Anthroposophy for Dummies

[AshvinP]

the sheer strength of that modern prejudice against Thinking as spiritual activity.

I'd suggest this is because "Machiavellian thinking" strikes nobody as spiritual. The word "spiritual" is redundant and pointless in this context.

Is this two sentence response supposed to mean something? It is a prime example of that "lack of effort" I mentioned. Your ego wants to have an opinion on everything, but also does not want to do any work to make it an informed opinion, so you just string together a couple words to satisfy that purely egoistic urge.

[Ben Iscatus]

Thanks for that summary of my character, Ashvin. I'll try harder to please you next time.

[AshvinP]

Thanks for that summary of my character, Ashvin. I'll try harder to please you next time.

Or you and Justin can just stop commenting on Anthroposophy, which you are clearly not familiar with, until you decide to make yourself more familiar with it by the numerous resources we have pointed out. Anthony is a great example of someone trying to do that with genuine and thoughtful questions, while you guys try to derail the thread. On that note, this is my last comment to either of you on this thread unless the comment is specifically related to the ideal content of Anthroposophy, as opposed to lazy attempts to write it off without any consideration.

[Ben Iscatus]

I'll be glad to comment without a risk of being chastised. Thank you!

The intention of my "egoic" point was that I expect words to take their ordinary English meaning. Thus "thinking" cannot be a spiritual activity, unless egoic thinking (which you say gave rise to the post I made) is likewise spiritual in nature. If it is in fact spiritual in nature, you are wrong to dismiss it.

[AshvinP]

I'll be glad to comment without a risk of being chastised. Thank you!

The intention of my "egoic" point was that I expect words to take their ordinary English meaning. Thus "thinking" cannot be a spiritual activity, unless egoic thinking (which you say gave rise to the post I made) is likewise spiritual in nature. If it is in fact spiritual in nature, you are wrong to dismiss it.

We hold that all thinking is spiritual in nature. All is unified Spirit under Christian idealism and Anthroposophy. There is no experience which is not spiritual in nature, only spiritual experiences we fail to perceive as they truly are. Egoic intellectual thinking is like fixing one's eyes on the cave wall and refusing to turn around to see the sources passing across the Light which produce those shadows. These are not hard concepts to grasp, and we have explained them a million different ways on this forum already, by way of lengthy essays and brief posts alike. No consistent idealism would assume the "ordinary English meaning" of words actually reflect the essence of what the words are pointing to. Symbols never refer to themselves for their meaning - again that is the materialist and naïve realist outlook. Anyone who has been following BK or Hoffman should already understand that, as it is the very core of their philosophical-scientific outlook.

[Soul_of_Shu]

To all concerned ... Perhaps I'm off base, but I'm still getting the feeling that not all commentary herein is being offered in good faith, in an attempt to come to terms with the ideas being proposed, but rather is being driven by whatever it is in the demeanour of the interlocutor that annoys and pisses one off, making the ideas at best a secondary consideration.

[AshvinP]

To all concerned ... Perhaps I'm off base, but I'm still getting the feeling that not all commentary herein is being offered in good faith, in an attempt to come to terms with the ideas being proposed, but rather is being driven by whatever it is in the demeanour of the interlocutor that annoys and pisses one off, making the ideas at best a secondary consideration.

I am assuming this is not directed at me, and if not I appreciate you pointing this out.

But, as I keep saying, we should make every effort to relate these social ego dynamics back to the broader and more holistic forces at work. That is a critical aspect of breaking the old habit of fragmentary perceptions and creating a new habit of holistic cognition. It doesn't even really matter what the topic at issue is, bc it will provide much spiritual value to work through those steps regardless. It is all a path to developing Self-knowledge.

Whenever Western sprituality is invoked in the modern age these frictions arise. There is really a palpable disgust for it. As Cleric said in another thread, we don't even really desire for these spiritual dynamics to be true, even if they provide unfathomable meaning and hope to our lives. From my own personal experience, I can think of many times the Spirit was bearing fruit within me and I felt, "whoa this is a little scary, I don't know what will happen if I acknowledge this is occurring."

Of course I rationalize more in the way of, "I don't deserve this right now, or I need to be careful my personal fantasy isn't running amok with connections that don't actually exist, so let me 'take a break' and revisit it later." That is from someone who already accepted the Reality of the Spirit in the Christian sense for years now. After reflecting, though, I see this is precisely what the Western spiritual tradition warns about repeatedly, hence the importance of cultivating a certain devotional mood and faith along with the deep spiritual contemplation.

All of these things are also spoken of by Jungian depth psychology in terms of archetypal possession, projection, compensation, shadow work, etc. That is why Jung considered Christ the archetypal image of individuation i.e. a "union of the opposites" by making the collective subconscious conscious (apart from his own spiritual visions recounted in The Red Book). It is no coincidence Justin dislikes Jung and prefers Marx and Freud, at least based on what he has posted about them.

[Soul_of_Shu]

I am assuming this is not directed at me ...

Would it annoy you if it was?

I don't find myself truly annoyed or pissed off by anyone here, even as it may seem I'm annoyed at their being annoyed, when it's more like I'm frustrated that a lot of the discussion seems to succumb to annoyance. What does Jungian depth psychology say about working on such frustration?

[AshvinP]

I am assuming this is not directed at me ...

Would it annoy you if it was?

I don't find myself truly annoyed or pissed off by anyone here, even as it may seem I'm annoyed at their being annoyed, when it's more like I'm frustrated that a lot of the discussion seems to succumb to annoyance. What does Jungian depth psychology say about working on such frustration?

The way I see it now is that there is a fine line between frustrated venting and forthright honesty. If we can mature enough to really make peace with our frustrations without any such venting, or better yet find the valuable insights and lessons from even the most irrelevant and obnoxious comments, then that's great! But we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking suppressing all of our frustrations to avoid conflict is the same thing. That just leads to inner resentment building up as we sit there in silence. There is definitely unnecessary and avoidable frustration in my comments to a few people here, but expressing it directly to them also lets me avoid excessive build-up of resentment and bitterness in future interactions, so I can actually dispassionately discern and evaluate the content of their comments. If you pay very lose attention, then you will see that, once in a blue moon, Eugene, Justin, or Ben will make a very insightful comment, which I will not hesitate to praise and endorse if I agree with it

[Soul_of_Shu]

If you pay very lose attention, then you will see that, once in a blue moon, Eugene, Justin, or Ben will make a very insightful comment, which I will not hesitate to praise and endorse if I agree with it

Well that's surely helpful in avoiding annoyance ... Thanks a million