GA 13 - Rudolf Steiner's "Secret Science in Outline"

[AshvinP]

The task of Steiner has been extraordinarily difficult. In this book he had to disclose some of the secrets of Initiatic science to the general consciousness of the time, which could hardly conceive of anything other than substances and forces. We can only imagine how painful it must have felt to try and squeeze the higher intuitions of reality into such a materialistic framework. Yet it was a step that was necessary in the historical development of humanity. Something like that just had to appear on the World's stage.

Now by saying this I don't want to give the impression that this book is outdated. I couldn't find the exact quote but at some point RS said that even though it was written in more external language, everything could still be experienced Imaginatively. And this is what I wanted to point out - that when we study this important book, we should not hold to the images too rigidly. We need to remember that it is a kind of transition between thinking which can only think in sensory-like images, toward the more intimate experience of the metamorphosing inner space.

Thanks, Cleric. The tension generated by the need to address an adverse public is perceptible in what I have read so far. I take note of the context you describe, and that language and images were chosen under particular constraints. For sure, I have a tendency to hold images and concepts too rigidly, I've recently stumbled upon a lecture about memory and love that mentions the risks of building upon a child's memory too early - surely my case. So I will pay attention to the particular character of language and images employed in the book. I wonder if Theosophy represented a smaller but similar challenge, or maybe it was a more confidential book, at a time when Steiner was also less known. In any case, I couldn't read much during these last couple of days, but I'm excited to progress this weekend. Is anyone else also reading along?

I have been following the YT discussion so far, not exactly reading along. Although I am happy to continue discussing the chapters as you work through it, and it shouldn't take much effort for me to catch up.

Steiner's 1925 preface discusses some of the historical issues already mentioned and the relationship to Theosophy - https://rsarchive.org/Books/GA013/Engli ... f1925.html

[Federica]

I have been following the YT discussion so far, not exactly reading along. Although I am happy to continue discussing the chapters as you work through it, and it shouldn't take much effort for me to catch up.

Steiner's 1925 preface discusses some of the historical issues already mentioned and the relationship to Theosophy - https://rsarchive.org/Books/GA013/Engli ... f1925.html

Thanks! Yes I'm sure you don't need to read it again. I was hoping that others who are not well acquainted with the book were seizing the opportunity.

[Federica]

Brief note to give an example of what you said on the other thread:

In planar thinking, we try to click the concepts of Saturn, Sun, Moon, and so forth only between themselves, to figure out some abstract system in which they seem to all make sense quite independently of our own inner ideal context. This approach will necessarily lead to frustrations, struggles, seeming contradictions (because a description from one angle is in tension with that from another angle), and a feeling that it all remains as an abstract picture of remote supersensible realities. In vertical thinking, we continuously try to relate the supersensible realities described to that inner ideal (intuitive) context, sensing how the latter structures our current state of being and its metamorphoses.

From chapter II:

Man has his physical body in common with the minerals and his etheric body with the plants. In the same sense he is of like nature with the animals in respect of the astral body. The plant is in a perpetual state of sleep. Anyone who does not judge accurately in these matters may easily fall into the error of attributing to plants too a kind of consciousness such as the animals and man have in their waking state. But this mistake is only possible when one's idea of consciousness is inexact. One may then aver that a plant too, when subjected to an outer stimulus, will perform movements, just an animal will do. One will refer to the ‘sensitiveness’ of many plants, which for example contract their leaves when certain outer things affect them. But the criterion of consciousness does not lie in the fact that to a given action a being shows a definite reaction. It lies in this, that the being has an inner experience, and this is a new factor, over and above the mere reaction. Otherwise we might as well speak of consciousness when a piece of iron expands under the influence of heat. Consciousness is only there when for example, through the effect of heat, the being inwardly experiences pain.

