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

[Eugene I]

Real criticism should not be based on feeling uncomfortable by being challenged but on delving into the harmony of the facts. In this sense, I would most gladly address criticism which, for example, (in the context of the analogies in the other thread) places argumentation why the intellect should be the final and ultimate form of cognition. But it's simply not serious to say "I hold that there is no such thing as higher cognition because I dislike the implications of where this would lead. For this reason I'll declare any such claims to be sectarian, narrow, one-dimensional, etc."

Most spiritual traditions are targeted towards developing higher condition faculties, I already said that a few times. But what they discover as a result of their higher cognition investigations it often quite different across the traditions. Now, I can give you an example: in one of the discussions you claimed that you are able to cognize the structure of Zodiacs with your access to higher cognition, and then pointed to the fact that other spiritual traditions (such as the Eastern ones) were not able to cognize any evidences of the Zodiacs, and therefore, this fact points to the insufficiency of the Eastern meditation practices. I could give you a similar argument: I did experience a presence of spiritual beings in my spiritual journeys, but my experiences were quite different from yours. Now, I could similarly claim that your higher cognition is inferior compared to mine because you have not experienced what I experienced, but I would never make such claim. So, it's not about disputing the benefits of developing higher cognition, all spiritual seekers and spiritual traditions do that. It's about claiming that "my" higher cognition and the knowledge I get from it is in any way superior to "yours" (which is a sure symptom of sectarianism).

[AshvinP]

Here is some "work done" by the author of this "metaphysical system" to get you started.

That's not the kind of work I was talking about. You list a bunch of posts from the past to address various topics. Are there some foundational integrating principles? This is why I suggested the need for something less fragmented and integrated somewhere as Bernardo did. Is there a website or book that does this?

So what is the seeker to make of those posts? Is there a coherent system as their basis? If not, this may appeal to New Agers who aren't that interested in systematic formulations. But for those who do seek something reasonable and systematic, how would they evaluate the various thoughts? Typically systematic metaphysical formulations address their rationale, revelatory resources, and methodology. This is important in the evaluative process. The great systematic theologian, Paul Tillich went to great lengths in his first of three volumes of "Systematic Theology" to explain his rationale and methodology. With that explicitly stated, people could decide whether or not to do the hard work to extend their attention.

Yes, there is a very clear foundational principle laid out in meticulous yet plain language right here, in about 200 pages (which is much shorter than most similar philosophical treatises) - https://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA004/En ... index.html

You will probably recognize the name from the many times we have mentioned and linked to it on this forum. It is a phenomenology of perception and congition which points us towards the central role of our own Thinking activity in acquiring true knowledge of the noumenal ideal relations which give rise to phenomenal experience. It is from this "firm point" in our immanent Thinking experience which we can acquire a solid foundation for considering all that is presented in the various essays I have linked to. We, and especially Cleric, has also reproduced variations of this phenomenology in many of his essays and posts. I am posting one such example below:


viewtopic.php?p=6106#p6106

Kant wanted to put philosophy on secure foundations by avoiding the kinds of metaphysics which speculated from points of view which could never become human experience. This was the positive contribution of Kant. Unfortunately he also postulated that it is in principle impossible to know the noumenon (thing-in-itself) in its reality. This didn't stop future philosophy and science to speculate from unnatural points of view. Actually, Kant's philosophy legitimized that - all that was needed is to annex one's ideas with "it's just a model, a representation". The divorce between phenomena and noumena is well known. But there's something which still goes under the radar even to this day. Kant's philosophy introduced a blind spot in consciousness. I'm talking about thinking activity. After philosophers accepted that it's all just representations in the mind, that's where they focused their efforts - to find the best correlating model. Even thinking could only be approached through a model of it (because its supposed reality also exists in the inaccessible noumenon). And this is where the blind spot becomes effective. We've become so focused on the contents of thinking that the actual spiritual activity which produces the thoughts moved in the back of our head, so to speak.

