Exploring the ideas of Owen Barfield

[Bruce G Charlton]

I wonder whether any members would be interesting in exploring the ideas of Owen Barfield (1898-1997)? I regard him as one of the most most important thinkers of the twentieth century, and his work has been a great help to me personally.

I have a blog about Barfield, and this led to my receiving an award from the Owen Barfield Literary Estate - but I have, so far, not found any person or group with whom I could usefully exchange ideas on his work.

This is therefore a matter of testing the waters to gauge interest.

As a basis - here is a brief explanation of 'what Barfield did' that I contributed to the website of the Literary Estate.

Our destiny is to become both conscious and free.

Barfield was writing for everybody and for all time — his core concern was nothing less than the divine destiny of each individual person and of all people collectively.

Barfield’s immediate relevance is profound; it is to solve the core problem of modern times – which is ‘alienation’: i.e. the deep sense of meaninglessness, purposelessness, and isolation from people and things.

The understanding which makes this possible is that history, the present and the future can be understood as aiming at both consciousness and freedom (where consciousness means awareness of our thinking and ourselves, and freedom refers to free will, or human agency).

Barfield’s scheme is that humans began as conscious-but-not-free; and we evolved — evolved in the sense of changing by unfolding according to a (divine) developmental plan — to become free but not conscious (which is where we are now, in modern times — unaware of meaning, purpose, relation) — and we ought to be aiming at the condition where we are both self-aware and fully-conscious. Engaged with (and participating in) reality as free agents.

Even more briefly, humanity began as conscious, became free; and is destined to become both — simultaneously.

Barfield proposes real, coherent, and clear answers to the most fundamental problems.

[Sue (Ayt)]

Hello Bruce,

I read some of your blog (so far) as I had never heard of Owen Barfield.
His ideas (so far) called to mind some others that have resonated for me, particularly the goal of direct knowing.
It would be wonderful if methods to encourage this were incorporated in our thinking from birth, rather than the denial-thinking we so strongly encounter.
I suspect that TPTB are keenly aware of the principles behind this, and use them to mold our perception of powerlessness and limitations.

Here is a current metaphysician who speaks of (imo) similar concepts as Barfield.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iAmLRLc4ffk

[Bruce G Charlton]

Posted by Sue (Ayt) (here)
Hello Bruce,

I read some of your blog (so far) as I had never heard of Owen Barfield.
His ideas (so far) called to mind some others that have resonated for me, particularly the goal of direct knowing.
It would be wonderful if methods to encourage this were incorporated in our thinking from birth, rather than the denial-thinking we so strongly encounter.
I suspect that TPTB are keenly aware of the principles behind this, and use them to mold our perception of powerlessness and limitations.

Here is a current metaphysician who speaks of (imo) similar concepts as Barfield.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iAmLRLc4ffk

Barfield isn't much like anyone else, except Rudolf Steiner. I think we need to understand him on his own terms, rather than by comparison.

Direct Knowing is one of the terms I have developed to describe what happens in Barfield's Final Participation (or Steiner's Thinking, from Philosophy of Freedom) - but it isn't really a method that can be learned. I think it happens when our motivations are correct, which happens only rarely for most people - and on top of that needs understanding and awareness if it is to be fully conscious.

[Johnnycomelately]

Posted by Bruce G Charlton (here)

Posted by Sue (Ayt) (here)
Hello Bruce,

I read some of your blog (so far) as I had never heard of Owen Barfield.
His ideas (so far) called to mind some others that have resonated for me, particularly the goal of direct knowing.
It would be wonderful if methods to encourage this were incorporated in our thinking from birth, rather than the denial-thinking we so strongly encounter.
I suspect that TPTB are keenly aware of the principles behind this, and use them to mold our perception of powerlessness and limitations.

Here is a current metaphysician who speaks of (imo) similar concepts as Barfield.

Barfield isn't much like anyone else, except Rudolf Steiner. I think we need to understand him on his own terms, rather than by comparison.

Direct Knowing is one of the terms I have developed to describe what happens in Barfield's Final Participation (or Steiner's Thinking, from Philosophy of Freedom) - but it isn't really a method that can be learned. I think it happens when our motivations are correct, which happens only rarely for most people - and on top of that needs understanding and awareness if it is to be fully conscious.

Hello Bruce. Have not read Barfield, nor your blog. Thank you Sue, for bringing forth here the/his idea of direct knowing.

