Cleric's Responses to Mystical Metaphysics (or How to Make a Logical Argument)

[Ben Iscatus]

Well the "blond hair" quote is a killer of Steiner's will-to-wisdom.

Personally, I object to the idea that we can willingly make an effort to advance spiritually. As Schop says, you can do what you will, but you can't will what you will. If you feel a compulsion (inner or outer), you can make an effort. If you feel the inspiration (a form of grace), you can make an effort (creativity). You are much more likely to feel the need to do something if you already have the talent for it. Otherwise, I've found it's best to immerse yourself in life's flow - do what comes naturally.

[Cleric K]

Let's get back to logic and reason then. Here are some excerpts from Steiner's astrological works as an illustration of his spiritual science applied to practice. If you call this mumbo-jumbo "logic and reason" or "science", then our understanding of what logic, reason and science are is so fundamentally different that I doubt we can ever find any common ground. I do not see any logic and reason here, nor do I see any traces of science or philosophy, but only the products of Steiner's out-of-wack imagination.

Given a metric tensor g on an n-dimensional real manifold, the quadratic form q(x) = g(x, x) associated with the metric tensor applied to each vector of any orthogonal basis produces n real values. By Sylvester's law of inertia, the number of each positive, negative and zero values produced in this manner are invariants of the metric tensor, independent of the choice of orthogonal basis. The signature (p, q, r) of the metric tensor gives these numbers, shown in the same order. A non-degenerate metric tensor has r = 0 and the signature may be denoted (p, q), where p + q = n.

Yang–Mills theory is a gauge theory based on a special unitary group SU(N), or more generally any compact, reductive Lie algebra. Yang–Mills theory seeks to describe the behavior of elementary particles using these non-abelian Lie groups and is at the core of the unification of the electromagnetic force and weak forces (i.e. U(1) × SU(2)) as well as quantum chromodynamics, the theory of the strong force (based on SU(3)). Thus it forms the basis of our understanding of the Standard Model of particle physics.

In some cases, the FEN1 lasts for only a short period of time and disengages from the replication complex. This causes a delay in the cleavage that the flaps displaced by Pol δ become long. When the RPA reaches a long enough length, it can bind stably. When the RPA bound flaps are refactorized to FEN1 cleavage the require another nuclease for processing, this has been identified as an alternate nuclease, DNA2. DNA2 has defects in the DEN1 overexpression. The DNA2 showed to work with FEN1 to process long flaps. DNA2 can dissociate the RPA from a long flap, it does this by using a mechanism like the FEN1. It binds the flap and threads the 5’ end of the flap. The nuclease cleaves the flap making it too short to bind to the RPA, the flap being too short means it is available for FEN1 and ligation. This is known as the long flap method. DNA2 can act as FEN1 as a backup for nuclease activity but it is not an efficient process.

The dominant is the fifth scale degree (scale degree 5) of the diatonic scale. It is called the dominant because it is next in importance to the first scale degree, the tonic. In the movable do solfège system, the dominant note is sung as "So(l)". Chords with a dominant function: dominant chords (seventh, ninth, and dominant ninth) and leading-tone chords (diminished, half-diminished seventh, and diminished seventh). The triad built on the dominant note is called the dominant chord. This chord is said to have dominant function, which means that it creates an instability that requires the tonic for resolution. Dominant triads, seventh chords, and ninth chords typically have dominant function. Leading-tone triads and seventh chords may also have dominant function.

Everyone according to their background will find the above quotes less or more incomprehensible. First that they are taken out of context, second they can only make sense if one is acquainted with the corresponding conceptual domain.

How many here think that the above quotes are random words, products of out-of-wack imagination? I guess not that many. We owe it only to the fact that more or less we have some trust that these disciplines are real and it is only our own ignorance which prevents us from making any sense. The healthy reaction when reading the above quotes is to feel at least somewhat humble and realize that there are many things that we don't know.

As I said in response to Lorenzo's remarks, it is really because of the abnormal times we live in, that things are turned upside-down when we approach the deeper strata of reality. Suddenly one considers his own inability to make any sense of the written as a clear proof that the one who writes it is crazy. It doesn't even cross one's mind that there might be some effort required to approach the true meaning behind the words.

