The basics again 2

[Federica]

(sometimes I wonder whether it would have been helpful for Steiner to include some such examples)

3/ Steiner probably could have chosen some words better, who knows. One default thinking habit is to isolate a single sentence or paragraph from the whole 'thought-organism' in which it is found. That is a necessary step for turning artistic/imaginative expression of inner movements (second-order) into informational content (first-order). It's an inner movement that we all do to functionally navigate the sensory world. This movement carries over into our interaction with spiritual texts as well. We have to admit it's a lot easier to interact with the text in this way and get a 'grasp' on what is being communicated.

As these posts keep dripping with a soul quality opposite to humility, I remind of what Steiner warned about, for example here:

There is no need for us to go down the route of fanaticism, 'fighting for the spirit' in the worst possible way. Anthroposophy was never intended to be a dogmatic religion, to dwell in endless bickering of doctrinal points or to attack fellow spiritual seekers and their "soul qualities" because we don't like (and probably don't fully understand) the way they speak about inner realities.

It's blindingly obvious how this route hampers true inner development and undermines the Spirit of the Anthroposophical path. One need only look at how unproductive your posts are becoming, even though you have proven to possess the inner potential to make them much more. If there is truly some issue with my remark that such examples would have been helpful, you should be able to communicate it in a much more reasoned and impersonal manner.

Please revise what I wrote about 'fighting for the spirit' and avoid giving misleading evocations... (the problem is that you read through the lens of your prejudices)

There is no need for us? And we don't like the way they speak? - I propose to seriously reconsider what was born out of a good intention but seems to have become a trite linguistic mannerism.

[AshvinP]

Please revise what I wrote about 'fighting for the spirit' and avoid giving misleading evocations... (the problem is that you read through the lens of your prejudices)

There is no need for us? And we don't like the way they speak? - I propose to seriously reconsider what was born out of a good intention but seems to have become a trite linguistic mannerism.

I didn't say anything about what you wrote. I'm giving my characterization of your recent comments, especially on this thread and the Catch 22.

Someone not being steered into such comments by antipathy and passion would be able to at least present a line of reasoning for why remarks "wondering" about the addition of certain examples or suggesting "who knows" if Steiner misworded a single sentence, is prideful. It may not be good reasoning, but it could at least provide some interesting and relevant thoughts for others to consider.

As it is, the comment you decided to post could not possibly help anyone else (any more than visiting the Steiner archive to read a random quote) or lead to productive dialogue. It could only be a vent for your personal opinion and nothing else. You know this.

[AshvinP]

Jeff feels it couldn't be any clearer than this that Steiner is asserting any ordinary person who looks out at the phenomenal world will undeniably experience a relationless aggregate of impressions before they are structured by our concepts. I have offered various responses, and actually many recent essays have been centered around trying to address questions like these, but I won't mention them again here so as not to 'poison the well'. I am interested in hearing if anyone else wants to share what they think is going on here and how it helps us orient to our first-person phenomenal flow of cognitive experience.

I wonder what he will say if asked for example what the experience is when he looks at, say, Arabic text (hopefully he doesn't know it). What he sees and what meaning he grasp? To me it's so unintelligible that I don't even know where one letter ends and where the other begins. Yet we can surely conceive that we can learn to differentiate them and attach the corresponding concepts. Who knows, maybe we even need to forge completely new concepts (I don't know anything about the Arabic writing system).

I made a brief Facebook post on this, since even if it doesn't help Jeff, it may help other Anthroposophers who are interested in these questions. (the pic is from my visit to Istanbul last year)

***

[Steiner quote from GA 2]





What is our experience of this script (pic attached)? What do we see and what meaning do we grasp? The colors and forms themselves are quite aesthetic, but do we know where one letter ends and the other begins? Could we learn to differentiate this complex amalgamation of colors and forms through the proper concepts that elucidate their meaning?

(Clearly, these questions are not for anyone who has already learned Arabic)

Examples like these can be used to inwardly heighten our sensitivity to the relationship that is always present between our cognitive activity and perceptual content, but which we are normally insensitive to for most routine sensory experiences because our senses were educated with the appropriate concepts during our instinctive development, which provides a baseline meaningful orientation to ordinary perceptual content.