In intellectual contradiction to this, we find descriptions of how plants and minerals feel pain and pleasure (at the level of their group souls), for example here:

There is a difference between the cutting off of blossoms, stalk, leaves, and the tearing up of a root. The former gives the plant soul a feeling of well-being, of pleasure...
...
Even stone is without life only on the physical plane. All minerals have their group egos in the higher worlds, on the higher devachanic plane, and these, too, feel pain and pleasure. Only spiritual science can teach us about these matters; speculation is of no avail. Looking at a quarry, and watching the splitting off of each block of stone, one might imagine this to cause pain for the stone ego. But it is not so. With the actual splitting of stone, there gushes out in all directions a feeling of pleasure. Out of the quarry from which the blocks are being cut there streams deep satisfaction on every side. And if we put salt into a glass of water so that it dissolves, then, too, a feeling of pleasure flows through the water.

[AshvinP]

Brief note to give an example of what you said on the other thread:

In planar thinking, we try to click the concepts of Saturn, Sun, Moon, and so forth only between themselves, to figure out some abstract system in which they seem to all make sense quite independently of our own inner ideal context. This approach will necessarily lead to frustrations, struggles, seeming contradictions (because a description from one angle is in tension with that from another angle), and a feeling that it all remains as an abstract picture of remote supersensible realities. In vertical thinking, we continuously try to relate the supersensible realities described to that inner ideal (intuitive) context, sensing how the latter structures our current state of being and its metamorphoses.

From chapter II:

Man has his physical body in common with the minerals and his etheric body with the plants. In the same sense he is of like nature with the animals in respect of the astral body. The plant is in a perpetual state of sleep. Anyone who does not judge accurately in these matters may easily fall into the error of attributing to plants too a kind of consciousness such as the animals and man have in their waking state. But this mistake is only possible when one's idea of consciousness is inexact. One may then aver that a plant too, when subjected to an outer stimulus, will perform movements, just an animal will do. One will refer to the ‘sensitiveness’ of many plants, which for example contract their leaves when certain outer things affect them. But the criterion of consciousness does not lie in the fact that to a given action a being shows a definite reaction. It lies in this, that the being has an inner experience, and this is a new factor, over and above the mere reaction. Otherwise we might as well speak of consciousness when a piece of iron expands under the influence of heat. Consciousness is only there when for example, through the effect of heat, the being inwardly experiences pain.

In intellectual contradiction to this, we find descriptions of how plants and minerals feel pain and pleasure (at the level of their group souls), for example here:

There is a difference between the cutting off of blossoms, stalk, leaves, and the tearing up of a root. The former gives the plant soul a feeling of well-being, of pleasure...
...
Even stone is without life only on the physical plane. All minerals have their group egos in the higher worlds, on the higher devachanic plane, and these, too, feel pain and pleasure. Only spiritual science can teach us about these matters; speculation is of no avail. Looking at a quarry, and watching the splitting off of each block of stone, one might imagine this to cause pain for the stone ego. But it is not so. With the actual splitting of stone, there gushes out in all directions a feeling of pleasure. Out of the quarry from which the blocks are being cut there streams deep satisfaction on every side. And if we put salt into a glass of water so that it dissolves, then, too, a feeling of pleasure flows through the water.

Right, that's an interesting one. My initial intuition is that this is harmonized when we distinguish between the elemental being of a mineral or plant, which is in a state of deep dreamless sleep or dreamless sleep, respectively, and therefore has no inner conscious experience, and the archetypal group-ego of the mineral or plant which resides in the spiritual world and experiences lucid consciousness. In a sense, the former exists only by virtue of our current incarnate existence - it is how our spirit cognizes-perceives the group-egos within the 4th convolution of objective spatial consciousness. We fragment these intuitive curvatures into particular minerals and plants that transform frame by frame.

