Essay: Spiritual Retracing - Principle Overview (Part I)

[Federica]

My present investigations lead to the view that the fossil record, for example, takes shape precisely in the way of the negative questions. As human consciousness crystallizes in the Earthly sphere, together with it crystallize the physical states of the Earth that are consistent with our state here and now. Every constellation of physical facts seems as part of an infinite chain of causes and effects.

This doesn't mean that the past is arbitrary. In fact, the primordial animals do exist in astral and etheric forms. These are like wavefunctions containing many possibilities. Yet when the 'negative questions' of our human crystallization were filtering the physical states, together with that are filtered also the possibilities of these beings that are consistent with our present. And it's amazing that this whole process takes place every time we incarnate.

This may seem crazy from today's perspective, but it's actually fully compatible with the facts of science. We only need to learn to think properly.

If it wasn't dangerous, one could call this 'quantum reversed or negative solipsism'....
Then, scientific discoveries can perhaps be understood as cognitive synchronization events... Like a sort of squaring of the shared space of possibilities?

[AshvinP]

Yes, Ashvin, I do see a throughline. In short: since the birth of the third-person perspective, at about the midpoint of the past millennium, science and philosophy have more and more predominantly evolved into dualistic conceptions. Initially the dualism between spirit and perception was assumed, like in Newton and Kant, and Kant's philosophy can perhaps ungenerously be described like a journalistic report on the event of the split of knowledge, or a third-person report on the raise of the third-person perspective. Later, and down to our present day, dualism has become predominantly unassumed.

Among the unassumed dualists, we have: the physicalist - who, while waiting to discover how the brain makes thoughts, keeps squatting in their supersensible constitution; the modern idealist - who, while waiting to triumph over the physicalist, keeps squatting in the latter’s theories and models; and the non-dualist/neo-buddhist/neo-Advaita - who, while on a fast track to spirit, waiting for their thoughts to be suppressed, keeps spending them on both physicalist and idealist mind circuits. And here’s the throughline: the spiritual loneliness I was talking about is typical of all these three families of unassumed dualists, precisely because they wish and speak of unity, but they live and act in duality.

Yes, the galactic loneliness from the dualistic split is characteristic of practically everyone in modern times, which is why I wouldn't hone in on that particular broad factor for the differences in reactions that we most certainly see in these discussions. The rest of the ones you outlined seem more keyed in on the reactions we have witnessed here and elsewhere. Another one I would add is the tendency to engage the discussion for a while and try to point out the flaws in the emphasis on 'thinking' and related aspects of the path, whereas others simply ignore the comments or make a brief response and then disappear after losing interest.

I was wondering if you see any relation between these characteristics and the archetypal polar distinctions between, for ex., Southern-Northern, Eastern-Western, Buddha-Christ, Lu-Ahr, or anything similar? I'm now trying to approach this in an open-ended way, without presupposing the categories into which they should fit. Perhaps the 'Christ impulse' category was not the most appropriate, but my sense is that they fit into some constellation of more specific influences that we can trace.

Yes, I see the Ahrimanic-Luciferic forces, let's say the forces 'of fragmentation', operating in the background of these attitudes. These cause fear of the abyss, appeased with spiritual anesthesia and focus on matter, on one side, and/or 'aspirational pride' in one's divine nature, fed with the illusion of elevation, on the other. Entering the conscious experience of thinking interferes with both desires, therefore it is resisted. Living thinking would burn up the metastatic proliferations of the Ahrimanic dream, and burn down the glorious escape of the Luciferic dream. Since these forces are present in humanity at large, in all of us, it's a matter of how the individual is able to fight back by nurturing a humble connection of some sort with the divine, be it through deeds of artistic and loving nature, through a religious feeling, or else. In this sense, those who for example cultivate religious devotion, or poetry, or music, or love, or work as a sincere soul impulse (not as a convention) have an advantage since they are less exposed to the 'galactic loneliness', less pressed to defend a fragmented dreamscape, and so less opposed to your illustrations of living thinking, as you have experienced.

