The Fruit of the Fig

[Bruce Michael]

Shalom,


Buddha achieved enlightenment under the (Bodhi) fig tree. Christ in Mark, curses the fig tree:

"And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of the thee hereafter for ever."​

However this is an allegory (if it wasn't, why have the good Catholic Italians always enjoyed their figs?)

Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.
John 1:48
The above, according to Dr. Steiner, means that Nathaneal was an initiate- just as Buddha had attained enlightenment, so too had Nathaneal.

(Luke 13:6, 7): "He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and he came and sought fruit thereon and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and find none; cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?"​

Again the fig is cursed. Rudolf Steiner says that the fig represents the old teaching which had become worthless. But why? I seem to remember him talking about the group consciousness represented by the many seeds held within the fig, but I think there is more to it than that.

And just as Buddha was said to have received enlightenment under the bodhi tree, so also in biblical language was it received “under the fig tree.” Christ’s cursing the fig tree cannot be understood except in the light that this method of initiation was ending. We can begin to comprehend what the Song meant by the “beloved” being “awakened under the apple tree” to the love that pleases (Song of Solomon 8,4-5).

A new method of initiation was called for.

The fig has been represented throughout history as a symbol of sexuality. Christ's audience would have known that. Statues of Priapus were made of fig wood. The fruit was carried with the phallus in the ancient processions in honour of Bacchus.

In Italian portraits, the subject sometimes holds a fig which means devotion to the fairer sex. The Italian expression "far la fica" was symbolised with the thumb between the middle and forefingers as it appears on many Priapic ornaments, or by putting the finger or thumb in the mouth and drawing it down.

The fig leaf was representative of the female sex, along with the shell, the Conca Veneris, the Barley Corn or the letter Delta.

And Plutarch states

"... the fig leaf is interpreted to mean the generating and
fecundating of the universe, for it seems to have resemblance to the sexual parts of a man."​

Plutarch, Isis & Osiris

The above is clear evidence of the nature of the fig-like initiation, which Christ cursed as being no longer suitable.

As Dr. Steiner said when commenting on the Leadbeater case:

"At the present time when all when all higher human powers are so closely linked with the powers belonging to the lower levels of the sexual realm, a slip, such as Leadbeater's can occur at any time."​

Leadbeater was an initiate, but an initiate of the fig, a dangerous path for this age, but quite suitable in the past (pre Mosiac).


-Br.Bruce

 

[cyberpi]

So is it the fruits of labor... or the fruits of labour? Both? I suppose a catcher's glove might be useful while sitting under the fig tree. PUSH honey?!

 

[Quahom1]

The Fig tree was supposed to have fruit at the time (it was a time of harvest), yet the tree was barren. (Like a Christian that claims to be one, but has nothing to show for the claim). Jesus condemned the tree for failure to provide good fruit (any fruit). It is a warning to the faithful to not be "luke warm", else be cut away from the tree as non bearing, and therefore worthless to God...but you all knew that already...

v/r

Q

 

[lunamoth]

"Sometimes a fig is just a fig." -- S. Freud

 

[China Cat Sunflower]

The watched fig never dries. Solomon II

Chris

 

[Bruce Michael]

Krishna/Bodhi Tree

While Krishna was seated under a fig tree "he was wounded in his single vulnerable place, his left heel, by an arrow shot by the hunter Jarâ (which means "cold" or "old age"), who had mistaken Krishna for a deer." Krishna died of this wound, and then Kali Yuga began.

The tree-shaped brain, the cerebellum, is the Bodhi tree (Steiner).



-Br.Bruce

 

[Thomas]

Well, as this is the Christian forum —

You quote "Rudolf Steiner says that the fig represents the old teaching which had become worthless" — but then sought to revitalise the Western Mystical Tradition by grafting dead figs onto the Cross ... to benefit itself by offering to 'explain' Christianity by reference to every other worn out and 'worthless' philosophy going ... if I might mix matephors, by putting new wine into old bottles ... and thus clouding the 'one thing necessary' by liberal and inventive applications of the same-old, same-old.

If I sound disenchanted, that's because as an 'usher' in an Hermetic Order I spent eight years of my life doing just that. Deploying knowledge like this is like playing with a kaleidescope, every time a different picture, but made up of the same old bits of coloured glass ... and bit by bit the actual content becomes immaterial, its how many permutations one can come up with that becomes the goal of the pursuit ... it becomes dazzling ... that's how cults work.

And you can make a good living doing it, too. My old gaffer ended up in a $3.5m Florida seafront home ...

"And he spoke also a similitude to them: That no man putteth a piece from a new garment upon an old garment: otherwise he both rendeth the new, and the piece taken from the new agreeth not with the old.

And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: otherwise the new wine will break the bottles; and it will be spilled and the bottles will be lost. But new wine must be put into new bottles: and both are preserved.

