Fighters for the Spirit

[AshvinP]

I see things differently when it comes to the one who believes that matter is the origin of everything. In that case I am not so sure that the inner dynamic of the "why" is precisely as you describe. Because, as soon as the materialist is able to recognize that the entire knowledge at their disposal is appended to perception as elaborated by the reflecting and analyzing natural researcher, there should be no in-principle obstacle to experiment - to do science - whatever the object of research is. This should include experimenting with consciousness. We see a whole generation of academics who are open to that, at least in principle, from Levin to Riddle, to name a few. In the genuine scientific impulse to knowledge, any inquiry based on experimentation leading to perception/collection of information and its subsequent consideration and analysis, should be positively received. Yes - the phenomenological findings would then create an inner tension against the existing beliefs, but the situation should be digestible, in the same way that it is accepted that a scientific finding is subject to falsification and possibly to reversal. This has often happened in the history of science, as the typical scientist never tires of reminding with satisfaction. The genuine natural scientist should be open to that, in principle. New findings can rewrite the understanding of the world. This is also why Steiner called the impulse to knowledge that he established, “spiritual science”. It was to highlight the continuity of scientific impulse. “Science” is the common element, that is an independent drive of the soul towards knowledge, a knowledge that is progressive, and can overturn older findings.

Right, and that's why we know the lack of openness resides at a deeper soul scale, within hidden fears and anxieties related to the prospect of feeling responsible within the thinking flow and sacrificing the illusion of a 'private space' to feel that flow as the interference of diverse intelligent perspectives. Everything about the ideal scientific method screams toward taking it in the introspective direction, and increasingly many scientists have the feeling that this should be done in some way, but the real-time thinking flow remains in the blind spot, nonetheless. This fact highlights why catharsis (introspecting and unknowing impure thinking habits) is a precondition for spiritual science to proceed.

I agree with what you say about having an opinion, being aware of having it, but unaware of how it gives direction to our entire flow of becoming. There is a merging that makes it very difficult to identify the invisible choices, or lack thereof, we continually make. But as I see it, this plays in favor - not against - the intention to play alongside, not against, the force of these hidden vectors, at the beginning, as the only reasonable way to facilitate a shared journey that requires some major reorientation. Only when there is already a strong predisposition can the phenomenological prompts work fine from the get-go, as is. This only happens if the inner flow of the individual in question was already flowing in more or less harmonious relation with the main drivers of the consciousness soul. But if this is not predominantly the case, it is clear that the flow needs to be met in accordance with its current momentum and direction, for a coupling to have a chance to work out. You cannot just put a big U-turn sign in front of a consciousness rolling forward with great momentum and expect that it will see it, understand it, accept it, and simply follow the new direction. No, the only chance is to embark with it first, join their current trajectory, and only from there propose to recalculate and redirect. This should be so easy to agree with and accept. The loosening of the constraints must begin from within a moving situation. I can’t be planned with pure exercises elaborated from the perspective of a blank slate. The exercises must fit the dynamics of a speeding vehicle that already has a certain direction and momentum.

In this sense, I don't agree that "the only thing we can do is to depict the inner experiences as faithfully and precisely as possible". This would be like putting a sign “make a x-degrees turn” on the trajectory of a speeding vehicle. The extra step I would like to attempt is to embark the vehicle, see the direction from within it, and help reorient from there. This is by the way what Steiner's life is dedicated to.

The way I see it, this remains too vague, because we all imagine that we are embarking on the vehicle, adopting the perspective of the driver, and helping to reorient from there. This is what we say the phenomenological prompts are precisely aimed at doing, and I cannot imagine any more potent way of harnessing the existing momentum of the intellect and redirecting it in an orthogonal direction to what can be suspected from within its myopic understanding of reality, of what is possible for its inner degrees of freedom. That's why I think we need to work with more concrete examples, so it's clearer what we are envisioning with the "U-turn" and what we are envisioning with "joining the current trajectory". If the latter is another way of speaking about the introspective promptings of PoF, rooted in modern philosophical-scientific images and lines of reasoning, then it is simultaneously a U-turn from the default trajectory, in my view.

However, there is another kind of "joining the current trajectory" that is common these days, which is more like appeasement and indulgence of the intellect's current myopic state. This is a theme that I focused on in the spiritual exposure therapy essay, for example.

"Once we penetrate a little deeper into this whole way of thinking as we have started to do above, we can sense how it could only be born from the fear of extending our inner activity into novel domains of intuitive meaning. Instead, we rely on our mental images to build a picture of reality by combining them in the way it has become used to by analyzing the contents of the bodily-sensory experience. Yet the more we try to do that, the more we feel that we are doing nothing but a kind of abstract metaphysics, biding our time until the ‘true reality’ is found at some indefinite future time, after death, or not at all. We then begin to avoid the lived experience of reality altogether because we secretly prefer the comfortable configuration of our philosophical, religious, and scientific images, and we seek rationalized excuses for why it is “impossible” to encounter the concrete reality that is represented by our mental images.

At root, it is all quite similar to the person who is afraid to get on the elevator and, without the benefit of voluntary exposure therapy, uses the intellect to rationalize excuses for why the fear is justified or cannot be overcome. With respect to encountering the inner realities of phenomenal experience, these excuses come in all sorts of forms which are generally different ways of expressing the Kantian ‘noumenal’ boundary. To overcome this fear and avoidance strategy, we need to expose ourselves more deeply to the intentional gestures by which we are continually guiding the flow of mental images. It is true that these gestures cannot be found as additional mental images that are clearly in focus, but they can nevertheless be felt as an indispensable aspect of immanent experience. We can sense this invisible activity (which is synonymous with intuitive meaning) is barely noticeable at the ever-imploding horizon of our inner voice and mental pictures, but is nevertheless present and inviting us to ‘delaminate’ its layers, discerning its rich contributions to the flow of experience.

Indeed, as thinking humans we are already instinctively active within this deeper intuitive domain, for example, whenever we resist a tempting desire, like indulging in unhealthy food or spirits. We can't simply manipulate our familiar receding mental pictures (thoughts) and report to ourselves about the negative consequences - these pictures cannot modulate deep enough to modify the alluring desire. Instead we need to reach into a deeper scale of inner activity, with a new kind of inner effort, through concentrated activity. Our inner activity needs to become fiercely present within the flow of its experience and remain vigilant as the desirous flow continually threatens to drag it away toward the next chocolate cake or the next drink, like we are stopping ourselves from scratching a really bothersome itch. In this scenario, we utilize the mental pictures not to build theoretical models of our soul life, but to anchor ourselves within the soul flow and develop a strategy of resistance.