I may be wrong, but I don't see a direct significance of the archetypes East-West in determining the resistance we are discussing (other than their Luciferic and Ahrimanic correlations). Because in the current phase, the whole world seems to be leaning West in a sense, which is also why the Eastern-Luciferic type of fragmentation is less momentous, and less crucial in this epoch, hence less dynamic, and also less necessary, as it seems. I am not sure about that, but maybe those who are and will continue to fall for the Luciferic illusion - though they may seem less separate from the truth - run the risk of remaining side-tracked in a stagnant spiritual limbo, while most awakenings and the strongest realizations are likely to come from those who are presently captive in materialistic beliefs. They are the ones who are now taking the full tour, so to say, and will either end up lost forever, or take the big leap towards safety some time 'soon'.

Thanks for these thoughts, Federica. They have helped me to see how it isn't so easy to lump these characteristics into definite categories or influences, as I initially thought it may be. There seem to be many complex overlaps at work between the archetypal influences and that is to be expected in our times when such influences are intermingled to a great extent. You are right that 'West' has lost much of its geographic meaning.

Actually, I am kind of leaning back toward my original correlation with leftist political ideology Because if there is one thing I am confident about, if we polled all those we have encountered on this forum who vocally resisted the path of modern initiation, they would all fall squarely on the left side of that spectrum. They would all take issue with Steiner's comments about race, gender, etc., for example, and apparently that's something prevalent among those who respect and follow Steiner's teachings as well (but clearly not to the same extent). What that correlation actually means is not very clear to me, other than the fact it is also correlated with a high degree of pride is one's own ability to assess and criticize the supersensible research without higher cognitive perception or without even contemplating the research for at least a few years. But it is positive to see that some people are able to overcome those leanings in various ways, through level-headed discussion, and still pursue the path of living thinking.

[Federica]

Thanks for these thoughts, Federica. They have helped me to see how it isn't so easy to lump these characteristics into definite categories or influences, as I initially thought it may be. There seem to be many complex overlaps at work between the archetypal influences and that is to be expected in our times when such influences are intermingled to a great extent.

Have you decided to leave me without knowledge of the relations between resistance to living thinking and the archetypal polar distinctions, that you were trying to come to?

Actually, I am kind of leaning back toward my original correlation with leftist political ideology Because if there is one thing I am confident about, if we polled all those we have encountered on this forum who vocally resisted the path of modern initiation, they would all fall squarely on the left side of that spectrum. They would all take issue with Steiner's comments about race, gender, etc., ...

I wouldn’t be so sure. Actually, I believe conservative views are represented, too. The correlation with liberal exists, but is indirect. Liberals have by definition less attachment to religious tradition and more affinity with novelty, therefore are more exposed to the feeling of loneliness and meaninglessness. Hence they crave “community” from contemporaries, while “teachings” they only accept from foregone figures, under specific conditions. That's for the form. Add to that the substance of the teachings here in question, and the challenge they present regardless of all else. I was just reading in a popular newsletter a fitting description of this sense of galactic loneliness. There it was referred in particular to the flat earthers, as well as to a lost generation of protesting students (arguing, convincingly, that many of them would do well calling their parents and asking them to come and take them home, because they are just not ready for college yet) but it applies to vast ranks of people in present-day society, and largely to spiritual movements, I believe. On flat earthers:

what shines through most in this exploration of a culture is not the belief that globes are a lie, though many of the folks portrayed seem to think so, but rather that this is a sort of community of people who are a bit lost and seeking belonging. not everyone at the “flat earth” conventions even seems that into earths or flatness. some make wooden motorcycles or other crafts. they just like being there and if the price for being there is saying “the world is flat,” then so be it.
they all get together and hang out and bond and feel affinity. it’s a peer group, a social club for the somewhat socially maladroit.
in the end, the beliefs come to seem harmless, another arbitrary collection of arbitrary concern like rooting for a sports team.
it seemed to me that they were desperate for fellowship. the globe refutation was incidental.
and i suspect more things than many realize work like this.
does it provide community? does it provide friends and a sense of purpose?