As a pretty educated but not really intellectual (formal theories) guy, I am wary of seemingly good arguments. Tho it is nice to find speakers with a good heart. I support education, and encourage anyone to put their ‘knowledge’ to the test: prove to yourself that what you believe is true.

I just think that lacking of love — sending/giving energy selflessly — is the cause of many problems. I wish the best to all, and, what will be will most likely be.

Cheers to you, and to Sue too.

[Violet3]

Hi Bruce
I do not know of Barfield either but the summary or overview you wrote could easily apply to Steiner, whose work I have been studying. Compared to the goal of freedom with full consciousness/ spiritual development, the human race is still in the adolescence stage (if that) and has several major developmental/ planetary phases to go through to reach the goal (or not).

[Bruce G Charlton]

Posted by Violet3 (here)
Hi Bruce
I do not know of Barfield either but the summary or overview you wrote could easily apply to Steiner, whose work I have been studying. Compared to the goal of freedom with full consciousness/ spiritual development, the human race is still in the adolescence stage (if that) and has several major developmental/ planetary phases to go through to reach the goal (or not).

So, for you the question is perhaps whether Barfield is sufficiently different from Steiner to be worth bothering with? I would say emphatically Yes! Deep down the two writers share the same basic assumptions; but above that level there is a different emphasis and feel, and Barfield covers many extra themes and information that Steiner did not consider.

Perhaps this delightful 40 minute biographical video, done when Barfield was about 97 years old, I think, would give you a flavour of the man - to see if you are interested enough to explore further:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=oedVDN1xOWM

[Miller]

While listening to the Barfield video from Bruce, I was googling for further information and happened upon a group of literary enthusiasts called The Inklings, who praised the value of narrative in fiction and encouraged the writing of fantasy. Among others, The Inklings included Owen Barfield, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkein. And while both Lewis and Tolkein were inspired by Barfield, Owen Barfield doesn't appear to have indulged in the blockbuster fantasies he inspired.

I'm unfamiliar with Steiner (although recently purchased one of his books), but would like to ask Bruce whether he thinks Lewis's and Tolkein's writing was influenced by Rudolf Steiner through Owen Barfield, insofar as the fantasy aspect of their collective works relates to Good versus Evil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inklings

Why is it always about Good versus Evil? Why can't we just BE? (ie. It in this case meaning all religions, all philosophies?) When you consider all that humans have given and taken historically, it seems we're really no further forward

[Bruce G Charlton]

Posted by Miller (here)
While listening to the Barfield video from Bruce, I was googling for further information and happened upon a group of literary enthusiasts called The Inklings, who praised the value of narrative in fiction and encouraged the writing of fantasy. Among others, The Inklings included Owen Barfield, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkein. And while both Lewis and Tolkein were inspired by Barfield, Owen Barfield doesn't appear to have indulged in the blockbuster fantasies he inspired.

I'm unfamiliar with Steiner (although recently purchased one of his books), but would like to ask Bruce whether he thinks Lewis's and Tolkein's writing was influenced by Rudolf Steiner through Owen Barfield, insofar as the fantasy aspect of their collective works relates to Good versus Evil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inklings

Why is it always about Good versus Evil? Why can't we just BE? (ie. It in this case meaning all religions, all philosophies?) When you consider all that humans have given and taken historically, it seems we're really no further forward

@Miller

I am a great enthusiast of the Inklings, and have a long running blog on that subject including several pieces addressing exactly the question you ask, such as this one.

In brief, at the time, Barfield's influence was mostly via Lewis, and mostly via his contribution to Lewis again becoming a Christian via a route which took Lewis through deism (of an idealist Hegelian kind) and theism. Barfield did also influence Tolkien's understanding of language and its development through history and relation to myth (via Barfield's book Poetic Diction). But I believe that - looking back - we can observe a complementarity of these writers that was not evident at the time. That is a major theme of my Notion Club Papers blog.

There is a superb book on this theme called Romantic Religion, by RJ Reilly; which begins with the best account of Barfield I have ever encountered, and follows by considering Tolkien, Lewis and Charles Williams.

Why good versus evil? I would say because - properly considered - this is the main spiritual reality of this mortal world... Providing that good and evil are understood as two sides in a conflict or war (Not, therefore, as a division between good and evil people - because people are always mixed, even when they have firmly taken one side or the other); and where good is understood as side of God, creation, 'evolution' (in a Steiner kind of sense - i.e. true destiny, freedom, becoming more divine) - and evil as the demonic alliance which opposes these.

