Metamorphoses of the Spirit: Transfiguring our Thinking (Part II)

[Eugene I]

Eugene, what would you take from Western spiritual life? In other words, what in your view is the fruit of the West that has the proper place in evolution? But I'm not asking in some general terms like "The East is Yin, the West is Yang, and they must be balanced". I'm asking about concrete things. Because this is what our times demand - problems can no longer be solved by wishy-washy and general wise words. We need knowledge that can be turned into practical methods for work.

Good question. I think there are many valuable aspects of the Western spiritual path that worth preserving and developing, including the emphasis on developing higher cognition that you talk about. But the key part of it I think is the participatory aspect: the participation in the Divine life, the "meeting" with the Divine on a deep spiritual personal level. Some Eastern traditions (like Vedic Bhakti) also included that, but most of them were still more individualistic paths (Advaitic and Buddhist especially) and lacking such deep connection with the Divine. And this lack also applies to Bernardo's philosophy (what's the point of having personal relations and connecting to the animalistic and instinctive MAL?). Yet, the relations with the Divine in the Western traditions have been so far rather restrictive (to obeying, subduing, worship etc) and I think would need to be redefined to be more aligned with the open, accepting and humorous personality of the Divine witnessed by many NDE experiencers (that also align with my own spiritual experiences).

[Adur Alkain]

I would have a very difficult time coming to terms with Steiner and Cleric's view if I had not already been familiar with Barfield, Gebser and the metamorphic arguments before. Not just hearing about them and knowing the outline, but reading their books and becoming very familiar with the content. These things take effort and for someone who is not naturally inclined to Western idealist metamorphic perspective, like I am, it must be that much more difficult to devote the effort and time necessary.

We also do not like to be told that what we firmly believe is wrong. If someone joined the forum today and starting making great arguments against Barfield and his assessment of language meanings over time, I would resist it greatly. Or if they pointed out Gebser inserted examples of art into his work which simply do not exist. Or if pointed out serious logical flaws in Steiner's Philosophy of Freedom. I would resist all such arguments fiercely. But, of course, that is not the situation that I find myself in. It is very much the opposite of the situation I am in, so I can only speculate about my hypothetical reactions in those situations.

At the end of the day, I cannot make better arguments for my views than what I have put into these essays. I don't want to speak for Cleric but I imagine it is not much different with him and his numerous and lengthy essays/posts. I will continue writing mine because they are of great personal benefit to my thinking process and I suspect there are at least a few people who appreciate the content. But I cannot speak to someone, let alone convince someone, who has set their mind against these considerations. I don't think there has been a single comment yet on Steiner's claims about the essence of Thinking activity (except maybe Eugene at the beginning) and that is disappointing, but understandable for the reasons above.

I just hope at some point we get past this radical skepticism and cynicism of all views different from our own and delve into the substance of what is being said. That is what most of us had to do for the transition away from materialism-dualism to idealism as well. We should not arbitrarily stop at the most general idealism and consider it a success because we all get a chance to share opinions of equal value if we stay in the same place of purely speculative thought forever. Sometimes our pride in our own intellectual capacity has to take a back seat to a genuine curiosity for deeper knowledge and insight. I am perfectly aware this will sound like "projection" to those who are being criticized. So be it...

An impressive essay, Ashvin! And though I haven't read all the comments, I especially appreciated this one I'm quoting.

My personal situation is this: I'm familiar with Barfield, but not "very familiar". I've only read Saving Appearances so far, though I intend to read more. I find his writing fascinating, and I loved the quotes you used in the first part (or parts) of your essay. On the contrary, I didn't find the quotes from Steiner equally compelling. Maybe I need to get a deeper understanding of Barfield's thinking to get to appreciate Steiner, as you say?

In any case, I must admit I enjoyed this last part of the essay much less than the previous ones. I can't follow Steiner's line of reasoning. I don't understand what he means by "thinking", for example (if he means what I think he means, then he is clearly wrong). And I wasn't inspired to explore further.

I must admit, I found the proclamation of Christian faith at the end a little dissapointing, because I don't see how it follows from anything you've said before. I have no problem admitting the divinity of Jesus Christ, but I find Barfield's philological argument little more than an ingenious and amusing flight of fancy. Steiner's "phenomenology of spiritual activity" I can't follow at all.

Surely, somebody who has had direct experience of the living Christ doesn't need these philosophical arguments. And if the conclusion is that Jesus Christ is the Only Way, then there must be some fallacy involved. There are many ways to Truth and Freedom...