[AshvinP]

Thanks for these thoughts, Federica. They have helped me to see how it isn't so easy to lump these characteristics into definite categories or influences, as I initially thought it may be. There seem to be many complex overlaps at work between the archetypal influences and that is to be expected in our times when such influences are intermingled to a great extent.

Have you decided to leave me without knowledge of the relations between resistance to living thinking and the archetypal polar distinctions, that you were trying to come to?

I wouldn't call any of this 'knowledge' As usual, most of the benefit comes, not from reaching firm conclusions about the 'right' connections to be made, but simply from moving our thinking through these archetypal soul configurations that are so prevalent in the World right now, and therefore, also within us. The more we can keep those movements fluid and flexible, the more benefit we get.

My sense is still that there is a strong overlap between Eastern spirituality (as carried over into modern intellectual thinking, i.e. displaced into maladapted evolutionary conditions), anti-Christian impulse (this 'turning point in time' is why the former has become maladaptive), and leftist political ideology. I think it is telling that both the former and the latter seem to shun rigorous logical thinking through phenomenal expressions of Spirit (natural or cultural) and, correspondingly, the core themes of forgiveness for past sins and redemption of the Earthly landscape. The 'cancel culture' comes to mind here, as well as the Eastern focus on personal bliss and oneness while neglecting the reality that the whole organic Solar chain is only as strong as its weakest link, that once we balance our own karma we become responsible for the karma of our fellow beings. Both have an aversion to thinking through evolutionary distinctions of any sort, whether it is race, gender, nationality, or simply modes of consciousness.

These are only a few correspondences that come to mind and I think they could be extended much further. Again, for me, it's not about finding the 'right answer' or casting wide nets over whole groups of religious and political beliefs, but simply becoming more familiar and resonant with these core soul influences as they come to expression in our interactions with various people.

Actually, I am kind of leaning back toward my original correlation with leftist political ideology Because if there is one thing I am confident about, if we polled all those we have encountered on this forum who vocally resisted the path of modern initiation, they would all fall squarely on the left side of that spectrum. They would all take issue with Steiner's comments about race, gender, etc., ...

I wouldn’t be so sure. Actually, I believe conservative views are represented, too. The correlation with liberal exists, but is indirect. Liberals have by definition less attachment to religious tradition and more affinity with novelty, therefore are more exposed to the feeling of loneliness and meaninglessness. Hence they crave “community” from contemporaries, while “teachings” they only accept from foregone figures, under specific conditions. That's for the form. Add to that the substance of the teachings here in question, and the challenge they present regardless of all else. I was just reading in a popular newsletter a fitting description of this sense of galactic loneliness. There it was referred in particular to the flat earthers, as well as to a lost generation of protesting students (arguing, convincingly, that many of them would do well calling their parents and asking them to come and take them home, because they are just not ready for college yet) but it applies to vast ranks of people in present-day society, and largely to spiritual movements, I believe. On flat earthers:

what shines through most in this exploration of a culture is not the belief that globes are a lie, though many of the folks portrayed seem to think so, but rather that this is a sort of community of people who are a bit lost and seeking belonging. not everyone at the “flat earth” conventions even seems that into earths or flatness. some make wooden motorcycles or other crafts. they just like being there and if the price for being there is saying “the world is flat,” then so be it.
they all get together and hang out and bond and feel affinity. it’s a peer group, a social club for the somewhat socially maladroit.
in the end, the beliefs come to seem harmless, another arbitrary collection of arbitrary concern like rooting for a sports team.
it seemed to me that they were desperate for fellowship. the globe refutation was incidental.
and i suspect more things than many realize work like this.
does it provide community? does it provide friends and a sense of purpose?

Who would you say has represented the more conservative side of things? I can only think of one - Simon, who was a very loyal Catholic and therefore was quite uncomfortable with moving thinking toward esoteric realities. (I didn't want to start naming names, but I feel it is the only way to make the broad principles discussed more concrete)

As for the flat-earthers, I haven't interacted with any of them yet, to the best of my knowledge, but I suspect many of them would be drawn to spiritual science for all the wrong 'conspiratorial' reasons. But still, they would probably at least entertain it for a while without gasping in horror at the evolutionary distinctions.