Can we also understand much of Steiner's early epistemological work in this same way, as a means of heightening sensitivity to our inner movements in the process of understanding the explicit content and working through the examples?

Here is what Herbert Witzenmann has to say:

https://freedom-and-creation.blogspot.com/

One is left with a considerably deceptive mistake by maintaining that a pure percept is only capable of being perceived in exceptional states of mind or by a never definitely operational reduction process of eliminating all conceptional correlations (which only has an interpretational significance). The pure percept is rather a given that is in each case exposed to the thinking gaze and as such always capable of being observed. It is always the as yet unconnected within the complex of the already connected. Without this unconnected element there would be no starting point for thinking, no cognitional progress. One can therefore conversely also designate the pure percept as the in each case sensed starting point in the connective process. It is therefore, just as the exchange-of-being in thinking and the formative construction through thinking, a permanent on-going experience, yet one that is sunk into the subconscious and only to be raised from the consciousness underground through psychic observation.

Psychical observation therefore appears for one’s own gaze in a twofold manner. It conveys, on the one hand, the answer to the most pressing riddle, the question of meaning. It is, on the other hand, the gaze on the numerous riddles continually surrounding us, the pure percepts. (The Philosophy of Freedom as a Basis for Artistic Creation)

[Federica]

Please revise what I wrote about 'fighting for the spirit' and avoid giving misleading evocations... (the problem is that you read through the lens of your prejudices)

There is no need for us? And we don't like the way they speak? - I propose to seriously reconsider what was born out of a good intention but seems to have become a trite linguistic mannerism.

I didn't say anything about what you wrote. I'm giving my characterization of your recent comments, especially on this thread and the Catch 22.

Of course you did. You quoted the expression ‘fighting for the spirit’, which I wrote, with (distorted) reference to me.

Unfortunately, you keep displaying language mannerism, as well as thought mannerism, Ashvin.
From telling people they could perhaps make small donations to your friends, to explaining to people what love and the virtues are and how to become virtuous, to dispising and laughing at critiques - to the point that you are compelled to dream up psychologically ill, pathological dispositions as causing the critique (as per the thoughts you have explicitely admitted in your "characterizations"), the list could go on.

I remind of what Steiner warned about, for example here:


"In order to find his way at this stage of spiritual training the human being must realize that, with the strengthening of soul powers, self-love and egotism will appear to a degree quite unknown to everyday soul-life. It would be a misunderstanding if someone were to believe that at this point only ordinary self-love is meant. This self-love increases at this stage of development to such a degree that it assumes the appearance of a nature force within the human soul, and in order to vanquish this strong egotism a rigorous strengthening of the will is necessary. This egotism is not produced by spiritual training; it is always present; it only comes to consciousness through spiritual experience. The training of the will must go hand in hand with the other spiritual training.

A strong inclination exists to feel enraptured in the world that we have created for ourselves, and we must, in the manner described above, be able to extinguish, as it were, what we have striven to create with such great effort. In the imaginative world that has thus been reached the student must extinguish himself. Against this however, the strongest impulses of egotism wage war."

https://rsarchive.org/Books/GA013/Engli ... 3_c05.html

[AshvinP]

Please revise what I wrote about 'fighting for the spirit' and avoid giving misleading evocations... (the problem is that you read through the lens of your prejudices)

There is no need for us? And we don't like the way they speak? - I propose to seriously reconsider what was born out of a good intention but seems to have become a trite linguistic mannerism.

I didn't say anything about what you wrote. I'm giving my characterization of your recent comments, especially on this thread and the Catch 22.

Of course you did. You quoted the expression ‘fighting for the spirit’, which I wrote, with (distorted) reference to me.