What do we have in the sensory deprivation chamber? Perceptions, phenomena. The outer senses fade out but we still have our inner bodily senses and also our soul life - thinking, feeling, willing. In such a chamber, in absence of external stimuli, it's quite natural to approach a visionary state, similar to a mild psychedelic one. Within this state we have perceptions that come and go - shapes, colors, etc. - completely outside our control. We can also have our thoughts which add themselves to the world of perceptions but with the difference that we know why these perceptions exist - because we will them into existence. Now Schopenhauer basically says "All shapes and colors, and their movements (i.e all phenomena) are caused by will. It's just that in some limited domain this will has become self-conscious. That's the part of the World Will that I experience as mine. The shapes and colors produced from my activity are of the same willed-nature, with the exception that I know that I'm responsible for their presence." But how do we really know that? What kind of cognitive activity we perform in order to reach this realization? Simple - we think that out. Here we have the blind-spot at its fullest. The only will that we ever know is our own will. Declaring that the whole reality is of nature of will (that will is the noumenon) is very compelling but we should never forget that we arrive at that idea through philosophical judgment. This idea is not something directly perceptible in the given - we add the idea over the given with our thinking, in the hope of explaining it. We can't arrive at Kant's ideas, neither at Schopenhauer's ideas without thinking. So thinking is the real point of departure for any endeavor to know. It is also the only place where we find true unity of phenomena and noumena. The perceptions of thoughts are the only perceptions that don't require explanation. For everything else we can ask "What's the meaning of this? Why I perceive this? What stands behind this?" But for our thoughts these questions are irrelevant - they are answered through the very nature of thinking. I know what they mean because it's my idea that is projected into thought perception. I know why I perceive them because I will the thoughts. I know what stands behind the thoughts - it's my own ideating activity! In this way we have found within the World content a point of contact between the phenomenon and noumenon. The former is the thought-perception, the latter is the idea that I will into the thought-form. To this may be habitually objected that it could be possible to explain thinking in other ways - neurons, energies, vibrations, etc. In other words it's suggested that the noumenon is still inaccessible and ideas are only representational phenomena, having nothing to do with the 'thing-in-itself'. Yet this is exactly how the blind-spot plays out. All of these models are still the product of our real thinking. They're like hair and nails growing and separating from my living spiritual activity and now I try to combine this dead material in the most ingenious ways and produce the living activity from them. This I can never do. And if scientists and philosophers still insist to explain thinking in such ways it's only because their true spiritual activity, which produces the dead theory, is entirely in their blind-spot of consciousness. The key is to realize that there's nothing in the given which says that the reality of thinking and ideas is only representation of a thing-in-itself. This very idea is already a product of thinking. In other words, thinking postulates its own reality to lie somewhere where by definition it can't reach. We can picture this as climbing on a tree, cutting the branch on which we sit and declaring that this branch can never know the reality of the tree (that is, the tree becomes the thing-in-itself).

When thinking is experienced in its true reality it becomes for us a center, a point of implosion where phenomena (perceptions) and noumenon (ideas) flow and fuse into each other through our spiritual activity. This paints a different picture than that of the blind will. The will is really there, Schopenhauer was right about that. Where he was mistaken was that the will is blind. This can never be certain knowledge because the only kind of will that we know is that imbued with idea. It's entirely a conjecture of thinking to postulate that will without the experience of idea is at the grounds of reality. Through the higher forms of cognition we really find Schopenhauer's will everywhere but we also find together with it the the ideas of spiritual beings. So not only the world is willed but it's willed with fully conscious ideal intent.

[Eugene I]

Cleric, so let's consider this Zodiac example further: you claim that your spiritual science is based on both Reason/Logic and on the direct experiential higher-cognition perception. And you also claimed that you are able to cognize and prove the reality of the Zodiac structures as part of the higher-level structures that are responsible for forming the perceptions of the lower-level beings, and in this respect your experience is in line with similar Steiner's claims of his higher-cognition experience of the same Zodiacs. However, it does not align with spiritual higher-cognition experiences of the majority of other people across all other spiritual traditions (me and other people on this forum included). Now, how do you prove that these cognitions of Zodiacs have any relevance to actual spiritual realities and are not simply the products of your fine imaginations? And what are the arguments of Reason that could support such claim?