That strategy is only implemented at a deeper intuitive scale of activity which normally remains ‘out of focus’. If we manage to accomplish such a small miracle of resistance in our existential flow, then we experience ourselves coloring outside the lines of the sclerotic pathways of experience that we normally flow through passively. This experience then stimulates positive emotional feedback and motivates us to continue resisting the tempting desire and even to creatively work on seemingly unrelated desires. Thus we enter into a positive feedback cycle and gradually spiral upwards into new inner scales of creative activity."

How often is it implied in modern culture that the best way to deal with aspects of reality that induce fear, uncertainty, anxiety, etc., is to simply avoid them, or to analytically break them down in some way according to familiar habits? This is an entirely different way of 'meeting people where they're at', which only makes the goal of inner exposure therapy more and more remote, less and less likely to be attained. There is a true crossroad here that needs to come more into focus, because "joining the current trajectory" can be understood and taken in two completely different directions.

[Federica]

Right, and that's why we know the lack of openness resides at a deeper soul scale, within hidden fears and anxieties related to the prospect of feeling responsible within the thinking flow and sacrificing the illusion of a 'private space' to feel that flow as the interference of diverse intelligent perspectives. Everything about the ideal scientific method screams toward taking it in the introspective direction, and increasingly many scientists have the feeling that this should be done in some way, but the real-time thinking flow remains in the blind spot, nonetheless. This fact highlights why catharsis (introspecting and unknowing impure thinking habits) is a precondition for spiritual science to proceed.

Yes, and this fear is generalized, not specific to materialists. But it's probably true that one often drifts toward materialism precisely under the pressure of this fear, because materialism allows them to lock the creative principle in the closet of matter and throw away the key. The religious, mystical, and philosophical minds accept somewhat more that the scary principle is ambient, on the loose.

The way I see it, this remains too vague, because we all imagine that we are embarking on the vehicle, adopting the perspective of the driver, and helping to reorient from there. This is what we say the phenomenological prompts are precisely aimed at doing, and I cannot imagine any more potent way of harnessing the existing momentum of the intellect and redirecting it in an orthogonal direction to what can be suspected from within its myopic understanding of reality, of what is possible for its inner degrees of freedom. That's why I think we need to work with more concrete examples, so it's clearer what we are envisioning with the "U-turn" and what we are envisioning with "joining the current trajectory". If the latter is another way of speaking about the introspective promptings of PoF, rooted in modern philosophical-scientific images and lines of reasoning, then it is simultaneously a U-turn from the default trajectory, in my view.

However, there is another kind of "joining the current trajectory" that is common these days, which is more like appeasement and indulgence of the intellect's current myopic state. This is a theme that I focused on in the spiritual exposure therapy essay, for example.

"Once we penetrate a little deeper into this whole way of thinking as we have started to do above, we can sense how it could only be born from the fear of extending our inner activity into novel domains of intuitive meaning. Instead, we rely on our mental images to build a picture of reality by combining them in the way it has become used to by analyzing the contents of the bodily-sensory experience. Yet the more we try to do that, the more we feel that we are doing nothing but a kind of abstract metaphysics, biding our time until the ‘true reality’ is found at some indefinite future time, after death, or not at all. We then begin to avoid the lived experience of reality altogether because we secretly prefer the comfortable configuration of our philosophical, religious, and scientific images, and we seek rationalized excuses for why it is “impossible” to encounter the concrete reality that is represented by our mental images.

At root, it is all quite similar to the person who is afraid to get on the elevator and, without the benefit of voluntary exposure therapy, uses the intellect to rationalize excuses for why the fear is justified or cannot be overcome. With respect to encountering the inner realities of phenomenal experience, these excuses come in all sorts of forms which are generally different ways of expressing the Kantian ‘noumenal’ boundary. To overcome this fear and avoidance strategy, we need to expose ourselves more deeply to the intentional gestures by which we are continually guiding the flow of mental images. It is true that these gestures cannot be found as additional mental images that are clearly in focus, but they can nevertheless be felt as an indispensable aspect of immanent experience. We can sense this invisible activity (which is synonymous with intuitive meaning) is barely noticeable at the ever-imploding horizon of our inner voice and mental pictures, but is nevertheless present and inviting us to ‘delaminate’ its layers, discerning its rich contributions to the flow of experience.

Indeed, as thinking humans we are already instinctively active within this deeper intuitive domain, for example, whenever we resist a tempting desire, like indulging in unhealthy food or spirits. We can't simply manipulate our familiar receding mental pictures (thoughts) and report to ourselves about the negative consequences - these pictures cannot modulate deep enough to modify the alluring desire. Instead we need to reach into a deeper scale of inner activity, with a new kind of inner effort, through concentrated activity. Our inner activity needs to become fiercely present within the flow of its experience and remain vigilant as the desirous flow continually threatens to drag it away toward the next chocolate cake or the next drink, like we are stopping ourselves from scratching a really bothersome itch. In this scenario, we utilize the mental pictures not to build theoretical models of our soul life, but to anchor ourselves within the soul flow and develop a strategy of resistance.

That strategy is only implemented at a deeper intuitive scale of activity which normally remains ‘out of focus’. If we manage to accomplish such a small miracle of resistance in our existential flow, then we experience ourselves coloring outside the lines of the sclerotic pathways of experience that we normally flow through passively. This experience then stimulates positive emotional feedback and motivates us to continue resisting the tempting desire and even to creatively work on seemingly unrelated desires. Thus we enter into a positive feedback cycle and gradually spiral upwards into new inner scales of creative activity."

How often is it implied in modern culture that the best way to deal with aspects of reality that induce fear, uncertainty, anxiety, etc., is to simply avoid them, or to analytically break them down in some way according to familiar habits? This is an entirely different way of 'meeting people where they're at', which only makes the goal of inner exposure therapy more and more remote, less and less likely to be attained. There is a true crossroad here that needs to come more into focus, because "joining the current trajectory" can be understood and taken in two completely different directions.

You are right, it's vague. I definitely have to come up with something more detailed and concrete. Surely, I do not suggest avoidance strategies. I suggest a sort of conceptual scaffolding, to be removed once the scaffolding has created a sufficiently familiar and supporting context for the soul to feel encouraged to peer into the unfamiliar activity. Reading again your excerpt, I get the impression that it is fantastic for whoever is already somewhat familiar with introspection, but possibly obscure (highlighted expressions) for the neophyte who is merged with the mental pictures and therefore doesn't yet experience what a mental picture is. All other highlighted expressions would then remain question marks. And we are used to resist desires by leveraging the prospect of indulging in other desires (rather than in a spirit of renunciation, self-knowledge, and self-control). I resist the chocolate cake because I want to look good at the next party, etcetera. More often than not, there will be little background to sense one's fierce presence within the flow. In any case, I feel that something more introductory could help. But you are right, I have to propose a specific complement.

