Saving the materialists

[AshvinP]

I think the most important thing to consider is that it's not simply the logical argument of 'error existing and transforming into truth' that would be persuasive, but living into the experience of doing double-takes and similar things, which gives the spirit a momentary glimpse of what it learns more intimately and deeply about itself through meditative exercises, i.e. how its activity contributes something unique to the perceptual flow that is not contained within the content of that flow itself. As we know, often what it contributes is its prejudiced and myopic opinions, preferences, passions, and so on, which is the source of error when contemplating the perceptual flow. Thus, the existence of error testifies to this implicit supersensible activity and, likewise, the ability to recognize the error and transform it through activity supported by patience, diligence, concentration, etc.

PS - I think Chess games can serve as great illustrative anchors for this principle. It is often that we see the board in one way, make a move that we think is optimal, and right after making the move, we notice how we have blundered a piece or created some deadly opportunity for the opponent. When playing a game, I try to pay attention to these kinds of second-order processes that are implicit in the perceptual flow of the game, in which my activity participates. Thus, even a fixed-rule, fully computable game can become imaginatively illustrative of living supersensible realities if we can adopt the proper recursive perspective on the flow of content.

[Federica]

Thanks, Federica, this is an excellent passage for the context of our discussion. Perhaps one of the best you could have chosen. The first half highlights very nicely what we have been discussing about how the mere intellectual gestures can always justify their position in the face of phenomenal facts, and explain away all the merely intellectual arguments about how the facts point to supersensible realities. It is a difficult conundrum because our ordinary soul life is indeed woven as replicas and combinations of sensory experiences. This is why even many idealistic souls generally veer toward explaining soul experience through bodily processes, because there seems to be such a powerful correlation of such processes with our inner flow of experience. Actually, that comes up around this section of BK's interview and his discussion of IIT:

We see how BK can only hold out hope that IIT will provide the "bridge" between the sensible and supersensible, and is actually enthusiastic about its prospects, simply because real-time thinking (and thus the genuine supersensible) remains in the blind spot. The second part of the Steiner quote highlights how it is the introspective observation of spiritual activity, i.e., observing the act of transforming error into truth (for example), that alone provides a solid foundation for overcoming reductive tendencies and engaging with the spiritual in its native element. It is similar to the double-take example that Brady uses here:

Another recognizable experience is the “double-take” alluded to above, in which the observer, through the failure of ordinary perception, becomes aware of his or her activity in making a correction. Of course, normal seeing is so successful that our activity is totally transparent to what we are looking at and we do not notice it. But when our attempt to see fails, we are forced to look a second time to make sense of the situation. Now, after the fact, we become aware that we have been active in producing an experience: the first “take” becomes our “mistake,” and if we were somehow responsible for it, we must also be responsible for the second, and correct, “take.” Such examples are part of everyday experience, but in themselves they only show that mental activity must contribute something if perception is to arise. Due to the short duration of the first “take,” however, it is difficult to examine how a “mediation” by the observer can unify the passively given. Thus we need better examples.

I think the most important thing to consider is that it's not simply the logical argument of 'error existing and transforming into truth' that would be persuasive, but living into the experience of doing double-takes and similar things, which gives the spirit a momentary glimpse of what it learns more intimately and deeply about itself through meditative exercises, i.e. how its activity contributes something unique to the perceptual flow that is not contained within the content of that flow itself. As we know, often what it contributes is its prejudiced and myopic opinions, preferences, passions, and so on, which is the source of error when contemplating the perceptual flow. Thus, the existence of error testifies to this implicit supersensible activity and, likewise, the ability to recognize the error and transform it through activity supported by patience, diligence, concentration, etc.

Thank you Ashvin. Initially I didn’t get it in this way, but yes, I can now follow how he proceeds, even if it’s not entirely explicit. At first I had missed that, in the quote, “The paths usually taken to gain an understanding of the spiritual world from the outside prove to be quite fragile” includes both external circumstances and inner truth as well. Also, later is the lecture, he refers directly to concentration and meditation. In a sense, transforming error into truth is not only an example of what we can innerly observe, but is the essence itself of the act of concentration: we transform a sensory error - the concentrative image is not given in the sensory world - into inner truth, and we transform a supersensible error too - the luciferic delusion in ambush at the threshold of the sense-free - into moral thinking, feeling and action.

[Cleric]

Thanks, Ashvin, I see.
I would like to share a picture of the halo I am seeing right now in the sky above me.
Realizing only now it's probably a halo Cleric has as profile picture

Thanks, great shot
Yes, it's the same in my picture. It's a 22° halo.

