On the 'Culmination' of Anthroposophy

[AshvinP]

Yes, Ashvin, I do notice it. I have notice that in 2023 for the first time. In this lecture, for example, Steiner applies the principle of concentration to the natural world. He proposes an exercise of concentration. He says: "First of all, looking away from the earth, if we direct our gaze into the ranges of cosmic space, we are met by the blue sky. Suppose we do this on a day in which no cloud, not even the faintest silver-white cloudlet breaks the azure space of heaven. We look upwards into this blue heaven spread out above us — whether we recognize it in the physical sense as something real or not, does not signify; the point is the impression that this wide stretch of the blue heavens makes upon us. Suppose that we can yield ourselves up to this blue of the sky, and that we do this with intensity and for a long, long time; that we can so do it that we forget all else that we know in life and all that is around us in life. Suppose that we are able for one moment to forget all the external impressions, all our memories, all the cares and troubles of life, and can yield ourselves completely to the single impression of the blue heavens. What I am now saying to you, can be experienced by every human soul if only it will fulfil these necessary conditions; what I am telling you can be a common human experience." Etcetera.

Now the exercise Steiner indicates to develop practical thinking: "Let us suppose that somebody tries the following experiment. He begins today by observing, as accurately as possible, something in the outer world that is accessible to him—for instance, the weather. He watches the configuration of the clouds in the evening, the conditions at sunset, etc., and retains in his mind an exact picture of what he has thus observed. He tries to keep the picture before him in all its details for some time and endeavors to preserve as much of it as possible until the next day. At some time the next day he again makes a study of the weather conditions and again endeavors to gain an exact picture of them. If in this manner he has pictured to himself exactly the sequential order of the weather conditions, he will become distinctly aware that his thinking gradually becomes richer and more intense. For what makes thought impractical is the tendency to ignore details when observing a sequence of events in the world and to retain but a vague, general impression of them. What is of value, what is essential and fructifies thinking, is just this ability to form exact pictures, especially of successive events, so that one can say, “Yesterday it was like that; today it is like this.” Thus, one calls up as graphically as possible an inner image of the two juxtaposed scenes that lie apart in the outer world."

Do you spot any differences in the way engagement with the outer world is proposed in these two exercises?

What's important to first note is that your question can only be answered through the introspective method itself. The particular phrases by Steiner to describe two exercises do not by themselves reveal the commonalities or differences between them. To expect that (not saying you do!) would be like a kind of phrenology, expecting to figure out the points of intersection between the inner lives of two different human beings by studying the quantitative properties of their skulls. Instead, the way to investigate the exercises is to actively participate in them (at least imaginatively recreating the experience) and doing some basic observation of our inner process along the way. Then we can discern the points of intersection and/or deviation between how our inner process feels. We should be clear that this inner investigation is independent of what Steiner says or doesn't say - his descriptions stimulate our inner process, sending it off in the 'right direction', but they should never determine the observations and ideas it reaches. Once we freely reach some basic intuitions, however, we may return to his descriptions and find a new dimension of meaning in them, since we are more attuned to the shared intuitive process from which they condensed. 

Now we can focus on the weather exercise for practical thinking, since that is what you are indicating is quite distinct from meditative work with the outer world. We should first point out the whole context of this lecture is to differentiate spiritually practical thinking from what is normally considered "practical thinking" by educated people who imagine they pay close attention to events unfolding around them. So it is clear that the former is something to be gradually attained through inner effort, not the default state of ordinary consciousness. We can notice the very ability to practice such exercises in a sustained way is the fruit of prayerful meditative work, and work on purifying the naturally polluted soul atmosphere by cultivating virtuous dispositions. This is the soul environment in which all such exercises unfold and the latter won't take us very deep into the archetypal inner process if our enthusiasm for doing the work and our ability to remain concentrated, patient, disciplined, etc. is continually thwarted by its smog.

Steiner then points out various examples of how modern "practical thinking" unfolds:

"It can be imagined that this world outside and around us may be regarded in the same way as a watch. The comparison between the human organism and a watch is often used, but those who make it frequently forget the most important point. They forget the watchmaker. The fact must be kept clearly in mind that the wheels have not united and fitted themselves together of their own accord and thus made the watch “go,” but that first there was the watchmaker who put the different parts of the watch together. The watchmaker must never be forgotten. Through thoughts the watch has come into existence. Th thoughts have flowed, as it were, into the watch, into the thing."

Such examples stimulate me to introspectively examine why real-time 'watchmaking' stubbornly remains in the blind spot for so many of us in this way. Why is the most important point so frequently forgotten? Is Steiner suggesting that, once we have read this example and formed the corresponding 'belief' that a watchmaker is necessary for the watch, we have overcome the default mode of practical thinking, attaining inner assurance that our thoughts about phenomena are living extensions of the Thoughts living in the outer world? In our experience, this dynamic simply doesn't ring true. If thinking was lifted from the blind spot and made practical in this strictly conceptual way, then there would be no materialistic thinkers left in the world. Anyone can perceive the logic in this analogy and apply it to the natural domain. Clearly, there is something more needed to approach  metaphors like these and let their deeper significance insinuate itself into our thinking organism, such that it becomes second nature to keep real-time watchmaking out of the blind spot when contemplating the World Content. 