[Federica]

I wouldn't call any of this 'knowledge' As usual, most of the benefit comes, not from reaching firm conclusions about the 'right' connections to be made, but simply from moving our thinking through these archetypal soul configurations that are so prevalent in the World right now, and therefore, also within us. The more we can keep those movements fluid and flexible, the more benefit we get.

My sense is still that there is a strong overlap between Eastern spirituality (as carried over into modern intellectual thinking, i.e. displaced into maladapted evolutionary conditions), anti-Christian impulse (this 'turning point in time' is why the former has become maladaptive), and leftist political ideology. I think it is telling that both the former and the latter seem to shun rigorous logical thinking through phenomenal expressions of Spirit (natural or cultural) and, correspondingly, the core themes of forgiveness for past sins and redemption of the Earthly landscape. The 'cancel culture' comes to mind here, as well as the Eastern focus on personal bliss and oneness while neglecting the reality that the whole organic Solar chain is only as strong as its weakest link, that once we balance our own karma we become responsible for the karma of our fellow beings. Both have an aversion to thinking through evolutionary distinctions of any sort, whether it is race, gender, nationality, or simply modes of consciousness.

These are only a few correspondences that come to mind and I think they could be extended much further. Again, for me, it's not about finding the 'right answer' or casting wide nets over whole groups of religious and political beliefs, but simply becoming more familiar and resonant with these core soul influences as they come to expression in our interactions with various people.
...

I agree on the strong overlap with liberal ideology, but again, it's my impression that it's overlapping with "ideology" first and foremost. To be fair, and hopefully clear: I think rejection of the content of spiritual science overlaps with "ideology" of whatever color, while it's true that rejection of the form in which it's communicated for example here overlaps more with liberal ideology.

And I agree that casting wide nets is inappropriate. For example one could ask: is the movement founded in France by OMA Eastern spirituality carried over into the cultural core of Western rationalism, which is France?

As for members of this forum resisting the acknowledgment of the role of thinking, who seem to represent the more conservative side of things (and this is only my impression of course, which I am expressing as such, recognizing I could be wrong) I would name Anthony, Robert (xzardozx), Grant. Notice: the resistance there doesn't apply to the form of presentation, but directly to its substance. In other cases, there's been a double resistance: substance, and even before that, the form, that doesn't fit the craving for gregariousness first.

[Cleric K]

If it wasn't dangerous, one could call this 'quantum reversed or negative solipsism'....
Then, scientific discoveries can perhaps be understood as cognitive synchronization events... Like a sort of squaring of the shared space of possibilities?

That's an interesting way to put it. Much of the abstract approach has already been outlined by Carlo Rovelli in Relational QM. He shows that the maths of QM work just fine even if there's no common 'objective' physical world. Here 'no objective' doesn't mean that there's no reality to the metamorphosing World state but only that there's no special perspective that contemplates the objective truth of the World state. Such a perspective exists only as an overlay in the scientist's imagination, and thus is already part of the only relative first-person perspective that we know.

As far as philosophy, Rovelli's view remains quite flat, clearly expressing the modern mystical view. Something similar has been presented, of course in non-scientific form, by Adur in his essay (mainly the part that he calls 'the law of consistency'). In all cases, however, things are not taken sufficiently deep. When we start with the relative ego-like perspectives as the fundamental givens, then it feels as if these soul-atoms exist in an undifferentiated sea of potential. Then we can imagine that these atoms spread their rays through this potential, they finally encounter each other, and the law of consistency kicks in (or relational QM). Now only the potential consistent for both atoms remains, while the conflicting potential is filtered out. Seen in this way, our consensual reality could have been anything. It was completely undetermined and, for example, the fact that we have a Moon, a Sun, and so on, is the result just of a quite arbitrary interaction between soul atoms who mutually constrained their wild dreams.

Of course, such a view is still heavily dominated by our Earthly spatial consciousness. We have previously explained how such views don't go beyond Imagination - and thus reality is seen simply as a consensual dream image. We should not forget that this potential is one of contextual ideal activity. Thus when the dream of two soul atoms crystallizes, the fact that there's a Moon and a Sun is not arbitrary but corresponds to the already differentiated potential in the higher contextual levels of the Cosmic Mind.