And to address your second comment that 'we are no further forward' - quite true IF it is supposed that the plan for this world is progress towards perfection. However, if (as I believe) our lives in this world are for learning directed at an eternal life to follow, then what matters is whether we learn from our lives - and not what we 'achieve' by it... After all, we all die, all civilizations end, and the earth and everything else are finite in this entropic reality; so THIS world and everything in it will inevitably fail sooner or later.

But ultimately that doesn't matter, assuming this world is a learning phase, with something permanent afterwards (for those who choose that path).

[Bruce G Charlton]

Four reasons to read Owen Barfield - even if you already know Rudolf Steiner

It seems to be a fault of Anthroposophists seriously to read only Rudolf Steiner himself, and secondarily those who explain and expound Steiner's own views.

But if Steiner himself is taken seriously, then he was establishing a 'way' (a Spiritual Science) rather than a body of information:

"Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge, to guide the Spiritual in the human being to the Spiritual in the universe". Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts, Number 1 - my emphasis.



Therefore it should be expected that those who engage most deeply with Steiner will potentially be able to produce original and valuable work, by going either wider or deeper than the Master - and thus, in principle, be worth reading.

We can then ask: why read Owen Barfield specifically?

What does Barfield offer that he does better than Steiner?



1. Flavour

Barfield's writing has a very different flavour than Steiner, since they have very different personalities. Some who dislike the taste of Steiner will enjoy Barfield.

2. Prose

For an English speaker, it is relevant that Barfield wrote in English, and in a clean and elegant prose style; whereas Steiner wrote in a 'Victorian academic' style of German that is (apparently) rather dry and pedantic in the original, and in translation often reads awkwardly. Barfield's prose is always concise and focused; while Steiner (especially in the lectures) is often rambling and discursive.

3. Quantity and Quality

Steiner wrote, and had transcribed from lectures, a truly overwhelming quantity of work; of widely variable levels of quality and interest; whereas Barfield published a more manageable body of work. While Steiner at his best is better than even the best of Barfield; Barfield's average level of quality and relevance is significant higher than Steiner's average.

4. Themes

Barfield wrote in depth and detail about several matters that Steiner covered less well or not at all. For instance, Barfield wrote a lot, and with many example and references, about the development of language and especially of words.

Barfield discussed the nature of modern (post-Einstein-ian) science and post-genetics Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory; and the implications for science and society more generally.

Barfield also rooted his critique in the modern Western condition as it developed after the 1914-18 World War and up to the 1980s; aspects such as alienation, existentialist disaffection, radical politics, and the sexual revolution, and destruction of the environment - especially by buildings, noise and pollution.



So there are plenty of good reasons to read Owen Barfield, even for someone who is already familiar with Rudolf Steiner.

[Journeyman]

Posted by Miller (here)
While listening to the Barfield video from Bruce, I was googling for further information and happened upon a group of literary enthusiasts called The Inklings, who praised the value of narrative in fiction and encouraged the writing of fantasy. Among others, The Inklings included Owen Barfield, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkein. And while both Lewis and Tolkein were inspired by Barfield, Owen Barfield doesn't appear to have indulged in the blockbuster fantasies he inspired.

I'm unfamiliar with Steiner (although recently purchased one of his books), but would like to ask Bruce whether he thinks Lewis's and Tolkein's writing was influenced by Rudolf Steiner through Owen Barfield, insofar as the fantasy aspect of their collective works relates to Good versus Evil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inklings

Why is it always about Good versus Evil? Why can't we just BE? (ie. It in this case meaning all religions, all philosophies?) When you consider all that humans have given and taken historically, it seems we're really no further forward

Bruce mentions Charles Williams in his reply to you. I would recommend 'War in Heaven' by him, it's an entertaining read, but perhaps it also provides one kind of answer to the question of your question of why the 'Versus', in that by the conflict, the qualities and values of the various characters are brought into focus. There is sadness and loss, but also heroism and valour. Maybe the light doesn't shine as brightly without the shade as contrast?

[Miller]

Posted by Journeyman (here)

Posted by Miller (here)
While listening to the Barfield video from Bruce, I was googling for further information and happened upon a group of literary enthusiasts called The Inklings, who praised the value of narrative in fiction and encouraged the writing of fantasy. Among others, The Inklings included Owen Barfield, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkein. And while both Lewis and Tolkein were inspired by Barfield, Owen Barfield doesn't appear to have indulged in the blockbuster fantasies he inspired.

