of these invisible, un-touchable barriers. When this happens, how the child recovers from the blunder is reliant completely upon the responses of the authorities and protectors of these barriers: the adults that, together, form the opinions and expectations of the child.

If the response is a benevolent one, no presumption of foreknowledge or premeditation is ever made. The adult understands that they are interfacing with a consciousness that is new to this sort of interaction, and hasn't yet learned any lessons about it. The adult calmly and patiently presents the nature of the problem to child, and does their best to base their response upon primitive ideas that will be more likely to be translated into a meaning that feels relevant to the child. Something closer to a shared, common understanding is established.

If the response is a malevolent one, then the child does not benefit from a learning opportunity, but instead is made to feel confused, frightened, isolated, disconnected, and possibly resentful or even retaliatory for being reprimanded, threatened, or harmed for what was believed to be an action devoid of danger, risk, or harmful consequence. Such a response could only ever remotely be appropriate within the context of foreknowledge, premeditation, and a coherent locus of self-control. When an innocent mind is treated in such a way, a rift in their very understanding of reality itself is created. The reasons for the offense are kept secret from the child out of spite, apathy, or pride. They have no choice but to form their own conclusion, and no common, shared understanding is formed. Instead, another competing set of ideas about the world and about life is brought into existence. Ignorance and uncertainty emerge victorious.

What happens to the children in either of these scenarios? They all age. And they become adults with vastly different understandings of what's real, what's sacred, and what's important. They become the new authorities and protectors of society's barriers.

What kind of a society do we really want to have? One borne of presumption? Or one borne of patience?

What kind do you think we have right now?

Wars are a symptom of presumption at mass scale. We do not grant our future the patience it needs in the present.

Nothing to see here (yet).

Move along (for) now.