[Federica]

Not at all to retract all that's been arrived at in the last discussions, but I must quote what I'm reading in 314, lecture of October 28, 1922. It seems to me that there's hardly any way to read some other meaning than what's explicitely expressed:


"Let me assure you once again that there is no question of a wild, amateurish railing against modern scientific methods, but rather of giving guiding lines which will actually lead to more tangible results than mere trial and error. I do not by any means say that trial and error cannot also be fruitful. It does indeed lead to certain goals, but a great deal passes us completely by, especially many things we can learn by observing Nature. Although it is not difficult to produce a synthetic preparation composed of iron, sulphur and alkaline salts, it is a good thing to know how all these substances are brought together by Nature herself in a particular plant. Even in the production of synthetic remedies we can learn very much by understanding what is going on in Nature outside.

It would be fascinating to enter into many things in detail, and I think that some of our doctors may have done just that in the other lectures. A great deal, too, can be found in our literature, and there are many subjects which I hope will soon be dealt with there. I am convinced that as soon as these matters are presented in a clear, descriptive form, without people being afraid to criticize them, people will take this point of view: “Well, yes, I must above all heal if I want to be a doctor, and so I will turn to what, in the first place, I disliked. If it really helps, I cannot do otherwise than adopt it.”

In this sense I think it would be a good thing if as soon as possible we could produce literature of a kind that would be a bridge between Spiritual Science and modern material science. It would encourage the opinion that these things help and so they cannot after all be such utter nonsense! I am quite sure that when our work is properly in train, the verdict will be that it does indeed help.—And here I will conclude. Try it all out and you will find that it will help. That too, will not be without significance, for many things that are used in orthodox medicine do not help. And between what does and does not help there must play all that we would like to introduce from the side of Spiritual Science.

[AshvinP]

Not at all to retract all that's been arrived at in the last discussions, but I must quote what I'm reading in 314, lecture of October 28, 1922. It seems to me that there's hardly any way to read some other meaning than what's explicitely expressed:

I guess the question is whether you still feel this is explicitly expressing something other than the introspective approach when speaking of the 'bridge' between SS and material science? For me, they are one and the same. Thus there is no need for me to read any other meaning into the passage, because within its wider context, it fits into what we have been discussing. As you know, the first lecture of that cycle discusses the stages of higher cognition and how these alone provide insight into certain relations of the living body. That context is always implicit in what is 'explicitly expressed' in such passages. And we can of course come up with many more passages that speak of how the observations of material science must be approached artistically and imaginatively (thus, introspectively) if there is any hope of orienting to the deeper intuitive relations that translate into practical therapies. In other words, the suggestion to try out certain spiritual scientific indications and see if they work to heal, is itself an introspective practice, since it necessarily involves intention, devotion, and concentration on supersensible realities.

The other thing is that we all live with our modern thinking consciousness at the border of intellectual and imaginative gestures. One of the first things we should be able to research independently of what Steiner does or doesn't say, is the limitations and possibilities of the intellect to develop a living relation to the depth axis. Even if we were to find a passage from Steiner saying, "absolutely no introspective practice is needed before a bridge can be developed between material and spiritual science, only the intellect contemplating the possibilities of Anthroposophical medicine with its usual combinatorial gestures", we could probably write this off as a bad translation or simply an overestimation by Steiner. After all, this is the underlying theme of the intuitive thinking path - to wean off of reliance on external authorities and develop inner orientation and certainty through our intimate experience. Then, with the benefit of that freely won inner orientation, we can return to Steiner and see how certain passages fit within this introspective context even if their 'explicit' content seems to be pointing in another direction at first.

[Federica]

Not at all to retract all that's been arrived at in the last discussions, but I must quote what I'm reading in 314, lecture of October 28, 1922. It seems to me that there's hardly any way to read some other meaning than what's explicitely expressed:

I guess the question is whether you still feel this is explicitly expressing something other than the introspective approach when speaking of the 'bridge' between SS and material science? For me, they are one and the same. Thus there is no need for me to read any other meaning into the passage, because within its wider context, it fits into what we have been discussing. As you know, the first lecture of that cycle discusses the stages of higher cognition and how these alone provide insight into certain relations of the living body. That context is always implicit in what is 'explicitly expressed' in such passages. And we can of course come up with many more passages that speak of how the observations of material science must be approached artistically and imaginatively (thus, introspectively) if there is any hope of orienting to the deeper intuitive relations that translate into practical therapies. In other words, the suggestion to try out certain spiritual scientific indications and see if they work to heal, is itself an introspective practice, since it necessarily involves intention, devotion, and concentration on supersensible realities.