Within this 4th convolution, the archetypal beings of the mineral and plant kingdoms can only be approximated by thinking through the species and kingdoms as a whole in their temporally extended transformations. We can legitimately speak of pain and pleasure for these group-egos but we would be falling into error if we ascribe an inner conscious life to each stone or plant we come across in the sensory world. These fine differentiations need to be made in our thinking so we remain clear on what conclusions can be from drawn from only those aspects of the natural kingdoms perceptible to sensory thinking and what, on the other hand, needs supersensible thinking. We overestimate the former greatly when we feel the sensible gestures of a plant, for ex., can tell us about the soul life of the plant-being. This naturally leads to reduction of the ideal and soul life to sensible phenomena.

A clear example of this muddled thinking is what we find today in all the questions about whether our machines have already become or are becoming conscious entities. Steiner uses the example of a mousetrap in one of his lectures, which is basically the same thing.

People who talk superficially of the soul and do not know anything about it will say: 'A plant has a soul just as human beings have a soul.' I always have only one thing to say to such people: 'I know a small device; you put some fat bacon into it, having browned it a little first — a mousetrap. And when a mouse nibbles on the bacon the trap will close of its own accord. Someone who concludes from such things as the Venus's fly-trap that there has to be a soul in there would also have to say that the mousetrap has a soul, for it closes of its own accord.' It always is a matter of how we take the background of anything.

You see, the characteristic of anthroposophy is that we always consider the background. Others who do think there is a soul but know nothing of the soul will say a plant also has a soul if it acts in a similar way to a mousetrap when an insect comes close. In anthroposophy, it is not outer appearances that lead to conclusions but true insight into the soul element.

[Federica]

Right, that's an interesting one. My initial intuition is that this is harmonized when we distinguish between the elemental being of a mineral or plant, which is in a state of deep dreamless sleep or dreamless sleep, respectively, and therefore has no inner conscious experience, and the archetypal group-ego of the mineral or plant which resides in the spiritual world and experiences lucid consciousness. In a sense, the former exists only by virtue of our current incarnate existence - it is how our spirit cognizes-perceives the group-egos within the 4th convolution of objective spatial consciousness. We fragment these intuitive curvatures into particular minerals and plants that transform frame by frame.

Within this 4th convolution, the archetypal beings of the mineral and plant kingdoms can only be approximated by thinking through the species and kingdoms as a whole in their temporally extended transformations. We can legitimately speak of pain and pleasure for these group-egos but we would be falling into error if we ascribe an inner conscious life to each stone or plant we come across in the sensory world. These fine differentiations need to be made in our thinking so we remain clear on what conclusions can be from drawn from only those aspects of the natural kingdoms perceptible to sensory thinking and what, on the other hand, needs supersensible thinking. We overestimate the former greatly when we feel the sensible gestures of a plant, for ex., can tell us about the soul life of the plant-being. This naturally leads to reduction of the ideal and soul life to sensible phenomena.

Yes, the sense in which this can be approximated is as in Goethe's poem Epirrhema:

...Rejoice in this truth, rejoice in this serious play
Nothing alive is a ‘one’, it’s always a ‘many.’

...Freuet euch des wahren Scheins,
Euch des ernsten Spieles:
Kein Lebendiges ist ein Eins,
Immer ist’s ein Vieles.

...temporally, and also spatially:

In considering nature, always pay attention to the one as to the many.
Nothing is inner, nothing is outer, for what is on the inside, that is on the outside...

Müsset im Naturbetrachten
Immer eins wie alles achten:
Nichts ist drinnen, nichts ist draußen;
Denn was innen, das ist außen...


Steiner's descriptions of the Earth's material evolution are helping me here - how in ancient times the Earth was sort of a ball of fire, with molten stone and no water, then it became plant-like when some of that hot mass started to crystallize, harden, and die out. Just like a plant - and any other expression of biological life on Earth - is a dying out life principle, so are the rocky mountains we see today the residual testimony of the planet's died out earlier plant-like life. Stone is a dead plant, and animal and man also are dying out, as species, in our bones first. Bones were not there in earlier stages of man's evolution...