Anyway, I really enjoyed reading your essay. I felt I was in the company of a beautiful and deep mind... even if I couldn't completely grasp some of what you said. It was the same feeling I get when I read Owen Barfield...

[AshvinP]

I would have a very difficult time coming to terms with Steiner and Cleric's view if I had not already been familiar with Barfield, Gebser and the metamorphic arguments before. Not just hearing about them and knowing the outline, but reading their books and becoming very familiar with the content. These things take effort and for someone who is not naturally inclined to Western idealist metamorphic perspective, like I am, it must be that much more difficult to devote the effort and time necessary.

We also do not like to be told that what we firmly believe is wrong. If someone joined the forum today and starting making great arguments against Barfield and his assessment of language meanings over time, I would resist it greatly. Or if they pointed out Gebser inserted examples of art into his work which simply do not exist. Or if pointed out serious logical flaws in Steiner's Philosophy of Freedom. I would resist all such arguments fiercely. But, of course, that is not the situation that I find myself in. It is very much the opposite of the situation I am in, so I can only speculate about my hypothetical reactions in those situations.

At the end of the day, I cannot make better arguments for my views than what I have put into these essays. I don't want to speak for Cleric but I imagine it is not much different with him and his numerous and lengthy essays/posts. I will continue writing mine because they are of great personal benefit to my thinking process and I suspect there are at least a few people who appreciate the content. But I cannot speak to someone, let alone convince someone, who has set their mind against these considerations. I don't think there has been a single comment yet on Steiner's claims about the essence of Thinking activity (except maybe Eugene at the beginning) and that is disappointing, but understandable for the reasons above.

I just hope at some point we get past this radical skepticism and cynicism of all views different from our own and delve into the substance of what is being said. That is what most of us had to do for the transition away from materialism-dualism to idealism as well. We should not arbitrarily stop at the most general idealism and consider it a success because we all get a chance to share opinions of equal value if we stay in the same place of purely speculative thought forever. Sometimes our pride in our own intellectual capacity has to take a back seat to a genuine curiosity for deeper knowledge and insight. I am perfectly aware this will sound like "projection" to those who are being criticized. So be it...

An impressive essay, Ashvin! And though I haven't read all the comments, I especially appreciated this one I'm quoting.

My personal situation is this: I'm familiar with Barfield, but not "very familiar". I've only read Saving Appearances so far, though I intend to read more. I find his writing fascinating, and I loved the quotes you used in the first part (or parts) of your essay. On the contrary, I didn't find the quotes from Steiner equally compelling. Maybe I need to get a deeper understanding of Barfield's thinking to get to appreciate Steiner, as you say?

In any case, I must admit I enjoyed this last part of the essay much less than the previous ones. I can't follow Steiner's line of reasoning. I don't understand what he means by "thinking", for example (if he means what I think he means, then he is clearly wrong). And I wasn't inspired to explore further.

I must admit, I found the proclamation of Christian faith at the end a little dissapointing, because I don't see how it follows from anything you've said before. I have no problem admitting the divinity of Jesus Christ, but I find Barfield's philological argument little more than an ingenious and amusing flight of fancy. Steiner's "phenomenology of spiritual activity" I can't follow at all.

Surely, somebody who has had direct experience of the living Christ doesn't need these philosophical arguments. And if the conclusion is that Jesus Christ is the Only Way, then there must be some fallacy involved. There are many ways to Truth and Freedom...

Anyway, I really enjoyed reading your essay. I felt I was in the company of a beautiful and deep mind... even if I couldn't completely grasp some of what you said. It was the same feeling I get when I read Owen Barfield...

Adur,

Thank you for the consideration and comment!

I did actually debate about taking the references to Christ out from the end, because I realize it is an odd fit and does not naturally flow from Steiner's arguments in the PoF. Ultimately I just decided to leave it because it felt even more odd for me to write an essay about "transfiguration" without any reference to Christ. Although if I were to write it again, I may decide to leave it out.