This we have already considered many times, but I just wanted to repeat it in the context of the synchronization events. My point is that without having this in mind, we can imagine that the past is a complete fabrication, just a consensual fantasy that seems to fit our state here and now.

I'm tempted to go into some of the details but since I still have many open questions in this realm, I'll keep exploring quietly for now.

Maybe to share just one thing, we can start by considering that there are certain questions that simply make no sense even physically. Such is the question "Through which slit the photon went" in the double split experiment. It goes heavily against our human-scale intuition, but such a question simply loses meaning in QM. It's not simply that we can't practically know it (as if due to some imperfection in the measuring apparatus) but it is principally a meaningless question. I believe we have the exact same issue with abiogenesis. Asking how the inorganic primordial soup combined into protocells is not simply an unanswered question because of lack of data but it is a principally meaningless question. We need a completely different mode of thinking to address it. We have to conceive of the gradual decohering of the inner perspective of the flow of being.

And this has many details to be filled out. For me personally, it is very interesting to understand how much of the physical facts were already quite definite, even though still in a much more coherent state. For example, when we look at the Moon we can reason that certain craters must have been formed very long ago, probably before there could have been mineral life on Earth. Thus from our human perspective, things were still in a highly structured superposition (etheric state). Yet a meteorite that collided with the Moon must have already been quite distinctly formed. This didn't produce any cloud of dust upon impact, yet the wavefunctions indeed collided, so to speak.

From our present decohered Earthly perspective it seems that the impact wavefunction is also decohered. It seems that the impact physically happened. It seems we can follow the chain of cause and effects of colliding Moon dust particles from the impact to today. However, we can't do the same for life (abiogenesis). We cannot follow mineral particles that somehow assemble into life. This is because there's no such a perspective that could have beheld a mineral pre-life universe into which life magically condenses. The mineral universe condenses together with our perspective.

Thus one of the tasks of spiritual science in the coming decades will be to investigate more closely how rigid the different spectral parts of the universal wavefunction are. This is key for proper understanding. The part of the wavefunction that would decohere into the mineral world (practically the ancient Saturn world) has already been quite inert, even though still not collapsed. So even in the pre-mineral stage, the etheric life had to form against a denser spectrum of the universal wavefunction, yet still relatively pliable, such that it could be entrained within the higher ideal ordering of life, soul, and spiritual activity.

[Cleric K]

I may not have been clear in this and other threads, I believe that a hierarchy of beings exist, such as angels, my position has been that the pursuit of these beings is not spiritual growth as these beings simply exist in the finite world as do all beings. More specifically 99.99% of people have bigger spiritual fish to fry than the pursuit of angels.
Regarding the quote from the distant past, about angels, who is making these claims and how did they acquire this knowledge.

Let me add an illustration to your dialog with Ashvin.

Let's represent our dissociative states with cones instead of bubbles:



The lower layers of the cones represent the sensory sensations and bodily life, above them we have the more psychic life. So on the far right we have a person living a quite superficial life, being plunged into the senses, while all soul life remains quite sub/unconscious. On the left we have a soul with a more developed inner reflection. It thinks, ponders upon feelings and ideas, etc.

Then we have the souls that reach more significant inner realization. They recognize their inner being as clothed in the psychic and corporeal layers.

It is obvious that in the corporeal layers, our existence intermingles in a common world. This is not so clear for the psychic layers.

If we take the realization of the inner being as a one-sided goal, we arrive at what Federica called galactic loneliness. This is evident from the illustration. Our life retracts toward the inner core and all points of contact with the shared world remain in the periphery. The fact that this state is commonly called 'oneness' is a little strange because, even though we have the profound feeling of being one with the universe, we find nothing of the reality of other beings there. We have only our diffused lone self, feeling itself to be of the same essence as the Cosmos, yet with no clear conscious experience of sharing in its life. That life still feels as if behind a veil, behind an obscured glass.