[AshvinP]

Real criticism should not be based on feeling uncomfortable by being challenged but on delving into the harmony of the facts. In this sense, I would most gladly address criticism which, for example, (in the context of the analogies in the other thread) places argumentation why the intellect should be the final and ultimate form of cognition. But it's simply not serious to say "I hold that there is no such thing as higher cognition because I dislike the implications of where this would lead. For this reason I'll declare any such claims to be sectarian, narrow, one-dimensional, etc."

Most spiritual traditions are targeted towards developing higher condition faculties, I already said that a few times. But what they discover as a result of their higher cognition investigations it often quite different across the traditions. Now, I can give you an example: in one of the discussions you claimed that you are able to cognize the structure of Zodiacs with your access to higher cognition, and then pointed to the fact that other spiritual traditions (such as the Eastern ones) were not able to cognize any evidences of the Zodiacs, and therefore, this fact points to the insufficiency of the Eastern meditation practices. I could give you a similar argument: I did experience a presence of spiritual beings in my spiritual journeys, but my experiences were quite different from yours. Now, I could similarly claim that your higher cognition is inferior compared to mine because you have not experienced what I experienced, but I would never make such claim. So, it's not about disputing the benefits of developing higher cognition, all spiritual seekers and spiritual traditions do that. It's about claiming that "my" higher cognition and the knowledge I get from it is in any way superior to "yours" (which is a sure symptom of sectarianism).

Either you are completely misaking some meditative state for imaginative cognition or you are lying. Which one doesn't really interest me at this point, but everyone should be clear that you have no idea what Cleric is speaking about because you have not experienced it and you make no effort to understand his posts. I have not experienced consciously controlled imaginative cognition either but I can easily tell the difference between the higher cognition Cleric writes about and what you mistakenly or intentionally claim is "higher cognition". Actually I don't need to go very far to show this to you and to others, because the OP in this thread contains a response from you as follows (April 17 , 2021):


viewtopic.php?p=5138#p5138

I can't claim that this is all that can be available to conscious beings. You seem to claim that you possess some other mysterious experiential-cognitive faculties that allow you to acquire deeper knowledge of the world of ideas/causes behind the "screen" of perceptions, and I admit that I do not have such abilities. Since I have no confirmation of such faculties based on my own experience, I have no grounds to believe you, but on the other hand, have no grounds to prove you wrong either, so my only option is to remain agnostic and indecisive about it.

More recently, I asked you to provide an illustration of an exercise into imaginative cognition and your experiences (like Cleric did in May 2021):


viewtopic.php?p=10722#p10722

Have you ever experienced imaginative consciousness of the spiritual? If so, describe in detail the experience as best you can. Use analogies or whatever if necessary.

Yes I did. I have a long-time experience with all sorts of meditations and meditative techniques. Most of the healthy meditative practices is also done on the levels of subtle intuitive cognition often employing imaginative abilities. I can vaguely sort them into two types: healthy and unhealthy techniques... [your response goes on to completely avoid the details of imaginative cognition requested and simply repeat canned criticisms you have of "unhealthy" esoteric spiritual traditions]

