Saving the materialists

[AshvinP]

a relevant passage to the question of 'bridging the gap'

Thanks! Yes, the problem with literalism - aversion to metaphors as valid vehicles for meaningful becoming - evokes well the typical attitude of the intellect, as it strives to avoid any leaps, sticking to the step-by-step approach: the current handle is not released until the next one is solidly at hand, which leaves many scales of progression entirely out of sight, let alone reach. Like the difference between crawling and running. This said, the idea that metaphor is a prototype for Inspiration sounds stimulating but also little far-fetched - though I can't judge, I struggle enough to maintain the Rose Cross and I can't even start to imagine what it's like to make it disappear, and if it's analogous to metaphorical becoming
Maybe it's not analogous, but simply... metaphorical? One could also notice: In a paradoxical sense, this parallel aims at bridging the gap between usual cognition and higher cognition. What do you think?

We can think of metaphors, analogies, etc., as the cognitive perspective we adopt on phenomenal content, such that the latter points back at the intuitive process that birthed the content. Every scale of cognitive activity-existence is 'metaphorical' in relation to deeper (more integrated) scales, in that sense.

To take an example, we can say the physical breathing process is a metaphor/analogy to spiritual processes - breathing in reflects the incarnational process, when spiritual activity convolutes and cloths itself in sheaths through which it interfaces with reality. Breathing out reflects the excarnation process, when spiritual activity uncoils the sheaths and expands into reality. The common intellectual perspective, even if spiritually inclined, would feel that it's a 'mere metaphor', that our experience of physical breathing isn't "actually" the experience of incarnation-excarnation (even if the latter is acknowledged as real), only a poetic way of speaking about it. Yet the inverted cognitive perspective discerns that physical breathing is indeed the decohered experience of that rhythm, that we are slightly incarnating and excarnating with every breath. That's why, for example, a movement toward relaxation, unwinding tension, letting go of anxiety, etc., is usually accompanied by the outbreath, or why when we are drifting to sleep our breathing becomes more shallow. Many other experiential facts find their harmonization through such a literal-metaphorical synthesis. Through higher development, we can really become more sensitive to the experience of how the "I" is uncoiling from the sheaths in its out-breathing, or vice versa. That is what makes physical breathing a 'metaphor' to higher realities, which is a more profound way of understanding metaphors than common usage.  

I think Ricouer provides a good characterization - "a suspension of ordinary referentiality leading to a semantic collapse, a cognitive ruin out of which a new “semantic pertinence” – a new meaning – is miraculously resurrected". This is kind of how we experience it at the intellectual scale, right? When we are given the phonograph illustration by Cleric and want to use it metaphorically (imaginatively) to anchor our intuitive experience of our spiritual activity and the feedback of experiential curvatures, we need to suspend our normal way of interpreting the physical properties of the phonograph, allowing those to dissolve away as we focus inwardly on our experiential states and the imagery is translated to spiritual experience. At the imaginative scale, the same principle holds - the more integrated imagistic content is also suspended or dissolved, such that the inspired and intuitive process that it symbolizes can be more lucidly experienced. So, with metaphorical thinking through intellectual content, we are certainly experiencing the same meaning, within a limited aperture, that the clairvoyant experiences in a more purified and expansive form through higher cognition. By treating the phenomenal content as metaphors, we can more directly probe the inner soul gestures that are always implicit in that content.

The bold is not too clear to me. When you say that the gap can work as a (positive) "attractive lure" do you mean that the fact that the majority of humans today is stuck in intellectual cognition (a gap exists) acts as a stimulus on the few who feel called to develop higher cognition as a sort of competition trick? Conversely, if one is attracted by the spiritual worlds (as I believe it should be), not by the gap, what 'benefit' would there be in the gap being maintained, how can it be an attractive lure? Also: the intellect doesn't even know there is a gap, therefore it's not focused on bridging it, it only tries to walk its unaware path, with incremental crawling moves.

That's not what I meant, but perhaps that's also a valid aspect of it. This is a vast topic and, as usual, there are no clear definitions, rules, etc. that we should try to generate for it. We can only loosely characterize the 'attractive lure' from various experiential angles. Let me just sketch a few thoughts out, and then maybe we can focus more on a few of them as needed.

- Evolving reality is solely spiritual beings, their relations, and their activity (all existing on the 'same side' of conscious experience). The conscious experience of some beings (like humans) is woven from the activity of other beings (like angels, etc.). As the latter beings evolve, their activity withdraws from those creative functions, and thus a 'gap' is necessarily created into which other beings can insert their creative activity. 

- This situation persists between humanity and the Godhead. No matter how high we evolve, how much creative responsibility we take for conscious experience, there is always still a 'gap' as long as any part of the phenomenal spectrum is felt to be beyond our direct agency. That is part of the Divine technique through which evolution unfolds. 

- A key aspect of this gap is that higher beings can act as ideas-ideals for lower beings who have awakened to self-consciousness, for the latter to imitate and emulate their virtuous cognitive qualities. By striving to make our activity self-similar to the higher beings in this way, we gradually learn to exist at their more integrated scale of activity, to quite literally become them (our future self). This principle also applies within the hierarchy of humanity. 

- I shared a quote previously about how the lagging human souls will be given more and more opportunities (that we can scarcely imagine now) to consciously enter the spiritual worlds through the higher development of other souls. Certainly, we could be motivated by this intuitively discerned reality to develop ourselves such that we can act as the redemptive vehicle for other souls in the future.  