All of this has been depicted in many ways through the years. The goal here was only to point out that if one feels completely satisfied with this picture, and doesn't feel that there's like more than half of reality missing there, would be quite impossible to get interested in the things we're discussing here. Such a person, even though admitting the possibility of angels, etc. who dabble in the lower layers of the cone, considers the apex of the inner self as the highest and final achievement. It's not considered that this apex is indeed necessary, yet it should act as the pinhole through which we once again find the shared life of the Cosmos in its inner aspect.

So we can only understand the inner direction that we're exploring here, if we feel that the state of inner isolation at the tip of the cone is only a stage along the path of evolution. The next stage would be to gain consciousness of the way the manifold inner being of the Cosmos acts through the apex as if through a focal point.

[AshvinP]

I wouldn't call any of this 'knowledge' As usual, most of the benefit comes, not from reaching firm conclusions about the 'right' connections to be made, but simply from moving our thinking through these archetypal soul configurations that are so prevalent in the World right now, and therefore, also within us. The more we can keep those movements fluid and flexible, the more benefit we get.

My sense is still that there is a strong overlap between Eastern spirituality (as carried over into modern intellectual thinking, i.e. displaced into maladapted evolutionary conditions), anti-Christian impulse (this 'turning point in time' is why the former has become maladaptive), and leftist political ideology. I think it is telling that both the former and the latter seem to shun rigorous logical thinking through phenomenal expressions of Spirit (natural or cultural) and, correspondingly, the core themes of forgiveness for past sins and redemption of the Earthly landscape. The 'cancel culture' comes to mind here, as well as the Eastern focus on personal bliss and oneness while neglecting the reality that the whole organic Solar chain is only as strong as its weakest link, that once we balance our own karma we become responsible for the karma of our fellow beings. Both have an aversion to thinking through evolutionary distinctions of any sort, whether it is race, gender, nationality, or simply modes of consciousness.

These are only a few correspondences that come to mind and I think they could be extended much further. Again, for me, it's not about finding the 'right answer' or casting wide nets over whole groups of religious and political beliefs, but simply becoming more familiar and resonant with these core soul influences as they come to expression in our interactions with various people.
...

I agree on the strong overlap with liberal ideology, but again, it's my impression that it's overlapping with "ideology" first and foremost. To be fair, and hopefully clear: I think rejection of the content of spiritual science overlaps with "ideology" of whatever color, while it's true that rejection of the form in which it's communicated for example here overlaps more with liberal ideology.

And I agree that casting wide nets is inappropriate. For example one could ask: is the movement founded in France by OMA Eastern spirituality carried over into the cultural core of Western rationalism, which is France?

As for members of this forum resisting the acknowledgment of the role of thinking, who seem to represent the more conservative side of things (and this is only my impression of course, which I am expressing as such, recognizing I could be wrong) I would name Anthony, Robert (xzardozx), Grant. Notice: the resistance there doesn't apply to the form of presentation, but directly to its substance. In other cases, there's been a double resistance: substance, and even before that, the form, that doesn't fit the craving for gregariousness first.

Thanks, Federica, this makes sense.

When you mention the craving for gregariousness, it also makes me think of hedonism. It's interesting how so many philosophical, scientific, political, and religious frameworks seem to have been attracted around the kernel of justifying the pursuit of personal pleasures, free from the interference of higher powers and concrete responsibilities. I have noticed how many of the discussions on this forum have generally revealed an underlying feeling that personal pleasure-seeking should not be interfered with in any way, placed within any higher context that hints at sacrifice or suffering, either during earthly life or across the threshold.

This is where we also find a big difference between the modern mystical/liberal spectrum and the theistic/conservative spectrum, although even the latter can be adapted to the more hedonistic soul configuration (for ex. 'liberal theology'). The former is quite aligned with the unrestricted indulgence of sensual pleasures, even if the latter are understood as highly spiritual experiences. This reminds me of Steiner's discussion on some of the Western mystics as well, in so far as their spiritual experience had a subtext of eroticism. Perhaps this is another important factor to contemplate. It suggests that maintaining the galactic loneliness is secretly sought after since at least we can continue indulging our pleasures in isolation, or so we imagine.