We can do this all day if you want. Or you can just have some humility like you did back in April and admit you have are still having a hard time understanding what Cleric means by "higher cognition", and then you can ask him questions to clarify. Or you can stop commenting on higher cognition altogether until you figure out what is meant by it. Here is some info from Steiner to start you off:


https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA324 ... 18p01.html

I must raise all this into particularly sharp relief because of the way the word “clairvoyance” is normally used, and the way this incorrect usage is applied to the supersensory vision exercised in spiritual science. Frequently, what can quite correctly be designated as clairvoyance is confused with phenomena that can arise in the human constitution when conscious functions are suppressed so that they fall below the level of everyday consciousness — as in hypnosis, under the influence of suggestive mental images, and so forth. This suppression of consciousness, this entering into a subconscious realm, has absolutely nothing to do with what is meant here by the attainment of imagination. For in the case of imagination we have an enhancement of consciousness, we go in exactly the opposite direction from what is often called clairvoyance when the term is used in a trivial sense. As it is commonly used, the word is not given its correct meaning (“clear vision,” or “seeing in the light”), but rather “a reduced vision” or “dim vision.” At the risk of being misunderstood, it would not be incorrect to describe the upward striving toward imaginative knowledge as a striving toward clairvoyance. From the few words I have said on this subject, the difference should be clear to you between “dim vision” and a truly “clear vision.”

Everything we encounter in a state of soul more or less inclined toward mediumship, shows us a reduction of consciousness. It may entail an artificial lowering of the consciousness, or it may be that the human being was somewhat feeble-minded in the first place, making his consciousness easily suppressible. In no case is it ever what you could compare to an inner state as luminous and clear as a mathematically-attuned state should be. What is widely called clairvoyance today — no doubt you have experienced this — has extremely little to do with a striving toward a mathematical clarity of soul. Quite the contrary, what is usually found is the desire to plunge as deeply as possible into the darkness of confusion. Imaginative vision is the opposite of this, as I will now describe to you.

To begin with, imaginative vision is something that can only be present in the soul after being developed. After all, a five-year-old child is not yet a mathematician; the mathematical pictorial capacity must first be developed. It is also not strange that a development of soul from a pre-mathematical capacity to a mathematical capacity can be continued further in a certain way. That is, what has already been brought to a certain clarity of inner experience in mathematical thought can be developed further. Now, however, we must ask ourselves if someone is correct who says, "Yes, but the relationship must be established to ordinary sense-perceptible observation." In one way he is quite correct, and it is important to pursue this relationship in a detailed way.
[continues at link above]

[Cleric K]

Most spiritual traditions are targeted towards developing higher condition faculties, I already said that a few times. But what they discover as a result of their higher cognition investigations it often quite different across the traditions. Now, I can give you an example: in one of the discussions you claimed that you are able to cognize the structure of Zodiacs with your access to higher cognition, and then pointed to the fact that other spiritual traditions (such as the Eastern ones) were not able to cognize any evidences of the Zodiacs, and therefore, this fact points to the insufficiency of the Eastern meditation practices. I could give you a similar argument: I did experience a presence of spiritual beings in my spiritual journeys, but my experiences were quite different from yours. Now, I could similarly claim that your higher cognition is inferior compared to mine because you have not experienced what I experienced, but I would never make such claim. So, it's not about disputing the benefits of developing higher cognition, all spiritual seekers and spiritual traditions do that. It's about claiming that "my" higher cognition and the knowledge I get from it is in any way superior to "yours" (which is a sure symptom of sectarianism).

(I wrote this before I saw your latest post but I think what's below will address it as well)

I fully agree that "my word against yours" can never lead to anything. Isolated experiences don't help much. It is only when their place is found within the overall harmony of the facts, that we can tell which is true and which not. As we've often said, it's useless to ask if an experience in itself is true or not. From the perspective of our metamorphic process in the most general sense we can call true those experiences which lead us even further and integrate into an ever expanding horizon of the harmony of the facts. False ideas are those which don't fit into the expanding perspective and thus can only be supported by keeping certain boundaries to the sphere of our consciousness. We need these boundaries because we need darkness, we need to keep the false idea from contacting the general Ideal organism, otherwise in the harmonic light of interconnectedness the false idea is useless. While in the darkness, the false idea is also useless in the higher sense but nevertheless it can become a beacon around which certain beings can unfold their activity.