He then proceeds to illustrate how this elusive spiritual mode of practical thinking can be cultivated through a sustained inner practice:

"This is again a rule based upon confidence that there is an inner necessity in things and events, that in the facts themselves there slumbers something that moves things. What is thus working within these things from one day to another are thought forces, and we gradually become conscious of them when meditating on things. By such exercises these thought forces are called up into our consciousness and if what has been thus foreseen is fulfilled, we are in tune with them. We have then established an inner relation with the real thought activity of the matter itself. So we train ourselves to think, not arbitrarily, but according to the inner necessity and the inner nature of the things themselves.
....
To practice these principles is the important point. Time must be taken to observe things as though we were inside the things themselves with our thinking. We should submerge ourselves in the things and enter into their inner thought activity. If this is done, we gradually become aware of the fact that we are growing together with things. We no longer feel that they are outside us and we are here inside our shell thinking about them. Instead we come to feel as if our own thinking occurred within the things themselves. When a man has succeeded to a high degree in doing this, many things will become clear to him."


Things are quite clear in the above, again, on the condition that we have introspectively and meditatively participated in the inner process described. Then we immediately see how it overlaps with what we are aiming toward in all our meditative sessions. Cleric has helpfully described this aim in many ways throughout the posts and essays. It is about developing temporal intuition (Taylor series) for the lawful metamorphoses of our inner states, developing a refined intuitive feeling for the organic inner connections of these states, which otherwise unfolds entirely 'beneath the noise floor' and which we are then forced to link together with intellectual gestures according to 'arbitrary' aspects of our soul constitution (naturally conditioned preferences, desires, etc.).

 
Cleric: "We reach the higher stage of consciousness not by simply turning away from the sequential thoughts but by trying to feel intimately responsible for them. That’s why we concentrate on a single thought as if to stabilize our dreamy steering activity and be able to better reflect how it manifests and how it is resisted by the most varied forces. In our ordinary intellectual state we accept the meaning of the conceptual sequences as thoughts and ideas about reality but never try to intimately experience the way this fragmentary flow comes to be. In the Imaginative state we don’t think about reality but follow reality within our inner phenomenal flow. Then, like the seismograph, we begin to recognize certain invisible soul forces that modulate the flow".


It is the same principle in the weather exercise as it is in imaginative meditation. As Steiner expressed, it is about renouncing our arbitrary commentary on the experiential states and flowing together with those states with organic inner movements. When we selflessly exert our thinking to hold exact pictures of phenomenal states side by side, without intellectual commentary on 'what they mean', through a sustained practice, our imaginative process begins to flow (dance) together with the lawful and organic connections of the World thought process. The cloud formations and so on that we precisely observe help anchor our concentration within this inner process, training its latent (habitually forgotten) capacity to synchronize with the 'inner necessity' of things. Holding the pictures side by side is also a way of resonating with the imaginative state where 'time becomes space'. By freely moving together with that inner necessity, we attain flashes of insight into how our ordinary flow of experience takes shape and is modulated over the depth process. This is the inner reason why our thinking gradually becomes 'practical', able to resist arbitrary commentaries and objectively evaluate the course of events.

We should appreciate how elegant and harmonious all these varied exercises become when we can view their descriptions through the lens of the meditative principle, which cannot remain theoretical but is fleshed out for us through sustained introspective practice. This deepening practice is needed to even consciously orient toward what the exercises mean, how they relate to the depth axis and how they are significant for our inner development. Of course, at first we may launch into such exercises without much understanding of their inner functions, almost mechanically carrying them out as described, but eventually that will become a hindrance to realizing their value. Eventually, we should develop a deepened sense of how this 'exercise scene' fits into our contextual life narrative of spiritual development, and that deepening sense comes through patiently and introspectively observing what unfolds within us when engaging them.

[Federica]

What's important to first note is that your question can only be answered through the introspective method itself. The particular phrases by Steiner to describe two exercises do not by themselves reveal the commonalities or differences between them. To expect that (not saying you do!) would be like a kind of phrenology, expecting to figure out the points of intersection between the inner lives of two different human beings by studying the quantitative properties of their skulls. Instead, the way to investigate the exercises is to actively participate in them (at least imaginatively recreating the experience) and doing some basic observation of our inner process along the way. Then we can discern the points of intersection and/or deviation between how our inner process feels. We should be clear that this inner investigation is independent of what Steiner says or doesn't say - his descriptions stimulate our inner process, sending it off in the 'right direction', but they should never determine the observations and ideas it reaches. Once we freely reach some basic intuitions, however, we may return to his descriptions and find a new dimension of meaning in them, since we are more attuned to the shared intuitive process from which they condensed. 