If you go into the central Alpine region where the hardest rocks are, there you have the deposited plants. If you go into the Juras, there you have what is deposited by animals. The whole earth has once been living; originally it was a plant, then an animal. What we have to-day as rock is the remains of life.

It is simply nonsense to imagine that life is built up from dead substances through chemical combination. Life comes out of the ether-filled universe. It is nonsense to say that dead substances unite and come to life — what is called “original creation”. No, it is precisely the dead substances that are derived from the living, deposited by the living. As our bones are separated out — in the mother's body they are not there at first — so is everything, our bony structure, etc., formed out of the living. The living exists first and only afterwards comes the dead. The ether surrounds us and it draws everything upwards just as the earth's gravity draws everything down. It draws upwards but it does not bring death, as gravity does.

Life on Earth in Past and Future

In this connection, I also found this article stimulating. I couldn't fully understand it. The pictures have helped, anyway, for lack of fully grasping the text


***

And these developments won't necessarily take millions or hundreds of thousands of years. For ex. Steiner mentions how the current mode of bisexual reproduction will end and the Moon will reunite with the Earth around 8,000 AD. We can imagine how different our relationship to the sensory spectrum must be for something like this to unfold harmoniously. How could souls continue to incarnate onto Earth if they are still destroying the remaining bodies through their spiritual activity? These are events humanity should begin to hold as concrete ideals even now to prepare for them in the best possible way.

Incidentally, trying to better grasp the nature of plant and mineral, I found this:

You must think to yourselves, as you go back in time: the rock in the primeval Alps which is quite hard and solid to-day begins to flow, somewhat as iron flows in an iron foundry. It is naturally not quite the same, for when we go back the flow is reversed, as it were, it is in process of becoming solid. And if we go forward into the future, we shall again have the sun in Libra — for now it rises in Pisces, after 2,160 years in Aquarius, then in Capricorn, Sagittarius and once more in Libra, the Scales. At this future time when the sun rises once more in the Scales, the whole primeval Alpine range will have dissolved. The dense quartzes will have become fluid again, the earth will once more be plant-like and men and animals return to the condition in which they formerly were. In the meanwhile, however, they have absorbed all that they could take in on the earth.

Life on Earth in Past and Future

[Federica]

Now coming to animals:

To attribute memory to animals is an error still easier to fall into than the mistake of ascribing consciousness to plants. It is natural enough to think of memory when a dog recognizes its master, whom it may not have seen for some time past. Yet in reality the recognition depends not on memory, but on something else. The attraction proceeds from the master's nature, which gives pleasure to the dog when in his presence. Every time the master's presence is renewed this causes a renewal of the pleasure. Now memory is only there when a being not only feels the experiences of the present moment but preserves those of the past. Even when this is granted, it is still possible to make the mistake of attributing memory to the dog. Surely, one might rejoin, since the dog grieves when its master goes away, it must retain some memory of him. This too, however, is a wrong conclusion. By living with him, the master's presence has become a need to the dog; it feels his absence just as it experiences hunger. If we are not ready to make clear distinctions of this kind, insight into the true relationships of life remains impaired.

Here - still from SSiO Chapter II - I must admit I fail to be convinced, clearly when it comes to domestic animals, but even in general. We know that in other places Steiner explains that, for pets, living in close contact with humans, there is some form of 'osmosis of consciousness' that may explain some particular traits of the individual animal and some capacity to remember (another case of intellectual disconnect). But even when it comes to wild animals, some of them can be taught habits, which requires memorizing instructions. Some show individual traits, even when they are not domesticated or captive. I realize the link between consciousness of self and memory:

The latter kind of thinking can most easily be exemplified through our activity of remembering (see also the ‘what we had for breakfast’ example in FoHC). When we remember something, we focus the memory thought-images from within our intuitive context. We are interested not simply in any mental images (which would correspond to fantasy) but precisely those that fit musically within the dim intuition of the thing we try to remember. The fact that they fit in this way doesn’t in itself guarantee that our dim intuition is truthful. The memory images that explicate this intuition need to fit also with the rest of the phenomenal content. In other words, we should always be pursuing the harmony of the facts.