I'm not writing this to mock Eugene - I love him dearly. But we must really be very conscious of the hidden forces that rule our age and completely blindfold us for certain things. None of us is immune to this. The only way to resist these forces is constant vigilance and healthy sense of truth. The latter can only be developed through lucid and energetic thinking, and ever expanding horizon which encompasses the harmony of the facts - even if things revealed are inconvenient for our personality.

There's a widespread belief that as soon as we reach spiritual matters everything is simple. Anna Brown says "things happen for no reason at all!" How convenient! What a relief! How good the conscience now feels that it can simply flow blissfully and carefree.

It is this feeling of carefree comfort that is most deeply disturbed when presented with facts that show that it's not at all for no reason that we have a head and brain, that two genders exist, that minerals, plants, animals exist, that the Sun and the planets exist and so on. If we investigate ourselves impartially, we'll inevitably observe that we value comfort higher than truth. If we truly valued truth higher than anything else there would be nothing to stop us from following the World and our own being with our thinking organism to the minutest details. We can speak of truth only in relation to thinking. There's no such thing as truth in the consciousness of a growing plant or a hungry animal. We can speak of truth only in man, when he begins to follow the metamorphosis of the World Content with his thinking spiritual activity, and seeks to complement it with moral imagination and intuition.

It is Divinely simple - we must simply not stop at anything in our ever expanding horizon of knowing activity through which we find our actual unity with the Cosmos. The only reason we halt this expansion is because at times it threatens to disturb our comfort. This is why in our age any knowledge of the spiritual depth of reality is dreaded. It has nothing to do with Steiner's personality or Anthoposophy, or any of the other progressive philosophical and esoteric streams. Even if Steiner had the face and eyes of Ramana, Eugene would still find him antipathetic. It's not the personality or the name of the school of thought. It's the direction where it leads. Yet this direction is not some arbitrary and extravagant invention of an interest group. It's the natural path that we tread when we value truth higher than anything and we keep sacrificing everything in us which tempts is to sleep sweetly in the cradle of comfort, instead of emerging as from cocoon after cocoon, into the wide expanses of the Light of the Spirit.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Dana - I know what you are thinking now, and I will obviously play by your rules here. But I don't know what you expect me to do when Eugene pulls these stunts on every topic related to spiritual science, or actually any topic related to "Thinking", over and over again.

As mentioned before, I'm naive if I think I can stop it. It seems destined to play itself out. I remain cautiously optimistic that once it does, the forum can still be a place for the kind of dialogos I envision ... if only this corporeal expression can last another 25 years, it may see that day

[AshvinP]

Well the "blond hair" quote is a killer of Steiner's will-to-wisdom.

Personally, I object to the idea that we can willingly make an effort to advance spiritually. As Schop says, you can do what you will, but you can't will what you will. If you feel a compulsion (inner or outer), you can make an effort. If you feel the inspiration (a form of grace), you can make an effort (creativity). You are much more likely to feel the need to do something if you already have the talent for it. Otherwise, I've found it's best to immerse yourself in life's flow - do what comes naturally.

Hey Ben, how about this "killer" from Schop?


“That the Negroes were enslaved more than other races, and on a large scale, is evidently a result of their being, in contrast to other races, inferior in intelligence..." ― Arthur Schopenhauer, On The Will In Nature


I do not actually think the above "kills" whatever great insights about reality Schop had to offer and, actually, I doubt it even fairly represents his overall view on this topic. But, as Cleric eloquently remarked, it's infinitely easier to search for "racist comments of [insert name]" on Google so as to justify our own laziness and egoistic desire for comfort and cynical certainty than it is to actually think about what holistic meaning a philosopher and his philosophy is conveying.

[Soul_of_Shu]

I do not actually think the above "kills" whatever great insights about reality Schop had to offer and, actually, I doubt it even fairly represents his overall view on this topic. But, as Cleric eloquently remarked, it's infinitely easier to search for "racist comments of [insert name]" on Google so as to justify our own laziness and egoistic desire for comfort and cynical certainty than it is to actually think about what holistic meaning a philosopher and his philosophy is conveying.