This isn't logical thinking. I used a phrase and that makes you believe I was characterizing what you meant by that phrase. Why would that be the case? I was characterizing how I understand the phrase in the context of your behavior on this forum. That behavior is something we see on Anthroposophy FB as well - people reacting to the slightest questioning of Steiner without thinking through what is being said, why it is being said, where it is coming from, etc. and formulating a reasoned response that at least has the potential to stimulate productive dialogue. Your recent comments here didn't even have that potential, it wasn't at all related to Guney's post and was little more than a statement that my posts are "dripping with pride", but I am still giving it my best shot.

The fact that such comments irritate, frustrate, or otherwise influence me indicates that I still identify with my lower personality configuration to some extent, that I sense something about my inner configuration that is still prideful, for ex., and this configuration still steers my feelings and thoughts. I have no illusions about these things. Yet to be inwardly conscious of this fact, not in a theoretical but concrete way, is to also strive to resist expression of the lower impulses. To be conscious is to resist and to resist is to become more conscious, in a positive feedback. This reminds me of a quote:

Here, again, is a fundamental law of sacred magic. One could formulate it in the following way: That which is above being as that which is below, renunciation below sets in motion forces of accomplishment above and the renunciation of that which is above sets in motion forces of accomplishment below. What is the practical meaning of this law?

It is the following. When you resist a temptation or renounce something desired below, you set in motion by this very fact forces of realisation of that which corresponds above to that which you come to renounce below. It is this that the Master designates by the word "reward" when he says, for example, that it is necessary to guard against practising righteousness before other people in order to gain their regard, "for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew vi, 1). Reward is therefore the action that one sets in motion above by the renunciation of desire for things below. It is the "yes" from above corresponding to the "no" from below. And this correspondence constitutes a basis for magical realisation and for a fundamental law of Christian esotericism or Hermeticism. Let us guard ourselves from taking it lightly, for here is given to us one of the principal keys of sacred magic. It is not desire which bears magical realisation, but rather the renunciation of desire (that you have formerly experienced, of course). For renunciation through indifference has no moral — and thetefore no magical — value.

This forum is the ideal place to practice resistance - there is a significant temporal lag between when the impulses bubble up, the thoughts start swirling around, the post is written out, etc. and the "submit" button is hit. There is plenty of time to rethink, revise, add substance, or scrap the whole thing. We can ask ourselves, "How can this post possibly be productive for myself or others and, if it isn't, how can I make it more so?"

I don't see any such efforts from you recently. Neither this one nor the Catch-22 post could have possibly stimulated productive thoughts or dialogue surrounding the exploration of inner realities. In fact, the Catch-22 comment was basically "you shouldn't have written this essay". This is why I characterized 'fighting for the spirit' in the way that I did, as I perceive the pattern unfolding before my eyes. It's up to you, of course, if you want to become more sensitive to the inner soul movements, that we all indeed share, through resistance efforts. I won't be responding to any further posts of that sort.

[Güney27]

Jeff feels it couldn't be any clearer than this that Steiner is asserting any ordinary person who looks out at the phenomenal world will undeniably experience a relationless aggregate of impressions before they are structured by our concepts. I have offered various responses, and actually many recent essays have been centered around trying to address questions like these, but I won't mention them again here so as not to 'poison the well'. I am interested in hearing if anyone else wants to share what they think is going on here and how it helps us orient to our first-person phenomenal flow of cognitive experience.

I don’t know any way to prove this in another way, than trough the given example in the essay. When we confront an unknown phenomenona, we always try to grasp it trough concepts, in order to elucidate them.

I think one obstacle can be that we imagine the world out there, that we eludicate with our concepts trough thinking „inside of us“.

Another question I asked myself, is how our thinking activity, that confronts the WC, could know something of the world, if the world is devoid of meaning, or other than thinking (subject-object dualism)?

I would say that meaning is inherent to thinking, and can be grasped trough the crystallization in certain thought forms.

Right, but Jeff's objection is that for most of our daily experiences, we don't actually confront an incoherent swarm of sensory impressions and then go searching for the concepts to bring meaning to them. And he feels it is quite explicit that Steiner is asserting we do, for ex. in that quote, and much of the further exploration is then conditioned by this faulty assertion. In other words, he feels many Anthroposophists are importing a metaphysical assumption that our organization reduces meaningful intuition into chaotic sensory content that is 'given', on the one hand, and meaningful concepts that we bring forth through inner effort, on the other hand. Then the task is for human souls to restore the meaningful intuition by 'attaching' concepts to the perceptual content. He feels all of that is metaphysical speculation not supported by living experience.