On the question of whether the intellect is focused on bridging the gap, we should remember that the intellect's thinking experience is instinctively rooted in its spiritual experiences before birth, the karmic feedback that naturally prompts it toward compensatory development. In that sense, it is always groping and stumbling around the spiritual landscape, trying to orient toward its native existence, even if it's completely unaware of that fact the surface. The gap still attracts its development like the magnet attracts the iron filings, although it becomes increasingly obstinate and resistant to this attraction, the longer it remains unconscious of what's happening. It experiences the attraction more like puppet strings that are tugging it this way and that way independently of its agency. Thus, the gap can be experienced as profoundly inspiring or extremely alienating, depending on how intuitively conscious or unconscious we are of why it exists.  

Lastly, as a comment to the sad reality of the two human streams, good and evil, I wanted to share what Steiner said about that sadness. Besides, I know this can certainly be read and understood upside down by a whole lot of people nowadays, but that's not my preoccupation here.

Thanks, that is a great quote and points to a huge misunderstanding in our time, even among spiritual seekers who have not adequately differentiated the core individuality from its various sheaths. This usually leads to an instinctive push for 'equality now' and a disdain for exploring and understanding the differentiated aspects of the evolutionary process. As you say, many people these days will turn these considerations upside down under the tyranny of those shadowy motivations. In any case, if we understand them properly, then we realize that we are involved in a much larger process that cannot be calculated, encompassed, or judged at the mere intellectual scale, and there is little justification to surrender our patient intuitive process to rushed apocalyptic thinking.

[Federica]

We can think of metaphors, analogies, etc., as the cognitive perspective we adopt on phenomenal content, such that the latter points back at the intuitive process that birthed the content. Every scale of cognitive activity-existence is 'metaphorical' in relation to deeper (more integrated) scales, in that sense.

To take an example, we can say the physical breathing process is a metaphor/analogy to spiritual processes - breathing in reflects the incarnational process, when spiritual activity convolutes and cloths itself in sheaths through which it interfaces with reality. Breathing out reflects the excarnation process, when spiritual activity uncoils the sheaths and expands into reality. The common intellectual perspective, even if spiritually inclined, would feel that it's a 'mere metaphor', that our experience of physical breathing isn't "actually" the experience of incarnation-excarnation (even if the latter is acknowledged as real), only a poetic way of speaking about it. Yet the inverted cognitive perspective discerns that physical breathing is indeed the decohered experience of that rhythm, that we are slightly incarnating and excarnating with every breath. That's why, for example, a movement toward relaxation, unwinding tension, letting go of anxiety, etc., is usually accompanied by the outbreath, or why when we are drifting to sleep our breathing becomes more shallow. Many other experiential facts find their harmonization through such a literal-metaphorical synthesis. Through higher development, we can really become more sensitive to the experience of how the "I" is uncoiling from the sheaths in its out-breathing, or vice versa. That is what makes physical breathing a 'metaphor' to higher realities, which is a more profound way of understanding metaphors than common usage.  

I think Ricouer provides a good characterization - "a suspension of ordinary referentiality leading to a semantic collapse, a cognitive ruin out of which a new “semantic pertinence” – a new meaning – is miraculously resurrected". This is kind of how we experience it at the intellectual scale, right? When we are given the phonograph illustration by Cleric and want to use it metaphorically (imaginatively) to anchor our intuitive experience of our spiritual activity and the feedback of experiential curvatures, we need to suspend our normal way of interpreting the physical properties of the phonograph, allowing those to dissolve away as we focus inwardly on our experiential states and the imagery is translated to spiritual experience. At the imaginative scale, the same principle holds - the more integrated imagistic content is also suspended or dissolved, such that the inspired and intuitive process that it symbolizes can be more lucidly experienced. So, with metaphorical thinking through intellectual content, we are certainly experiencing the same meaning, within a limited aperture, that the clairvoyant experiences in a more purified and expansive form through higher cognition. By treating the phenomenal content as metaphors, we can more directly probe the inner soul gestures that are always implicit in that content.

I get that we can trace every sensory phenomenon to its spiritual formative forces, and that we can call that very real link a metaphor, so that sensory reality is a metaphor to the spiritual world. But that’s different from the metaphor discussed in the passage you quote “The sin of literalism”. There, a metaphor is intended as a juxtaposition that may connect two sensory phenomena, for instance “All the flesh the grass”: there's a semantic resurrection of meaning that calls forth appropriate sensory phenomena to juxtapose. I understand that the visible is a “literal metaphor” for the invisible, that the phonograph can become a symbol for our spiritual activity, but the claim in the text is different, namely that the metaphorical process (meaning collapse and resurrection) which may connect sensory phenomena horizontally, is similar to the process of imaginative cognition, in that it requires the same kind of courage.

Regarding the rest of your post on the effects of gaps, I follow the statements, and they make sense - in an abstract way for my part - meaning those are not direct experiences for me. I don’t have objections, however the general consideration I would make here is that I often understand from your recent comments that what we can do - the best and safest focus for our attention - is to basically turn inside and develop ourselves, in connection with spiritual reality, but in relative isolation from other humans, at least when it comes to taking initiative to communicate that meaning directly (not in an essay which generic others may or may not read). That direct dialogue should not be in focus, because it’s generally out of our possibilities, leading to errors, and so on. Is this a correct summary of your thoughts? If so, how is this reconciled with the vision of human society that Anthroposophy has attempted to leave us with?

[AshvinP]

We can think of metaphors, analogies, etc., as the cognitive perspective we adopt on phenomenal content, such that the latter points back at the intuitive process that birthed the content. Every scale of cognitive activity-existence is 'metaphorical' in relation to deeper (more integrated) scales, in that sense.