I'm unfamiliar with Steiner (although recently purchased one of his books), but would like to ask Bruce whether he thinks Lewis's and Tolkein's writing was influenced by Rudolf Steiner through Owen Barfield, insofar as the fantasy aspect of their collective works relates to Good versus Evil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inklings

Why is it always about Good versus Evil? Why can't we just BE? (ie. It in this case meaning all religions, all philosophies?) When you consider all that humans have given and taken historically, it seems we're really no further forward

Bruce mentions Charles Williams in his reply to you. I would recommend 'War in Heaven' by him, it's an entertaining read, but perhaps it also provides one kind of answer to the question of your question of why the 'Versus', in that by the conflict, the qualities and values of the various characters are brought into focus. There is sadness and loss, but also heroism and valour. Maybe the light doesn't shine as brightly without the shade as contrast?

Thanks for the heads up, Journeyman. I've been thinking a lot about Bruce's response that what really matters is what we learn from our lives rather than striving for perfection). I will seek out a copy of "War in Heaven"

[Journeyman]

Posted by Miller (here)

Posted by Journeyman (here)

Posted by Miller (here)
While listening to the Barfield video from Bruce, I was googling for further information and happened upon a group of literary enthusiasts called The Inklings, who praised the value of narrative in fiction and encouraged the writing of fantasy. Among others, The Inklings included Owen Barfield, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkein. And while both Lewis and Tolkein were inspired by Barfield, Owen Barfield doesn't appear to have indulged in the blockbuster fantasies he inspired.

I'm unfamiliar with Steiner (although recently purchased one of his books), but would like to ask Bruce whether he thinks Lewis's and Tolkein's writing was influenced by Rudolf Steiner through Owen Barfield, insofar as the fantasy aspect of their collective works relates to Good versus Evil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inklings

Why is it always about Good versus Evil? Why can't we just BE? (ie. It in this case meaning all religions, all philosophies?) When you consider all that humans have given and taken historically, it seems we're really no further forward

Bruce mentions Charles Williams in his reply to you. I would recommend 'War in Heaven' by him, it's an entertaining read, but perhaps it also provides one kind of answer to the question of your question of why the 'Versus', in that by the conflict, the qualities and values of the various characters are brought into focus. There is sadness and loss, but also heroism and valour. Maybe the light doesn't shine as brightly without the shade as contrast?

Thanks for the heads up, Journeyman. I've been thinking a lot about Bruce's response that what really matters is what we learn from our lives rather than striving for perfection). I will seek out a copy of "War in Heaven"

I hope you enjoy it! It's got a thirties charm to it I think, but there's some interesting concepts within also. There's an electronic copy available free here: https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/war...ven-ebook.html

[Miller]

Posted by Journeyman (here)
I hope you enjoy it! It's got a thirties charm to it I think, but there's some interesting concepts within also. There's an electronic copy available free here: https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/war...ven-ebook.html

Thank you so much

[Bruce G Charlton]

Posted by Miller (here)

Posted by Journeyman (here)
I hope you enjoy it! It's got a thirties charm to it I think, but there's some interesting concepts within also. There's an electronic copy available free here: https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/war...ven-ebook.html

Thank you so much

War in Heaven, and Williams's other novels, are also recently available as audible books, and very well read too.

My personal favourite of Williams's novels is The Place of the Lion - which I must have re-read half a dozen times!

[Journeyman]

Posted by Miller (here)

Posted by Journeyman (here)
I hope you enjoy it! It's got a thirties charm to it I think, but there's some interesting concepts within also. There's an electronic copy available free here: https://www.globalgreyebooks.com/war...ven-ebook.html

Thank you so much

You're welcome

Posted by Bruce G Charlton (here)
War in Heaven, and Williams's other novels, are also recently available as audible books, and very well read too.

My personal favourite of Williams's novels is The Place of the Lion - which I must have re-read half a dozen times!

I've not read it but a quick look and it sounds fascinating. Will put it on the (overlong) to read list!

[Miller]

The Place of the Lion and War in Heaven are both available on Amazon kindle at for 77p each - a bargain !

[Bruce G Charlton]

Owen Barfield's prophecies of 60 years ago

From Saving the Appearances: a study in idolatry by Owen Barfield, 1957.

Science, with the progressive disappearance of original participation, is losing its grip on any principle of unity pervading nature as a whole and the knowledge of nature. The hypothesis of chance has already crept from the theory of evolution into the theory of the physical foundation of the earth itself; but more serious perhaps than that is the rapidly increasing "fragmentation of science"...