For reference, my responses have generally been along the lines of:

1/ Steiner is giving us an aesthetic epistemology (as Seth Miller characterizes it) which does not provide first-order informational content about "how cognitive-perceptual experience works", so we can memorize the content and gain theoretical understanding, but uses that content as a symbolic portal for us to heighten sensitivity to our intuitive modulations in the process of understanding the content and working through the examples. It's not that the content is untrue, but that it serves a much deeper inner purpose that won't be readily apparent to the "ordinary observer" with default thinking habits (if it was so apparent to ordinary observation, there would be no need for the epistemology).

2/ We can more easily heighten sensitivity when we work with exceptional sensory situations, like a major disturbance in the otherwise normal flow of experience (for ex. a car accident), or cultural perceptions like a foreign language, complex mathematics, musical notation, etc. This allows us to more easily notice what is always the case for perceptual experience, but we are usually insensitive to it because our senses were educated with the appropriate concepts that give us a baseline orientation during our instinctive development. (sometimes I wonder whether it would have been helpful for Steiner to include some such examples)

3/ Steiner probably could have chosen some words better, who knows. One default thinking habit is to isolate a single sentence or paragraph from the whole 'thought-organism' in which it is found. That is a necessary step for turning artistic/imaginative expression of inner movements (second-order) into informational content (first-order). It's an inner movement that we all do to functionally navigate the sensory world. This movement carries over into our interaction with spiritual texts as well. We have to admit it's a lot easier to interact with the text in this way and get a 'grasp' on what is being communicated.

Then we say, "Well this sentence is clear enough, and I trust Steiner knew what he wanted to communicate, so I should take this at face value". Then we conclude, "But this isn't how an object stares me in the face, as an unintelligible complex of forms and colors, so Steiner must have been mistaken." That is all justified from any ordinary perspective, but the aim of these aesthetic epistemological works is precisely to lift us beyond the ordinary perspective and the ordinary habits.

But if we feel like it is 'cheating', a string of excuses to defend some assertion about our experience that Steiner clearly got wrong or bungled in some way, we will be best off if we say, "Yes, he got it wrong, he misspoke, etc., but the underlying polar relationship between perceptual content and intuitive movements that he is pointing to with such assertions is of infinite value to explore further and become more inwardly sensitive to, because in that relationship resides the most penetrating secrets of our existence." Most importantly we need to become sensitive to how this relationship holds for our thought-content by which we make sense of all other perceptual content. We should experience how this content is modulated by deeper intuitive movements.

That being said, I am sure there are other ways to approach this question and elucidate its function in orienting to the phenomenology of spiritual activity.

Maybe it would be better if one don’t discuss such details.
But a nice example is the alien dwelling from Clerics essay.

It’s not hard to see that there is something given, and something which we need to do in order to grasp the given.
Cleric didn’t go deep into these details in he’s phonograph essays.
I think there is no need for it.

[AshvinP]

Maybe it would be better if one don’t discuss such details.
But a nice example is the alien dwelling from Clerics essay.

It’s not hard to see that there is something given, and something which we need to do in order to grasp the given.
Cleric didn’t go deep into these details in he’s phonograph essays.
I think there is no need for it.

Guney,

I would ask that you vividly imagine a friend, with whom you shared your essay, comes back and says he/she simply can't understand what is meant by the 'given', it isn't found anywhere in their experience. We should try to intuitively sense in what state our friend is coming to us with such a question/objection, what underlying soul movements could bring them to this thought of 'there is no pure given, everything already has meaning when we encounter it' that seems so opposite of what we ourselves have concluded, 'there is something we need to do in order to grasp the given'. We can even live in this tension for a while and sense how there is no easy answer that we can spit out to resolve the discrepancy.