To take an example, we can say the physical breathing process is a metaphor/analogy to spiritual processes - breathing in reflects the incarnational process, when spiritual activity convolutes and cloths itself in sheaths through which it interfaces with reality. Breathing out reflects the excarnation process, when spiritual activity uncoils the sheaths and expands into reality. The common intellectual perspective, even if spiritually inclined, would feel that it's a 'mere metaphor', that our experience of physical breathing isn't "actually" the experience of incarnation-excarnation (even if the latter is acknowledged as real), only a poetic way of speaking about it. Yet the inverted cognitive perspective discerns that physical breathing is indeed the decohered experience of that rhythm, that we are slightly incarnating and excarnating with every breath. That's why, for example, a movement toward relaxation, unwinding tension, letting go of anxiety, etc., is usually accompanied by the outbreath, or why when we are drifting to sleep our breathing becomes more shallow. Many other experiential facts find their harmonization through such a literal-metaphorical synthesis. Through higher development, we can really become more sensitive to the experience of how the "I" is uncoiling from the sheaths in its out-breathing, or vice versa. That is what makes physical breathing a 'metaphor' to higher realities, which is a more profound way of understanding metaphors than common usage.  

I think Ricouer provides a good characterization - "a suspension of ordinary referentiality leading to a semantic collapse, a cognitive ruin out of which a new “semantic pertinence” – a new meaning – is miraculously resurrected". This is kind of how we experience it at the intellectual scale, right? When we are given the phonograph illustration by Cleric and want to use it metaphorically (imaginatively) to anchor our intuitive experience of our spiritual activity and the feedback of experiential curvatures, we need to suspend our normal way of interpreting the physical properties of the phonograph, allowing those to dissolve away as we focus inwardly on our experiential states and the imagery is translated to spiritual experience. At the imaginative scale, the same principle holds - the more integrated imagistic content is also suspended or dissolved, such that the inspired and intuitive process that it symbolizes can be more lucidly experienced. So, with metaphorical thinking through intellectual content, we are certainly experiencing the same meaning, within a limited aperture, that the clairvoyant experiences in a more purified and expansive form through higher cognition. By treating the phenomenal content as metaphors, we can more directly probe the inner soul gestures that are always implicit in that content.

I get that we can trace every sensory phenomenon to its spiritual formative forces, and that we can call that very real link a metaphor, so that sensory reality is a metaphor to the spiritual world. But that’s different from the metaphor discussed in the passage you quote “The sin of literalism”. There, a metaphor is intended as a juxtaposition that may connect two sensory phenomena, for instance “All the flesh the grass”: there's a semantic resurrection of meaning that calls forth appropriate sensory phenomena to juxtapose. I understand that the visible is a “literal metaphor” for the invisible, that the phonograph can become a symbol for our spiritual activity, but the claim in the text is different, namely that the metaphorical process (meaning collapse and resurrection) which may connect sensory phenomena horizontally, is similar to the process of imaginative cognition, in that it requires the same kind of courage.

I still don't see these as different, if we are orienting to the communicated metaphor as a symbol for inner formative forces. Of course, rarely do such metaphors appear isolated from a wider context. For example, here are the surrounding verses:

6 The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:

7 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.

8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.


The main point is to focus inwardly on what we are doing when working with such phenomenal content as metaphors, whether it involves the juxtaposition of sensory experiences shouldn't matter too much. Our language will always utilize such juxtapositions. The relationship to imaginative or inspired cognition comes in the sort of inner stance the soul must adopt to comprehend the comparison, the sacrificial gestures it must make to feel its way into the inner meaning of the juxtaposition.

Regarding the rest of your post on the effects of gaps, I follow the statements, and they make sense - in an abstract way for my part - meaning those are not direct experiences for me. I don’t have objections, however the general consideration I would make here is that I often understand from your recent comments that what we can do - the best and safest focus for our attention - is to basically turn inside and develop ourselves, in connection with spiritual reality, but in relative isolation from other humans, at least when it comes to taking initiative to communicate that meaning directly (not in an essay which generic others may or may not read). That direct dialogue should not be in focus, because it’s generally out of our possibilities, leading to errors, and so on. Is this a correct summary of your thoughts? If so, how is this reconciled with the vision of human society that Anthroposophy has attempted to leave us with?

I don't know how you got that summary

As usual, there is no value in establishing rigid rules to follow, strict demarcations between to whom, where, or when we can communicate spiritual meaning. Everything can be evaluated individually as the opportunities arise in the wider context of surrounding circumstances. I see no reason why writing a phenomenological essay would be different than discussing the same principles, examples, reasoning, etc. with another soul in person, in 'direct dialogue'. If the opportunity arises, why not?

My focus in this discussion has been on how we are approaching that dialogue, i.e., whether we are starting from the most in-phase domain of imaginative experience and developing metaphors, illustrations, etc., to help other souls introspectively observe the formative constraints and influences on their real-time thinking dynamics. As we know, modern intellectual approaches usually start abstractly from the opposite pole of reality - the 'concrete' physical reality, the Absolute Divine, the MAL pure consciousness, etc. This can also become a trap for Anthroposophists who want to start with Saturn, Sun, Moon, the spiritual nature of the human organism, etc. What I have been communicating in recent comments is summarized in Phonograph II:

Because of the scientific habits of our age, when we think about gaining a more intimate experience of the World groove, probably the first thing that comes to mind is that we should somehow gain insight into the way particles and forces work. But in reality, as we saw in connection with our willing spiritual activity, this depth of the physical world is initially the furthest removed from where our intuition of the flow is at its clearest focus – the experience of our thinking. We know the physical world only as far as it impresses through sensory perceptions and we form corresponding mental images. What happens in our organs and cells, we don’t have direct consciousness of. Our intuition can only grow from where we find it to be already one and the same with the intuitive curvature of the World groove. If we jump directly to physics or metaphysics, we once again introduce the duality between the intuitive curvature within which our philosophical thoughts flow and the supposed ‘true’ curvature of the World groove, which, alas, once again remains ‘on the other side’. For this reason, gaining a deeper knowledge of the World groove starts from within outwards.