[AshvinP]

You are right, it's vague. I definitely have to come up with something more detailed and concrete. Surely, I do not suggest avoidance strategies. I suggest a sort of conceptual scaffolding, to be removed once the scaffolding has created a sufficiently familiar and supporting context for the soul to feel encouraged to peer into the unfamiliar activity. Reading again your excerpt, I get the impression that it is fantastic for whoever is already somewhat familiar with introspection, but possibly obscure (highlighted expressions) for the neophyte who is merged with the mental pictures and therefore doesn't yet experience what a mental picture is. All other highlighted expressions would then remain question marks. And we are used to resist desires by leveraging the prospect of indulging in other desires (rather than in a spirit of renunciation, self-knowledge, and self-control). I resist the chocolate cake because I want to look good at the next party, etcetera. More often than not, there will be little background to sense one's fierce presence within the flow. In any case, I feel that something more introductory could help. But you are right, I have to propose a specific complement.

Yeah, I can see how such expressions would remain mysterious for those who haven't worked introspectively through the entire essay, and probably a few other similar essays. When compared to how we are used to reading and interpreting texts, where the meaning of certain phrases rooted in sensory intuition are immediately comprehensible, it will certainly be experienced as a high standard to meet. And this is the perennial question of occult teachers (considering myself only as a 'teacher' with respect to the most basic phenomenological foundations) - when the inevitable resistance is encountered with the communications, in what direction do we further try to engage the intellect? Do we 'back down' into abstract thought sequences which feel more comfortable, or do we push forward with new angles on the phenomenological promptings? My general feeling on this topic is what Cleric also expressed:

"Every kind of learning challenges the soul to go beyond its current limits. This may happen instinctively, as when the child instinctively pushes forward into acquiring language (which is initially completely beyond its limits, it is completely incomprehensible). But it can also happen, as in education, where the teacher raises the bar and the student has to make conscious efforts to reach the goal, even if initially it is likewise barely comprehensible.
...
The masters of the new impulse didn’t simply try to make noise. They raised the bar. This is what the Living Christ demands. This should be completely obvious from the nature in which the teachings have been given – they are not merely to satisfy our curiosity, but every revealed fact is at the same time a task. We have been given work for centuries to come!"

I think this 'raising the bar' is another way to speak of spiritual exposure therapy, where the soul is invited to gradually confront its unfamiliar gestures, which are initially experienced as frightening and threatening, and experience itself crossing over its imagined obstacles and limits to inner knowledge in the process. If we struggle to imagine a concrete and viable alternative to this exposure therapy, which isn't merely a regression to indulging the intellect's instinctive and dreamy navigation of reality, then it may simply be because there is nothing else to imagine. This is something worth contemplating at some point as well. We know the phrase, "nature abhors a vacuum", and at the spiritual level, we have spoken of how beings will always fill the 'gaps' left in the phenomenal flow by other beings. Most recently it was mentioned by Cleric:

"The hierarchies continuously move Time. Our I-pinhole is like the bottleneck of an hourglass, through which the sands of Time flow. The Cosmos continuously turns inside-out through that pinhole. The kinds of Time waves that are to pass through the pinhole are largely established through their Cosmic rhythms. As such, when the hierarchies push the Time waves in such a way that they expect that the human being will take their conscious responsibility within the upper cone of conscience space, but this responsibility is not taken, and instead souls clump at the waiting room at the bottleneck, a kind of ‘vacuum’ forms above. Then, other beings say, “If humans are unwilling to take hold of what is lawfully theirs, then we’ll gladly fill that void.”

At our imaginative scale, we may lack concrete ideas of the bridge forward and say it makes sense to pause for awhile and wait for further inspiration, but our soul flow and thinking process don't simply freeze themselves and wait for those new bridging ideas to arrive. Beings start to compete for this vacuum in our process and subtly inspire certain impulses, feelings, and thoughts that align with the movie continuation they wish to experience through our soul life. From our ordinary perspective, these will feel just like any other thoughts we condense at the horizon of consciousness, as products of our rational and logical reasoning. And this isn't meant to suggest some rare invasion of adversarial beings - as we have discussed, this is happening all the time. Whenever we get a popular song stuck in our head, for example, we can say that elemental beings associated with the forces that inspire such songs have filled the vacuum in our imaginative process, where our creative "I" remains absent, to align with the movie continuation they wish to experience. I think this is a deeper principle of soul exercises like 'right action', as well. When we waffle a lot on what ideas and plans we will carry out, this opens gaps for other beings to insert their ideas and plans.

This is not to suggest that some 'other beings' are to blame for these deviations. It is precisely our responsibility to attain clearer and clearer intuition of those movie continuations which align with our high ideals, and are within our sphere of intellectual and imaginative agency. It is our responsibility to locate and 'caulk' as many imaginative gaps as possible with clear intuitions. The phenomenological method, i.e., continually introspecting the truthful flows of experience, gives us such a clear intuition of an inner axis of development that expands out concentrically from the exceptional state. This is another angle on why it serves as the critical bridge of our current epoch. We may not always attain the results expected, or be satisfied with our inner state, but we always have a clear sense of the ideal states toward which we steer and what we generally need to do to steer more effectively and precisely. We know that it's all about purifying and refining our consciousness of the inner process through which our soul states are shaped and flow.

It also occurred to me that we have a proximate resource to draw on here - Kaje. Last year, he had engaged with Cleric on the 'fourth dimension' topic and had struggled with the conceptual arrow of an 'amalgamation of color blobs' (directly comparable to the 'chaotic aggregate' exercise). He initially approached it in a similar way to FB, as a false metaphysical conjecture, rather than an introspective prompting that helps us orient toward how the axes of inner experience (including spatial dimensions) take shape from our willful-cognitive gestures. I think it's safe to say that, a year later, he has a much better orientation toward such promptings and their inner functions. Perhaps, at some point, he may add some thoughts on how this transition was experienced and how his perspective was able to shift on such content. My sense is that it would have little to do with adding more big-picture philosophical or spiritual context in terms of standard thought sequences and conceptual correspondences, and more to do with gradually amplifying exposure to introspective exercises.