This is why it becomes necessary to enter into and discuss such details. It's not only for our friend's benefit but also for ours. The main aim of esoteric epistemology is always to become more sensitive to the inner movements by which we have reached our conclusions about cognition, perception, the given, etc. We should try to feel concretely what potential paths of thinking experience are available when confronting the epistemological content and why some paths may be chosen over others, why intuitive activity funnels from the potential in a certain direction, depending on constellations of inner factors (most proximately our thinking habits). It's not guaranteed that everyone who approaches Cleric's phonograph essays will understand them as we do. We saw that with Marco Masi, for ex.

This is how we deepen our intuitive orientation and stimulate our imaginative and creative thinking capacity. As you point out, the alien dwelling is a great example and something we won't find in Steiner's early work. This provides another angle to approach the 'given' that is helpful for ourselves and others and we can surely come up with more angles. We should always take a deep interest in how fellow souls experience or fail to experience their own real-time intuitive activity. We will never find one 'perfect' phenomenology or epistemology that settles the issue, because the issue is us, with all our etched soul pathways and conditioned thinking movements. Yet we also don't need to reinvent the wheel from scratch. Instead, we can work with what is already there and gradually modulate the content as well, adding our own contributions that help triangulate the underlying intuitive experience. You have already started doing that and there is only more room to grow! We just don't want to become too satisfied with any particular angle or characterization of the inner realities.

[Federica]

I didn't say anything about what you wrote. I'm giving my characterization of your recent comments, especially on this thread and the Catch 22.

Of course you did. You quoted the expression ‘fighting for the spirit’, which I wrote, with (distorted) reference to me.

This isn't logical thinking. I used a phrase and that makes you believe I was characterizing what you meant by that phrase. Why would that be the case? I was characterizing how I understand the phrase in the context of your behavior on this forum. That behavior is something we see on Anthroposophy FB as well - people reacting to the slightest questioning of Steiner without thinking through what is being said, why it is being said, where it is coming from, etc. and formulating a reasoned response that at least has the potential to stimulate productive dialogue. Your recent comments here didn't even have that potential, it wasn't at all related to Guney's post and was little more than a statement that my posts are "dripping with pride", but I am still giving it my best shot.

The fact that such comments irritate, frustrate, or otherwise influence me indicates that I still identify with my lower personality configuration to some extent, that I sense something about my inner configuration that is still prideful, for ex., and this configuration still steers my feelings and thoughts. I have no illusions about these things. Yet to be inwardly conscious of this fact, not in a theoretical but concrete way, is to also strive to resist expression of the lower impulses. To be conscious is to resist and to resist is to become more conscious, in a positive feedback. This reminds me of a quote:

Here, again, is a fundamental law of sacred magic. One could formulate it in the following way: That which is above being as that which is below, renunciation below sets in motion forces of accomplishment above and the renunciation of that which is above sets in motion forces of accomplishment below. What is the practical meaning of this law?

It is the following. When you resist a temptation or renounce something desired below, you set in motion by this very fact forces of realisation of that which corresponds above to that which you come to renounce below. It is this that the Master designates by the word "reward" when he says, for example, that it is necessary to guard against practising righteousness before other people in order to gain their regard, "for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew vi, 1). Reward is therefore the action that one sets in motion above by the renunciation of desire for things below. It is the "yes" from above corresponding to the "no" from below. And this correspondence constitutes a basis for magical realisation and for a fundamental law of Christian esotericism or Hermeticism. Let us guard ourselves from taking it lightly, for here is given to us one of the principal keys of sacred magic. It is not desire which bears magical realisation, but rather the renunciation of desire (that you have formerly experienced, of course). For renunciation through indifference has no moral — and thetefore no magical — value.

This forum is the ideal place to practice resistance - there is a significant temporal lag between when the impulses bubble up, the thoughts start swirling around, the post is written out, etc. and the "submit" button is hit. There is plenty of time to rethink, revise, add substance, or scrap the whole thing. We can ask ourselves, "How can this post possibly be productive for myself or others and, if it isn't, how can I make it more so?"