My reasoning for discussing Steiner's PoF in this last part is as follows - the metamorphic progression discussed by Barfield and the others referenced is a fascinating topic of our shared history, but ultimately it is only useful to the extent it has concrete implications for our individual lives going forward. Steiner's PoF can definitely stand on its own as a groundbreaking philosophical work which points to the need for "ethical individualism", but I find the metamorphic progression of Spirit also makes it easier to see why such a view naturally follows with the transition from collective soul disposition to the reversal in Christ which makes the sovereign individual the locus of spiritual activity and, along with such freedom, comes the responsibility of each individual to discover Christ within and wield our imaginative capacity for the benefit of our own future Self and humanity writ large. For me, Steiner shows why it cannot be any other way and how we can figure that out by simply observing our own spiritual activity of Thinking. I should also mention that the first few parts of the essay do not discuss Steiner much explicitly but his writings, along with Barfield, were used to inform many of the topics explored.

That being said, I can see why my selective picking out of excerpts and commenting on them may not be sufficient to truly appreciate what Steiner accomplishes through the PoF. I highly recommend you take some time to read the entire book here, which is actually a very short book for a major philosophical work. What he means by "thinking" is that activity of intuition, imagination and reason which explores the world of percepts and strings them together with concepts to create unified wholes. It encompasses what we normally conceive of as "thinking" in the modern era, i.e. ratiocination, but also goes well beyond that. I am interested to hear why you feel his arguments re: thinking are "clearly wrong"? I am always excited to hear that people are considering the arguments and want to discuss them further! I do not expect anyone to take these things on faith and would say that is even counter-productive to the entire metamorphic progression of Spirit.

It is true that inner experience of Christ can and does occur without any of these philosophical arguments, which is also a fact Steiner highlights throughout his work. Yet if our minds are philosophically inclined, as mine is and I presume most people on this forum are as well, then they provide a firm soil from where we can launch our spiritual quest and share our insights with others along the way. I get much joy out of writing these essays and I am very happy you enjoyed reading them. I really appreciate your thoughtful consideration and kind words!

[Cleric K]

Good question. I think there are many valuable aspects of the Western spiritual path that worth preserving and developing, including the emphasis on developing higher cognition that you talk about. But the key part of it I think is the participatory aspect: the participation in the Divine life, the "meeting" with the Divine on a deep spiritual personal level. Some Eastern traditions (like Vedic Bhakti) also included that, but most of them were still more individualistic paths (Advaitic and Buddhist especially) and lacking such deep connection with the Divine. And this lack also applies to Bernardo's philosophy (what's the point of having personal relations and connecting to the animalistic and instinctive MAL?). Yet, the relations with the Divine in the Western traditions have been so far rather restrictive (to obeying, subduing, worship etc) and I think would need to be redefined to be more aligned with the open, accepting and humorous personality of the Divine witnessed by many NDE experiencers (that also align with my own spiritual experiences).

Very good point, Eugene!
If I have to find a single word that points at this relation with the Divine, that would be 'prayer'. I guess we'll have some disagreements on this topic too but who knows Actually from some time now I would like write a post on this topic but I need some more inspiration, so it can take a while.

[Cleric K]

There is a sense in which I just don’t know what to think of Cleric’s framing of things. It’s clearly a sophisticated and eloquently argued philosophy, but like Ben and Eugene, it doesn’t really connect with me, with my own search for truth into the experience of self, or in relation to god. None of us see the whole truth, and I feel there must be something there as it’s clearly well thought through, but it’s definitely a different path from the one I’m on.

The following might be of interest to Adur too.

I'm not pushing anyone to 'switch paths' but I think it might nevertheless be of interest to see what is it that keeps one from connecting or following along the ideas.

What does it mean when someone says that they can't connect or follow the ideas? First we should be aware that we can't directly communicate ideas through language. We encode them in words, transmit them but it's not certain that the listener will decode the same ideas from the words. Let's put that in a picture. We're somewhere in a big palace and want to give directions to a friend, for example using a walkie-talkie. We say "take ten steps forward, turn right, take five more steps" and so on. Our fiends listens and performs the movements but replies "This doesn't make any sense, I keep bumping into walls!" What's the problem? The instructions aren't appropriate for the initial coordinates of our friend.

It's quite similar when we speak about philosophical and spiritual things. Our friend hears words and performs inner movements but they simply make no sense. What does it mean for something to make sense? A puzzle piece makes sense when it fits nicely in the overall picture. So it is with ideas. Our "I" weaves an ideal organism which resonates harmonically or dissonantly with ideas.

Our soul life is like partially completed puzzle - living, organic, weaved of ideas, feelings, memories and so on. The deal is that in our epoch this puzzle very rarely receives a good kick start since our birth. We accumulate layers after layers, most of them quite unconsciously. Let's face it, very often our puzzles don't look too good. They are mixed and matched from pieces gathered from the most varied sources. It's usually quite difficult to make sense of idea-pieces which don't fit our partial structure.