[Federica]

Indeed, as Cleric also mentioned on that thread, a core function of any proper phenomenology is unknowing the default assumptions, opinions, and habits of thinking which constrain the imaginative spirit and prevent it from feeling the truthful flow of inner experience. So, if you still recognize that, in any possible bridge from ordinary consciousness to higher consciousness, the key element will be the invisible introspective mood that the reader brings, which is necessary for catharsis as a precondition, and therefore our efforts will always be, first and foremost, to support that mood by faithfully and precisely depicting the inner experiences to the best of our ability, then there's no argument whatsoever from me. If PoF, in the introspective sense we have described above, is the limpid example of where your intention is headed, then I think it's clear we all share that same intention for the bridge and our efforts here, although sometimes unique in presentation and adaptive to new intellectual conditions (the morphing conceptual lattice), have all taken their primary inspiration from the PoF example. There is no alternative method here, only an elaboration and refinement of the existing method.

Thanks for the quotes. I guess the sticking point is that for me some phenomenology is accessible for the intellect. Not all phenomenology is higher phenomenology, as I called it in the post you quoted. The exceptional state is accessible to ordinary cognition. The gesture to try and recognize the meaning of "translucent inner voice" is accessible to ordinary cognition. It may be experienced as effortful, but I can try it out here and now, and everyone can. I don't need to concentrate thinking, have acquired clairvoyance, met the Guardian, be familiar with phenomenology, etcetera. Anyone can do the gesture (regardless of how successful it turns out) just like anyone can do a mathematical gesture, although it may feel effortful and fastidious or uncomfortable. Sure I recognize that the introspective mood is necessary for catharsis as a precondition. What I've been saying is that the motivation may be lacking, if there is a lacking support context of the kind the ordinary consciousness is familiar with.

In mathematics, when firstly facing an uncomfortable direction - say complex numbers - there is always a rich context one can rely on, revise, leverage as a consistent scaffolding. One can see how from a larger perspective something is missing, which justifies entering a new world of numbers, which contains all the previously known number-worlds, for example. But if the only thing we do is to strictly and faithfully depict the phenomenological experiences, the risk is to starve the ordinary consciousness right at the moment when it needs all possible encouragement to feel supported from all sides into the uncomfortable gestures. That's it. Is this an alternative method or only a variation of the method that depicts the phenomenological experiences? My reference is always Steiner. From my perspective he constantly did that - provide a rich supporting context for the ordinary mind - so it's surely not a new method. The goal is always the same, to educate the will so that the introspective gestures are done. Then it's not so important if we call the paths aiming there the same method or an alternative method, I would say.

[Kaje977]

It also occurred to me that we have a proximate resource to draw on here - Kaje. Last year, he had engaged with Cleric on the 'fourth dimension' topic and had struggled with the conceptual arrow of an 'amalgamation of color blobs' (directly comparable to the 'chaotic aggregate' exercise). He initially approached it in a similar way to FB, as a false metaphysical conjecture, rather than an introspective prompting that helps us orient toward how the axes of inner experience (including spatial dimensions) take shape from our willful-cognitive gestures. I think it's safe to say that, a year later, he has a much better orientation toward such promptings and their inner functions. Perhaps, at some point, he may add some thoughts on how this transition was experienced and how his perspective was able to shift on such content. My sense is that it would have little to do with adding more big-picture philosophical or spiritual context in terms of standard thought sequences and conceptual correspondences, and more to do with gradually amplifying exposure to introspective exercises.

Hello, Ashvin. Yes, that's right. Exposure is really what seems to have been going on within me. Although yes, it was gradual. Like a back and forth. At some days, I would fall back into old habits. On other days, I would sit down and approach the introspective exercises (although, right now, it's still mostly concerning my Soul). Slowly, but surely, my old habits seem to disappear and frequent introspective exercises tend to become the new normal for me. To me, personally, it does feel like a bridge. A gradual exposure therapy. The only issue I really have is that it could go very wrong if it's not approached correctly, because during these exercises there's no one that can take my hand if I go somewhere where I'm not ready yet. Do you know what I mean? I think I experienced a slow spiraling into schizophrenia, actually. It's very distressing and I fear if I continue, I might end up becoming insane if I don't approach it responsibly. I'm very sure it's because of something within my Soul. I became very hyper aware of my surroundings, the way people talk around me and to me, their mimics, expressions, body language, their faking, etc. I see the "social games" many of them all play (with a few exceptions to which I feel much more comfortable with), trying to fit in as much as possible and suddenly everything around me seems suspicious and always out there to hurt me, especially emotionally. I became extremely distrusting (although I was not very trusting of people before either), for some reason. So, I just want to say: In case I go somehow insane and start writing in a very uncomfortable or deeply confusing way, it's possible that I might have lost my mind. That's no understatement, I'm really serious. I try to keep being conscious and resisting as much as possible, but it seems like that something is overwhelming me and hence I start to get very, very suspicious of everything. I think I spiraled into overthinking, because I keep making up fake scenarios after social situations and see "pictures" in my head and I then think "That's how it happened" and then fall into endless rumination, going as far as watching and waiting for someone just "to know whether I'm right or not" over a very long period of time, because I somehow suspected they weren't honest with me or were hiding something. And I discovered I was completely wrong and my mind made up odd associations and connections and they sounded clear and obvious to me, but they weren't.

Anyway, yes, I made a big step towards Steiner, after I was very deeply involved with Kantianism before. The real thing I'm struggling with right now is "fear" of the Unknown. I still don't have the courage to make another step forward. I keep relapsing into old habits, because it seems like as soon as I try to temporaily resist certain temptations, my life gets suddenly worse. I wasn't the only one who experienced this btw, for some reason abstinence of sexual activity (e.g. masturbation) seems to cause a huge backlash from my environment: Very unlucky days, almost had an accident and similar odd things happening around me and to me. In a subreddit, there are plenty people experiencing and describing this, some others whoever having no such issue at all. I have no idea, but I believe there are beings (larvae, or what Bardon called them, schemes) who, on purpose, seem to alter certain circumstances to get addicts back to their addiction, because these beings start to starve and become desperate, so they would do everything in their power to get their mental substance from the addicts.

I can't blame "beings" for this alone, but I'm sure they play a role, especially one heavy one, some kind of parasite that found a home in me, a certain gap that I didn't fill. I always seem to end up in situations that either trigger my urges or cause me to have so much unluck or a very stressful social situation, that I end up being depressed and try to find relief in masturbation and I find feeling shame afterwards because of it.

