LukeJTM wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 7:15 pmThe quote was paraphrased from Theosophy. https://rsarchive.org/Books/GA009/Engli ... 9_c04.html
Unfounded disbelief is indeed injurious. It works in the recipient as a repelling force. It hinders him from taking in the fruitful thoughts. Not blind faith, but the reception of the thought-world of spiritual science, is the pre-requisite for the development of the higher senses. The spiritual investigator approaches his pupil with the injunction: “You are not to believe what I tell you but think it out yourself, make it part of the contents of your own thought-world; then my thoughts will themselves bring it about that you recognise them in their truth.” This is the attitude of the spiritual investigator. He gives the stimulus; the power to accept it as true springs from within the recipient himself. And it is in this sense that the views of spiritual science should be studied. Anyone who steeps his thoughts in them may be sure that sooner or later they will lead him to vision of his own.
Thanks, Luke. This is something I have been thinking about recently as well. It relates to another quote from Tomberg which I posted here as well - "The important thing is to have the courage to accept spiritual facts without requiring “sources” and “proofs.”
There can arise a seeming tension on the Anthroposophical path, especially if we start with PoF and then move to more in-depth spiritual science. With the former, we gain the sense that all knowledge should be won through the strength of our intimate reasoning and we shouldn't accept any knowledge, whether secular or spiritual, until we have inwardly established it for ourselves. Then we encounter spiritual science and feel, 'I can't really approach and accept any of this content because I haven't developed higher cognition so that I can inwardly verify it for myself.' So then we feel that it all needs to be put aside until much later, because immersing ourselves in the thought-world of spiritual science would be something akin to blind faith which circumvents our I-activity. It is felt like we can't pass any sort of reasoned judgment on suprasensory facts until we have some major inner experience which reveals them to us.
Needless to say, that is a false dichotomy, as Steiner also points out in that quote. It reflects a certain default cynicism and mistrust we have in the modern age. Actually we are usually too trusting of others when it comes to materialistic knowledge of outer experience and events, and too mistrusting of others when it comes to spiritual wisdom (and there are certainly some circumstances in which skepticism of the latter is warranted). We should remember that the idea-world of spiritual science is the unsuspected source of all the outer concepts that we move through during the normal reasoning of our 'I'. It is the living fabric of that conceptual world. Immersing ourselves in that fabric with humility and devotion accustoms us to reorient from the outer side of those concepts to their inner reality. Then we gradually acquire the moral technique to navigate the worlds of supersensible intents through our 'I'-reasoning with the same ease that we normally navigate the outer sensory world, even if we are still viewing the former from the outside-in.
So we can have a certain trust, admiration, and even reverence for the thoughts conveyed to us from esoteric science, without blindly believing them. We can start swimming in their milieu, as it were, and permeate ourselves with the spiritual ideals underlying the thoughts, while we also unwind the blind beliefs of our limited personality that we inherited. It is only through trust and love of the spirit worlds does their grace flow down to us. Steiner speaks to that as well here with respect to developing higher cognition.
Steiner wrote:Let us be clear; ordinary science and everyday thought work from whatever self-will has created by means of the ordinary will of man, through the inherited or educated sensations and feelings. We can deceive ourselves greatly as to this. For instance, people may say: “Suppose one takes up any science, such as that set forth in Spiritual Science; I will not accept anything that does not agree with my thought, I will accept nothing unproved.” Certainly we should not accept anything unproved. But neither do we advance a single step further if we only accept what is proved. And a man who wishes to be clairvoyant will never say that he can only accept what he has first proved. He must be completely free of all self-seeking and must await what comes to him from the Cosmos, and which can only be designated by the word “grace.” From the grace which illuminates he expects everything. For how do we acquire clairvoyant knowledge Only by eliminating everything we have ever learnt. As a rule a man says: I have my own opinion. But what he ought to say is: This only comes because I have revived what my ancestors have thought, or what my desires have aroused in me, etc. For there can never be any question of these being his own opinions; and those who attach most value to their own opinions are not in the least aware that they are being led by the leading-strings of their prejudices. All this must be done away with when we wish to attain to higher knowledge. The soul must be empty and able to wait quietly for what may enter into it from the concealed secret world free from space and time, free from things and deeds. And we must never believe that we can acquire any conception of clairvoyant knowledge except by creating a suitable frame of mind through which we may receive what may be offered to us as revelation or illumination, so that we can never expect anything to come to us except from the grace which approaches and brings gifts.