The above is not just a random metaphor. Our soul and life bodies really have structure, 'geometry'. It's not exactly 3D geometry but there's justification to use that word. When the ancients used the word 'lotus flower' for the soul organs (chakras) it was not just a random artistic decision. There's good reason to speak of 'petals', even thought they are not something strictly spatial. The point is that our soul life has certain structure and it depends on it how easy it is for us to grasp one or another idea. This is understandable in the common cases. For example, if I'm a painter, mathematical ideas can sound quite alien to me and won't fit well at all in my soul puzzle. But of course, through little effort I can develop these structures and the mathematical ideas will begin to resonate with the overall picture. This holds true also for spiritual ideas, although they need much more effort because sometimes they require a major revision of our accumulated layers.

Where does the Philosophy of Freedom stand in all this? PoF is something living. The whole book is an actual walkthrough of our soul organism. Part of our soul organism we owe to Nature and God but another part we develop ourselves. Similarly everyone of us has some basic structures in the brain but we develop and make use of them in unique ways. PoF doesn't say "throw away your current philosophes and beliefs and replace them with these". No, it's about something altogether different. It's only pointing attention to things that are always there but because of the unconsciously accumulated layers we don't see them clearly.

I won't repeat here the basics of PoF - we've done that many times already. I just wanted to make a point. The things we're talking here will always be hard to follow if we imagine that they are just ideas that must be patched to whatever structure we already have. PoF is much more like a guide that brings attention to things that we've been missing all along. And this is the magic of PoF - it doesn't demand that certain ideas should be taken on faith, that we should be 'infected' with Steiner's ideas. Yes, Steiner expressed these ideas magnificently but they are everyone's ideas, just as thinking, feeling and willing are something that we all possess, no matter who was the first to name them. Here's an example. Let's pretend that we've never paid attention to our breathing. One day we read a book that guides us to calm down and be attentive to our chest and then we say "Aha! So this is what breathing is". Another example. We learn to speak since very young age. Most people are not particularly conscious of what happens when they speak. They just focus their will on certain ideas that they want to express and the words are just spat out. Let's pretend that we've never sung in our life. One day we begin singing lessons and gradually discover that we can have conscious control of our larynx in ways that we haven't suspected before. Where were the spiritual forces that we employ for singing? They were there all the time, slumbering, but they had to be awakened and developed.

Only in the above sense we find our proper attitude towards PoF. It begins with laying aside for a moment everything we've accumulated so far, so that we can experience our thinking spiritual activity, which connects ideas with perceptions. This is the same activity underlying all of our everyday activities - even religious and philosophical thinking, but we simply don't pay attention to the fundamental spiritual activity which takes different forms in the different types of thinking. When we learn to know ourselves as a Spirit that thinks, then other things will also become easier to follow.

In summary, PoF is difficult to understand simply because it's usually approached in an inappropriate way. It's not to tell us what to think, to lock us in set of ideas, but to guide us to a vantage point from which we can observe how we weave the ideas in our soul life and how the accumulated layers have affected us so far. It's not to give us more puzzle pieces to patch our soul life with, but to find slumbering degrees of freedom of our spiritual activity, similarly to the way we find the slumbering degrees of freedom of the larynx when we learn to sing. The 'meta' of philosophical or any other type of thinking is spiritual activity. In this way PoF presents us with a path for finding the spiritual in man as concrete, directly experienced reality.

[Eugene I]

Very good point, Eugene!
If I have to find a single word that points at this relation with the Divine, that would be 'prayer'. I guess we'll have some disagreements on this topic too but who knows Actually from some time now I would like write a post on this topic but I need some more inspiration, so it can take a while.

No disagreements here, prayer is certainly a way to communicate with the Divine.

[Cleric K]

PS: I would like one more detail which is already implicit in the above. Let's return to the singing example. The experience of singing not only opens new degrees of freedom for our spiritual activity, which were formerly unknown, but also changes our own self-perception. This is very important. It has direct relation to the 'Habits of Mind' in Ashvin's essays. There are many people (men more often than women) who simply feel uncomfortable to hear themselves sing. They perceive themselves in unfamiliar light and this makes them feel weird, to say the least. The thing is that our conscious everyday life is weaved of well-trodden layers which we got very used to and we feel more or less comfortable with. Years ago I had a friend who was a heavy smoker and he confided to me that he can't apprehend himself unless he sees himself blowing out smoke. This is how deeply ingrained his habit was. It had become flesh of his flesh, as intricate as breathing. In similar way we're very used to the way we perceive, think, feel and will.