[Federica]

I still don't see these as different, if we are orienting to the communicated metaphor as a symbol for inner formative forces. Of course, rarely do such metaphors appear isolated from a wider context. For example, here are the surrounding verses:

6 The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field:

7 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass.

8 The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.


The main point is to focus inwardly on what we are doing when working with such phenomenal content as metaphors, whether it involves the juxtaposition of sensory experiences shouldn't matter too much. Our language will always utilize such juxtapositions. The relationship to imaginative or inspired cognition comes in the sort of inner stance the soul must adopt to comprehend the comparison, the sacrificial gestures it must make to feel its way into the inner meaning of the juxtaposition.

Regarding the rest of your post on the effects of gaps, I follow the statements, and they make sense - in an abstract way for my part - meaning those are not direct experiences for me. I don’t have objections, however the general consideration I would make here is that I often understand from your recent comments that what we can do - the best and safest focus for our attention - is to basically turn inside and develop ourselves, in connection with spiritual reality, but in relative isolation from other humans, at least when it comes to taking initiative to communicate that meaning directly (not in an essay which generic others may or may not read). That direct dialogue should not be in focus, because it’s generally out of our possibilities, leading to errors, and so on. Is this a correct summary of your thoughts? If so, how is this reconciled with the vision of human society that Anthroposophy has attempted to leave us with?

I don't know how you got that summary

As usual, there is no value in establishing rigid rules to follow, strict demarcations between to whom, where, or when we can communicate spiritual meaning. Everything can be evaluated individually as the opportunities arise in the wider context of surrounding circumstances. I see no reason why writing a phenomenological essay would be different than discussing the same principles, examples, reasoning, etc. with another soul in person, in 'direct dialogue'. If the opportunity arises, why not?

My focus in this discussion has been on how we are approaching that dialogue, i.e., whether we are starting from the most in-phase domain of imaginative experience and developing metaphors, illustrations, etc., to help other souls introspectively observe the formative constraints and influences on their real-time thinking dynamics. As we know, modern intellectual approaches usually start abstractly from the opposite pole of reality - the 'concrete' physical reality, the Absolute Divine, the MAL pure consciousness, etc. This can also become a trap for Anthroposophists who want to start with Saturn, Sun, Moon, the spiritual nature of the human organism, etc. What I have been communicating in recent comments is summarized in Phonograph II:

Because of the scientific habits of our age, when we think about gaining a more intimate experience of the World groove, probably the first thing that comes to mind is that we should somehow gain insight into the way particles and forces work. But in reality, as we saw in connection with our willing spiritual activity, this depth of the physical world is initially the furthest removed from where our intuition of the flow is at its clearest focus – the experience of our thinking. We know the physical world only as far as it impresses through sensory perceptions and we form corresponding mental images. What happens in our organs and cells, we don’t have direct consciousness of. Our intuition can only grow from where we find it to be already one and the same with the intuitive curvature of the World groove. If we jump directly to physics or metaphysics, we once again introduce the duality between the intuitive curvature within which our philosophical thoughts flow and the supposed ‘true’ curvature of the World groove, which, alas, once again remains ‘on the other side’. For this reason, gaining a deeper knowledge of the World groove starts from within outwards.

Ok. Yes, the intellect doesn't start from the most proximate domain of experience, only from the most customary. Following it, we introduce a duality in our real time becoming. Or, in another sense we are not introducing it, we are willingly prolonging our stay in it, for the sake of communication, if one considers that what one has resonated with may not be as effective for other, differently minded, individuals - I know you said there's no reason to imagine that what worked for us would not work for others, but I think such reasons may exist - and if one has an intention to initiate those communications, rather than being open to them should opportunities arise.

This characterization of the function of intellect from the Apocalypse of Saint John illustrate how one may want to prolong one's stay in dualistic intellectual descriptions, be the topic the book of Revelation, Saturn, Sun and Moon, the spiritual nature of the human organism, or else:

"Thus you see how the number seven governs the whole of evolution. In the last few days we have given a skeleton outline of this, as it were, in the form of pictures, sometimes truly grotesque pictures, and in any case, such as deviate very much from what can be seen to-day in the physical world. If you conceive of it in this way it is approximately as if you were to erect the scaffolding for a house, the most external part that is intended to be used by the masons. That has, however, nothing to do with the subject; these are only thoughts about the subject, so to speak. We must rise from this purely intellectual scheme, which assists us indeed to understand, to the living structure, by using the pictures which are to be seen in the astral for the various conditions; then only have we what is called occult wisdom. As long as you build up a scaffolding you remain in the thought customary to you in the physical world. The whole scheme we have sketched is only physical thought. This is related to the full reality not at all like the inner framework of a house to the complete building, but only like the outer scaffolding upon which the builders stand. This has to be taken down again when the building is completed. In the same way the scaffolding of thought has to be taken down again if one wishes to have the truth before one as it really is. If one considers this abstraction as the reality, then one is not by any means speaking of true Spiritual Science but only of the concept which the man of the present day can form regarding the spiritual facts. The way in which spiritual facts are presented abstractly at the present time may be seen in such a diagram as I have made, but this in itself is unfruitful. I had to put it before you because we also need such a diagram, but fundamentally it is of no use to one who wishes to progress upon the truly spiritual path. If you describe the whole world, up to the highest spiritual facts, by means of such diagrams, this only has meaning for your present incarnation. In the next you must learn another diagram. This can only be thought by using the brain; it is only adapted for the brain. But as the brain disintegrates at death, the whole schematic presentation then falls to pieces. On the other hand, if you comprehend—at first in pictures of fantasy—that which really happens, what we have described as the consecutive pictures of the seals seen by spiritual vision, that is something which is not bound up with your physical brain, and which you retain because it does not originate from physical thinking, but from facts seen clairvoyantly. Therefore one must take care not to mistake for spiritual wisdom that which is striven for after the pattern of physical comprehension, which would also schematize the higher worlds. This is a description by means of the ordinary physical intellect. Of course, the physical intellect must play a part; on this account it is even useful to present such a diagram, and we may now carry it a step further."

[AshvinP]

Ok. Yes, the intellect doesn't start from the most proximate domain of experience, only from the most customary. Following it, we introduce a duality in our real time becoming. Or, in another sense we are not introducing it, we are willingly prolonging our stay in it, for the sake of communication, if one considers that what one has resonated with may not be as effective for other, differently minded, individuals - I know you said there's no reason to imagine that what worked for us would not work for others, but I think such reasons may exist - and if one has an intention to initiate those communications, rather than being open to them should opportunities arise.

This characterization of the function of intellect from the Apocalypse of Saint John illustrate how one may want to prolong one's stay in dualistic intellectual descriptions, be the topic the book of Revelation, Saturn, Sun and Moon, the spiritual nature of the human organism, or else:

Federica,

You are once again quoting something from Steiner which, in its spirit, suggests the exact opposite of "prolonging one's stay in dualistic intellectual descriptions". It's like you are prioritizing isolated remarks over the clear context in which those remarks are embedded (including the fact that he is lecturing to souls who have specifically come to hear him speak on these topics). It's one thing to disagree with Steiner and his continual reminders to take down the thought-scaffolding (not prolong) so we can live into the inner gestures, but a much riskier thing to convince oneself that Steiner is supporting the prolonging approach based on forcibly isolated remarks. Then one will begin to construe his indications in alignment with one's preferences rather than the spirit of where he is continually pointing our attention.

I don't think you are really appreciating the nature of the intellectual trap and why our intuition can only grow from the most proximate domain of imaginative experience. The default intellectual conditioning that leads us away from a healthy understanding of supersensible realities cannot be thought away by rational arguments or a desire to proceed 'in good faith', only through the intimate experience of deeper scales of living and participatory activity. Our whole culture, including much of the Anthroposophical Society, is a testimony to the pervasiveness of this trap that prolongs the duality between the content of its thinking and the inner gestures through which that content is woven. The distinction of 'what works for me' vs. 'what works for others' is simply another artifact of that duality.

This also fits in with the resource you shared earlier (thanks for sharing it!). It holds the potential to draw more attention to the 'basic structure' of modern esoteric science, which other cognitive scientists have been instinctively exploring through their methods. The author does a good job of elucidating how this cognitive basic structure, participatorily established through the early works, runs like a red thread throughout the later spiritual scientific lectures. We can see that clearly in lectures such as the one you quoted above.

With a view on meditation as a methodological tool for anthroposophy, the cognitive basic structure can also be proven to underly many (if not all) exercises developed by Steiner, which can be indicated here only by way of example.78 As an initial exercise, Steiner recommends reflecting on one’s life experiences from a higher vantage point in order to “distinguish between the essential and the non-essential”.79 In doing so, the meditator should not lose themselves in memories but should face themselves like a stranger and try to bring what was significant and what was less significant in the experiences in each case, like from a bird’s-eye view, into a clarifying relationship. In our context, this exercise can be understood as a very concrete way of becoming familiar with and practicing the distinction of (pure) concept and (pure) percept as constitutive components of every conscious experience. In addition to the basic methodological elements of the exceptional state (meditative reflection, bird’s-eye perspective) and the repeated exercise, the aspect of gaze direction to the ‘essential and nonessential’ as well as their specific relationship in future observation situations comes into consideration. In terms of FA and OM, the meditator constantly alternates between focusing on specific life experiences and expanding their attention to a broader meaning that is not a given content but can potentially emerge and embed the meditator’s consciousness in overarching contexts of human life and development.

This is what I think is most important to keep in focus when trying to help bridge the gap for other souls. When we come across Steiner's 'intellectual' elaborations on various topics, it's easy to forget that the profundity and persuasiveness of those come through our previous introspective efforts that have somewhat liberated the intellect from its habitual constraints. It's difficult to place ourselves in the shoes of someone whose thoughts are still tightly formatted by that mask. We start to take our new imaginative degrees of freedom for granted, just like we naturally take the physical-intellectual degrees of freedom for granted.

As we have discussed before, the default intellectual stance can find an argument and its negation equally persuasive. It can source configurations of mental pictures that can easily support or undermine the content at issue, depending on its myopic preferences (for example, the free will vs. foresight/determinism argument). The brain-bound schematic diagrams of planetary evolution can be latched onto and treated as 'spiritual wisdom', or they can be discarded as unscientific and fantastic nonsense, with equal persuasiveness for the intellect, and in both cases, the path to intuitive thinking that gradually unveils the inner reality of the diagrams is foreclosed.