Now we can focus on the weather exercise for practical thinking, since that is what you are indicating is quite distinct from meditative work with the outer world. We should first point out the whole context of this lecture is to differentiate spiritually practical thinking from what is normally considered "practical thinking" by educated people who imagine they pay close attention to events unfolding around them. So it is clear that the former is something to be gradually attained through inner effort, not the default state of ordinary consciousness. We can notice the very ability to practice such exercises in a sustained way is the fruit of prayerful meditative work, and work on purifying the naturally polluted soul atmosphere by cultivating virtuous dispositions. This is the soul environment in which all such exercises unfold and the latter won't take us very deep into the archetypal inner process if our enthusiasm for doing the work and our ability to remain concentrated, patient, disciplined, etc. is continually thwarted by its smog.

Steiner then points out various examples of how modern "practical thinking" unfolds:

"It can be imagined that this world outside and around us may be regarded in the same way as a watch. The comparison between the human organism and a watch is often used, but those who make it frequently forget the most important point. They forget the watchmaker. The fact must be kept clearly in mind that the wheels have not united and fitted themselves together of their own accord and thus made the watch “go,” but that first there was the watchmaker who put the different parts of the watch together. The watchmaker must never be forgotten. Through thoughts the watch has come into existence. Th thoughts have flowed, as it were, into the watch, into the thing."

Such examples stimulate me to introspectively examine why real-time 'watchmaking' stubbornly remains in the blind spot for so many of us in this way. Why is the most important point so frequently forgotten? Is Steiner suggesting that, once we have read this example and formed the corresponding 'belief' that a watchmaker is necessary for the watch, we have overcome the default mode of practical thinking, attaining inner assurance that our thoughts about phenomena are living extensions of the Thoughts living in the outer world? In our experience, this dynamic simply doesn't ring true. If thinking was lifted from the blind spot and made practical in this strictly conceptual way, then there would be no materialistic thinkers left in the world. Anyone can perceive the logic in this analogy and apply it to the natural domain. Clearly, there is something more needed to approach  metaphors like these and let their deeper significance insinuate itself into our thinking organism, such that it becomes second nature to keep real-time watchmaking out of the blind spot when contemplating the World Content. 

He then proceeds to illustrate how this elusive spiritual mode of practical thinking can be cultivated through a sustained inner practice:

"This is again a rule based upon confidence that there is an inner necessity in things and events, that in the facts themselves there slumbers something that moves things. What is thus working within these things from one day to another are thought forces, and we gradually become conscious of them when meditating on things. By such exercises these thought forces are called up into our consciousness and if what has been thus foreseen is fulfilled, we are in tune with them. We have then established an inner relation with the real thought activity of the matter itself. So we train ourselves to think, not arbitrarily, but according to the inner necessity and the inner nature of the things themselves.
....
To practice these principles is the important point. Time must be taken to observe things as though we were inside the things themselves with our thinking. We should submerge ourselves in the things and enter into their inner thought activity. If this is done, we gradually become aware of the fact that we are growing together with things. We no longer feel that they are outside us and we are here inside our shell thinking about them. Instead we come to feel as if our own thinking occurred within the things themselves. When a man has succeeded to a high degree in doing this, many things will become clear to him."


Things are quite clear in the above, again, on the condition that we have introspectively and meditatively participated in the inner process described. Then we immediately see how it overlaps with what we are aiming toward in all our meditative sessions. Cleric has helpfully described this aim in many ways throughout the posts and essays. It is about developing temporal intuition (Taylor series) for the lawful metamorphoses of our inner states, developing a refined intuitive feeling for the organic inner connections of these states, which otherwise unfolds entirely 'beneath the noise floor' and which we are then forced to link together with intellectual gestures according to 'arbitrary' aspects of our soul constitution (naturally conditioned preferences, desires, etc.).

 
Cleric: "We reach the higher stage of consciousness not by simply turning away from the sequential thoughts but by trying to feel intimately responsible for them. That’s why we concentrate on a single thought as if to stabilize our dreamy steering activity and be able to better reflect how it manifests and how it is resisted by the most varied forces. In our ordinary intellectual state we accept the meaning of the conceptual sequences as thoughts and ideas about reality but never try to intimately experience the way this fragmentary flow comes to be. In the Imaginative state we don’t think about reality but follow reality within our inner phenomenal flow. Then, like the seismograph, we begin to recognize certain invisible soul forces that modulate the flow".


It is the same principle in the weather exercise as it is in imaginative meditation. As Steiner expressed, it is about renouncing our arbitrary commentary on the experiential states and flowing together with those states with organic inner movements. When we selflessly exert our thinking to hold exact pictures of phenomenal states side by side, without intellectual commentary on 'what they mean', through a sustained practice, our imaginative process begins to flow (dance) together with the lawful and organic connections of the World thought process. The cloud formations and so on that we precisely observe help anchor our concentration within this inner process, training its latent (habitually forgotten) capacity to synchronize with the 'inner necessity' of things. Holding the pictures side by side is also a way of resonating with the imaginative state where 'time becomes space'. By freely moving together with that inner necessity, we attain flashes of insight into how our ordinary flow of experience takes shape and is modulated over the depth process. This is the inner reason why our thinking gradually becomes 'practical', able to resist arbitrary commentaries and objectively evaluate the course of events.