So to clarify what is meant by animal memory, one could maybe argue that such alterations in animal consciousness only appear to the extent that they come in contact with humans, in a way or another, and humans observe their behavior. But I'm not convinced. Another way: would it be correct to distinguish between an intentional memory, that is not necessarily coupled with the sensory spectrum - I have the initiative to recall a past event or image out of my own sense-free intention - and a simple act of drawing from the intuitive context as a reaction to sensory experience - for example, the animal remembers the owner, remembers places, habits, instructions, when specifically stimulated by certain sensory experiences?

[AshvinP]

Now coming to animals:

To attribute memory to animals is an error still easier to fall into than the mistake of ascribing consciousness to plants. It is natural enough to think of memory when a dog recognizes its master, whom it may not have seen for some time past. Yet in reality the recognition depends not on memory, but on something else. The attraction proceeds from the master's nature, which gives pleasure to the dog when in his presence. Every time the master's presence is renewed this causes a renewal of the pleasure. Now memory is only there when a being not only feels the experiences of the present moment but preserves those of the past. Even when this is granted, it is still possible to make the mistake of attributing memory to the dog. Surely, one might rejoin, since the dog grieves when its master goes away, it must retain some memory of him. This too, however, is a wrong conclusion. By living with him, the master's presence has become a need to the dog; it feels his absence just as it experiences hunger. If we are not ready to make clear distinctions of this kind, insight into the true relationships of life remains impaired.

Here - still from SSiO Chapter II - I must admit I fail to be convinced, clearly when it comes to domestic animals, but even in general. We know that in other places Steiner explains that, for pets, living in close contact with humans, there is some form of 'osmosis of consciousness' that may explain some particular traits of the individual animal and some capacity to remember (another case of intellectual disconnect). But even when it comes to wild animals, some of them can be taught habits, which requires memorizing instructions. Some show individual traits, even when they are not domesticated or captive. I realize the link between consciousness of self and memory:

The latter kind of thinking can most easily be exemplified through our activity of remembering (see also the ‘what we had for breakfast’ example in FoHC). When we remember something, we focus the memory thought-images from within our intuitive context. We are interested not simply in any mental images (which would correspond to fantasy) but precisely those that fit musically within the dim intuition of the thing we try to remember. The fact that they fit in this way doesn’t in itself guarantee that our dim intuition is truthful. The memory images that explicate this intuition need to fit also with the rest of the phenomenal content. In other words, we should always be pursuing the harmony of the facts.

So to clarify what is meant by animal memory, one could maybe argue that such alterations in animal consciousness only appear to the extent that they come in contact with humans, in a way or another, and humans observe their behavior. But I'm not convinced. Another way: would it be correct to distinguish between an intentional memory, that is not necessarily coupled with the sensory spectrum - I have the initiative to recall a past event or image out of my own sense-free intention - and a simple act of drawing from the intuitive context as a reaction to sensory experience - for example, the animal remembers the owner, remembers places, habits, instructions, when specifically stimulated by certain sensory experiences?

I was reading a lecture just recently that may hold the key:


https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA172/En ... 06p01.html

Well, we need not elaborate on these specially complicated expressions of intelligence, but what stands out is that all these various animals performed feats of arithmetic. A great deal of attention was then given to the investigation of what such animals can achieve. Something quite unusual came to light in the case of the Frankfurt ape. It was possible to witness that when he was given a problem in addition to which he had to find a definite answer he pointed to the correct number in a series placed side by side. It was then discovered that this educated ape had simply formed the habit of being guided by the direction of the glance of his trainer. Then some of those who had previously been astonished said, “He has no trace of a mind; his training is everything!” In other words, the animal was taking his direction from his trainer and followed nothing more than a somewhat complicated training procedure. Just as a dog fetches a stone when it is thrown, so did the ape produce from the series of numbers the one indicated by the glance of his trainer.