I don't see any such efforts from you recently. Neither this one nor the Catch-22 post could have possibly stimulated productive thoughts or dialogue surrounding the exploration of inner realities. In fact, the Catch-22 comment was basically "you shouldn't have written this essay". This is why I characterized 'fighting for the spirit' in the way that I did, as I perceive the pattern unfolding before my eyes. It's up to you, of course, if you want to become more sensitive to the inner soul movements, that we all indeed share, through resistance efforts. I won't be responding to any further posts of that sort.

Yes, I know you don’t see efforts/productivity. That doesn’t mean there are none. Seeing that would require a clairvoyance which, because of mannerism, you don’t yet have. The patterns you see unfolding before your eyes are through some lenses. And it wouldn’t take much for this exchange to become useful for you. As much as I can wish for that, it remains pretty limited, unless you do something.

Regarding the phenomenological question - it’s been discussed hundred times. One can understand why the typical friend doesn’t get it, because we’ve all been there. Now, if you show them any optical illusion, or a bistable figure, and they still say they are not gathering anything from the side of thinking to complement the bare percept, then the issue may be other than cognitive. These are percepts usefully connected with far apart concepts. Far apart in a sense, yet overlapping in another. Since these percepts prompt thinking to flow into two clearly separate conceptual slots, it’s hard to unsee the thinking movement. The separation of the flow works like increasing the contrast in a super blurry picture, with a photo editor. The contrast makes the reconciliation operated by thinking, apparent. Even if one is only aware of the final, reconciled products at first, the duck and the rabbit, the vases and the faces, none can argue they did no active reconciliation of concept and percept. And while anyone new to these foundations - and motivated by the inquiry - needs plenty of time and dialogue to familiarize oneself with these things, I doubt that some very seasoned debater of Steiner such as FB should be allowed to twist people around his little finger for too long. There, the issue may be other than cognitive.

[AshvinP]

Regarding the phenomenological question - it’s been discussed hundred times. One can understand why the typical friend doesn’t get it, because we’ve all been there.

Whenever such a thought as the above occurs, I would recommend trying to summon these two quotes from Steiner for helpful orientation:

(1) Genuine spiritual perceptions act differently—they are living entities and must continually be created anew. One must go through the process repeatedly for already the following day uncertainty arises, especially about the loftiest experiences, and one must win certainty all over again. One must relate to spiritual knowledge as one relates in the physical world to what is reality and not image. A real process in the physical world is the need to eat: not many of you would refrain from eating today because you had a good meal a week ago. You would not say that the meal of a week ago is still in you nourishing you, so that there is no need to eat today. By contrast a soul content arrived at via the body remains and can be recalled unchanged in many respects. That is not the case with a spiritual soul content; this does not just fade; its very certainty is repeatedly shaken and must be regained ever again.
...
(2) One can never look at the truths about the higher worlds from too many aspects. One should realize that from any one aspect it is possible to give only the poorest sketch. And when one looks at the same thing from the most diverse aspects, the impressions one receives in this way only gradually complement each other to form an ever more animated picture. Only such pictures, not dry, schematic concepts, can help the man who wants to penetrate into the higher worlds. The more animated and colorful the pictures, the more can one hope to approach the higher reality.

Understanding, at the second-order (esoteric) level, doesn't come from 'being there' once or twice or from having all the concepts in place to explain away the perceptual content at issue (such as our friend 'not getting it'). It is a living cognitive process, just like digestion. These aren't mere metaphors but realities and we should (should, if we desire to explore the second-order movements) learn to gradually move our thinking like we move our bodily will when trying to get a sense of the form of a large structure, for ex., i.e. actively and repetitively from all different sides. Unlike the bodily will, we can also imbue that movement of thinking with imagination and explore perspectives and angles that are unavailable to the senses. We can try to intuitively feel the soul gestures and patterns of thinking at work, akin to floating up in the air and getting a bird's eye view on the landscape below. As I remarked to Guney, this is not simply for the benefit of others we are 'explaining' these things to but also, and primarily, for our own benefit of inner sensitivity to superconscious movements.