[AshvinP]

Hello, Ashvin. Yes, that's right. Exposure is really what seems to have been going on within me. Although yes, it was gradual. Like a back and forth. At some days, I would fall back into old habits. On other days, I would sit down and approach the introspective exercises (although, right now, it's still mostly concerning my Soul). Slowly, but surely, my old habits seem to disappear and frequent introspective exercises tend to become the new normal for me. To me, personally, it does feel like a bridge. A gradual exposure therapy. The only issue I really have is that it could go very wrong if it's not approached correctly, because during these exercises there's no one that can take my hand if I go somewhere where I'm not ready yet. Do you know what I mean? I think I experienced a slow spiraling into schizophrenia, actually. It's very distressing and I fear if I continue, I might end up becoming insane if I don't approach it responsibly. I'm very sure it's because of something within my Soul. I became very hyper aware of my surroundings, the way people talk around me and to me, their mimics, expressions, body language, their faking, etc. I see the "social games" many of them all play (with a few exceptions to which I feel much more comfortable with), trying to fit in as much as possible and suddenly everything around me seems suspicious and always out there to hurt me, especially emotionally. I became extremely distrusting (although I was not very trusting of people before either), for some reason. So, I just want to say: In case I go somehow insane and start writing in a very uncomfortable or deeply confusing way, it's possible that I might have lost my mind. That's no understatement, I'm really serious. I try to keep being conscious and resisting as much as possible, but it seems like that something is overwhelming me and hence I start to get very, very suspicious of everything. I think I spiraled into overthinking, because I keep making up fake scenarios after social situations and see "pictures" in my head and I then think "That's how it happened" and then fall into endless rumination, going as far as watching and waiting for someone just "to know whether I'm right or not" over a very long period of time, because I somehow suspected they weren't honest with me or were hiding something. And I discovered I was completely wrong and my mind made up odd associations and connections and they sounded clear and obvious to me, but they weren't.

Anyway, yes, I made a big step towards Steiner, after I was very deeply involved with Kantianism before. The real thing I'm struggling with right now is "fear" of the Unknown. I still don't have the courage to make another step forward. I keep relapsing into old habits, because it seems like as soon as I try to temporaily resist certain temptations, my life gets suddenly worse. I wasn't the only one who experienced this btw, for some reason abstinence of sexual activity (e.g. masturbation) seems to cause a huge backlash from my environment: Very unlucky days, almost had an accident and similar odd things happening around me and to me. In a subreddit, there are plenty people experiencing and describing this, some others whoever having no such issue at all. I have no idea, but I believe there are beings (larvae, or what Bardon called them, schemes) who, on purpose, seem to alter certain circumstances to get addicts back to their addiction, because these beings start to starve and become desperate, so they would do everything in their power to get their mental substance from the addicts.

I can't blame "beings" for this alone, but I'm sure they play a role, especially one heavy one, some kind of parasite that found a home in me, a certain gap that I didn't fill. I always seem to end up in situations that either trigger my urges or cause me to have so much unluck or a very stressful social situation, that I end up being depressed and try to find relief in masturbation and I find feeling shame afterwards because of it.

Kaje, these are serious issues that you raise. Perhaps others will share some thoughts as well. On the one hand, I think we hardly need to worry about penetrating 'too deep' into spiritual reality on this introspective path, precisely because we meet continual resistance from our lower soul organism. We keep sliding back into old imaginative, feeling, and volitional habits. So we don't need to worry that imaginative meditation, for example, will progress 'too quickly' and therefore we need to take a break and go back to abstract contemplation. Much more likely is that we will naturally start to feel less motivation and enthusiasm for such meditations, and rationalize all kinds of excuses for why avoiding it is justified. 

On the other hand, there is a concern that our new inner experiences are crammed into the old wineskins and we essentially try to 'figure everything out' as quickly as possible. This is often associated with something like a spiraling into insanity, as the intellect is flooded with new content and tries to apply its familiar habits, organizing everything into some coherent and panoramic understanding of reality. 'Overthinking' is exactly right. The higher-order spiritual dynamics simply cannot fit comfortably into our existing intellectual slots, our ordinary spatiotemporal intuition. I can also relate to everything you have described - the heightened sensitivity to environmental influences, social interactions, etc., the sliding back into old habits, the lower urges that bring relief from a certain loneliness and depression, etc. Except I have never felt on the brink of insanity before, or highly conspiratorial thinking (although I can sense how I am always conspiring against my own ideals and therefore recognize this tendency clearly in wider culture as well). 

Embedded within the introspective cognitive path are safeguards against the pathological states which develop from atavistic approaches to deeper soul-spiritual spectrums of experience. These safeguards are centered around the soul work that you have mentioned - exercises for clear and unprejudiced thinking, disciplined will, devotional feeling. The most important element I would emphasize in this context is prayerful submission to wiser forces that guide our life destiny. I think that prayer is our greatest ally, and specifically prayer to the Christ being as the One who has co-experienced all the temptations and vicissitudes of Earthly life that we go through on the inner path. It is the grace of Christ that truly heals the inner parasites by offering them a more tasty meal, so to speak, a meal woven from the impulse of Love and Forgiveness. Christ will truly take our hand and guide us in all our introspective efforts.

"These words have I spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

I realize such things can sound like standard religious sentimentalism and cliches, yet these Grace dynamics are also rooted in the objective spiritual scientific foundations. The broader trajectories of destiny are already known by higher beings who weave the grid of potential in which we experience our Earthly lives unfolding. By prayerfully attuning to such beings (whose lives revolve around the central Inspiration of Christ), it is as if we say, "I don't need to immediately capture all the details of my becoming with the intellect and figure out what's going on at every step, but instead I can trust in your wise guidance of the peripheral details and allow my intuitive orientation to expand gradually, as needed. At the same time, I will pay attention to your feedback in the form of insights and inspirations, and I will strategically resist those impulses, habits, feelings, and thoughts which continually obstruct my will from aligning with Yours."

Within this prayerful context, sometimes even accidents and misfortunes can be experienced as wise promptings in the course of destiny. It is like our inner life was tipping too far in one direction or another, toward pride, lust, gluttony, etc., and a certain rebalancing can come about through the 'odd things' which interrupt the ordinary trajectory. I believe I have experienced such rebalancing in the context of sporting injuries, for example. In any case, we can gradually develop a trust that such events will eventually fit harmoniously into a wider context of destiny and try to remain concentrated on the ideal states we are steering toward with our most proximate thoughts, feelings, and deeds. The experience of shame, guilt, etc., in response to how we conduct our inner activity is often such feedback that we need to integrate - it is truly a dialogue with higher beings who are interested in our smooth and steady development. It is my sense that such beings understand why we continue lapsing into lower impulses and exhibit great longsuffering. We don't need to feel evil or inferior from such lapses, only to pay attention and continue introspecting them as we are doing now, keeping the dialogue with the higher worlds open.