Upon more thorough investigation, similar findings will undoubtedly be obtained in experiments with the other animals. Whatever, we cannot suppress our astonishment that people are so amazed when animals perform something that is seemingly human. How much more objective understanding, how much intellect, is actually associated with the so-called instinctual behavior in animals. As a matter of fact, the enormously important achievements and profoundly significant connections in the animal realm cause us to admire the wisdom underlying all happenings. We do not have wisdom merely in our heads; wisdom surrounds us everywhere like light, working everywhere, even through the animal kingdom.
...
With the proper perception, one can obviously explain such phenomena only when one thinks of objective wisdom and understanding as qualities that, along with instinctive behavior, have been instilled in things, and when one thinks of an animal as part of a complete system of interrelated objective wisdom permeating the world. In other words, they can be explained only when we are no longer limited to the idea that wisdom has come into the world through man alone, but recognize that wisdom is to be found throughout the universe. Man, by reason of his special organization, is able to perceive more of this wisdom than other beings, and is thus distinguished from them. Because of his organization, he can perceive more than they, but through the wisdom implanted in them, they can perform wisdom-filled tasks as he can. It is, however, a different kind of wisdom. The phenomena of these unusual expressions of wisdoms are really far less important to serious observers of the world than the phenomena that are always spread out before their eyes. These are far more important and, if you take this into consideration, you will no longer find incomprehensible what I am about to say.

An animal, far more intensely than man, fits into the universal wisdom and is quite intimately united with it. Its orders, so to speak, are far more compulsory than those of man. Human beings are much freer, and so it is possible for them to reserve forces for the cognition of interrelationships. The essential point is that the physical body of an animal — especially the higher ones — is fitted into the same universal interrelationships as man's etheric body. Thus, man knows more of the cosmic relationships, but animals are far more intimately united with them; they are far closer to, and more interwoven with, them. Therefore, if you take this objectively dominant reason into consideration tell yourself this: “We are surrounded not only by air and light but also by governing reason; we do not move merely through illumined space but also through the space of wisdom and governing reason.”

So we are falling into muddled thinking if we confuse the animal's more intimate union with the 'governing reason' of the Cosmos with the faculty of memory, the latter allowing for cognition of interrelationships in an intentional way, as you also pointed out. Through this faculty, humans begin to do consciously what the Cosmos does for the animals. We gradually begin to restore the Cosmic Wisdom in our chopped up memory-thoughts. What we know as the profoundly wise 'instincts' and 'training' in animals is nothing other than Cosmic Intelligence viewed from the 4th convolution - we could say it is the Memory of the Gods working through them, insofar as it is the already accomplished Divine intents for natural creation which work on as instinctive habits that can nevertheless be quite pliable and adaptive to changing circumstances (although there are many cases in which animals migratory patterns don't adapt to changes in the environment brought by humanity, for example).

Yet this Cosmic Memory flows right through the animal soul and animates its etheric and physical bodies - there is no break in the process that allows for memory impressions to build up within the individualized soul. This is also connected with their horizontal orientation in contrast to our vertical stance. We can also connect it with Cleric's ice skating toe-picks illustration. It is only through this individual memory faculty that we can condense encoded concepts and reach the grounds of our freedom, and eventually begin to consciously work with the memory images to form new relationships between sensory impressions, to gain insights into the intuitive context, to reorient and educate our imaginative flow, and to freely conduct our deeds more harmoniously with the moral order of the Cosmos.