We should appreciate how elegant and harmonious all these varied exercises become when we can view their descriptions through the lens of the meditative principle, which cannot remain theoretical but is fleshed out for us through sustained introspective practice. This deepening practice is needed to even consciously orient toward what the exercises mean, how they relate to the depth axis and how they are significant for our inner development. Of course, at first we may launch into such exercises without much understanding of their inner functions, almost mechanically carrying them out as described, but eventually that will become a hindrance to realizing their value. Eventually, we should develop a deepened sense of how this 'exercise scene' fits into our contextual life narrative of spiritual development, and that deepening sense comes through patiently and introspectively observing what unfolds within us when engaging them.

Ashvin,

In my view what you say - that the two exercises are based on the same principle - is only correct at the largest and most general scale. Yes, they are both given to man on Earth in the same evolutionary moment, for the purpose of transforming thinking; yes they are both spiritual exercises in this sense; yes they both require dedication, first-person attention to thinking, and a minimum of predisposition.

I agree with these considerations in general, but not when you push the shared context too far, to state for example that the very ability to practice the exercises for practical thinking in a sustained way is the fruit of prayerful meditative work. This is absolutely not the case. As I previously said, it’s the other way around: the cultivation of practical thinking is part of how ordinary consciousness prepares itself to become a suitable body in which higher cognition can later incarnate.

In particular, the fact that the two kinds of exercises remain distinct - and how they remain distinct and what specific principle they distinctly put into practice - is the fact of most crucial importance, as opposed to what they have in common. This is because this distinction can become a fruitful, concrete, practical support to bridge between intellectual science and spiritual science. By contrast, when you twist Steiner's throat and try to make him say that the exercises are the same, it’s as if you cut out those possibilities.

The two types of exercises are ideally positioned in a very helpful continuity and in such continuity they should remain. Trying to dismiss this spatial perspective by reducing them to the same plane creates a missed opportunity. There are countless passages that explicitly nail this down in Steiner. Whoever flattens purposes such as the following, to argue that all the exercises are concentration exercises, directly opposes the practicality Steiner endeavoured to achieve, to help enough well-disposed minds transform their thinking, against all odds:

A practical thinking that stands firmly on the ground of life is also a good, even the very best prerequisite for those who aspire, so to speak, to clairvoyant consciousness. The more sober a person is, the more practical, the better, if he is to be raised to the spheres of clairvoyant vision.

From GA 68b - The Circular Flow of Man's Life within the World Of Sense, Soul And Spirit - Lecture 49 - The Practical Training of Thinking

as retrieved from the Rudolf Steiner Archive.

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

In my view what you say - that the two exercises are based on the same principle - is only correct at the largest and most general scale. Yes, they are both given to man on Earth in the same evolutionary moment, for the purpose of transforming thinking; yes they are both spiritual exercises in this sense; yes they both require dedication, first-person attention to thinking, and a minimum of predisposition.

I agree with these considerations in general, but not when you push the shared context too far, to state for example that the very ability to practice the exercises for practical thinking in a sustained way is the fruit of prayerful meditative work. This is absolutely not the case. As I previously said, it’s the other way around: the cultivation of practical thinking is part of how ordinary consciousness prepares itself to become a suitable body in which higher cognition can later incarnate.

In particular, the fact that the two kinds of exercises remain distinct - and how they remain distinct and what specific principle they distinctly put into practice - is the fact of most crucial importance, as opposed to what they have in common. This is because this distinction can become a fruitful, valid, practical support to bridge between intellectual science and spiritual science. By contrast, when you twist Steiner's throat and try to make him say that the exercises are the same, it’s as if you cut out those possibilities.

The two types of exercises are ideally positioned in a very helpful continuity and in such continuity they should remain. Trying to dismiss this spatial perspective by reducing them to the same plane creates a missed opportunity. There are countless passages that explicitly nail this down in Steiner. Whoever flattens purposes such as the following, to argue that all the exercises are concentration exercises, directly opposes the practicality Steiner endeavoured to achieve, to help enough well-disposed minds transform their thinking, against all odds:

A practical thinking that stands firmly on the ground of life is also a good, even the very best prerequisite for those who aspire, so to speak, to clairvoyant consciousness. The more sober a person is, the more practical, the better, if he is to be raised to the spheres of clairvoyant vision.

From GA 68b - The Circular Flow of Man's Life within the World Of Sense, Soul And Spirit - Lecture 49 - The Practical Training of Thinking

as retrieved from the Rudolf Steiner Archive.