[Federica]

If it wasn't dangerous, one could call this 'quantum reversed or negative solipsism'....
Then, scientific discoveries can perhaps be understood as cognitive synchronization events... Like a sort of squaring of the shared space of possibilities?

That's an interesting way to put it. Much of the abstract approach has already been outlined by Carlo Rovelli in Relational QM. He shows that the maths of QM work just fine even if there's no common 'objective' physical world. Here 'no objective' doesn't mean that there's no reality to the metamorphosing World state but only that there's no special perspective that contemplates the objective truth of the World state. Such a perspective exists only as an overlay in the scientist's imagination, and thus is already part of the only relative first-person perspective that we know.

As far as philosophy, Rovelli's view remains quite flat, clearly expressing the modern mystical view. Something similar has been presented, of course in non-scientific form, by Adur in his essay (mainly the part that he calls 'the law of consistency'). In all cases, however, things are not taken sufficiently deep. When we start with the relative ego-like perspectives as the fundamental givens, then it feels as if these soul-atoms exist in an undifferentiated sea of potential. Then we can imagine that these atoms spread their rays through this potential, they finally encounter each other, and the law of consistency kicks in (or relational QM). Now only the potential consistent for both atoms remains, while the conflicting potential is filtered out. Seen in this way, our consensual reality could have been anything. It was completely undetermined and, for example, the fact that we have a Moon, a Sun, and so on, is the result just of a quite arbitrary interaction between soul atoms who mutually constrained their wild dreams.

Of course, such a view is still heavily dominated by our Earthly spatial consciousness. We have previously explained how such views don't go beyond Imagination - and thus reality is seen simply as a consensual dream image. We should not forget that this potential is one of contextual ideal activity. Thus when the dream of two soul atoms crystallizes, the fact that there's a Moon and a Sun is not arbitrary but corresponds to the already differentiated potential in the higher contextual levels of the Cosmic Mind.

This we have already considered many times, but I just wanted to repeat it in the context of the synchronization events. My point is that without having this in mind, we can imagine that the past is a complete fabrication, just a consensual fantasy that seems to fit our state here and now.

I'm tempted to go into some of the details but since I still have many open questions in this realm, I'll keep exploring quietly for now.

Maybe to share just one thing, we can start by considering that there are certain questions that simply make no sense even physically. Such is the question "Through which slit the photon went" in the double split experiment. It goes heavily against our human-scale intuition, but such a question simply loses meaning in QM. It's not simply that we can't practically know it (as if due to some imperfection in the measuring apparatus) but it is principally a meaningless question. I believe we have the exact same issue with abiogenesis. Asking how the inorganic primordial soup combined into protocells is not simply an unanswered question because of lack of data but it is a principally meaningless question. We need a completely different mode of thinking to address it. We have to conceive of the gradual decohering of the inner perspective of the flow of being.

And this has many details to be filled out. For me personally, it is very interesting to understand how much of the physical facts were already quite definite, even though still in a much more coherent state. For example, when we look at the Moon we can reason that certain craters must have been formed very long ago, probably before there could have been mineral life on Earth. Thus from our human perspective, things were still in a highly structured superposition (etheric state). Yet a meteorite that collided with the Moon must have already been quite distinctly formed. This didn't produce any cloud of dust upon impact, yet the wavefunctions indeed collided, so to speak.

From our present decohered Earthly perspective it seems that the impact wavefunction is also decohered. It seems that the impact physically happened. It seems we can follow the chain of cause and effects of colliding Moon dust particles from the impact to today. However, we can't do the same for life (abiogenesis). We cannot follow mineral particles that somehow assemble into life. This is because there's no such a perspective that could have beheld a mineral pre-life universe into which life magically condenses. The mineral universe condenses together with our perspective.

Thus one of the tasks of spiritual science in the coming decades will be to investigate more closely how rigid the different spectral parts of the universal wavefunction are. This is key for proper understanding. The part of the wavefunction that would decohere into the mineral world (practically the ancient Saturn world) has already been quite inert, even though still not collapsed. So even in the pre-mineral stage, the etheric life had to form against a denser spectrum of the universal wavefunction, yet still relatively pliable, such that it could be entrained within the higher ideal ordering of life, soul, and spiritual activity.

