The Central Topic

[AshvinP]

Almost all my posts here have always been focused on one single topic. Those who are able to grasp these things will see that I've been talking about the same thing from many different angles. I don't do that because I pretend to be the first to know of such things but because I realize the urgency of the times and how time slips through our fingers while we serve centuries old mental habits. Let me make one more attempt to point attention to that central theme.

Cleric,

I've been reading carefully some of the dialog associated with this thread and a few more pieces have come together for me. I certainly grok TCT, I might even be able to use my own words and concepts to articulate it.

My "question of the day" pertains to the truths that can be extracted from the perceptions in front of the veil, without development of the depth thinking. I think we agree that our science is very successful and taking our fragments of perception and establishing horizontal relationships and laws that appear to govern these. But what about discerning spiritual truths or evaluating the various religious claims, for example the propositions, "Jesus died for our sins", "Jesus rose bodily from the dead" or "there is an un-caused first mover"?

This is the domain of the religious apologist and they operate in the domain of the horizontal. The inferences they make are convincing to some and belief results in changes to willful actions. But being devoid of the vertical element, are such arguments of little weight for the esoterist? How do you engage with such claims?

Anthony,

If I may offer a brief comparison - consider the 'proposition', "Beethoven's symphonies are the most beautiful musical compositions conceived by man so far". Now we are in the realm of aesthetic meaning, but it's clear that this claim cannot be investigated by horizontal intellectual thinking. "Jesus died for our sins" is in the realm of moral meaning, which is even further removed from intellectual thinking. They are so far removed that the propositions are practically meaningless. So I would answer yes, without the vertical element they have no practical relevance for our spiritual inquiries through deepened thinking.

We can also start to perceive with our reason why aesthetic and moral meaning are also woven into all that we normally consider amenable to horizontal thinking, like basic scientific observations. The 'laws' of secular science are completely stripped of this meaning, and without reintroducing that meaning through our own vertical thinking, we really know nothing about what deeper sources of phenomenal existence they are pointing to. We are then only studying our own abstractions and their mechanical movements within the 'perceptual interface', like studying movement of quantitative shapes of images on a mirror to try and understand the agentic source of inner experience which gives rise to the mirror images.

Genuine science is based on first-person observation, without added abstract assumptions, and we only observe meaning, of no different kind than the meaning we observe in art, books, movies, or anything in human culture that speaks to us of great aesthetic and moral purpose. Anyone can test this out by looking around the room, inhabiting their own 1st-person perspective, and noticing how they are only conscious of some meaning of all that is perceived. The perceptual structures by themselves are vague, their precise quantitative measurements are not known, and for all things there are no delimiting boundaries after a bit of reflection. For ex. where does the light by which you perceive all the things begin and end?

All perceptions are embedded within a context of other perceptions in this same way - we cannot even imagine them as isolated. We cannot imagine the color 'blue' without a context for its appearance. This context is what we call "meaning" and it is the only thing science studies because it is only meaning that can be perceived. This is only forgotten when we fantasize a 3rd-person perspective which doesn't exist, a 'view from nowhere', and then imagine there are isolated perceptions which can be matched up with one another in propositional form. All such propositions are practically meaningless because they imply a perspective which doesn't exist in reality.

It helps to remember the meaning of "theory" in scientific theory. When we perceive meaning in the aims and purposes of human culture, including religion, we are also theorizing like we are in science. All such theorizing, if aimed to perceive something of essence behind the propositional forms (as opposed to aimed merely at applied technological purposes in some limited domain of experience), or to apply science towards technological aims with Wisdom, which necessarily entails moral meaning, must eventually employ vertical thinking to redeem those rigid forms into more poetic flows. It is then about consciously perceiving more and more meaningful activity underlying the forms, building confidence that a form like "Jesus died for our sins" points our vision towards higher order conscious activity of deep significance, rather than trying to prove some rigid propositional form is "true" at any given time (which is impossible).

https://theoriapress.substack.com/p/the ... cebook&s=r

Theoria (from the Greek θεωρία, thea “a view, a sight” + horan “to see”) is the term I have settled on to designate the energy and experience of vision. The discovery of a conceptual, intelligible, or noetic essence that is already present in everything perceptual is an entry point into theoria. It’s connection to the familiar English word “theory” will be apparent and for this reason, I present a brief inquiry into the term below.

A theory is not only intended to explain what can be readily observed. Instead, the function of theory is more elementary than this. To wit, a theory is intended to disclose specific phenomena, patterns, and relations that may otherwise escape notice. Put another way, the function of a theory is to reveal the logic and lawfulness in what would appear mere happenstance to the untutored eye. Indeed, therefore, it is only in light of the proper theory that anything can be perceived, to begin with, and subsequently explained. Hence, it should be clear that a theory must be more than an explanation of what can be readily observed since the theory was also present as a necessary condition for observation as such. Since the meaning of the term “theory” has contracted over the years (especially since the Scientific Revolution), it will be necessary to recover an older, broader understanding of the term.

[AshvinP]

...

I came across an excellent part of a lecture from Steiner which is relevant to this topic, and is especially important for those of us on these philosophical forums to consider carefully.