I see that the inner process described was simply ignored, which indeed reveals the common principle and aim of concentration, and rather the focus became on Steiner's throat again (the quantitative skull properties). This is why I mentioned from the outset that the inner process is independent of anything Steiner said or didn't say. The words surrounding 'practical thinking' can be fit into whatever we want them to say, but only a careful feeling out of the archetypal inner process guarantees that we will arrive at the non-arbitrary meaning of these exercises. It is also the means by which we cultivate the freedom of our spirit. The latter no longer remains helplessly reliant on Steiner's throat for its orientation to what 'practical thinking' means. In other words, after moving through this inner process, even if Steiner meant what you seem to be suggesting (which I don't agree), our free spirit would have to conclude he was wrong and move on. Because it would experience the commonality of the meditative principle within these exercises for itself.

Such exchanges also help me see why Cleric has been careful to limit references to Steiner in many of his posts, which I have not been so careful about. At a certain point, we lose sight of what actually matters in this whole spiritual process and make things into an unfree intellectual game of deciphering Steiner's throat, figuring out who is twisting it more or less, and so on. In our debate over the meaning of 'practical thinking', we stop employing practical thinking and simply spawn speculative thoughts about its nature, how it fits into the scheme of cognition, how it bridges from one place to another, etc. In any case, the 'largest and most general scale' you describe above is not what I was pointing to. I was pointing to the most proximate imaginative scale at which our soul being weaves, where we find the common points of intersection between spiritual exercises. We only find these points of intersection, however, through the introspective process itself, not through any theoretical considerations of skull properties and what they say about the 'nature of practical thinking'. This is the one and only bridge between intellectual and spiritual science.

[Federica]

Ashvin,

In my view what you say - that the two exercises are based on the same principle - is only correct at the largest and most general scale. Yes, they are both given to man on Earth in the same evolutionary moment, for the purpose of transforming thinking; yes they are both spiritual exercises in this sense; yes they both require dedication, first-person attention to thinking, and a minimum of predisposition.

I agree with these considerations in general, but not when you push the shared context too far, to state for example that the very ability to practice the exercises for practical thinking in a sustained way is the fruit of prayerful meditative work. This is absolutely not the case. As I previously said, it’s the other way around: the cultivation of practical thinking is part of how ordinary consciousness prepares itself to become a suitable body in which higher cognition can later incarnate.

In particular, the fact that the two kinds of exercises remain distinct - and how they remain distinct and what specific principle they distinctly put into practice - is the fact of most crucial importance, as opposed to what they have in common. This is because this distinction can become a fruitful, valid, practical support to bridge between intellectual science and spiritual science. By contrast, when you twist Steiner's throat and try to make him say that the exercises are the same, it’s as if you cut out those possibilities.

The two types of exercises are ideally positioned in a very helpful continuity and in such continuity they should remain. Trying to dismiss this spatial perspective by reducing them to the same plane creates a missed opportunity. There are countless passages that explicitly nail this down in Steiner. Whoever flattens purposes such as the following, to argue that all the exercises are concentration exercises, directly opposes the practicality Steiner endeavoured to achieve, to help enough well-disposed minds transform their thinking, against all odds:

A practical thinking that stands firmly on the ground of life is also a good, even the very best prerequisite for those who aspire, so to speak, to clairvoyant consciousness. The more sober a person is, the more practical, the better, if he is to be raised to the spheres of clairvoyant vision.

From GA 68b - The Circular Flow of Man's Life within the World Of Sense, Soul And Spirit - Lecture 49 - The Practical Training of Thinking

as retrieved from the Rudolf Steiner Archive.

I see that the inner process described was simply ignored, which indeed reveals the common principle and aim of concentration, and rather the focus became on Steiner's throat again (the quantitative skull properties). This is why I mentioned from the outset that the inner process is independent of anything Steiner said or didn't say. The words surrounding 'practical thinking' can be fit into whatever we want them to say, but only a careful feeling out of the archetypal inner process guarantees that we will arrive at the non-arbitrary meaning of these exercises. It is also the means by which we cultivate the freedom of our spirit. The latter no longer remains helplessly reliant on Steiner's throat for its orientation to what 'practical thinking' means. In other words, after moving through this inner process, even if Steiner meant what you seem to be suggesting (which I don't agree), our free spirit would have to conclude he was wrong and move on. Because it would experience the commonality of the meditative principle within these exercises for itself.

Such exchanges also help me see why Cleric has been careful to limit references to Steiner in many of his posts, which I have not been so careful about. At a certain point, we lose sight of what actually matters in this whole spiritual process and make things into an unfree intellectual game of deciphering Steiner's throat, figuring out who is twisting it more or less, and so on. In our debate over the meaning of 'practical thinking', we stop employing practical thinking and simply spawn speculative thoughts about its nature, how it fits into the scheme of cognition, how it bridges from one place to another, etc. In any case, the 'largest and most general scale' you describe above is not what I was pointing to. I was pointing to the most proximate imaginative scale at which our soul being weaves, where we find the common points of intersection between spiritual exercises. We only find these points of intersection, however, through the introspective process itself, not through any theoretical considerations of skull properties and what they say about the 'nature of practical thinking'. This is the one and only bridge between intellectual and spiritual science.

The inner processes described have not been ignored. They have been considered seriously. The problem is that they are simply preliminary. After those preliminary considerations, one has to begin and engage the exercises at some point, and that's when it becomes dissonant and impossible to maintain that the exercises are based on the same principle.

