From Living Experience to a Chapter in a Book
Yesterday evening I discovered a parcel in the mailbox – a book I had ordered some weeks ago. It is about the “Religious Communities in the Canton Berne” (Switzerland). The author, Stefan Rademacher, from the Institute of Religious Studies of the University of Berne, had come for a talk in summer 2006. At first I was a bit sceptical, but his impartial approach to work out a “map” of the different religious groups in our area was somehow fascinating. He is avoiding the word “sectarian”, since it is emotionally charged and stigmatising. We had quite an indepth conversation about the Circle of Good Will and our backgrounds. A week after the talk he sent me the draft of his article, which I reviewed, and he included the corrections. And now it is a section in the book, in a chapter on theosophy and its offsprings…
My thoughts went back to the days of my study of religious science in the 70ies in Germany. The academical and distanced approach to a topic which deals with inner transformation and relation to one’s deepest roots is somehow a paradox. A systematized approach to deeper realities is of a great importance, but you can’t stay at a distance to yourself when going through a process of transformation. As long as you do, you stay in the intellect and out of the experience. You only have a shallow aftertaste.