We really need to get a feeling for this. This has been said so many times already that I don't know if anyone pays attention anymore - gradually thinking must transform from a bunch of loosely related concepts that aim to build a floating replica of the supposed 'reality-in-itself', to an actual living process which ingrows, fuses with the World Content, similarly to the way the network of plant roots penetrate the soil. In similar way our thinking organism grows into the World and the cognitive experience of this is what is called harmony of the facts. In other words, this process is not something that we observe from the outside but it's the experienced from within thinking activity that grows and feels reality.

For a spiritual seeker, it is helpful if there is a progression that starts with their concerns and then addresses those concerns in such a way they can understand. No easy task for metaphysical thinking but necessary if the message is to get across to a broad audience. After all, metaphysics is essentially a question/answer enterprise. So, for those offering a metaphysical vision, they also need to 'put in the work' to make it accessible in a coherent way.

I agree. As someone who comes from scientific/mathematical/computer algorithmic background, it has always been my goal to find ways to build things gradually and sequentially. This is not always possible and we must be careful if we simply use that as an excuse by saying "Unless you present your ideas as clear sequence of thoughts that build strictly one upon another, I'll not try to understand them." This is not possible for trivial things let alone for deeper ones. Is it possible to understand a car in a linear way? Not really. We have no choice but study the different parts in some sequence and only gradually we'll have the complete picture as we are able to hold in our mind the ideas of the different parts and relate them in a whole.

Imagine if a baby was to say "I'm not learning any language unless it is presented to me as a nice gradation of things that I already know "breastfeeding, burping, crying, pooping, sleeping". It's obvious that this can never work. Through the acquisition of language an element awakens in the child's soul which was previously mute, it couldn't express itself and thus was not conscious of itself. This acquisition doesn't happen into a nice linear sequence of words, out of which the whole language follows. Instead the baby is bombarded constantly with verbal perceptions until the spirit grasps the game (this is simplified of course, the process is much more deeper). The thing is that we don't start with some primary words and then build everything else from there. In fact, no word is meaningful in isolation. Meaning of words exists as mutually supporting organs of a thinking organism.

This process is a very good analogy for what humanity must now go through, although in fully conscious way. The higher order soul and spirit processes are like a language too. We can't start from ordinary words and build out of them this higher language, just like the baby can't start with 'breastfeeding' and 'pooping' and build out of it ordinary language/thinking. The parents speak to the baby as if from a higher world of meaning and it slowly grows into that world. Today higher beings and Initiates also speak into a higher language that we must grow into. This growing into is actually a twofold process. In certain sense we already exist in the higher world but we are mute and unable to reflect our being within the cognitive palette below, just as the baby's ego can only express in the most basic forms of behavior until it begins accommodate into the body and the cognitive palette. So on one hand our organization builds up from below upwards while our spiritual being meets it from above downwards. As they adapt to each other, the spirit can express more and more freely and creatively. As long as the spirit is trapped into the biological and lower instincts it is enslaved by them. Today we're in position to participate in this process fully consciously, by working on our organization so that our "I" can awake more and more into the higher order processes. Nature can't help us anymore. It is up to us to open for what flows from above and thus rise ourselves above blind desire, instincts, preconceived opinions, patterned thoughts and speech. This is a completely real process. Just as language and thinking brings a whole new level of existence within the baby's consciousness, so by rising above the bodily and soul 'channels' within which our spirit is ordinarily enforced to flow (as intellect thinking about the world) a whole new world opens to us.