While we're at it, should anyone google the history of my wayward youth, I might as well apologize and confess up front that I once dressed up for Halloween in Black Face. My Archie Bunker of a father thought it was hilarious. He also thought I was a lazy sod most of the time, wasting my time on art, when I should have been making money. Go figure! Little did he know it wasn't laziness, but a lack of inspiration for making money more important than art. For art, I had no lack of 'work ethic.'

[AshvinP]

Well the "blond hair" quote is a killer of Steiner's will-to-wisdom.

Personally, I object to the idea that we can willingly make an effort to advance spiritually. As Schop says, you can do what you will, but you can't will what you will. If you feel a compulsion (inner or outer), you can make an effort. If you feel the inspiration (a form of grace), you can make an effort (creativity). You are much more likely to feel the need to do something if you already have the talent for it. Otherwise, I've found it's best to immerse yourself in life's flow - do what comes naturally.

Hey Ben, how about this "killer" from Schop?


“That the Negroes were enslaved more than other races, and on a large scale, is evidently a result of their being, in contrast to other races, inferior in intelligence..." ― Arthur Schopenhauer, On The Will In Nature


I do not actually think the above "kills" whatever great insights about reality Schop had to offer and, actually, I doubt it even fairly represents his overall view on this topic. But, as Cleric eloquently remarked, it's infinitely easier to search for "racist comments of [insert name]" on Google so as to justify our own laziness and egoistic desire for comfort and cynical certainty than it is to actually think about what holistic meaning a philosopher and his philosophy is conveying.

Also, to the rest of your comment, that captures nicely the entire modern age mental habit Anthroposophy seeks to break. Why is it so dangerous? Precisely because it saws off the branch of the Thinking tree that it is condemning for failing to keep us immersed in meaning. You will never even hear any counter-arguments to perpetual "immersion in life's flow", as the fish will never come to hear any tales from the land above the surface. Yet we still cannot totally deny the reality of higher thoughts, as we have not descended quite far enough for that yet (but we are getting perilously close), so we chalk them up to random "compulsions" and "inspirations". It doesn't have to be this way. The in-spirit-ations do not need to remain forever fragmented and random. Man does not need to live by compulsion alone. Taking responsibility for one's destiny is the most self-evidently powerful source of meaning in life, and generally we know this when it comes to helping others, starting a family, etc., but we deny it to our own soul without fail. We "condemn and rage against ourselves", as Jung keenly observed. Why must it be this way? Why must we self-sabatoge at every chance we get? The answers never come except through Self-knowledge and Wisdom, and so the responsibility of Knowing becomes the most important, exciting, and meaningful responsibility modern man can take on.

[Ben Iscatus]

Hey Ben, how about this "killer" from Schop?

Schop was also mysogynistic and most imperfect. But he did not suffer from a will-to-wisdom complex. That was what I was objecting to - and really, the sheer silliness of thinking (sic) that blonde hair has special powers.

[Eugene I]

Steiner's philosophy is a salad of ideas that he adopted from all over the place - Hagel, Goethe, medieval esoterics, Theosophy, astrology, German racism and you name it, and because of that, obviously many of his formulations and insights have some validity and merits. But overall, his philosophy belongs to the area of deletant-level pseudo-religion-philosophies along with Theosophy, Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses, Galactic Federation channeling and alike. If you listen to Galactic Federation channelers, they talk about enhanced awareness, unconditional love, living from the heart and many other wonderful things, and who would deny that? But that alone does not make their overall paradigm any more valid.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Given a metric tensor g on an n-dimensional real manifold, the quadratic form q(x) = g(x, x) associated with the metric tensor applied to each vector of any orthogonal basis produces n real values. By Sylvester's law of inertia, the number of each positive, negative and zero values produced in this manner are invariants of the metric tensor, independent of the choice of orthogonal basis. The signature (p, q, r) of the metric tensor gives these numbers, shown in the same order. A non-degenerate metric tensor has r = 0 and the signature may be denoted (p, q), where p + q = n.

