Anthroposophy as Fascio

[Cleric K]

Cleric,

As I reflected on "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" I wondered why you prompted a very deus ex machina imageto represent "rotating soul organs"? Am I visually misunderstanding?

Mainly because I was checking out the new Bing generator. Other than that, it's because our soul has only its focus point in the body, otherwise it belongs to the Cosmos (thus the term astral body). As such, our microcosmic form is a projection of Cosmic relations. By the way, this is also why there exists something like Astrology. Only in the course of our Earthly development man has become so united with the body that he could no longer feel how with his soul he belongs to the Spheres. Instead, today people see themselves as soul atoms fully contained in the body and astrologers spin fantastic theories about how could it be possible that relations of planetary bodies may have any effect on human destinies.

So first we have to be aware of the direct connection between the human soul and the Cosmic environment. Then I simply remembered the various ways in which people have tried to represent these occult facts. For example:



There are even truly mechanical models:



Of course, in the course of time these models were focusing more and more on the purely astronomical facts and gradually lost their original spiritual meaning.

Nevertheless, if we put aside the fact that the model is made of metal, which we connect with machines and coldness, the fact remains that our whole existence is weaved of such rhythmic relations. Proportion, rhythm, symmetry and so on have always been felt to be attributes of the Divine perfection. That's why people were inspired to paint something like God the geometer:



So in short, if we are able to excise the rigidness, lifelessness and so on, from such images, we can still reap something of value that correspond to spiritual realities.

[Stranger]

The transcendent experience can indeed be reflected by cognition, which is simply a recognition of its presence and of its certain attributes, and in that sense it is bridgeable. Cognition then acquires intuitive meanings that reflect the reality of transcendent and attaches some linguistic terms to it. In a way, these meanings become a "shell" that embraces the "pearl" of the transcendent, but the "shell" is never the same as the "pearl". This is how we can speak of the transcendent, describe it with words and build some kind of bridge between the transcendent and cognition. But anyone who actually had such experience knows for a fact that all those meanings and their structures and all those descriptions are only pointers to the reality of the transcendent and can never fully comprehend and exhaustively describe its reality. This is because the transcendent by its nature is not a meaning, not an ideation, not a structure, but it is THAT which creates meanings, structures and ideations and experiences them, but something that is prior to and beyond any meanings, structures and ideations. In simple words, God is not the same as the meaning or the idea of God. Still, there is nothing wrong to have meanings/ideas of God to serve as "bridges" that deliver us to God, as long as we do not confuse the meanings of God with God himself, just like we should not confuse the map with the territory, or the finger pointing to the Moon with the Moon.

If that's the case then where does the orthogonality manifests? At what point our transcendental intuitions become impossible to point at with concepts and words (thus they remain inexplicable even for our own human self)?

Well, I just said that concepts actually can point to the transcendental experience (and as such serve as a "bridge"), but these concepts always remain only pointers and never equivalent to the transcendental itself.

This orthogonality manifests at the very moment the transcendental is directly experienced. At this moment there is a clear understanding that whatever meanings and ideas cognition may acquire to reflect the experience of transcendental, they can never be the same as the transcendental itself, but only pale descriptions, reflections and pointers to it.

[Cleric K]

Well, I just said that concepts actually can point to the transcendental experience (and as such serve as a "bridge"), but these concepts always remain only pointers and never equivalent to the transcendental itself.

This orthogonality manifests at the very moment the transcendental is directly experienced. At this moment there is a clear understanding that whatever meanings and ideas cognition may acquire to reflect the experience of transcendental, they can never be the same as the transcendental itself, but only pale descriptions, reflections and pointers to it.

This is clear and no one has ever questioned it. It's true even for far less transcendental things. Practically even purely Earthly sensations are transcendent for those who haven't experienced them. A word or concept for such a sensation is in no way equivalent to its experience.