There's no need to refer to the Zodiac or Angles in the above. These are all completely understandable things for any normally functioning thinking. This understanding is not in the way we understand microbes on a petri dish in the lab. We can still see the logic if we look at the above as external ideas on a petri dish, as if we are afraid to allow them come any closer and be infected by them. Yet we only understand them in the true sense when we assume the shape of the ideas with our spirit, just as the baby understands language not from the outside but when it begins to imitate the words from within. This doesn't mean to believe them. We can believe an idea only when it sits on the petri dish and we have no other means to tell if it is true or not but we simply choose to believe it or not. When we assume the shape of the idea with our spiritual activity we already have practical experience. In this way we have a real experience which either grows harmoniously in the general thinking organism or not. Most of the ideas above (as in PoF) are of such kind that they state nothing but their shape. For example, when we're being told that it is possible to observe our thinking, some may look at that idea on the petri dish and wait for scientists to prove its 'safety' before allowing it come any closer. But if we allow ourselves to experience the idea - that is, we make an attempt to experience livingly our thinking - then the very act is also the proof of the idea. When we continue to expand our activity in this way, by exploring the shapes and dynamics our thinking takes as it follows both sensory and soul processes, we grow into the World process and experience the harmony of the facts. Further down the road we can find also how the Zodiac fits into this harmony. But if one doesn't want to experience the reality which is right in front their eyes, what's the point to speak about realities which require much wider horizon so that many more processes can be grasped simultaneously as a twelvefold unity?

[lorenzop]

So I hope that we've cleared that Thinking path shouldn't be confused with intellectual-theoretical path. Instead, it is the direct facing with everything that chains the free spirit. It is Thinking path in the sense that we're not blindly following dogmatic rules and rituals but everything must pass through our clear cognition. Yet this is only the beginning. Everything passes through clear cognition but if it doesn't turn into Loving impulse in the Heart and devoted deeds of the Will, we are not yet human in the true sense of the word.

To clarify my point, when I inspect the above paragraph, I am unable to translate the thoughts into understandable unadorned English. It appears to me that the author is trying to wrap thoughts in psuedo-intrigue and mystery. For comparison, Rupert Spira speaks from common personal experience.

[lorenzop]

While we pretend to wait for Lorenzo's argumented thinking in support of his assertions above, I will let others know why they were motivated by pure prejudice and therefore no such argument or thinking is forthcoming.

 In my humble opinion the best and simplist approach is to be opposed to any possibility of life after death...

and i stand by this claim - we have a great gift of having a human form on this planet - to be engaged in future/past lives is a distraction.

[Ben Iscatus]

Today we're in position to participate in this process fully consciously, by working on our organization so that our "I" can awake more and more into the higher order processes. Nature can't help us anymore.

Cleric, when you say "we", who do you envision will be doing this? Your next door neighbours?

[AshvinP]

So I hope that we've cleared that Thinking path shouldn't be confused with intellectual-theoretical path. Instead, it is the direct facing with everything that chains the free spirit. It is Thinking path in the sense that we're not blindly following dogmatic rules and rituals but everything must pass through our clear cognition. Yet this is only the beginning. Everything passes through clear cognition but if it doesn't turn into Loving impulse in the Heart and devoted deeds of the Will, we are not yet human in the true sense of the word.

To clarify my point, when I inspect the above paragraph, I am unable to translate the thoughts into understandable unadorned English. It appears to me that the author is trying to wrap thoughts in psuedo-intrigue and mystery. For comparison, Rupert Spira speaks from common personal experience.

That was actually my fault for including only the conclusion to a bunch of paragraphs written before. Although that was also the purpose of providing the links... extreme prejudice is at work if, when confronted by something you are "unable to translate", you automatically conclude "pseudo-intrigue and mystery" is involved, rather than giving someone a slight benefit of the doubt, as one would when interacting with a live human being, and going to the link to see the surrounding context. Since clicking on links is apparently too much to ask of the perpetually cynical around here, who want to criticize but not consider responses to their criticism, I will post it below:

Thank you Adur, for these constructive questions!

Let's begin from the more approachable side. Consider a smoking habit. As long as one simply flows together with that habit, it is as an intrinsic part of their being. If at some point, for health or other reasons, the person decides to quit, we witness interesting phenomena. Suddenly both the physical and the psychic aspects of the habit raise against the person as independent living processes that oppose and effectively try to subdue his free spirit. The key observation here is that the character of the smoking habit becomes conscious for the person only when they confront it. Otherwise they are merrily flowing together on the stream of becoming and reaping whatever the consequences of this might be.