[Federica]

Yeah, I can see how such expressions would remain mysterious for those who haven't worked introspectively through the entire essay, and probably a few other similar essays. When compared to how we are used to reading and interpreting texts, where the meaning of certain phrases rooted in sensory intuition are immediately comprehensible, it will certainly be experienced as a high standard to meet. And this is the perennial question of occult teachers (considering myself only as a 'teacher' with respect to the most basic phenomenological foundations) - when the inevitable resistance is encountered with the communications, in what direction do we further try to engage the intellect? Do we 'back down' into abstract thought sequences which feel more comfortable, or do we push forward with new angles on the phenomenological promptings? My general feeling on this topic is what Cleric also expressed:

"Every kind of learning challenges the soul to go beyond its current limits. This may happen instinctively, as when the child instinctively pushes forward into acquiring language (which is initially completely beyond its limits, it is completely incomprehensible). But it can also happen, as in education, where the teacher raises the bar and the student has to make conscious efforts to reach the goal, even if initially it is likewise barely comprehensible.
...
The masters of the new impulse didn’t simply try to make noise. They raised the bar. This is what the Living Christ demands. This should be completely obvious from the nature in which the teachings have been given – they are not merely to satisfy our curiosity, but every revealed fact is at the same time a task. We have been given work for centuries to come!"

I think this 'raising the bar' is another way to speak of spiritual exposure therapy, where the soul is invited to gradually confront its unfamiliar gestures, which are initially experienced as frightening and threatening, and experience itself crossing over its imagined obstacles and limits to inner knowledge in the process. If we struggle to imagine a concrete and viable alternative to this exposure therapy, which isn't merely a regression to indulging the intellect's instinctive and dreamy navigation of reality, then it may simply be because there is nothing else to imagine. This is something worth contemplating at some point as well. We know the phrase, "nature abhors a vacuum", and at the spiritual level, we have spoken of how beings will always fill the 'gaps' left in the phenomenal flow by other beings. Most recently it was mentioned by Cleric:

"The hierarchies continuously move Time. Our I-pinhole is like the bottleneck of an hourglass, through which the sands of Time flow. The Cosmos continuously turns inside-out through that pinhole. The kinds of Time waves that are to pass through the pinhole are largely established through their Cosmic rhythms. As such, when the hierarchies push the Time waves in such a way that they expect that the human being will take their conscious responsibility within the upper cone of conscience space, but this responsibility is not taken, and instead souls clump at the waiting room at the bottleneck, a kind of ‘vacuum’ forms above. Then, other beings say, “If humans are unwilling to take hold of what is lawfully theirs, then we’ll gladly fill that void.”

At our imaginative scale, we may lack concrete ideas of the bridge forward and say it makes sense to pause for awhile and wait for further inspiration, but our soul flow and thinking process don't simply freeze themselves and wait for those new bridging ideas to arrive. Beings start to compete for this vacuum in our process and subtly inspire certain impulses, feelings, and thoughts that align with the movie continuation they wish to experience through our soul life. From our ordinary perspective, these will feel just like any other thoughts we condense at the horizon of consciousness, as products of our rational and logical reasoning. And this isn't meant to suggest some rare invasion of adversarial beings - as we have discussed, this is happening all the time. Whenever we get a popular song stuck in our head, for example, we can say that elemental beings associated with the forces that inspire such songs have filled the vacuum in our imaginative process, where our creative "I" remains absent, to align with the movie continuation they wish to experience. I think this is a deeper principle of soul exercises like 'right action', as well. When we waffle a lot on what ideas and plans we will carry out, this opens gaps for other beings to insert their ideas and plans.

This is not to suggest that some 'other beings' are to blame for these deviations. It is precisely our responsibility to attain clearer and clearer intuition of those movie continuations which align with our high ideals, and are within our sphere of intellectual and imaginative agency. It is our responsibility to locate and 'caulk' as many imaginative gaps as possible with clear intuitions. The phenomenological method, i.e., continually introspecting the truthful flows of experience, gives us such a clear intuition of an inner axis of development that expands out concentrically from the exceptional state. This is another angle on why it serves as the critical bridge of our current epoch. We may not always attain the results expected, or be satisfied with our inner state, but we always have a clear sense of the ideal states toward which we steer and what we generally need to do to steer more effectively and precisely. We know that it's all about purifying and refining our consciousness of the inner process through which our soul states are shaped and flow.

It also occurred to me that we have a proximate resource to draw on here - Kaje. Last year, he had engaged with Cleric on the 'fourth dimension' topic and had struggled with the conceptual arrow of an 'amalgamation of color blobs' (directly comparable to the 'chaotic aggregate' exercise). He initially approached it in a similar way to FB, as a false metaphysical conjecture, rather than an introspective prompting that helps us orient toward how the axes of inner experience (including spatial dimensions) take shape from our willful-cognitive gestures. I think it's safe to say that, a year later, he has a much better orientation toward such promptings and their inner functions. Perhaps, at some point, he may add some thoughts on how this transition was experienced and how his perspective was able to shift on such content. My sense is that it would have little to do with adding more big-picture philosophical or spiritual context in terms of standard thought sequences and conceptual correspondences, and more to do with gradually amplifying exposure to introspective exercises.

I agree in general with the point you make. The part of disharmony in our contribution to the flow creates voids which tend to suck in activities/beings. And it’s simultaneously the other way around. Not only does an unmatched offer call up a demand but also unhealthy demands attract corresponding offers - as Cleric noted in the SoF post you have recently brought to attention. In this way, all evolving flows of activity always find a match, and always end up splitting as well, at the large epochal scale, as at the daily scale, as Kaje has just described.

What I can say is, my current mood is everything but “taking a pause for a while”. And when I try to focus on how to share with others the most basic introspective experiences I have luckily got access to, I feel that I strive for effortful gestures, and that it is a valuable striving, that I should become better at, by striving with more intention and continuity. As you reminded here, there is Right Action, and there is Right Striving too: “In relation to these exercises, for example, try to develop yourself so that later - if not immediately - you may be better able to help and advise others”. Therefore, I don’t think and feel I am engaged in blameful “deviations” that appeal to lower beings when I think of the bridge. I feel much more "deviating" in the case you give, for example: the music beat stuck in the head. This one feels much more like a habit that I need to be vigilant about: all the counterproductive, compulsive musical tracks I have to continually learn for the training choreographies of my classes, as they are constantly updated. Through the years I have become somewhat more sensitive to how they work against spiritual development, which is helpful, but at the same time they mean to create a sort of addiction, or attraction, they definitely stimulate unhelpful soul moods, and I have surely not found the antidote to these effects.