There is no "science of sciences"; no unity of knowledge. There is only an accelerating increase in that pigeon-holed knowledge by individuals of more and more about less and less, which, if persisted in indefinitely, can only lead mankind to a sort of "idiocy"... a state of affairs, in which fewer and fewer representations will be collective, and more and more will be private, with the result that there will in the end be no means of communication between one intelligence and another.

This has, indeed happened - with the added twist that people lack any explicit awareness of the fact; since they lack even the capacity to represent the problem to themselves.

Furthermore, there has been a dual change: shrinking of interest into ever-more-micro specialisms combined with a narrowing of the criteria for evaluation. Not only do we lack a 'science of sciences' but we lack any overall evaluation by which we might judge whether science is progressing or regressing, making sense or degenerating into incoherence.

It may be objected that this is a very small matter, and that it will be a long time before the imagination of man substantially alters those appearances of nature with which his figuration supplies him. But then I am taking the long view.

Even so, we need not be too confident. Even if the pace of change remained the same, one who is really sensitive to (for example) the difference between the medieval collective representations and our own will be aware that, without traveling any greater distance than we have come since the fourteenth century, we could very well move forward into a chaotically empty or fantastically hideous world.

But the pace of change has not remained the same. It has accelerated and is accelerating.

We should remember this, when appraising the aberrations of the formally representational arts. Of course, in so far as these are due to affectation, they are of no importance. But in so far as they are genuine, they are genuine because the artist has in some way or other experienced the world he represents.

And in so far as they are appreciated, they are appreciated by those who are themselves willing to make a move towards seeing the world in that way, and, ultimately therefore, seeing that kind of world.

We should remember this, when we see pictures of a dog with six legs emerging from a vegetable marrow or a woman with a motorbicycle substituted for her left breast.

***

Barfield is here describing the capacity of imagination to make things worse rather than better - that a recognition of the power of imagination can be used to re-construct the world with dishonest purposes.

As with the corruption of science, this works by changing both sides of the equation.

In the past sixty years; this has been the malign effect of the mass media. The mass media have grown and developed an addictive hold over The West; and thereby substantially gained control over the imagination - which it uses on one side to subvert and on the other to fill the mind with virtual realities; until the psychological effect is that the media have displaced reality as perceived by personal experience and reflection.

A clear current example is in the realm of sex and sexuality. With respect to the sexes; on one side - the media (and its allies in professional academia) have incrementally reduced the understanding and distinction of male and female sexes into being regarded as nothing more than a mere social convention based on reactionary manipulations; and on the other hand claiming that surgical and pharmacological technology can change a man into a woman or vice versa.

The resulting mixture of blatant falsehood and aggressive assertion (backed by state power) has (deliberately, strategically) thrust a profound confusion into societal discourse with an already massive and still growing destructive potential that affects both individuals and communities.

As for the domain of human sexuality; what would have been regarded (at the time Barfield was writing) as a chaotically-empty and fantastically-hideous world has come to pass. Many viscerally-repellant features of our contemporary world - a world actively endorsed and increasingly enforced by modern ruling elites - were depicted by Barfield in his 1984 novella Night Operation.

As Barfield also wrote: The 'appearances' will be ‘saved’ only if, as men approach nearer and nearer to conscious figuration and realize that it is something which may be affected by their choices, the final participation which is thus being thrust upon them is exercised with the profoundest sense of responsibility, with the deepest thankfulness and piety towards the world as it was originally given to them in original participation, and with a full understanding of the momentous process of history, as it brings about the emergence of the one from the other.


Barfield was a Christian Anthroposophist; who understood the incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ as an event of cosmic significance - the inflexion-point of human (and divine) history. He saw history as centred upon the divine destiny of enabling the increasingly divine nature of each person and of humankind in general - of both Men and Man.

And the centre of this divine destiny is the evolution of consciousness towards the god-like state of Final Participation - that is potentially-full consciousness of everything; which is a necessary prerequisite for becoming full Sons and Daughters of God.

Yet our divine destiny of Final Participation has been ignored, then rejected, by nearly all individuals and all the Western societies; and this is the cause of Barfield's negative prophecies coming true - indeed leading to a spiritual situation even worse than he articulated.

On the other hand; it is not too late.

As individuals we may - by our irresistible free agency - choose to return to the path of destiny; and if enough individuals do this - then so will society at large.