Practical thinking is a pre-requisite to clairvoyant thinking. This is how it appears to unprejudiced thinking, and how Steiner presents it as well, of course. The problem with you is that no matter how much you are caught red-handed, you will always stubbornly deny the evidence, physical and spiritual, if that evidence does not fit your wishes.

It is the same thing you are now doing with Tomberg and the RCC, since you revisited it recently (which Cleric is not doing, let's remember that, since you now appeal to him somehow, as if you were in agreement). No matter what the world gives, things need to bend to fit your preferred version of reality. And if they don't, in your world you will make them bend nonetheless.

Well, OK, Ashvin, you do as you want, but I don't have much to share with this world of yours.

[AshvinP]

The inner processes described have not been ignored. They have been considered seriously. The problem is that they are simply preliminary. After those preliminary considerations, one has to begin and engage the exercises at some point, and that's when it becomes dissonant and impossible to maintain that the exercises are based on the same principle.

Practical thinking is a pre-requisite to clairvoyant thinking. This is how it appears to unprejudiced thinking, and how Steiner presents it as well, of course.

Yet the opposite is the case, clearly. What is preliminary is precisely the outer pictures which make it seem like the exercises are operating under different principles. What could be more different than meditating on a rose cross in our dark room, or meditating into the blue expanses on a clear day, and forming precise pictures of atmospheric conditions on sequential days that we hold together in our imagination? We picture these things in our imagination and compare these outer pictures with each other, making surface-level conceptual delineations about what they are all about. This is the preliminary level of analysis you are operating at to differentiate different 'principles' of cognitive development, those operating within 'practical thinking' vs. concentrated-meditative thinking. As soon as we start living through the exercises and observing our inner process, however, we reach a deeper level where the commonalities of the outer descriptive forms begin to take shape, and which take on a special glow for us when we work through those forms. It is the same with Steiner's lecture in general - he starts with varied outer descriptive forms and ends with the archetypal imaginative process that we are aiming toward. This is the level of observation you are continually ignoring in both my posts and Steiner's quotes. The inner process Steiner characterized in those quotes points too directly to the principle of imaginative concentration, so you avert your gaze from it and maintain a dualized spectrum of spiritual development.

[AshvinP]

It is the same thing you are now doing with Tomberg and the RCC, since you revisited it recently (which Cleric is not doing, let's remember that, since you now appeal to him somehow, as if you were in agreement).

By the way, this is also a subtle dynamic I have observed in these discussions. We need to differentiate between two things here:

1/ We propose a spectrum of 'practical thinking' that is needed as preparation for introspective-meditative work in the vein of POF and KHW, but is not itself meditative work. This conditions the intellect to expect a linear progression from familiar experiences and concepts to deeper spiritual experiences, which leads to indefinite delay of the meditative life where the soul truly lives and breathes within sense-free spiritual space.

2/ We recognize a spectrum of "practical thinking" (as Steiner described at the beginning of that lecture) which is the default mode of many souls, and we propose ways of directly bringing the inner process of POF-KHW into their sphere of contemplation. This is not "preparation" for direct meditative life, but introducing a somewhat different modality of that same life. (and anyone who works through the Meditations can experience this fact, although they can certainly be approached theoretically like the inner process of PoF often was and is, which we have shown ample examples of).

You have clearly aligned your views with 1/ across recent threads. Both Cleric and I have tried providing ways of perceiving the flaws of this approach. And this approach has real consequences, for example those which manifested in the questions about flow-pump, motor-sensory, health-illness. Your posts on these topics were meant to elucidate 'practical thinking' in the domain of spiritual science for us and and show how it acts as a bridge from intellect to imagination. I don't need to recapitulate all the responses we offered.

Both he and I have also cautioned how the 'Catholic project' can be adopted and utilized to support 1/. Yet, through further discussion with Rodriel, I have also seen how VT's whole impulse with respect to the Church can be understood in the light of 2/. In my view, Cleric was at times conflating 1/ and 2/ with respect to VT's impulse, which is understandable. From a pastoral perspective, so to speak, it makes much more sense to assume there is something of 1/ at work (because there often is), and to address things in a corresponding way. I did that as well in the early comments to Rodriel.

In any case, what is clear to me is that MoT is precisely about recognizing the flaws of 1/ and delving directly into the introspective-meditative life. This is why Letter I focuses on 'concentration without effort'. There is no need for a spectrum of 'practical thinking' that prepares for this concentrated effort, rather the latter is primary and becomes the seed point from which all living forms of thinking, feeling, and willing can grow. The extent to which this approach insinuates itself into the inner process of pious religious souls, is also the extent to which the 'Catholic project' can be deemed harmonized with the ethical individual tasks of our age.