[Federica]

Ok. Yes, the intellect doesn't start from the most proximate domain of experience, only from the most customary. Following it, we introduce a duality in our real time becoming. Or, in another sense we are not introducing it, we are willingly prolonging our stay in it, for the sake of communication, if one considers that what one has resonated with may not be as effective for other, differently minded, individuals - I know you said there's no reason to imagine that what worked for us would not work for others, but I think such reasons may exist - and if one has an intention to initiate those communications, rather than being open to them should opportunities arise.

This characterization of the function of intellect from the Apocalypse of Saint John illustrate how one may want to prolong one's stay in dualistic intellectual descriptions, be the topic the book of Revelation, Saturn, Sun and Moon, the spiritual nature of the human organism, or else:

Federica,

You are once again quoting something from Steiner which, in its spirit, suggests the exact opposite of "prolonging one's stay in dualistic intellectual descriptions". It's like you are prioritizing isolated remarks over the clear context in which those remarks are embedded (including the fact that he is lecturing to souls who have specifically come to hear him speak on these topics). It's one thing to disagree with Steiner and his continual reminders to take down the thought-scaffolding (not prolong) so we can live into the inner gestures, but a much riskier thing to convince oneself that Steiner is supporting the prolonging approach based on forcibly isolated remarks. Then one will begin to construe his indications in alignment with one's preferences rather than the spirit of where he is continually pointing our attention.

I don't think you are really appreciating the nature of the intellectual trap and why our intuition can only grow from the most proximate domain of imaginative experience. The default intellectual conditioning that leads us away from a healthy understanding of supersensible realities cannot be thought away by rational arguments or a desire to proceed 'in good faith', only through the intimate experience of deeper scales of living and participatory activity. Our whole culture, including much of the Anthroposophical Society, is a testimony to the pervasiveness of this trap that prolongs the duality between the content of its thinking and the inner gestures through which that content is woven. The distinction of 'what works for me' vs. 'what works for others' is simply another artifact of that duality.

This also fits in with the resource you shared earlier (thanks for sharing it!). It holds the potential to draw more attention to the 'basic structure' of modern esoteric science, which other cognitive scientists have been instinctively exploring through their methods. The author does a good job of elucidating how this cognitive basic structure, participatorily established through the early works, runs like a red thread throughout the later spiritual scientific lectures. We can see that clearly in lectures such as the one you quoted above.

With a view on meditation as a methodological tool for anthroposophy, the cognitive basic structure can also be proven to underly many (if not all) exercises developed by Steiner, which can be indicated here only by way of example.78 As an initial exercise, Steiner recommends reflecting on one’s life experiences from a higher vantage point in order to “distinguish between the essential and the non-essential”.79 In doing so, the meditator should not lose themselves in memories but should face themselves like a stranger and try to bring what was significant and what was less significant in the experiences in each case, like from a bird’s-eye view, into a clarifying relationship. In our context, this exercise can be understood as a very concrete way of becoming familiar with and practicing the distinction of (pure) concept and (pure) percept as constitutive components of every conscious experience. In addition to the basic methodological elements of the exceptional state (meditative reflection, bird’s-eye perspective) and the repeated exercise, the aspect of gaze direction to the ‘essential and nonessential’ as well as their specific relationship in future observation situations comes into consideration. In terms of FA and OM, the meditator constantly alternates between focusing on specific life experiences and expanding their attention to a broader meaning that is not a given content but can potentially emerge and embed the meditator’s consciousness in overarching contexts of human life and development.

This is what I think is most important to keep in focus when trying to help bridge the gap for other souls. When we come across Steiner's 'intellectual' elaborations on various topics, it's easy to forget that the profundity and persuasiveness of those come through our previous introspective efforts that have somewhat liberated the intellect from its habitual constraints. It's difficult to place ourselves in the shoes of someone whose thoughts are still tightly formatted by that mask. We start to take our new imaginative degrees of freedom for granted, just like we naturally take the physical-intellectual degrees of freedom for granted.

As we have discussed before, the default intellectual stance can find an argument and its negation equally persuasive. It can source configurations of mental pictures that can easily support or undermine the content at issue, depending on its myopic preferences (for example, the free will vs. foresight/determinism argument). The brain-bound schematic diagrams of planetary evolution can be latched onto and treated as 'spiritual wisdom', or they can be discarded as unscientific and fantastic nonsense, with equal persuasiveness for the intellect, and in both cases, the path to intuitive thinking that gradually unveils the inner reality of the diagrams is foreclosed.

Ashvin,

There is “the only way our intuition can grow” - which is from the most proximate domain of experience and has to be developed in solitude - and then there are communications with others. These are not meditative, but have an intellectual basis. As Steiner tells the audience, he has just spent entire days building up the intellectual scaffolding to prepare for an initial understanding of the Apocalypse. Yes, he thoroughly reminds that the scaffolding means nothing, if the groundwork is not done in parallel. But scaffolding is needed, as he says. In particular, it is the only way to get in contact with others who have not yet understood the meaning of finding conscious contact with the most proximate domain of experience. I have a direct experience of that, with members of my family. When I say that what works for me may not work for others, it's not a speculation or theory, it's an experience. I can't convince them to try out something, experiment with an exercise, explore thinking, and, for all intents and purposes, not even to really read a book with an open mind. So I think that the domains of intellectual and creative experience someone is already interested in may be an opener towards a more directly spiritual approach. Of course they only may be, and it's even unlikely - I know that. Besides, I do have some appreciation of the nature of the intellectual trap. Of course I can't claim it's a complete appreciation, but I am aware of how the intellect was necessary for the first unfolding of the I, and how it is, for that very reason, an open door to the abyss:


"We must once more consider by what means it may be possible for a man to be led astray by the two-horned beast. We have pointed out that since the middle of the Atlantean epoch man has slept through the higher spiritual development, so to speak. This sleep still exists at the present time. But it was necessary. If it had not entered in, that which we call the intellect would never have been developed. Man did not possess this before our epoch, he acted from other impulses. His pictures drove him to action, without reflection. He has lost this ancient gift of spiritual vision and in its place he has developed intellect and thereby descended into matter. This has drawn a veil over the spiritual world, but at the same time the intellect has been acquired. This may be a great hindrance to the spiritual development. At the very last it will be nothing else but this misguided intellect, this misguided intelligence, which can prevent man from coming to the Christ-principle; and if those who at last succumb to the two-horned beast could look back upon what has dealt them the worst blow they would say, “The tendency to descend into the abyss only came later, but that which darkened the Christ-principle for me was the intellect.” Let him who has this intellect reflect upon the number of the beast; for only through man having become man, that is to say, through his being gifted with this ego-intellect, can he succumb to the beast 666. For the number of the beast is at the same time the number of a man. And only one possessing intellect can perceive that this is so. It is the number of that man who has let himself be misled by his intellect."

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

There is “the only way our intuition can grow” - which is from the most proximate domain of experience and has to be developed in solitude - and then there are communications with others. These are not meditative, but have an intellectual basis. As Steiner tells the audience, he has just spent entire days building up the intellectual scaffolding to prepare for an initial understanding of the Apocalypse. Yes, he thoroughly reminds that the scaffolding means nothing, if the groundwork is not done in parallel. But scaffolding is needed, as he says. In particular, it is the only way to get in contact with others who have not yet understood the meaning of finding conscious contact with the most proximate domain of experience. I have a direct experience of that, with members of my family. When I say that what works for me may not work for others, it's not a speculation or theory, it's an experience. I can't convince them to try out something, experiment with an exercise, explore thinking, and, for all intents and purposes, not even to really read a book with an open mind. So I think that the domains of intellectual and creative experience someone is already interested in may be an opener towards a more directly spiritual approach. Of course they only may be, and it's even unlikely - I know that. Besides, I do have some appreciation of the nature of the intellectual trap. Of course I can't claim it's a complete appreciation, but I am aware of how the intellect was necessary for the first unfolding of the I, and how it is, for that very reason, an open door to the abyss:

But what are we trying to communicate to others, if not the inner state from which and the inner direction in which their intuition can grow? This is the only thing that leaves them free and stimulates toward healthy soul development. Modern education is what we get from the default way of communication - factoids, dates, names, etc., to memorize and build into schematic correspondences, which may tug at familiar preferences and interests and, for that very reason, leave the communicee unchanged. Why would we want to impose that on our friends and relatives?

The scaffolding that is needed is phenomenologically active content. Steiner never presents the intellectual scaffolding apart from the phenomenological-meditative foundations, period. This is amply demonstrated by the quotes you are sharing. He can't even go too long without throwing in a reminder to those foundations and warning against ignoring them. There is no reason to overcomplicate this so much. I can't speak to your experiences with family members, but I'm sure you would agree it would be a terrible thing if they absorbed the content in unfreedom and failed to appreciate its recursively symbolic nature. The longer such absorption persists without the phenomenological foundation, the more the soul will feel like it is being imposed upon and will foster a secret resentment for spiritual reality. Indeed, this is a dangerous road to entertain let alone start walking down, especially if we are speaking of other souls to whom we owe a responsibility of due care, of 'first do no harm'.

[Federica]

But what are we trying to communicate to others, if not the inner state from which and the inner direction in which their intuition can grow?

A signal, a sign, that may help see that.

But I will consider this further, I certainly don't want to risk doing harm.

[AshvinP]

But what are we trying to communicate to others, if not the inner state from which and the inner direction in which their intuition can grow?

A signal, a sign, that may help see that.

But I will consider this further, I certainly don't want to risk doing harm.

Yeah, and this 'do no harm' principle is something I have grown more sensitive to over time. In the domain of occult science and instruction, it becomes clearer that we are only safe when 'teaching' from out of our lucidly cognized experiential states (and this is a principle of Waldorf education as well). That is why I have transitioned more and more to illustrating the phenomenological foundations - here I can say that my concepts are testifying to experiential dynamics that I can perceive within myself to some extent. And I believe other souls, when they are genuinely interested in exploring such things further, can also sense when that is the case and when it isn't. On the other hand, we can imagine a hypothetical scenario:

"Check out this lecture on the planetary incarnations of Earth, it contains a deep underlying logic about our Cosmic evolution and how we arrived at our present state."

"Thanks, these are interesting concepts and I sense some logical connections here. It is surely unfamiliar and hard to understand, though. How can we prove these concepts are pointing to realities?"

"Well, we just need to work with the concepts and see how they make sense, they logically fit together. Eventually we can verify these realities for ourlseves."

"But have you verified the reality of Old Moon, do you perceive how the hierarchical beings described were at work on the human organization?"

"Not really, but it's just a preliminary step to take before getting involved in meditative exercises that will help us develop higher perceptive capacities and verify the descriptions."

"Ok, but there are dime-a-dozen cult organizations that give out seemingly logical teachings about 'higher realities'. And it seems you are just taking all of these descriptions on faith for now. So why should I spend any more time on exploring these things?"