[Cleric K]

Now coming to animals:

To attribute memory to animals is an error still easier to fall into than the mistake of ascribing consciousness to plants. It is natural enough to think of memory when a dog recognizes its master, whom it may not have seen for some time past. Yet in reality the recognition depends not on memory, but on something else. The attraction proceeds from the master's nature, which gives pleasure to the dog when in his presence. Every time the master's presence is renewed this causes a renewal of the pleasure. Now memory is only there when a being not only feels the experiences of the present moment but preserves those of the past. Even when this is granted, it is still possible to make the mistake of attributing memory to the dog. Surely, one might rejoin, since the dog grieves when its master goes away, it must retain some memory of him. This too, however, is a wrong conclusion. By living with him, the master's presence has become a need to the dog; it feels his absence just as it experiences hunger. If we are not ready to make clear distinctions of this kind, insight into the true relationships of life remains impaired.

Here - still from SSiO Chapter II - I must admit I fail to be convinced, clearly when it comes to domestic animals, but even in general. We know that in other places Steiner explains that, for pets, living in close contact with humans, there is some form of 'osmosis of consciousness' that may explain some particular traits of the individual animal and some capacity to remember (another case of intellectual disconnect). But even when it comes to wild animals, some of them can be taught habits, which requires memorizing instructions. Some show individual traits, even when they are not domesticated or captive. I realize the link between consciousness of self and memory:

The latter kind of thinking can most easily be exemplified through our activity of remembering (see also the ‘what we had for breakfast’ example in FoHC). When we remember something, we focus the memory thought-images from within our intuitive context. We are interested not simply in any mental images (which would correspond to fantasy) but precisely those that fit musically within the dim intuition of the thing we try to remember. The fact that they fit in this way doesn’t in itself guarantee that our dim intuition is truthful. The memory images that explicate this intuition need to fit also with the rest of the phenomenal content. In other words, we should always be pursuing the harmony of the facts.

So to clarify what is meant by animal memory, one could maybe argue that such alterations in animal consciousness only appear to the extent that they come in contact with humans, in a way or another, and humans observe their behavior. But I'm not convinced. Another way: would it be correct to distinguish between an intentional memory, that is not necessarily coupled with the sensory spectrum - I have the initiative to recall a past event or image out of my own sense-free intention - and a simple act of drawing from the intuitive context as a reaction to sensory experience - for example, the animal remembers the owner, remembers places, habits, instructions, when specifically stimulated by certain sensory experiences?

Maybe we can draw an analogy with cases of people with anterograde amnesia. In most cases, these people have a short memory span (for example 30 seconds or more) and they don't remember anything that has happened before that. It's like they continuously wake up from some fixed state (usually before the time of the incident). However, as a whole, these people don't have a problem learning new skills. For example, a musician can learn a new song, then they can play it flawlessly even though they don't remember learning it.

This gives us an approximate picture of animal consciousness which goes through a continuous dream without beginning or end. It dreams toward the pleasant and dreams away from the unpleasant, 'frame for frame'. When an animal has experienced something threatful (or pleasurable), it can be said that it is learned it like a skill. It sinks into the life and physical bodies. Next time the threat is faced, the animal dreams of a fearful picture and tries to avoid it, even though there's no inner experience of an animal "I" that has lived in the past and experienced similar threats before. It all flows as a part of the dream.

[Federica]

This paragraph right in the middle of Chapter II is not clear to me:

If we say that man is aware of his memory by looking into his own inner life — a method he obviously cannot apply to the animal — we make a fatal mistake. Man is of course aware of his own faculty of memory, but he can not derive this knowledge from mere introspection. He derives it from what he experiences with himself in relation to the things and events of the external world. This kind of experience he has with himself, with his fellow-man, and with the animals too, in precisely the same way. It is an illusion to imagine that we judge of the presence of memory simply on the strength of introspection. The power underlying memory may indeed by called an inner one; the judgment about it is acquired, even for one's own person, by the tests of the external world — by observing the whole sequence and continuity of life. Of this we can form a judgment in the case of the animal no less than in our own. In such matters the psychology of our time suffers greatly from crude and inexact conceptions — conceptions based on faulty observation and therefore highly misleading.

It seems to mitigate the intentional character of human memory we mentioned above (so I must be blind to what RS is pointing to here). Cleric or Ashvin, would you please clarify? What is this "judgment about memory" that relies on the external world?