And no man drinking old hath presently a mind to new: for he saith: The old is better."
Luke 5:36-39

Thomas

 

[flowperson]

I believe the following, from an article published in the NY Times on June 2, 2006 (and written by John Noble Wilford) demonstrates why the fig has figured (sorry) so prominently in the metaphor, allegory, and parables of sacred writings (even Steiner's attempts) through the years. Keep in mind these are just the first few sentences. The entire article is accessable only if you are a NY Times member ($50 per annum) but I've found the fee very worthwhile. The article came from research published in the journal Science at about the same time (I don't know if that's accessable on line or not, but membership is likely required).

Since the current version of civilization which is and has been primarily based upon agriculture began mostly in the mid-east: and since all of the complex systems of the Earth are extremely sensitive to their "initial conditions"; and, since celebration of the first cultivated crop would be something that would need to be "remembered" down through the ages of our "type" of civilization to this day; then, such memorializations as to the "significance" of the fig tree and its fruit make a lot of sense to me.


"In the ruins of a prehistoric village near Jericho, in the West Bank, scientists have found remains of figs that they say appear to be the earliest known cultivated fruit crop, perhaps the first evidence anywhere of domesticated food production at the dawn of agriculture. The figs were grown some 11,400 years ago.
Presumably that was well after Adam and Eve tried on the new look in fig leaves, in which case the fig must have grown wild in Eden.
Two botanists and an archaeologist, who describe the discovery in today's issue of the journal Science, said the figs came from cultivated trees that grew about 1,000 years before such staples as wheat, barley and chickpeas were widely domesticated in the Middle East. These grain and legume crops had been considered the first steps in agriculture."

flow....

 

[Bruce Michael]

Hello Thomas,
>You quote "Rudolf Steiner says that the fig represents the old teaching >which had become worthless" — but then sought to revitalise the >Western Mystical Tradition by grafting dead figs onto the Cross ...

Not all of the old teaching had become worthless- this was specific to the degenerate practices which are spoken of in the Mosiac books.

It's true there is something special about newness. The Christian Community Church, based on Steiner's indications, alive and well; and that was all about religious renewal.

God is always "in the beginning",
"The first gift of the spirit is newness."
-Eckhart

>to benefit itself by offering to 'explain' Christianity by reference to every >other worn out and 'worthless' philosophy going ... if I might mix >matephors, by putting new wine into old bottles ... and thus clouding the >'one thing necessary' by liberal and inventive applications of the >same-old, same-old.

Apologetics must get beyond the reply that "the Devil did it". And there is much to explain- stuff like that brought up by Godfrey Higgins in the 19th century. :
Anacalypsis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ANACALYPSIS


And Kersey Graves- The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors
The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors

There is a pile of evidence that reflections of Christianity are found in the old religions and traditions.

One can always search more and more deeply into the mystery of Palestine, for behind it lies ....Infinity.

-Dr.Steiner

>Deploying knowledge like this is like playing with a kaleidescope, every >time a different picture, but made up of the same old bits of coloured >glass ... and bit by bit the actual content becomes immaterial, its how >many permutations one can come up with that becomes the goal of the >pursuit ... it becomes dazzling ...

Hardly Tom, we really do have newness, and new teachings. Just because I have been making a lot of historical connections doesn't mean that I am not in possession of new teachings. The turning of the wheels of thought and the confusion which results, is another matter.

And no man drinking old hath presently a mind to new: for he saith: The old is better."
Luke 5:36-39

Just remember that.

-Br.Bruce

 

[ardenz]

There is a fig tree in my neighbours garden. It has a very good crop this year and it is the first time I have tasted them ......much nicer than the dried ones


Ardenz

 

[17th Angel]

Figs give you the ***** and also mucho wind... So, it's not a bad thing that tree didn't have any of those vile things. Oh not to mention with some people, sneezing, nasal obstructions lol, sore throat adominal pain and colic.... :\

 

[Thomas]

There is a pile of evidence that reflections of Christianity are found in the old religions and traditions.

Well of course there is, if God is true, then the old ways represent man's best efforts to understand the Mystery of the Deity ... you should try reading Clement of Alexandria, of 'Christians before Christ' and the New Song ...

The reaction against the dehumanising effects of the Enlightenment — the Industrial Revolution — triggered the Romance Movement of which HPB, Steiner, Gurdjieff et al are a by-product, turning back to the past for solutions to the problems of modernism, a pursuit of the mythical 'Golden Age'.

But philosophy had laid myth to rest, Plato's 'Myth of the Cave' was something they all failed to appreciate, and they tried to rejuvenate a system that could not hope to stand unless allied to philosophy — myth has to find a new meaning in metaphysics — instead they went back into the cave.