So let's mark this off too. No one has ever suggested that our intellectual concepts (even if spiritually scientific) are equivalent to the realities they point to. So with this out of the way, what prevents us to gain clear knowing of the actual spiritual realities and then symbolize them through images and concepts? I repeat - not in order to reduce them and claim that the concepts and images are equivalent to the experiential realities but only because at our stage of evolution we need the bridge. Even we ourselves can't grasp the intuitive realities if we are not able to think about them with our intellect (through the pointers and with the clear understanding that they are only pointers).

The question now is what do we find in the transcendental when we begin to become knowingly conscious of its higher experiential details (basically Ashvin's question from above). Is there a point at which we say that something is fundamentally unknowable in our Earthly stage (even through our transcendental intuition, after it has been refined)?

[Stranger]

This is clear and no one has ever questioned it. It's true even for far less transcendental things. Practically even purely Earthly sensations are transcendent for those who haven't experienced them. A word or concept for such a sensation is in no way equivalent to its experience.

So let's mark this off too. No one has ever suggested that our intellectual concepts (even if spiritually scientific) are equivalent to the realities they point to. So with this out of the way, what prevents us to gain clear knowing of the actual spiritual realities and then symbolize them through images and concepts? I repeat - not in order to reduce them and claim that the concepts and images are equivalent to the experiential realities but only because at our stage of evolution we need the bridge. Even we ourselves can't grasp the intuitive realities if we are not able to think about them with our intellect (through the pointers and with the clear understanding that they are only pointers).

It is the limitation of our current stage of the development of consciousness that "prevents us to gain clear knowing of the actual spiritual realities", and that includes not only cognition faculties, but broader spiritual abilities to experience realities, both immanent and transcendental.

The question now is what do we find in the transcendental when we begin to become knowingly conscious of its higher experiential details (basically Ashvin's question from above). Is there a point at which we say that something is fundamentally unknowable in our Earthly stage (even through our transcendental intuition, after it has been refined)?

I do not know if there is a "a point at which we say that something is fundamentally unknowable". How would we know if there is such a point or if there is not? All we know is that so far we indeed have been able to expand the boundary of knowable, and that includes reaching to both immanent and transcendental, knowable both by cognition and by direct mystical experience, and that expansion manifests the continuous development of our spiritual abilities to experience and cognize actual spiritual realities. We haven't so far reached the "hard stop" limit, but this fact does not tell us if that limit actually exists somewhere ahead of us or not. So, all we can and should do is to keep going.

[Lou Gold]

Cleric,

As I reflected on "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" I wondered why you prompted a very deus ex machina imageto represent "rotating soul organs"? Am I visually misunderstanding?

Mainly because I was checking out the new Bing generator. Other than that, it's because our soul has only its focus point in the body, otherwise it belongs to the Cosmos (thus the term astral body). As such, our microcosmic form is a projection of Cosmic relations. By the way, this is also why there exists something like Astrology. Only in the course of our Earthly development man has become so united with the body that he could no longer feel how with his soul he belongs to the Spheres. Instead, today people see themselves as soul atoms fully contained in the body and astrologers spin fantastic theories about how could it be possible that relations of planetary bodies may have any effect on human destinies.

So first we have to be aware of the direct connection between the human soul and the Cosmic environment. Then I simply remembered the various ways in which people have tried to represent these occult facts. For example:



There are even truly mechanical models:




Of course, in the course of time these models were focusing more and more on the purely astronomical facts and gradually lost their original spiritual meaning.

Nevertheless, if we put aside the fact that the model is made of metal, which we connect with machines and coldness, the fact remains that our whole existence is weaved of such rhythmic relations. Proportion, rhythm, symmetry and so on have always been felt to be attributes of the Divine perfection. That's why people were inspired to paint something like God the geometer:



So in short, if we are able to excise the rigidness, lifelessness and so on, from such images, we can still reap something of value that correspond to spiritual realities.

Cleric,

I can't grok why you might blame the mechanistic model on identification with the body. Descartes, et al, gave us the machine model with "I think therefore I am" whereas Spinoza countered with a sensual embodied model of "I feel therefore I am." There are alternatives, for example the soul portraits by William Blake represent the soul as embodied but not at all machine like.