[AshvinP]

This paragraph right in the middle of Chapter II is not clear to me:

If we say that man is aware of his memory by looking into his own inner life — a method he obviously cannot apply to the animal — we make a fatal mistake. Man is of course aware of his own faculty of memory, but he can not derive this knowledge from mere introspection. He derives it from what he experiences with himself in relation to the things and events of the external world. This kind of experience he has with himself, with his fellow-man, and with the animals too, in precisely the same way. It is an illusion to imagine that we judge of the presence of memory simply on the strength of introspection. The power underlying memory may indeed by called an inner one; the judgment about it is acquired, even for one's own person, by the tests of the external world — by observing the whole sequence and continuity of life. Of this we can form a judgment in the case of the animal no less than in our own. In such matters the psychology of our time suffers greatly from crude and inexact conceptions — conceptions based on faulty observation and therefore highly misleading.

It seems to mitigate the intentional character of human memory we mentioned above (so I must be blind to what RS is pointing to here). Cleric or Ashvin, would you please clarify? What is this "judgment about memory" that relies on the external world?

I am not exactly sure if this is what he had in mind when writing this part, but I know he has mentioned it elsewhere. A popular theory of memory at that time was that we perceive an external event and this record just submerges down into the 'subconscious' life of soul where it remains until some other external event stimulates our recall of it. In that sense, this theory makes us much more passive bystanders in the act of memory, waiting for external stimulation to recall memory images that are 'stored' somewhere in the soul. We can note how such a theory could also apply to animals as well, since it rests only on passive observation of sensory events and externally stimulated recall.

Steiner may be pointing to the fact that this theory cannot be supported by reasoned experience. When we form memories, we aren't only interested in isolated sense impressions but in how those sensory events fit into the whole sequence of our lives, our whole meaningful orientation within existence. We don't 'store' these memories somewhere in the soul but rather, in the act of perception, the "I" makes certain thinking movements/gestures which can be learned and made again in the act of remembering, which is always carried out and understood from the 'now' perspective. The gestures are 'inscribed' in the etheric-physical organism and we can reanimate/resurrect them as necessary in relation to various circumstances. So our intuitive activity is much more engaged in this process than suspected by standard psychological theories.

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA073/En ... 05p01.html

In truth, however, this simple fact relating to the inner life can only be seen in the right light if we consider it with the power in our souls that has the spiritual organs to observe the ordinary inner life, too, from the point of view taken in the world of the spirit. You then find that there is no question of an idea which I have ‘going down’ to anywhere or ‘coming up’ again somewhere. People altogether have the wrong idea of memory. An idea I form on the basis of something perceived in the world around me does not live in me as something real at all, but as a mirror image which the soul creates by means of the body’s mirroring. We will go into this in the third lecture. And this idea lives only now! It is no longer there once I have lost it from the inner life. There is no such thing as ideas going down and coming up again, thus creating memories. The commonly held idea of memory is wrong.

What matters is this. Having sharpened the soul’s power to see things in the spirit, you see — you can observe this in the spirit just as you observe things in the world outside — that something else is going on at the same time as we form an idea based on something we have perceived. It is not the process of forming the idea but this other, unconscious process running parallel to it which produces something that does not come directly to conscious awareness but lives on in me. So if I have an idea, a subconscious process develops that is wholly bound up with the physical body. When occasion arises to call this process up again, the idea forms again because the soul now looks to this process, which is a purely bodily one. A remembered idea is a new idea created from the depths of the living body. It is like the earlier idea because it has been called up in the unconscious process that had been produced in the living body. The soul reads the engram engraved in the body, as it were, when it recalls an idea.

That being said, the wording he uses in your quote is not entirely clear to me either. It sounds like he may be speaking about how we even know we have a 'faculty of memory', rather than how we reanimate memory-thoughts. In which case, I am not sure what exactly he is speaking about.