VT: "Concentration, as the faculty of fixing maximum attention on a minimum amount of space (Goethe said that he who wants to complete something of worth and of skill, "der sammle still und unerschlafft, im kleinsten Punkt die grosste Kraft", i.e. that "quietly and unceasingly he directs the greatest force upon the smallest point"), is the practical key to all success in every domain. Modern pedagogy and psychotherapy, the schools of prayer and spiritual exercises —Franciscan, Carmelite. Dominican and Jesuit —occult schools of every type and, lastly, ancient Hindu yoga, all approaches are in agreement about this."

[Federica]

It is the same thing you are now doing with Tomberg and the RCC, since you revisited it recently (which Cleric is not doing, let's remember that, since you now appeal to him somehow, as if you were in agreement).

By the way, this is also a subtle dynamic I have observed in these discussions. We need to differentiate between two things here:

1/ We propose a spectrum of 'practical thinking' that is needed as preparation for introspective-meditative work in the vein of POF and KHW, but is not itself meditative work. This conditions the intellect to expect a linear progression from familiar experiences and concepts to deeper spiritual experiences, which leads to indefinite delay of the meditative life where the soul truly lives and breathes within sense-free spiritual space.

2/ We recognize a spectrum of "practical thinking" (as Steiner described at the beginning of that lecture) which is the default mode of many souls, and we propose ways of directly bringing the inner process of POF-KHW into their sphere of contemplation. This is not "preparation" for direct meditative life, but introducing a somewhat different modality of that same life. (and anyone who works through the Meditations can experience this fact, although they can certainly be approached theoretically like the inner process of PoF often was and is, which we have shown ample examples of).

You have clearly aligned your views with 1/ across recent threads. Both Cleric and I have tried providing ways of perceiving the flaws of this approach. And this approach has real consequences, for example those which manifested in the questions about flow-pump, motor-sensory, health-illness. Your posts on these topics were meant to elucidate 'practical thinking' in the domain of spiritual science for us and and show how it acts as a bridge from intellect to imagination. I don't need to recapitulate all the responses we offered.

Both he and I have also cautioned how the 'Catholic project' can be adopted and utilized to support 1/. Yet, through further discussion with Rodriel, I have also seen how VT's whole impulse with respect to the Church can be understood in the light of 2/. In my view, Cleric was at times conflating 1/ and 2/ with respect to VT's impulse, which is understandable. From a pastoral perspective, so to speak, it makes much more sense to assume there is something of 1/ at work (because there often is), and to address things in a corresponding way. I did that as well in the early comments to Rodriel.

In any case, what is clear to me is that MoT is precisely about recognizing the flaws of 1/ and delving directly into the introspective-meditative life. This is why Letter I focuses on 'concentration without effort'. There is no need for a spectrum of 'practical thinking' that prepares for this concentrated effort, rather the latter is primary and becomes the seed point from which all living forms of thinking, feeling, and willing can grow. The extent to which this approach insinuates itself into the inner process of pious religious souls, is also the extent to which the 'Catholic project' can be deemed harmonized with the ethical individual tasks of our age.

VT: "Concentration, as the faculty of fixing maximum attention on a minimum amount of space (Goethe said that he who wants to complete something of worth and of skill, "der sammle still und unerschlafft, im kleinsten Punkt die grosste Kraft", i.e. that "quietly and unceasingly he directs the greatest force upon the smallest point"), is the practical key to all success in every domain. Modern pedagogy and psychotherapy, the schools of prayer and spiritual exercises —Franciscan, Carmelite. Dominican and Jesuit —occult schools of every type and, lastly, ancient Hindu yoga, all approaches are in agreement about this."

Nobody ever said that it's forbidden to begin early with concentration exercises, and that practical thinking is the imperative prologue to it. Yet, as Steiner explicitly recommends, a practical approach to life enhanced by practical thinking, as exemplified, is the very best prerequisite - die allerbeste Vorbedingung in Steiners words- to the development of clairvoyant consciousness.

Hence your number 1/ does not condition the intellect to expect a linear progression. Instead, it conditions it to find the bridge between intellectual and spiritual science (the same bridge which Cleric has said he is interested in developing for the scientifically minded person of today).


Let's then recall that you have been the first to emphatically state “the heart is a pump”. And it is only because of the practical question I asked - as doubt arose in me while reading the heart-is-a-pump book you recommended - that Cleric decisively elucidated the question, elucidation which alone allowed you to correct your initial intuitive orientation on the topic.

Thus, that you now bring that exact question as a proof of your great intuitive orientation, and as a proof of your alignment with Cleric, is just so terribly inappropriate… Also inappropriate is your rendition of the health-illness question. I could recall the details again. Would that help? Nothing is more unlikely, as it seems at this point.

[AshvinP]

Nobody ever said that it's forbidden to begin early with concentration exercises, and that practical thinking is the imperative prologue to it. Yet, as Steiner explicitly recommends, a practical approach to life enhanced by practical thinking, as exemplified, is the very best prerequisite - die allerbeste Vorbedingung in Steiners words- to the development of clairvoyant consciousness.

Hence your number 1/ does not condition the intellect to expect a linear progression. Instead, it conditions it to find the bridge between intellectual and spiritual science (the same bridge which Cleric has said he is interested in developing for the scientifically minded person of today).