And Edvard Munch's "Scream" was more than a portrayal of human angst. He called it the "Scream of Nature." According to Wikipedia, Munch wrote:
One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord – the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became The Scream.



Of course there are lots ways to represent and create a dashboard for the beyond, most of which capture aspects or qualities of Truth. I just wondered why you relied on machine learning. Personally, I might have prefered Blake's view of Newton...



Now I a fourfold vision see
And a fourfold vision is given to me
Tis fourfold in my supreme delight
And three fold in soft Beulahs night
And twofold Always. May God us keep
From Single vision & Newtons sleep”

I hope you know that I'm not arguing for one or another view but rather defending a great diversity. Spirit is embedded everywhere.

[AshvinP]

This is clear and no one has ever questioned it. It's true even for far less transcendental things. Practically even purely Earthly sensations are transcendent for those who haven't experienced them. A word or concept for such a sensation is in no way equivalent to its experience.

So let's mark this off too. No one has ever suggested that our intellectual concepts (even if spiritually scientific) are equivalent to the realities they point to. So with this out of the way, what prevents us to gain clear knowing of the actual spiritual realities and then symbolize them through images and concepts? I repeat - not in order to reduce them and claim that the concepts and images are equivalent to the experiential realities but only because at our stage of evolution we need the bridge. Even we ourselves can't grasp the intuitive realities if we are not able to think about them with our intellect (through the pointers and with the clear understanding that they are only pointers).

It is the limitation of our current stage of the development of consciousness that "prevents us to gain clear knowing of the actual spiritual realities", and that includes not only cognition faculties, but broader spiritual abilities to experience realities, both immanent and transcendental.

The question now is what do we find in the transcendental when we begin to become knowingly conscious of its higher experiential details (basically Ashvin's question from above). Is there a point at which we say that something is fundamentally unknowable in our Earthly stage (even through our transcendental intuition, after it has been refined)?

I do not know if there is a "a point at which we say that something is fundamentally unknowable". How would we know if there is such a point or if there is not? All we know is that so far we indeed have been able to expand the boundary of knowable, and that includes reaching to both immanent and transcendental, knowable both by cognition and by direct mystical experience, and that expansion manifests the continuous development of our spiritual abilities to experience and cognize actual spiritual realities. We haven't so far reached the "hard stop" limit, but this fact does not tell us if that limit actually exists somewhere ahead of us or not. So, all we can and should do is to keep going.

I want to present two examples of what we may find. What are your thoughts on them? If you don't have any specific thoughts on the validity of these details, do you see any way in principle that we can reasonably assess their logical coherence or even verify them experientially?

(1)

What was the aim and intention of the Luciferic-Ahrimanic beings concerning the physical world? What did they want to bring about in all the beings now dwelling in the world, beings whom they were able to influence after they had united with human evolution in the Atlantean time? These beings, Lucifer-Ahriman, intended nothing less than to keep all earth beings in the form of dense, physical matter in which they are enmeshed. For example: when a plant grows forth from its root, sprouts leaf after leaf, and finally produces the blossom, it is Lucifer-Ahriman's purpose to foster this growth and expansion indefinitely; that is, to make this growing being resemble the physical form it inhabits, to preserve it as it is, thereby snatching it from the spiritual world. For were they to succeed in making this being of the spiritual world resemble the physical form, they would be wresting heaven from the earth, so to speak. In the animal kingdom as well the Luciferic-Ahrimanic beings have the tendency to make all animals resemble the body in which they live, and to cause them, within their material substance, to forget their divine-spiritual origin. And it is the same in the case of the human being.