Now, if you show them any optical illusion, or a bistable figure, and they still say they are not gathering anything from the side of thinking to complement the bare percept, then the issue may be other than cognitive. These are percepts usefully connected with far apart concepts. Far apart in a sense, yet overlapping in another. Since these percepts prompt thinking to flow into two clearly separate conceptual slots, it’s hard to unsee the thinking movement. The separation of the flow works like increasing the contrast in a super blurry picture, with a photo editor. The contrast makes the reconciliation operated by thinking, apparent. Even if one is only aware of the final, reconciled products at first, the duck and the rabbit, the vases and the faces, none can argue they did no active reconciliation of concept and percept. And while anyone new to these foundations - and motivated by the inquiry - needs plenty of time and dialogue to familiarize oneself with these things, I doubt that some very seasoned debater of Steiner such as FB should be allowed to twist people around his little finger for too long. There, the issue may be other than cognitive.

That is another good example and I agree it is helpful for people to work with. You outlined some of the reasons well and they make sense.

I can't speak to FB's motives, and of course, I have also speculated on them, but I try hard to adopt the inner stance that someone is well-intentioned and genuine for as long as possible. I have learned not to underestimate the depths of self-deception in these areas, such that the person feels like they are 100% faithful to experience and everyone who pushes back is plagued by the very prejudicial problems they are unconsciously dealing with. That will always involve ignoring some communications, selectively paying attention to others, coloring the language used to fit preconceptions, resiting in-depth, patient, and humble phenomenal exploration, and similar things.

At the same time, when interacting with FB, I try to provide others with enough of the inner facts, quotes, illustrations, and reasoning so that they won't be only relying on his characterization.

[Güney27]

Maybe it would be better if one don’t discuss such details.
But a nice example is the alien dwelling from Clerics essay.

It’s not hard to see that there is something given, and something which we need to do in order to grasp the given.
Cleric didn’t go deep into these details in he’s phonograph essays.
I think there is no need for it.

Guney,

I would ask that you vividly imagine a friend, with whom you shared your essay, comes back and says he/she simply can't understand what is meant by the 'given', it isn't found anywhere in their experience. We should try to intuitively sense in what state our friend is coming to us with such a question/objection, what underlying soul movements could bring them to this thought of 'there is no pure given, everything already has meaning when we encounter it' that seems so opposite of what we ourselves have concluded, 'there is something we need to do in order to grasp the given'. We can even live in this tension for a while and sense how there is no easy answer that we can spit out to resolve the discrepancy.

This is why it becomes necessary to enter into and discuss such details. It's not only for our friend's benefit but also for ours. The main aim of esoteric epistemology is always to become more sensitive to the inner movements by which we have reached our conclusions about cognition, perception, the given, etc. We should try to feel concretely what potential paths of thinking experience are available when confronting the epistemological content and why some paths may be chosen over others, why intuitive activity funnels from the potential in a certain direction, depending on constellations of inner factors (most proximately our thinking habits). It's not guaranteed that everyone who approaches Cleric's phonograph essays will understand them as we do. We saw that with Marco Masi, for ex.

This is how we deepen our intuitive orientation and stimulate our imaginative and creative thinking capacity. As you point out, the alien dwelling is a great example and something we won't find in Steiner's early work. This provides another angle to approach the 'given' that is helpful for ourselves and others and we can surely come up with more angles. We should always take a deep interest in how fellow souls experience or fail to experience their own real-time intuitive activity. We will never find one 'perfect' phenomenology or epistemology that settles the issue, because the issue is us, with all our etched soul pathways and conditioned thinking movements. Yet we also don't need to reinvent the wheel from scratch. Instead, we can work with what is already there and gradually modulate the content as well, adding our own contributions that help triangulate the underlying intuitive experience. You have already started doing that and there is only more room to grow! We just don't want to become too satisfied with any particular angle or characterization of the inner realities.

Yes, you’re right.

But I think that one can loose oneself, if we try to intellectually think about phenomenology. So it’s best done in the way cleric explain this topic, i.e with metaphors. But you are right, we should try to understand the perspectives of others. Steiner wrote about it in HtkHW too.