The other thing is that we all live with our modern thinking consciousness at the border of intellectual and imaginative gestures. One of the first things we should be able to research independently of what Steiner does or doesn't say, is the limitations and possibilities of the intellect to develop a living relation to the depth axis. Even if we were to find a passage from Steiner saying, "absolutely no introspective practice is needed before a bridge can be developed between material and spiritual science, only the intellect contemplating the possibilities of Anthroposophical medicine with its usual combinatorial gestures", we could probably write this off as a bad translation or simply an overestimation by Steiner. After all, this is the underlying theme of the intuitive thinking path - to wean off of reliance on external authorities and develop inner orientation and certainty through our intimate experience. Then, with the benefit of that freely won inner orientation, we can return to Steiner and see how certain passages fit within this introspective context even if their 'explicit' content seems to be pointing in another direction at first.

I surely agree that the whole purpose of cultivating intuitive thinking as a life path means and requires independent, self-generated inner experience. But I don't agree that Steiners suggestion to try out the spiritual scientific indications and see if they work to heal is itself an introspective practice, that necessarily involves intention, devotion, and concentration on supersensible realities. Not when it's an invitation directed to practitioners who thought that Spiritual Science was sheer nonsense. And I think it's interesting to see that Steiner was open to elicit a larger interest in anthroposophical medicine based on a "seeing is believing" approach.

In fact, this is the exact opposite of the inner path: the idea was to capture the attention of medical doctors initially opposed to Anthroposophy, by the persuasive power of the healing results that anthroposophical medicine was achieving in common diseases. I think there was an intention to use those novel results to create interest in Spiritual Science within the medical profession in general.

I believe Steiner thought it was necessary that, through the demonstrations offered by its practical applications, Spiritual Science gained more respect, attention, and spreading. After all, his life mission has been to bring the Mysteries out of the occult, and into the open, accessible to the public. And all applications of Anthroposophy to life, which he pursued so eagerly and thoroughly, were meant to close the circle, and bring this mission to fulfillment. This is not to retract that the practice of those skills require self-fueled inner development along the intuitive thinking path, and that Steiner continually reminded of that. Of course not. But it’s important to see that he was concerned with the spreading of Anthroposophy by inner and outer means, and that the results of its applications on the physical plane were one way to facilitate that process. Of course, this doesn’t mean that Anthroposophers of today should attempt the same, with others or themselves. To be clear, I am not using these considerations to fancy a lesser focus on the inner path for myself, or to advocate the promotion of Anthroposophy by highlighting its material results. But I think it’s important to feel how, especially in the last years of his life, Steiner was endeavoring to bring it all together, and create a larger impact for Anthroposophy including throughout the physical world.

[AshvinP]

I surely agree that the whole purpose of cultivating intuitive thinking as a life path means and requires independent, self-generated inner experience. But I don't agree that Steiners suggestion to try out the spiritual scientific indications and see if they work to heal is itself an introspective practice, that necessarily involves intention, devotion, and concentration on supersensible realities. Not when it's an invitation directed to practitioners who thought that Spiritual Science was sheer nonsense. And I think it's interesting to see that Steiner was open to elicit a larger interest in anthroposophical medicine based on a "seeing is believing" approach.

In fact, this is the exact opposite of the inner path: the idea was to capture the attention of medical doctors initially opposed to Anthroposophy, by the persuasive power of the healing results that anthroposophical medicine was achieving in common diseases. I think there was an intention to use those novel results to create interest in Spiritual Science within the medical profession in general.

I believe Steiner thought it was necessary that, through the demonstrations offered by its practical applications, Spiritual Science gained more respect, attention, and spreading. After all, his life mission has been to bring the Mysteries out of the occult, and into the open, accessible to the public. And all applications of Anthroposophy to life, which he pursued so eagerly and thoroughly, were meant to close the circle, and bring this mission to fulfillment. This is not to retract that the practice of those skills require self-fueled inner development along the intuitive thinking path, and that Steiner continually reminded of that. Of course not. But it’s important to see that he was concerned with the spreading of Anthroposophy by inner and outer means, and that the results of its applications on the physical plane were one way to facilitate that process. Of course, this doesn’t mean that Anthroposophers of today should attempt the same, with others or themselves. To be clear, I am not using these considerations to fancy a lesser focus on the inner path for myself, or to advocate the promotion of Anthroposophy by highlighting its material results. But I think it’s important to feel how, especially in the last years of his life, Steiner was endeavoring to bring it all together, and create a larger impact for Anthroposophy including throughout the physical world.