In order to prevent this, the divine-spiritual Father spoke: In their culmination, in man, the beings of earth have attained to external knowledge in their ego; but we cannot yet entrust them with life. — For life would in that case take a course in which the beings would be torn from their divine-spiritual root in this life: the human being would become an integral part of the physical body and would for all time forget his divine-spiritual origin. Only by bestowing the boon of death upon all things attracted into matter could the divine Father Spirit rescue the memory of divine origin. Thus it became possible for the growing plant to shoot upward until the impulse of fructification entered, and then for its form to wither and a new one to spring from its seed. But in entering the seed state, the plant is for a moment in the divine-spiritual world, and the divine-spiritual world refreshes it. And all this applies pre-eminently to the human being. He would be banished and chained to the earth and would forget his divine-spiritual origin were not death spread over the earth — were he not provided with ever-fresh sources of strength between death and a new birth — in order that he may not forget his divine-spiritual origin.

(2)

Now, think of something else: think of this: between birth and death man is bound to the earth, because his soul, having lived a time in light always hungers again for weight, and returns to the condition of weight. When a condition has been set up — we shall speak further of this — in which this hunger for weight no longer exists, man will follow light more and more. He does this up to a certain point, and when he has arrived at the outermost periphery of the universe, he has exhausted that which gave him weight in his lifetime; then begins a new longing for weight and he begins his path over again, back to a new incarnation. So that in that interval also between death and a new birth, at the midnight hour of existence, there arises a kind of hunger for weight. This is man's longing to return to a new earth-life. Now while he is returning to earth he has to go through the spheres of the other adjacent heavenly bodies. Their effect on him is various and the result of these influences he brings with him into the physical life. So you see the question is important: What influence have the stars in the spheres through which he travels? For according to his passage through his stellar sphere, his longing for earth-weight is variously formed. Not the earth alone radiates, as it were, a certain weight which is the object of man's longing, but also the other heavenly bodies, through whose sphere he travels, as he moves towards a new life, influence him with their weights. So that man, while returning, can get into different situations, which justify one in saying this: Man while returning to earth longs once more to live in the earth-weight. But first he passes through the sphere of Jupiter, who also radiates a weight of such a kind as to add something joyful to the longing for the earth's weight. Thus the longing takes on a joyful mood. Man passes through the sphere of Mars. Mar's weight influences him also, and implants activity in his soul, which is joyfully longing for the earth's weight, so that he may use forcefully the next life from birth to death. The soul has reached the stage of possessing in its subconscious depths the impulse clearly to long for the earth's weight, and to use earthly incarnation forcefully, so that the joyful longing is expressed with intensity. Man passes also through the sphere of Venus. With this joy and strength and longing is mingled a loving understanding of life's tasks.

You note, we are speaking of several different weights, issuing from the heavenly bodies, and are connecting them with the living contents of the soul. We are seeking, again, in looking out into universal space, to assess what is spread out in physical space in moral terms. Knowing that will lies in weight, and that light is the opposite of will, we may say that Mars radiates light, as do Jupiter and Venus also, and that in the forces of weight lies at the same time modification through light. We know, in light are dying world-thoughts, in the forces of weight lie worlds to come through the seeds of will. All this streams through the souls moving in space. We are looking at the world physically, and, at the same time, morally.

The physical and moral do not exist side by side, but in his limitations, man is disposed to say: here, on one side, is the physical, there on the other, the moral. No, they are only different aspects, in itself the thing is one.

[Cleric K]

I hope you know that I'm not arguing for one or another view but rather defending a great diversity. Spirit is embedded everywhere.

It was just a metaphor - one of great many possible. Like we spoke with Eugene, no one has ever implied that such an image is the faithful depiction of reality. No image can capture the infinite richness of the soul. Even a single photograph can't capture all the sides of a 3D object, what's left for the manifoldness of the spiritual world! What I presented was only meant to point at one of the aspects - the musical beauty of Cosmic relations which weave the soul. Obviously if these harmonic relations are taken in isolation they become only lifeless mathematics and machinery. It is up to each one of us to separate the chaff from wheat.