To imagine that we can penetrate the foundations of our being by simply patching ideas on top of our current structure is like expecting to experience singing by simply combining words mechanically but refusing to experience the pitch modulating capabilities of our larynx. Or it would be like trying to experience breathing by focusing on the smoke rings that we blow out. So from another point of view we reach again the conclusion that PoF urges us not simply to patch our soul puzzle with more ideas that simply weigh us down. It invites us to explore the hidden degrees of freedom behind our everyday thinking, feeling and willing. It's key to understand that this is bound to make us feel little funny - we feel uncomfortable, vulnerable, unusual. We perceive our self-image in ways that we're not used to. But if we succeed in overcoming these initial deterring feelings, they are very quickly replaced with certainty, insight and strength. These proceed from the very fact that we're now closer to our spiritual core and can experience the underlying reality of the otherwise mechanically patched fragments of our Earthly character. (Please note that there's great difference between declaring the Earthly character to be a fantasy or illusion and the actual perception of the forces and beings that build that character) So the 'Freedom' in PoF is first and foremost freedom from our mechanically accumulated personality, such that we can acquaint ourselves more and more with the spiritual being that we are, which silently weaves behind these layers.

[Adur Alkain]

That being said, I can see why my selective picking out of excerpts and commenting on them may not be sufficient to truly appreciate what Steiner accomplishes through the PoF. I highly recommend you take some time to read the entire book here, which is actually a very short book for a major philosophical work. What he means by "thinking" is that activity of intuition, imagination and reason which explores the world of percepts and strings them together with concepts to create unified wholes. It encompasses what we normally conceive of as "thinking" in the modern era, i.e. ratiocination, but also goes well beyond that. I am interested to hear why you feel his arguments re: thinking are "clearly wrong"? I am always excited to hear that people are considering the arguments and want to discuss them further! I do not expect anyone to take these things on faith and would say that is even counter-productive to the entire metamorphic progression of Spirit.

Ashvin,
If that's Steiner's definition of thinking ("that activity of intuition, imagination and reason which explores the world of percepts and strings them together with concepts to create unified wholes"), it seems to me too complicated, and rather confusing. In the quote you give about his "four levels of individual life", he distinguishes between two types of conceptual thinking, with and without "regard to perceptual contents". I find all this unnecessarily complex.

In my view, intuition has nothing to do with thinking. I don't find a concept of a "thinking" that includes intuition helpful in any way. Also, I don't think that intuition has anything to do with concepts. It is a direct knowing, without concepts.

I don't have a problem with the claim that perceiving involves a form of thinking. But if I understand you correctly, you are actually saying that there is no experience without (some form of) thinking. That is going too far, in my view.

What about plants, for example? Would you say that they don't have experiences? I'm pretty sure that they do. But does that mean that they think? If by thinking we mean conceptual thinking, I'm sure that plants don't think. If by thinking we mean just some form of basic discrimination (like for example between light and dark), then they surely do, but I think it's confusing to call that "thinking".

A.H. Almaas (my main source of inspiration) distinguishes between pure awareness (without discrimination) and discriminating consciousness. It is possible, in deep states of meditation, to experience pure awareness, without discrimination. There is no thinking there.

I'm not sure any of this is relevant to Steiner's philosophy. Maybe it's just a matter of terminology. Studying the work of deep thinkers like these is often like learning a new language... Like I said, I don't find Steiner's writing (judging from the quotes you use in your essay) inspiring enough to make me want to do the effort. But maybe that's just because I'm currently totally engaged in studying the works of Almaas...

[Eugene I]

A.H. Almaas (my main source of inspiration) distinguishes between pure awareness (without discrimination) and discriminating consciousness. It is possible, in deep states of meditation, to experience pure awareness, without discrimination. There is no thinking there.

Ditto, and I said the same thing and was criticized for that many times on this forum, but this can only be known to people who has such experience. But it all depends on what exactly is meant by "thinking". In the broader sense thinking can include not only discriminative consciousness, but any kind of form-manifesting activity of consciousness, and in that sense even memory is a form-producing activity that is still functioning in the deep meditation. So, with memory included into "thinking", we can say that it is impossible to experience pure awareness without a presence of any forms, and so without thinking, because you need forms (memory at least) to be able to capture and later recall that experience. As often happens, vagueness of definitions of linguistic terms causes most of the confusion.

