Summertime is magical. The breath of life can be compellingly sensed through nature’s ecstasy. Even for a convinced materialist, immaterial things suddenly subtly appear.
Thomas Durand is a trained biologist and successful YouTube influencer. As an advocate of a materialistic worldview, he is one of the zealous leaders of the ‹zetetics› – as the ‹skeptics› are called in France. A few years ago he published a particularly critical and distorting video about Anthroposophy on his YouTube channel, which became one of the most viewed videos on the subject. Thomas Durand puts a lot of effort into fighting what he considers ‹pseudoscience› – like homeopathy and especially Anthroposophy, which he considers the ultimate form of heresy.
This successful content creator shared a very interesting video this summer.1 It displays a ‹live› report from his pilgrimage in California to Methuselah, the world’s oldest tree. Methuselah’s age and that of some other trees surrounding it are estimated to be over 4000 years. As Thomas approaches the area, he describes a feeling of reverence flowing through him and the thoughts that this encounter awakens in him.
He describes how looking at these ancient trees, whose living parts coexist with parts that have long since died, leads him to reflect on the concept of ‹individuality›. He then proceeds to compare the animal and the plant organism. The plant only creates space, whereas the animal forms volume. The animal has a self-contained organism in which every part is essential. The plant is completely decentralized and has no essential organs – it reveals its intestines and sexual organs upside down toward the sky and the environment. The plant is like an animal that has been turned inside out. While listening to Thomas Durant’s explanations, one gradually gets the impression of taking part in a phenomenological lecture – some of the formative principles active in the plant and the animal become apparent.
How gratifying it is when an opponent of Anthroposophy begins using the method of Anthroposophy without being aware of it while indulging in an extraordinary natural phenomenon. It becomes apparent that Anthroposophical practice is not just something extravagant, without any substance. It develops naturally when inner devotion, exact observation, and unprejudiced thinking turn their attention toward the phenomena together.
Image Yen Chao, Methuselah, White Mountain, California, CC – Translation by Simone Ioannou
the absolute magic of the unseen is not visible to humans until we look with our inner stillness and observe the phenomena in its present totality which requires balance between our ‘all’ our senses