Steiner looked to the Western Mystical Tradition for a solution, which is why he broke with Theosophy, which he thought too heavily influenced by the East.

Then there was Spiritism, Spiritualism and an upsurge of mediums, seances and table-rapping, the reinvention of Wicca, neopaganism, neognosticism, neoalchemy, and a proliferation of esoteric movements across Europe ... a proliferation of apocalyptic Christian denominations in America ... The Golden Dawn, The Gothic Novel, Robert Graves, Shelley and Keats, Frankenstein and Dracula ... all harking back to the pre-Christian past for the 'answer' and eventually we have the New Age Movement ... once you stand back and look objectively, you see them for what they are, children of their age, orphaned by the advances of the emerging military-industrial complex...

(... d'you know the first 'production line' was set up at the Colt factory, mass-producing hand guns ... we should have seen the signs ... )

... which announced its presence and its triumph by the slaughter of the best and brightest of European manhood in Flanders fields ... enter stage right, the machine gun, barbed wire, poison gas ...

It was essentially a crisis of faith, and it's failure was in looking backwards, not forwards ... such are just symptoms of a much greater movement.

Try Googling 'Romanticism and the sublime'

Hardly Tom, we really do have newness, and new teachings. Just because I have been making a lot of historical connections doesn't mean that I am not in possession of new teachings. The turning of the wheels of thought and the confusion which results, is another matter.

I don't think so ... I think the 'new' teachings are reclothed versions of an old hermeneutic — like your posts against Augustine, what is revealed is a radical failure to recognise what is actually 'new' and 'unique' in Christianity, it talks about Mani, about this is like this, that is like that ... and so it reverts to 'the same old' it interprets in the light of an outmoded hermeneutic and epistemology — one thing is evident in Augustine is a tireless and restless spirit, and to assume he reverted, or remained, a Manichee, shows how little of his work has been read or understood.

The originality and insight of Augustine's theology is quoted as an inspiration by Aquinas, Boneventure, Eckhart, St Theresa and St John of the Cross ... a whole raft of Christian mystics and philosophers, even today his works are still studied, and regarded by many to be handbooks for our age ... against which Steiner offers nothing but comparison of the superficialities of this and that ... and sees the easy way out (the Orthodox critics were to make the same claims as Steiner) — a reversion to a doctrine that Augustine had tried, found unsatisfactory, and left behind, moving on to Platonism, and thence to Christianity ... so if I have 800 years of world-acknowledged mystics and philosophers on the one hand, and Steiner on the other, with a notable lack of depth and of accuracy, then ...

That Steiner couldn't see it is understandable, there's a lot of Augustinian studies come to light since his time, but as is so often the case, such critics of Christianity are usually based in a notion of the religion that's theologically and philosophically shallow and years out of date, as your quote "Apologetics must get beyond the reply that 'the Devil did it'" exemplifies.

Thomas

 

[Bruce Michael]

Hi Br.Thomas,

>Steiner looked to the Western Mystical Tradition for a solution, which is >why he broke with Theosophy, which he thought too heavily influenced >by the East.

Rudolf Steiner had always taught his own brand of Theosophy. He was actually expelled by Besant, along with most of the German Section.

>Then there was Spiritism, Spiritualism and an upsurge of mediums, >seances and table-rapping,

That was an antidote to materialism (as in philosophy).

>It was essentially a crisis of faith, and it's failure was in looking >backwards, not forwards ... such are just symptoms of a much greater >movement.

As I said the crisis was a materialistic world view.

>I don't think so ... I think the 'new' teachings are reclothed versions of >an> old hermeneutic —

For you they are unknown.

>one thing is evident in Augustine is a tireless and restless spirit, and to >assume he reverted, or remained, a Manichee, shows how little of his >work has been read or understood.

It was another poster who stated that Augustine remained a Manichee.
I will repost again were he got it wrong.

>The originality and insight of Augustine's theology is quoted as an >inspiration by Aquinas, Boneventure, Eckhart, St Theresa and St John of >the Cross ...

So you don't think it's out of date, then?


>triggered the Romance Movement of which HPB, Steiner, Gurdjieff et al are a by-product, turning back >to the past for solutions to the problems of modernism, a pursuit of the mythical 'Golden Age'.

You are right about HPB and the Ancient Wisdom Religion as she called it. But Gurdjieff and Steiner were about the future, not the past. There had never been an architecture like Steiner's before, his political theories were new too. The church movement he inspired was about "religious renewal".

Christianity has really only just begun.

-Br.Bruce

 

[Vajradhara]

Namaste,

the fig tree is one of the first 7 domesticated crops of the Fertile Cresent, which would certainly explain the commonality of this tree throughout the Fertile Cresent region and the mention of it in several of the texts which are associated therein.

metta,

~v