Speaking of responsibility, I do feel that we have one, everyone at one's relative level of development, and I do experience challenges, but I don’t think I am indulging in deviations when I attempt to figure out bridging means. Even if the concrete results are slow and scarce, it is a challenging and introspective activity, which is first and foremost about patience and direct experience, with the hope and intention that in the future a critical mass of understanding will be reached that will allow me to communicate more sympathetically and helpfully with the people around me.

You give the example of Kaje. Of course, it’s great that we have some fortunate counterexamples of individuals who have been receptive to the phenomenological prompts, and able to act upon them (even amidst the inevitable struggles). But this unfortunately doesn’t make less critical the thousandfold more common cases of insensitivity, and related gaping void in the evolving flow. Yes, the bar has been set higher, and direct exposure is an inevitable step for development. But the question is: is the intention of extending one’s understanding to others really a way to rob them of their freedom and block their exposure therapy, or is it a worthy and brotherly way to co-evolve, as individuals and collectives at the same time?

[Federica]

On other days, I would sit down and approach the introspective exercises (although, right now, it's still mostly concerning my Soul). Slowly, but surely, my old habits seem to disappear and frequent introspective exercises tend to become the new normal for me. To me, personally, it does feel like a bridge. A gradual exposure therapy. The only issue I really have is that it could go very wrong if it's not approached correctly, because during these exercises there's no one that can take my hand if I go somewhere where I'm not ready yet.
...

I am sorry for the struggles you are going through, Kaje.
Your impression of being alone in meditation, without guidance, has reminded me of this post by Cleric:

"In general, I have found that seeking the presence of beings, even if just as a feeling, always has intensifying effect. Feeling that what we do is not only for our own's sake but is part of a much more encompassing process. If it helps we can feel that our inner world is being watched by many spiritual eyes. Sometimes these things can help us concentrate. It's as if we become more conscientious, more motivated to do our best."


And I thought that your Angel is also with you. The more we appeal to the beings who wish us well and help us when we are asleep, the more we summon the feeling of gratitude for their subtle presence, the more we are able to feel their presence and be uplifted by it.

I would also like to comment on the schizophrenia-like experiences. I am not certain my thoughts are exact, but I will submit them to your consideration. On the one hand, as Ashvin confirms, your experiences may in part be explained by your evolving spiritual activity. As we enter a realm of activity somewhat decoupled from the usual social behaviors and attractors, we may become more sensitive to them and their 'otherness'. Social interactions and conventions may feel vain, trite, and artificial. I feel this divergence sometimes, and I have to be vigilant to refrain from negative judgments then (I am not good at that). On the other hand, when it comes to suspiciousness, supposing that others are ill-intentioned, and the ruminations involved, I think it may be an expectable initial consequence of spiritual development, especially when the consciousness is able to note what’s happening, as you are able at the moment. Perhaps this forum too generates at times feelings of suspiciousness, discontinuously. I would deem you don’t have to worry excessively about all that. It could be a result of heightened sensitivity to the ingrained passions and antipathetic stances in the soul. As your words seem to indicate, you have already sensed that. When these soul features progressively emerge to consciousness, like the ugly parasite you posted on the other thread, (which is a good thing, as we know) it may be an almost physiological reaction to become highly alerted, suspicious, and somewhat scared. Then one may expect ‘assaults’ from all sides. I guess this is a temporary condition. The more one advances spiritually, the more these effects are dissolved by the light of consciousness.

However, in the process, the whole transition feels uncomfortable and destressing. One cannot count anymore on the same ‘camaraderie’ with people within one’s social environment. They don't have the least idea of, or don’t understand, the changing of priorities experienced by the spiritual seeker and it’s hard to feel in sync with them. Moreover, “them” may amount to a very large part of the social environment. On top of that, our soul features attacking us from without make us freak out and see bad intentions everywhere. Depending on life situation, age, temperament, the sense of loneliness that may follow can be hard to navigate. All this is a lot to deal with at once, and it’s almost inevitable to struggle and search for relief somewhere. Regarding masturbation, if I may be allowed to speak clearly, I think the one most important thing is to stay away from porn. For the rest, I believe that concentration that begins with clear anchoring in the body, like the inner space stretching, can help harnessing the impulse, and then relieving it, in satisfactory, seamless way, if the meditation is done carefully and with responsibility, as I am sure you do. The orientation found there can help integrate and leverage the situation for the good, so that the physical body doesn’t become the occasion to feel bad and ashamed, but is integrated as a wholeness in the transformative process, which of course includes growing inner awareness of all its functions. Then the negative feelings can be transformed into their opposite, by a willed intention that ends up lifting up the consciousness, not weighing it down with lingering bad feelings. By the way, I believe that in any simple act of concentration of thought on a fixed unmoving object, the moment the image ‘clicks’ can reverberate for an instant as a kind of sexual sensation. There can be a sort of momentary sinking in the physical body, before the effort to ‘forget’ the body in its resting position takes off. What I am trying to say is, there is no need to blame in-principle the physical body and its functions, but only the lack of control and purpose that delivers it to the adversarial colonizers in our soul. And there's no need to anticipate an endless cycles of relapses and bad feelings, but more like an integrating, harmonious shift of consciousness, through growing self-knowledge and self-control, where the bodily layers find their rightful realm of expression.

[Federica]

Thanks for the quotes. I guess the sticking point is that for me some phenomenology is accessible for the intellect. Not all phenomenology is higher phenomenology, as I called it in the post you quoted. The exceptional state is accessible to ordinary cognition. The gesture to try and recognize the meaning of "translucent inner voice" is accessible to ordinary cognition. It may be experienced as effortful, but I can try it out here and now, and everyone can. I don't need to concentrate thinking, have acquired clairvoyance, met the Guardian, be familiar with phenomenology, etcetera. Anyone can do the gesture (regardless of how successful it turns out) just like anyone can do a mathematical gesture, although it may feel effortful and fastidious or uncomfortable. Sure I recognize that the introspective mood is necessary for catharsis as a precondition. What I've been saying is that the motivation may be lacking, if there is a lacking support context of the kind the ordinary consciousness is familiar with.