Yang–Mills theory is a gauge theory based on a special unitary group SU(N), or more generally any compact, reductive Lie algebra. Yang–Mills theory seeks to describe the behavior of elementary particles using these non-abelian Lie groups and is at the core of the unification of the electromagnetic force and weak forces (i.e. U(1) × SU(2)) as well as quantum chromodynamics, the theory of the strong force (based on SU(3)). Thus it forms the basis of our understanding of the Standard Model of particle physics.

In some cases, the FEN1 lasts for only a short period of time and disengages from the replication complex. This causes a delay in the cleavage that the flaps displaced by Pol δ become long. When the RPA reaches a long enough length, it can bind stably. When the RPA bound flaps are refactorized to FEN1 cleavage the require another nuclease for processing, this has been identified as an alternate nuclease, DNA2. DNA2 has defects in the DEN1 overexpression. The DNA2 showed to work with FEN1 to process long flaps. DNA2 can dissociate the RPA from a long flap, it does this by using a mechanism like the FEN1. It binds the flap and threads the 5’ end of the flap. The nuclease cleaves the flap making it too short to bind to the RPA, the flap being too short means it is available for FEN1 and ligation. This is known as the long flap method. DNA2 can act as FEN1 as a backup for nuclease activity but it is not an efficient process.

The dominant is the fifth scale degree (scale degree 5) of the diatonic scale. It is called the dominant because it is next in importance to the first scale degree, the tonic. In the movable do solfège system, the dominant note is sung as "So(l)". Chords with a dominant function: dominant chords (seventh, ninth, and dominant ninth) and leading-tone chords (diminished, half-diminished seventh, and diminished seventh). The triad built on the dominant note is called the dominant chord. This chord is said to have dominant function, which means that it creates an instability that requires the tonic for resolution. Dominant triads, seventh chords, and ninth chords typically have dominant function. Leading-tone triads and seventh chords may also have dominant function.

Everyone according to their background will find the above quotes less or more incomprehensible. First that they are taken out of context, second they can only make sense if one is acquainted with the corresponding conceptual domain.

Indeed, I have no comprehensive knowledge of the disciplines the above quotes refer to. However, if I were to feel truly inspired to study those disciplines, I would delve into it with no lack of effort, however difficult it may be. But I doubt that without such inspiration, it would ever make much sense. I feel much the same about Steiner's ideas on astrology, Atlantis, Lemuria, etc. For whatever reason, these aspects of his ideation just don't inspire this imagination. And frankly, I don't even care if he is just simply wrong about those aspects. But that in no way undermines or detracts from those aspects that do inspire this imagination, which I then make the effort to explore. So I'm curious as to what your take is on why one may feel deeply compelled to explore some aspects, but not others. If after exploring PoF, it doesn't naturally lead to being inspired to explore the astrological/zodiac cosmology, or the ruminations about Atlantis and Lemuria, is something crucial missed?

[Eugene I]

Well the "blond hair" quote is a killer of Steiner's will-to-wisdom.

Personally, I object to the idea that we can willingly make an effort to advance spiritually. As Schop says, you can do what you will, but you can't will what you will. If you feel a compulsion (inner or outer), you can make an effort. If you feel the inspiration (a form of grace), you can make an effort (creativity). You are much more likely to feel the need to do something if you already have the talent for it. Otherwise, I've found it's best to immerse yourself in life's flow - do what comes naturally.

Right, that's the way I tend to approach life too. But "natural" is a tricky concept because you can use it to justify almost any motivations, including quite harmful ones. But I do feel that we draw our inspirations from higher spiritual levels, from the divine realms. I think the purpose of our incarnation here is to exercise and execute the divine inspirations in the challenges of this far-from-ideal environment of the human life. One thing is to have a wonderful idea or inspiration of love, quite another thing is to love people with all their personality flaws in the midst of all kinds of adversities of the human life, both internal and external.

In my engineering profession people often have wonderful ideas, but very few of them get successfully executed and designed into products. Only about one of every ten patents get applied in real products. Of course you need a good idea to make a good product, but most of the hard work and challenges are always in execution, as well as most of the satisfaction that comes from it.