Of protests and protesters

    "And then I shall naturally come to think of myself as a link in the whole of humanity and a sharer in the responsibility for everything that occurs. This insight should not, of course, be immediately translated into political agitation in the world. It should be calmly cultivated in the soul. By this means it will gradually come to expression in my outer actions. Indeed, in such matters, we can begin only by reforming ourselves. To make general demands for social and political reform on the basis of such insights is fruitless. It is easy to say how other people should be, but students of esoteric knowledge must work in the depths and not on the surface. It would therefore be quite wrong to connect the demands of esoteric schooling with any external demand for reform or even political change. The education of the spirit has nothing to do with such things. Political activists generally know what to ask of other people, but they hardly ever talk about asking anything of themselves."
   - R. Steiner, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment. pg 120-1

   Politics and esotericism conventionally don't mix. Politics means to foster what the greatest number of people want or to authoritivly preside over people. Esotericism is entirely based on freedom but in politics either there is no freedom or no freedom for least number of people. Spirit is of an essence that is not yet resolved into a fixed form. The spirit can not be taken hold of except with freedom. Spirit has to been seen anew from many viewpoints.

   The onus of spirit is on the individual. The obligation of politics is on the community. The community has to be formed by free individuals and then it can truly convey spirit. A spiritual community strives to attain for each member the freedom to transform. A political community can have nothing to do with esotericism unless it wants to use occult knowledge to manipulate large sways of people and there a dark, left hand, path unfolds.

   Protests and activism negate the need for spiritual insights to be "calmly cultivated in the soul." Spirit is of an evolving order, whereby what it appears as first may not be its crucial aspect. Spirit reveals itself over time whereas political activism erupts in the moment or is bound to a particular moment.

   The gradual cultivation of spiritual insight leads to the holy grail. This ongoing stepwise evolution provides the framework by which the spiritual sun, the etheric christ, can exist in the world.