By the way, in this recent note by ML we have a great example of presentation that does not require inversions of any kind. It doesn't require introspection (the ideas acquire a deeper meaning with introspection of course). I guess philosophy from now on, as it goes its declining trajectory, should serve exactly this bridging purpose, until its reason to be will be fully exhausted.

...
By saying the form of knowledge that the cartographical and reductionist method provides is “abstract,” I mean the obvious fact that it is inherently representational and not presentational; that it necessarily deals with generic categories and, as a result, necessarily elides the particularity of things. Scientific knowledge is based not in relationship or encounter but in schematization, often in the form of quantification: a falling apple can be related to a distant star through scientific laws and theories in the same way that an apple from Vermont can be related to a car from Japan through the economy. Saying, “the fundamental nature of the Universe is atoms or quantum fields” is just as meaningful as concluding that an apple and a car are the same because they both have a price. But by “abstract,” I also mean that the content of this form of knowledge can never include the knower of it for the same reason that a map cannot contain the cartographer or reader of it within it without sparking an infinite regress. You would have to represent the mapmaker representing the mapmaker representing etc.

It’s fitting, then1 , that the scientific ideal of knowledge prioritizes impartiality and absence of personal relationship between the subject and the object of knowledge. After all, how can an unrepresented thing form a relationship to a representation? But the scientific ideal of knowledge implicitly presupposes that reality can be known in this manner and, ipso facto, that reality is of a nature that lends itself to knowledge through this means. This mode of knowledge corresponds with what German designates with the verb wissen and Spanish with the verb saber, both of which generally concern facts and concepts that can be passed from one knower to the next without any relationship to the phenomena or objects from which those facts and concepts were derived.

But there is another kind of knowledge, rooted in sustained experiential encounter. German and Spanish observe this distinction by designating this form of knowledge with a different verb—kennen and conocer, respectively. The latter is the only manner of knowledge by which we can know a person, for instance, without reducing him to something he is not (i.e. like an economic unit or a collection of particles). Indeed, if reality is more like a person than a collection of facts, then it can only be known in this way. Incidentally, I have always wondered whether the assertion of Christian philosophy that “truth is a person,”2 which has always struck me as something of a koan, is indicating precisely this.
...

[AshvinP]

Thanks for the quotes. I guess the sticking point is that for me some phenomenology is accessible for the intellect. Not all phenomenology is higher phenomenology, as I called it in the post you quoted. The exceptional state is accessible to ordinary cognition. The gesture to try and recognize the meaning of "translucent inner voice" is accessible to ordinary cognition. It may be experienced as effortful, but I can try it out here and now, and everyone can. I don't need to concentrate thinking, have acquired clairvoyance, met the Guardian, be familiar with phenomenology, etcetera. Anyone can do the gesture (regardless of how successful it turns out) just like anyone can do a mathematical gesture, although it may feel effortful and fastidious or uncomfortable. Sure I recognize that the introspective mood is necessary for catharsis as a precondition. What I've been saying is that the motivation may be lacking, if there is a lacking support context of the kind the ordinary consciousness is familiar with.

I am not quite clear on the distinction you are drawing here. For example, to pay attention to the experience of the inner voice and its 'translucent' quality certainly requires concentrated thinking, and it's not clear that 'anyone can do it' in the same way as anyone can manipulate mathematical symbols in their imagination. The way that I experience it when comparing them, the former brings us a level deeper into quite unfamiliar gestures. It's not enough to simply recognize that I have an inner voice and it keeps streaming, but I need to pay attention to it within the context of a broader phenomenological exploration. The translucent quality won't become apparent unless I am able to also compare these streaming inner voice perceptions with other perceptual flows which constrain my inner activity and feel less translucent. All of that requires a certain concentration within the inner process, as well as interest and enthusiasm for exploring that process. In my mind, these are exactly the kind of introspective promptings that evaded many on this forum, like Eugene. If this 'lower phenomenology' becomes accessible to the soul, then the thinking perspective is already inverting and it's off to the races - which is to say, none of the other phenomenological promptings will be experienced as 'too difficult' or 'too remote', if the same interest and effort is brought in the soul's engagement with them.

In mathematics, when firstly facing an uncomfortable direction - say complex numbers - there is always a rich context one can rely on, revise, leverage as a consistent scaffolding. One can see how from a larger perspective something is missing, which justifies entering a new world of numbers, which contains all the previously known number-worlds, for example. But if the only thing we do is to strictly and faithfully depict the phenomenological experiences, the risk is to starve the ordinary consciousness right at the moment when it needs all possible encouragement to feel supported from all sides into the uncomfortable gestures. That's it. Is this an alternative method or only a variation of the method that depicts the phenomenological experiences? My reference is always Steiner. From my perspective he constantly did that - provide a rich supporting context for the ordinary mind - so it's surely not a new method. The goal is always the same, to educate the will so that the introspective gestures are done. Then it's not so important if we call the paths aiming there the same method or an alternative method, I would say.

I think 'faithfully depicting phenomenological experiences' can be taken in too narrow of a sense. It may seem like we are speaking about only describing the experience of immediately accessible sensory perceptions, mental pictures, inner activity, and so on. Yet we can see from the phenomenological essays that is not the case, as we can also describe potentially accessible experiences through various illustrations and metaphors. This is exactly what provides the larger perspective which serves as context for the dynamics we are exploring in our immediate and lucid intuitive process. As we know, the deeper scales of cognitive experience naturally elucidate what unfolds at our meso-scale, and therefore provides a living context for the latter. And I agree this is what Steiner constantly did. All the lectures about cosmology, the Earth's historical development, physiology, etc. are ways of probing this higher-order cognitive context and giving the listener, who approaches in an introspective mood, a more refined feeling for that context.

What you shared from Max, in my view, also requires introspective effort to attain a concrete sense of what he is metaphorically speaking about. For example, "You would have to represent the mapmaker representing the mapmaker representing etc." (like the hand drawing a hand, drawing a hand drawing a hand, etc.), invites us to translate our picture of recursive mapmaking into the experience of conducting our cognitive activity in abstract scientific inquiries and how the conductor inevitably gets left out of the resulting thought panoramas. If this insight were to stay at the level of 'modern science is rooted in a view from nowhere', then we are simply repeating an observation that has been made by previous philosophical thinkers for centuries. Only when we begin to experience our own cognitive process snapping into the view from nowhere as it explores the lawful relations, do we start bridging toward the imaginative scale of activity.