Let's now move towards the realm of thought. If one attempts any exercise for concentration of thinking he'll almost immediately be confronted with almost insurmountable difficulty. We realize that we are not at all the rugged, in-control machos that we imagine ourselves to be most of the time. If we simply delve on our frustration that we can't keep our thinking still for even a few seconds, we miss the most important aspect of it. Similarly to smoking, the thing that frustrates us is the same thing that we're normally flowing along with all the time! It's only when we try to extricate ourselves from this automatic flow, that we become conscious of the currents on which our soul life is normally flowing. Instead of becoming frustrated we can appreciate that we now at least know some things about soul life, about which we were previously oblivious. We can observe what are the common patterns of thoughts, desires, bodily fidgeting (fingers, foot) which keep us from centering. For example, we may notice that our concentration is constantly being broken as we slip into mental argue with a person. We may be quite astounded to realize that we are doing this quite regularly but the fact has never become conscious.

In this sense, once we begin intense spiritual work we need to gradually master all these things. Here's the important thing: this mastering is not purely mental discipline! Fidgeting requires actual mastering of our will. Mental arguing with people is rarely only about the intellectual subject matter itself. There are real and deeper forces in the soul domain of feeling. We may have been hurt by that person, we may subconsciously want to dominate them and so on. It is true that we become conscious of these things through our focused spiritual activity (as they try to oppose it) but the rectification of these issues require the forces of the whole man - willing, feeling, thinking.

There can be no question of bypass here. There's a Japanese proverb - "there are no shortcuts in science". This holds to its fullest extent on a spiritual path. The reason that approaching things directly with our spiritual activity is seen as bypass is because it's usually imagined that in this way one disconnects from the body and soul, and simply rises in the clouds. It must be said right away that this is a real problem but not quite in the way commonly imagined. Our civilization has led us to a point where different human endeavors are quite one-sided. For example, it's almost a stereotypical image that a science professor is excelling in the mental world of his expertise but is otherwise of dorky, socially-awkward character, with feeble physique. This can happen also with people that preoccupy themselves with reading esoteric literature (including anthroposophy) and practically stuff their head with myriad of concepts and ideas but without inner cohesion and practical application. This is a real tendency for those who approach spiritual science in purely intellectual way. Steiner himself has constantly warned about this. So is this a real bypass? Not really. Having a database of dry spiritual concepts which do not connect with reality, by itself makes the person more developed as much as that database would make a hard drive spiritual. We need to be very clear about this.

Anyone who is honestly seeking the inner realities very quickly realizes that one can't make even the tiniest step forward without constant work on the whole human being. This is very obvious if we look at the actual exercises. How can one bypass his inability to concentrate? There're no tricks about this, no clever hacks. It would be like being unable to lift 50kg but somehow bypassing it and lifting directly 100. We can only move forward if we slowly and patiently work on the transformation of the forces that prevent us of taking control of our spiritual activity. The work is twofold. One one hand we focus all our energies on the exercises, on the other, we gain self-knowledge and pinpoint tasks that must be worked upon our character in all of the remaining time. Life itself becomes practical school for us.

So I hope that we've cleared that Thinking path shouldn't be confused with intellectual-theoretical path. Instead, it is the direct facing with everything that chains the free spirit. It is Thinking path in the sense that we're not blindly following dogmatic rules and rituals but everything must pass through our clear cognition. Yet this is only the beginning. Everything passes through clear cognition but if it doesn't turn into Loving impulse in the Heart and devoted deeds of the Will, we are not yet human in the true sense of the word.

[Cleric K]

Today we're in position to participate in this process fully consciously, by working on our organization so that our "I" can awake more and more into the higher order processes. Nature can't help us anymore.

Cleric, when you say "we", who do you envision will be doing this? Your next door neighbours?

We, humans.