Please, Federica, try for a moment to lay aside what Steiner said and what you think he means, and instead try to freely orient to the inner process at work. In what way is it helpful as preparation to avoid introspection and meditative concentration in our 'practical thinking' exercises? If you are not proposing a path of thinking that initially avoids this archetypal foundation, then why do you keep emphasizing the pursuit of 'practical thinking' is non-meditative and distinct from imaginative concentration? Unless it is simply to have something to argue with me about, I imagine there is some basis for you continually emphasizing this point on thread after thread. Can you elaborate this basis without using Steiner's throat? What exactly does the pursuit of practical thinking entail and how does it enrich and deepen our inner life, orienting it to its spiritual foundations, while circumventing the principle of imaginative concentration?

[Federica]

Let's then recall that you have been the first to emphatically state “the heart is a pump”. And it is only because of the practical question I asked - as doubt arose in me while reading the heart-is-a-pump book you recommended - that Cleric decisively elucidated the question, elucidation which alone allowed you to correct your initial intuitive orientation on the topic.

it may be obvious, but the correct version of the above is:

Let's then recall that you have been the first to emphatically state “the heart is not a pump”. And it is only because of the practical question I asked - as doubt arose in me while reading the heart-is-not-a-pump book you recommended - that Cleric decisively elucidated the question, elucidation which alone allowed you to correct your initial intuitive orientation on the topic.

[Federica]

Nobody ever said that it's forbidden to begin early with concentration exercises, and that practical thinking is the imperative prologue to it. Yet, as Steiner explicitly recommends, a practical approach to life enhanced by practical thinking, as exemplified, is the very best prerequisite - die allerbeste Vorbedingung in Steiners words- to the development of clairvoyant consciousness.

Hence your number 1/ does not condition the intellect to expect a linear progression. Instead, it conditions it to find the bridge between intellectual and spiritual science (the same bridge which Cleric has said he is interested in developing for the scientifically minded person of today).

Please, Federica, try for a moment to lay aside what Steiner said and what you think he means, and instead try to freely orient to the inner process at work. In what way is it helpful as preparation to avoid introspection and meditative concentration in our 'practical thinking' exercises? If you are not proposing a path of thinking that initially avoids this archetypal foundation, then why do you keep emphasizing the pursuit of 'practical thinking' is non-meditative and distinct from imaginative concentration? Unless it is simply to have something to argue with me about, I imagine there is some basis for you continually emphasizing this point on thread after thread. Can you elaborate this basis without using Steiner's throat? What exactly does the pursuit of practical thinking entail and how does it enrich and deepen our inner life, orienting it to its spiritual foundations, while circumventing the principle of imaginative concentration?

The reason why I keep quoting Steiner is not because I'm unable to freely explore these processes by myself. It's instead to show that you may not take seriously what I say, but since it's Steiner who puts practical thinking as prerequisite for clairvoyant consciousness, you should be more careful before dismissing it.

I guess you know this very well already, and simply can't resist the rhetorical temptation to make me look dumb, unfree, stuck with "Steiner says", and so on. Besides, if you had read more carefully, you would know that I never said, suggested or imply that practical thinking leads or should lead to avoiding introspection. Instead I said the opposite, and the reason why I emphasize that practical thinking is non-meditative is for its bridging power for the benefit of the scientist who in general is not naturally open to concentration efforts. Practical thinking can help the scientifically oriented mind to develop a healthy sense for truth.

This has been well expressed in Martin O'Keefe-Liddard's post. Let us notice that you had the initiative to report that post which you described as "another great example of the direction in which the 'culmination' of Anthroposophy should be sought". Strangely enough, after I referred to the post as an excellent example of bridging intellectual and spiritual science via empiricism and practical thinking, you changed, and said "his post is only accurate insofar as the work with spiritual science as hypotheses engages a primarily introspective-meditative". Strange, isn't it? First you post it here as a commendable example of spiritual-scientific pursuit, only to doubt its accuracy, after I praised it. Anyway.

Practical thinking enriches our inner life by making the thinker more keenly aware of its correspondences with the outer life around us. It allow the rational mind to dive into the details of sensory reality, and follow the temporal patterns that emerge from those sequences of details. Along these patterns, the mind becomes more sensitive to the dynamic alignment of the thoughts with outer reality and its concepts. As I already said, the key is that the thoughts we have about the details only can arise in consciousness because they constitute the reality of those details in the first place. It's like skiing down a meandering piste. The routes are determined by both the piste and the skier, they are inscribed in both, and the varying sequence of meanders, or details, creates a sensitivity for the correspondence. In this way, practical thinking is simply a first subtle antidote to the modern, default attitude to consider that reality is "out there", and the thoughts about it are in our mind, as two separate worlds. It's so obvious and simple. This is what it means to develop a sense for truth. Practical thinking does not directly develop clairvoyant consciousness, as concentrative meditation does. But it educates the consciousness to a healthier relation to the unitary nature of reality, in a mood of careful, respectful, excited, even marveling empiricism. The spreading of this approach would be very beneficial today.