What then? We have led things into a dead end because we failed to realize that, it's not so much the logical relations of the presented content that is important for the other soul, but the fact that these logical relations are communicated by a soul with first-person experiential understanding of that content and the soul can concretely imagine a way in which such understanding can be reached. And, as you said before, the default state of the intellect is not to simply trust the communications on blind faith, in fact, the default state is a high level of suspicion and mistrust (for good evolutionary reasons). This is why sticking close with the phenomenological foundations, the subsidiary soul exercises, and so on, is the tried and true method of avoiding the dead ends and inviting the harmonization of the hysteresis at the intellectual scale.

[Federica]

Yeah, and this 'do no harm' principle is something I have grown more sensitive to over time. In the domain of occult science and instruction, it becomes clearer that we are only safe when 'teaching' from out of our lucidly cognized experiential states (and this is a principle of Waldorf education as well). That is why I have transitioned more and more to illustrating the phenomenological foundations - here I can say that my concepts are testifying to experiential dynamics that I can perceive within myself to some extent. And I believe other souls, when they are genuinely interested in exploring such things further, can also sense when that is the case and when it isn't. On the other hand, we can imagine a hypothetical scenario:

"Check out this lecture on the planetary incarnations of Earth, it contains a deep underlying logic about our Cosmic evolution and how we arrived at our present state."

"Thanks, these are interesting concepts and I sense some logical connections here. It is surely unfamiliar and hard to understand, though. How can we prove these concepts are pointing to realities?"

"Well, we just need to work with the concepts and see how they make sense, they logically fit together. Eventually we can verify these realities for ourlseves."

"But have you verified the reality of Old Moon, do you perceive how the hierarchical beings described were at work on the human organization?"

"Not really, but it's just a preliminary step to take before getting involved in meditative exercises that will help us develop higher perceptive capacities and verify the descriptions."

"Ok, but there are dime-a-dozen cult organizations that give out seemingly logical teachings about 'higher realities'. And it seems you are just taking all of these descriptions on faith for now. So why should I spend any more time on exploring these things?"

What then? We have led things into a dead end because we failed to realize that, it's not so much the logical relations of the presented content that is important for the other soul, but the fact that these logical relations are communicated by a soul with first-person experiential understanding of that content and the soul can concretely imagine a way in which such understanding can be reached. And, as you said before, the default state of the intellect is not to simply trust the communications on blind faith, in fact, the default state is a high level of suspicion and mistrust (for good evolutionary reasons). This is why sticking close with the phenomenological foundations, the subsidiary soul exercises, and so on, is the tried and true method of avoiding the dead ends and inviting the harmonization of the hysteresis at the intellectual scale.

At the same time, we regularly find in Steiner addresses in which he encourages materialists to receive and accept the results of spiritual research by testing them against matter, against physicality, to realize how experimentation consistently confirms them. In this quote, for instance, he dispels the objection played out in your scenario - that without direct experience, spiritual science appears no better than dime-a-dozen cult organizations. Here you won't be able to argue that I interpret Steiner's words upside down: these words couldn't have been more explicit. They were addressed to a non-medical audience on the topic of the connection between physiology and pathology-therapy (GA 314 Lecture IV), to stimulate a large understanding of the principles of spiritual science in medicine, and to encourage people not to take the illustrations on faith, but to test them against physical life, in order to be convinced of their rationality:


"I am only introducing a few individual examples here out of the rich wealth of examples that could be presented: I offered a large number of them this spring in the course for physicians. I am introducing them here only to illustrate the principles involved, but you can see from these examples how medicine can gradually become rational.
...
Finally I wanted to show you with a specific example how, if one looks in the right way at nature in the cases where nature reveals her manifest secret, one always gets an illustration of what was first known by spiritual scientific means. So that there is no objection at all, which might run something like this: “Someone who cannot peer into the spiritual world has no way of finding any proof for what the spiritual scientist claims”. No, that is not the case. What is important is on the one hand to be able to accept the results of spiritual science without dogmatism and belief in authority, and on the other hand to accept them without preconceived, prejudiced skepticism. One simply receives them. One doesn't say: “I believe them” nor does one rashly refuse them; rather one takes them and verifies them in relation to outer reality.
When you apply what may initially appear paradoxical to you, even fantastic, brought down as it is from the spiritual world through super-sensible vision by spiritual investigation, you will see that, if you apply it in life, if you ask life, it will be confirmed, right in the most relevant points. You will receive empirical confirmation everywhere for what spiritual investigation discovers. Those people today who refuse knowledge of the spiritual world with the excuse that they themselves are not able to see into the spiritual world are like the person who sees a shaped piece of iron and says, “I will shoe my horse with that, for it is a horseshoe.” If one were to say to him “It would be a mistake to shoe a horse with it, because it is a magnet, it has magnetic forces,” he would reply, “I don't see any magnetic forces—to me it is a horseshoe.” The spiritual is in everything material, and we are living in an age in which this spiritual element must be sought. A person who wishes to investigate matter, who wishes to ask questions without seeking the spirit, is like the one who uses the magnet to shoe his horse, who therefore does not really know how things in the material world are to be used."


Do you agree that such purposes point to the possible usefulness of presenting results of supersensible research in order to highlight their rationality and consistency with physical life, with the goal of spreading spirit awareness, rather than presenting only phenomenological processes based on personal meditation work and thinking exercises?


PS: I would like to add that I haven't actively searched for this quote. It was simply disseminated along my path of methodical progression through the medicine lectures. I have just found it today, while continuing my studies, in a state of mind unrelated to our question of speaking or not speaking to the intellect.