Other than that, I agree that these computer generated images can never have deeper spiritual impact on the viewer simply because they are produced in a completely computational way. It is different with human-made pieces of art which are inspired through higher intuition. Then the art is also means for communication, the artist can lead the viewer to the spiritual state from whence the artform was inspired. Alas, there's plenty of modern art which is not too different from the computer generated one. There's no deeper inspiration, only reshuffling of forms. As long as it's something new and original, and tingles the senses, it's applauded. In fact, for many modern people this is the preferred form of art. Art with deeper message demands too much effort to appreciate, furthermore it clashes with views and opinions. Thus computer art will be welcomed by many as politically correct, which expresses no deeper ideas, let alone spiritual realities - which many can find offensive if they clash with their views - but only presents endless combinations of forms, colors and sounds, for the senses to enjoy.

[Cleric K]

I do not know if there is a "a point at which we say that something is fundamentally unknowable". How would we know if there is such a point or if there is not? All we know is that so far we indeed have been able to expand the boundary of knowable, and that includes reaching to both immanent and transcendental, knowable both by cognition and by direct mystical experience, and that expansion manifests the continuous development of our spiritual abilities to experience and cognize actual spiritual realities. We haven't so far reached the "hard stop" limit, but this fact does not tell us if that limit actually exists somewhere ahead of us or not. So, all we can and should do is to keep going.

Great. Then I guess there are two possibilities:
1. From your perspective it seems that Initiatic science does not draw its experiential knowledge from the transcendental spiritual depths which then presents in images and concepts (shells) but instead it confuses the shells for realities.
2. You admit that Initiatic science speaks precisely about the experiential transcendental of which you also speak and fully consciously precipitates that knowledge in shells (without mistaking them for realities), yet you disagree with the results thus acquired. In other words, there must be some error either in the transcendental experience itself or in the translation because you don't experience the transcendental in the same way.

[Lou Gold]

I hope you know that I'm not arguing for one or another view but rather defending a great diversity. Spirit is embedded everywhere.

It was just a metaphor - one of great many possible. Like we spoke with Eugene, no one has ever implied that such an image is the faithful depiction of reality. No image can capture the infinite richness of the soul. Even a single photograph can't capture all the sides of a 3D object, what's left for the manifoldness of the spiritual world! What I presented was only meant to point at one of the aspects - the musical beauty of Cosmic relations which weave the soul. Obviously if these harmonic relations are taken in isolation they become only lifeless mathematics and machinery. It is up to each one of us to separate the chaff from wheat.

Other than that, I agree that these computer generated images can never have deeper spiritual impact on the viewer simply because they are produced in a completely computational way. It is different with human-made pieces of art which are inspired through higher intuition. Then the art is also means for communication, the artist can lead the viewer to the spiritual state from whence the artform was inspired. Alas, there's plenty of modern art which is not too different from the computer generated one. There's no deeper inspiration, only reshuffling of forms. As long as it's something new and original, and tingles the senses, it's applauded. In fact, for many modern people this is the preferred form of art. Art with deeper message demands too much effort to appreciate, furthermore it clashes with views and opinions. Thus computer art will be welcomed by many as politically correct, which expresses no deeper ideas, let alone spiritual realities - which many can find offensive if they clash with their views - but only presents endless combinations of forms, colors and sounds, for the senses to enjoy.

Yes, I understand it was just a metaphor and I didn't think you offered it as a faithful depiction of reality. I was just quite surprised that among the images offered by you as models of science the chosen one was the most mechanical in appearance and that, for further elaboration, you employed the tool of machine learning, which is, as you note, most deficient in spirit -- hardly anything like, as you say, "the musical beauty of Cosmic relations which weave the soul."

I do agree with what you say about there being only a reshuffling with nothing inspired through higher intuition but surely political correctness is not the main reason for avoidance of offense of portions of the audience. The man reason for such avoidance is that the algorithm is well designed to maximize profits, which is why the corporate giants are now investing and competing in a race to develop it. Simply put, machine learning is going to generate some very rich companies.

[Martin_]

Umm. That's the Mandelbrot set. Already in the 13th century.
Anyone else agrees?