I don’t know about Relational QM, but Adur’s idealism looks 'stingy' to me (and internally inaccurate, since the law of consistency doesn’t seem to be sufficient to explain the physical world).

Of course, such a view is still heavily dominated by our Earthly spatial consciousness.

Yes, this reminds me also of Ashvin’s last essay. My impression is, this model is constrained by the force of gravity in particular. It says: “let’s see what is left for us to do in terms of possible (conceptual) movements, given that we are hammered down onto our perceptual spectrum as if by gravity. And the answer is: we can crawl on the bare ground until we bump into some other crawler.

I actually prefer Bernardo’s model, it seems a little more true to human nature to me. The constraint of gravity is also there, but at least there’s more openness, there’s water. In Adur’s model there’s only gravity on hard ground that smashes us down, and understanding of reality looks like a search for the escape route.

Thanks for the insight in the second part of your post! For my part, it's quite exhausting to try to deal with, but I feel like if I try more, maybe there's room for improvement, so I will

[Federica]

When you mention the craving for gregariousness, it also makes me think of hedonism. It's interesting how so many philosophical, scientific, political, and religious frameworks seem to have been attracted around the kernel of justifying the pursuit of personal pleasures, free from the interference of higher powers and concrete responsibilities. I have noticed how many of the discussions on this forum have generally revealed an underlying feeling that personal pleasure-seeking should not be interfered with in any way, placed within any higher context that hints at sacrifice or suffering, either during earthly life or across the threshold.


This is where we also find a big difference between the modern mystical/liberal spectrum and the theistic/conservative spectrum, although even the latter can be adapted to the more hedonistic soul configuration (for ex. 'liberal theology'). The former is quite aligned with the unrestricted indulgence of sensual pleasures, even if the latter are understood as highly spiritual experiences. This reminds me of Steiner's discussion on some of the Western mystics as well, in so far as their spiritual experience had a subtext of eroticism. Perhaps this is another important factor to contemplate. It suggests that maintaining the galactic loneliness is secretly sought after since at least we can continue indulging our pleasures in isolation, or so we imagine.

Yes, a mood of rejection of duty has condensed in many parts of society over the last decades. To act as duty is felt as a lack of individual purpose. In a sense, it starts from the necessary impulse to an autonomous development of the individual consciousness, but then takes it in a Luciferic direction of indulgence in pleasures.

To attenuate that, I would say that, for many, rather than a formalized philosophical or theoretical framework, this impulse takes the more general form of "pursuit of happiness". It's not necessarily focussed on cultivation of sensual pleasures. The mood is that, as long as we don't directly harm our neighbors, or the world, it's legitimate to pursue the things that make us "happy". This is even, very commonly, the goal of life. And "the things that make us happy" is a mixed bag in which we find in no particular order: "positive contribution to the world, to feel meaning", "family and relationships", and "pleasure in whatever form, as long as it doesn't hurt others".

It's easy to condemn that, but the difficulty is, before one has identified a viable life philosophy - ready-made by religion or independently pursued - it's hard to realize how priorities matter, discipline matters, and that we actually do indirectly harm others by succumbing to the pursuit of pleasures as a main driver of life. The "bubble consciousness" makes it very hard to notice.

So it starts from an impulse of individuation. But unfortunately, if that is not guided by an intense search for meaning, it can easily degenerate in a meaningless, ultimately painful, search for "happiness". And it's a very elusive happiness, in the pursuit of which people end up even more frustrated, disgusted, purposeless, and empty than ever. I've seen in the news this morning: "I quit my dream job, spent 18 months and $34,000 traveling the world, but was burnt out and unhappy". And so the life of many people becomes a desperate sequence of attempts to find the next thing that will finally make one happy.

Hence the crucial role that anthroposophically oriented communities will have to play, offering people a chance to see and make the connection between their aspiration to individual freedom, and the appropriate way to transform it into meaningfulness....