What does phenomenology have to do with all this? Barfield's Debt to Steiner, Part Two

Put simply, phenomenology is an introduction to anthroposophy, as Barfield's work is to Steiner's. Also, this isn't just a random analogy, because Barfield's work is a work of phenomenology. And Barfield puts the reader through phenomenological exercises that prepare the thinking and feeling apparatus to engage with Steiner's spiritual science.

One implication is that re-reading and re-thinking Barfield is not meant to develop Barfield's thought and work per se. If the basic truths, insights, and movements of mind revealed in Barfield's work are practiced and internalized, then Barfield's work is done. With that accomplished, it's then all about developing spiritual organs of sense, personal moral development, and deepening meditation - the work of spiritual science.

Another implication is that phenomenology, too, then, is very limited in its scope and practice. It is. It is meant to constitute the training that instills in the reader/practitioner a necessary dexterity and sensitivity that makes possible the conscious engagement with spirit. It is praxis, a human technology, and can be developed in the same way. But it grows, not just as mere extension, but into new forms that don't depend on the original for sustenance or meaning.

Even as I write this, and think through the nuts and bolts, I see I've minimized this human technology, this wet-ware, as both Barfield and phenomenology describe it. The kind of development that phenomenology (which I now mean to represent both Barfield and phenomenology) is capable of, and meant to sustain, is profound, and meaningful. Maybe that is the very field of expression and development for phenomenology as phenomenology: meaning.

Even so, it is the development of meaning, and not of Barfield's written work, that is the focus of one's own work. That is what is deeper than any mere intellectual experimentation with the terms and notions that Barfield presents in his work.