I don't think so, based on everything Steiner has said on why the "seeing is believing" approach simply doesn't work for the modern intellect, for reasons we can inwardly discern. As we have discussed, spiritual science and its practical extensions cannot be treated as a 'end-user' experience, where a small group of clairvoyants do the heavy lifting to reach the insights and develop the methods, and the architects, farmers, doctors, and so on simply consume these insights and mechanically implement the methods like using an xray machine or CAT scan. That misdiagnoses the way in which spiritual healing methods become effective, through the introspective participation of the healer. A doctor who isn't prepared to undergo inner transformation in his or her practice will attain few if any practical results.

Anthroposophical methods flow out into the World through that inner developmental approach, so I don't see how Steiner could be recommending the 'exact opposite' of the inner path. It simply doesn't make sense. What we cultivate through outer deeds are the moral qualities and virtues that support and deepen inner development, and through the latter, we discover the practical insights for developing effective outer methods to channel our deeds.

 
"To be clear, I am not using these considerations to fancy a lesser focus on the inner path for myself, or to advocate the promotion of Anthroposophy by highlighting its material results"

Right, but you seem to be suggesting that Steiner was advocating what you are unwilling to advocate in these lectures, and I simply don't understand why. 

By the way, I was perusing the morphic spaces thread, and it was interesting for me to come across these comments in which we were on somewhat opposite sides of where we are now, in terms of what we felt needed to be emphasized. It's fascinating to contemplate how the intellect oscillates between various perspectives on the meaning it encounters and frequently convinces itself that this perspective is the 'right' one. I don't think there is any hope for spiritual science to flow out more broadly into practical Earthly applications without these oscillatory movements being introspectively observed and consciously accounted for by the practitioners. 


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More seriously, the French have a saying: "to go faster than the music". You and Cleric often speak of symphonic harmony, musical attunement, and use tuning forks metaphors. The music of the spheres is the highest unifying organizing principle of the above and the below. So with this in mind there could certainly be a disharmony in the pace at which the side of development in thought is pursued, versus the side of development in the mineral sphere.

My impression is that such eagerness, as you describe and have demonstrated before, could be a case of playing too hard on the material aspects, hence the risk of accentuating disharmony in the full spectrum of morphic spaces. Not with respect to your particular case of course, but we have to look at the general level of development of living thinking today, not your own. It seems to me that thinking is currently so underdeveloped in comparison the the Ahrimanic push for us to unconsciously hack the life forces from the bottom up, that we should probably calm down the technological excitement and rather work on things from the other end, that of thinking, which is so much more in need of enhancement. How do you make sure that your thought of woefully underdeveloped science and tech knowledge does not come from personal preference?

Is it not screamingly evident that there is one side of things in much greater need of enhancement than the other?

[Federica]

Yes, Ashvin, we have already agreed on what you say in the first two paragraphs - absolutely. There is no heavy lifting to be done by experts, and spiritual science can only be taken in by inner development. But Steiner is clear: the attention of opposers to Anthroposophy - not their inner development - can be initially captured by a "seeing is believing" approach. Once captured, they would have to come to the realization that inner development is the only way, and act upon it.

(Note from Ashvin: I accidentally edited in your post instead of quoting it - the above was all that I could salvage from the original. Sorry!)

[AshvinP]

Yes, Ashvin, we have already agreed on what you say in the first two paragraphs - absolutely. There is no heavy lifting to be done by experts, and spiritual science can only be taken in by inner development. But Steiner is clear: the attention of opposers to Anthroposophy - not their inner development - can be initially captured by a "seeing is believing" approach. Once captured, they would have to come to the realization that inner development is the only way, and act upon it.

But how does this make sense? What is there to 'see' for the opposers, and therefore believe, before inner development?

[Federica]

Yes, Ashvin, we have already agreed on what you say in the first two paragraphs - absolutely. There is no heavy lifting to be done by experts, and spiritual science can only be taken in by inner development. But Steiner is clear: the attention of opposers to Anthroposophy - not their inner development - can be initially captured by a "seeing is believing" approach. Once captured, they would have to come to the realization that inner development is the only way, and act upon it.

But how does this make sense? What is there to 'see' for the opposers, and therefore believe, before inner development?

The healing results on the material plane? This is a question for Steiner anyway. I've only taken note of his invitation to opposers of spiritual science.

PS. No problem for the post above