And thank you for pointing to Almaas, somehow I've never heard of him, but his approach and works sure look like worth exploring.

[AshvinP]

That being said, I can see why my selective picking out of excerpts and commenting on them may not be sufficient to truly appreciate what Steiner accomplishes through the PoF. I highly recommend you take some time to read the entire book here, which is actually a very short book for a major philosophical work. What he means by "thinking" is that activity of intuition, imagination and reason which explores the world of percepts and strings them together with concepts to create unified wholes. It encompasses what we normally conceive of as "thinking" in the modern era, i.e. ratiocination, but also goes well beyond that. I am interested to hear why you feel his arguments re: thinking are "clearly wrong"? I am always excited to hear that people are considering the arguments and want to discuss them further! I do not expect anyone to take these things on faith and would say that is even counter-productive to the entire metamorphic progression of Spirit.

Ashvin,
If that's Steiner's definition of thinking ("that activity of intuition, imagination and reason which explores the world of percepts and strings them together with concepts to create unified wholes"), it seems to me too complicated, and rather confusing. In the quote you give about his "four levels of individual life", he distinguishes between two types of conceptual thinking, with and without "regard to perceptual contents". I find all this unnecessarily complex.

In my view, intuition has nothing to do with thinking. I don't find a concept of a "thinking" that includes intuition helpful in any way. Also, I don't think that intuition has anything to do with concepts. It is a direct knowing, without concepts.

I don't have a problem with the claim that perceiving involves a form of thinking. But if I understand you correctly, you are actually saying that there is no experience without (some form of) thinking. That is going too far, in my view.

What about plants, for example? Would you say that they don't have experiences? I'm pretty sure that they do. But does that mean that they think? If by thinking we mean conceptual thinking, I'm sure that plants don't think. If by thinking we mean just some form of basic discrimination (like for example between light and dark), then they surely do, but I think it's confusing to call that "thinking".

A.H. Almaas (my main source of inspiration) distinguishes between pure awareness (without discrimination) and discriminating consciousness. It is possible, in deep states of meditation, to experience pure awareness, without discrimination. There is no thinking there.

I'm not sure any of this is relevant to Steiner's philosophy. Maybe it's just a matter of terminology. Studying the work of deep thinkers like these is often like learning a new language... Like I said, I don't find Steiner's writing (judging from the quotes you use in your essay) inspiring enough to make me want to do the effort. But maybe that's just because I'm currently totally engaged in studying the works of Almaas...

Adur,

Thanks for the further response. Cleric can likely speak to the issue of "intuition" as a mode of Thinking much better than I can. It is interesting, though, that when I hear the word "intuition" and reflect on its meaning, I sense that it cannot be anything other than a mode of Thinking. Steiner generally distinguishes three fundamental activities - willing, feeling, and thinking (and I see no reason to add more activities to those). I guess many would put "intuition" under "feeling", but that seems very unnatural to me. Intuitions do not have the same character as emotions. Henri Bergson who is most well known for his philosophy of intuition certainly considered it a manner of thinking - actually, the only manner of thinking which goes into the interior essence of any process. There is no such thing as "direct knowing without concepts" - we only imagine that because our thinking activity operates in the background and adds concepts so 'quickly' to the percepts. Yet if we 'slow down' while observing and thinking about our thinking activity, it becomes more clear why this is so.

re: no experience without thinking - yes that is exactly the claim and one central to the entire essay. It is extremely important to get a grasp on this claim to follow the metamorphic progression and its implications. And it is definitely central to Steiner's philosophy as well (as well as everyone else mentioned in the Incarnating the Christ installment and Transfiguring our Thinking Part I). One could simply say any experience with ideal content (meaning) involves thinking. We should then see how there is no experience without meaning supplied by thinking activity, even the states of so-called "pure awareness" or "direct knowing". Eugene mentioned that there must have been Memory of such experience to recall it in later experience-thought. Also there is no way of speaking about it without that ideal content. This is obvious to see, but sometimes our intellect later tells us the meaning was only added after the 'raw' experience. Notice how it is your intellect stating that (or someone else's intellect) rather than anything in the experience, which, through its undeniable meaning, is telling the exact opposite.