The text on this page is from David Lavery, "An Owen Barfield Readers Guide." Seven 15 (1998): 97-112.

Unancestral Voice

Unancestral Voice. London: Faber and Faber, 1965; Middletown, CT: Wesleyan U P, 1966.

Once I was the ancestral voice of the Father-wisdom, the theosophia that spoke inarticulately through blood and instinct, but articulately through the sibyls, the prophets, the masters. But at the turning-point of time, by that central death and rebirth which was the transformation of transformations, by the open mystery of Golgotha, I was myself transformed. I am that anthroposophia who . . . is the voice of each one's mind speaking from the depths within himself. (Unancestral Voice 163; the Meggid is speaking)

In part a Socratic dialogue like Worlds Apart (Burgeon is again a key character), Unancestral Voice is an almost impossible-to-classify book, which, as I indicated above, is also out-of-the-closet Anthroposophical, a way of presenting "the results of Steiner’s super sensible knowledge, without a lot of theoretical arguments." The book narrates Burgeon’s encounter with a "discarnate being," the Meggid, who brings him to see the evolution of consciousness in Steinerian terms. Though a supremely challenging book, the difficulty is mitigated in part by the fictional form, and it remains a must-read for students of Barfield seeking to plumb the depth of Barfield the Anthroposopher.