There are people who are materialists, others are spiritists, others monists, others dualists, and so forth. The materialists insist that everything is matter; the spiritists assert that everything is spirit and attribute importance to spirit alone; the monists declare that everything proceeds from unity. In the outer world people fight and wrangle with each other on every possible occasion — the materialists against the spiritists, the monists against the dualists and so on. But everyone who wants to prepare himself for real knowledge must pay heed to the following facts. — Materialism has a certain justification; we must learn how to think, as the materialist does, in terms of the laws of matter, but this thinking must be applied to the material world only. We must comprehend these laws, for otherwise we cannot find our bearings in the material world. If someone were to attempt to explain a clock by saying: ‘I believe there are two little demons sitting inside it and making the hands go round. I do not believe in machinery,’ — such a man would be laughed to scorn, for a clock can be explained only by applying the laws of the material world. Those who try to explain the movements of the stars by material laws are simply telling us of a mechanical system. The mistake does not lie in materialistic thinking itself but in the supposition that it can explain the whole universe and that there is no other valid kind of thinking. Haeckel does not err when explaining by the laws of materialistic morphology phenomena of which he has exceptional knowledge; if he had confined himself to a certain category of phenomena he could have performed an enormous service to humanity.

It can therefore be said that materialistic thinking has its justification, but in a certain domain only. Spiritual thinking must be applied to whatever is subject to the laws of spirituality and not to those of mechanics. When someone says: ‘You come along with a peculiar psychology alleged to have its own laws, but I know that there are certain processes in the brain which explain thinking’ — he is introducing matters of a different nature, and in another domain he is making the same mistake as the man who believes in the two demons in the clock. As little as the clock can be explained by demons, as little can thinking be explained by movements of atoms in the brain. Again, anyone who attributes fatigue in the evening to the accumulation of toxins may be giving the right explanation as far as the outer facts are concerned, but as far as the soul is concerned he is explaining nothing whatever, for a spiritual explanation is essential there.

And then take monism. By attempting to explain the world only from the aspect of harmony, one is bound to arrive at unity, but it is abstract unity and means impoverishment. Philosophers whose only aim is to arrive at unity have in the end gained nothing at all. I once knew a man whose aim was to explain the whole world in a couple of sentences and he finally came to inform me with great glee that he had actually found two simple formulae which could explain every possible phenomenon in the world! This is an example of the one-sidedness of monistic thought. Such thinking must be widened through proceeding from very different points and finally reaching unity.
...
This power of emerging from oneself in order to describe something objectively, as it were with the eyes of a different viewpoint, is a quality that it is necessary to acquire, for that alone can lead to far-reaching truth. Nobody gets anywhere near the real truth if he stands at a particular spot and gazes, let us say, at a rose-bush, but only if he photographs it now from one standpoint, now from another, and again from another. By such means we train ourselves to acquire what we need as soon as we rise into the higher worlds. Confusion is inevitable in the higher worlds if we enter them with personal opinions for then we immediately have delusive images of truth before us.

[Anthony66]

Almost all my posts here have always been focused on one single topic. Those who are able to grasp these things will see that I've been talking about the same thing from many different angles. I don't do that because I pretend to be the first to know of such things but because I realize the urgency of the times and how time slips through our fingers while we serve centuries old mental habits. Let me make one more attempt to point attention to that central theme.

Cleric,

I've been reading carefully some of the dialog associated with this thread and a few more pieces have come together for me. I certainly grok TCT, I might even be able to use my own words and concepts to articulate it.

My "question of the day" pertains to the truths that can be extracted from the perceptions in front of the veil, without development of the depth thinking. I think we agree that our science is very successful and taking our fragments of perception and establishing horizontal relationships and laws that appear to govern these. But what about discerning spiritual truths or evaluating the various religious claims, for example the propositions, "Jesus died for our sins", "Jesus rose bodily from the dead" or "there is an un-caused first mover"?

This is the domain of the religious apologist and they operate in the domain of the horizontal. The inferences they make are convincing to some and belief results in changes to willful actions. But being devoid of the vertical element, are such arguments of little weight for the esoterist? How do you engage with such claims?

Anthony,

If I may offer a brief comparison - consider the 'proposition', "Beethoven's symphonies are the most beautiful musical compositions conceived by man so far". Now we are in the realm of aesthetic meaning, but it's clear that this claim cannot be investigated by horizontal intellectual thinking. "Jesus died for our sins" is in the realm of moral meaning, which is even further removed from intellectual thinking. They are so far removed that the propositions are practically meaningless. So I would answer yes, without the vertical element they have no practical relevance for our spiritual inquiries through deepened thinking.

We can also start to perceive with our reason why aesthetic and moral meaning are also woven into all that we normally consider amenable to horizontal thinking, like basic scientific observations. The 'laws' of secular science are completely stripped of this meaning, and without reintroducing that meaning through our own vertical thinking, we really know nothing about what deeper sources of phenomenal existence they are pointing to. We are then only studying our own abstractions and their mechanical movements within the 'perceptual interface', like studying movement of quantitative shapes of images on a mirror to try and understand the agentic source of inner experience which gives rise to the mirror images.

Genuine science is based on first-person observation, without added abstract assumptions, and we only observe meaning, of no different kind than the meaning we observe in art, books, movies, or anything in human culture that speaks to us of great aesthetic and moral purpose. Anyone can test this out by looking around the room, inhabiting their own 1st-person perspective, and noticing how they are only conscious of some meaning of all that is perceived. The perceptual structures by themselves are vague, their precise quantitative measurements are not known, and for all things there are no delimiting boundaries after a bit of reflection. For ex. where does the light by which you perceive all the things begin and end?

All perceptions are embedded within a context of other perceptions in this same way - we cannot even imagine them as isolated. We cannot imagine the color 'blue' without a context for its appearance. This context is what we call "meaning" and it is the only thing science studies because it is only meaning that can be perceived. This is only forgotten when we fantasize a 3rd-person perspective which doesn't exist, a 'view from nowhere', and then imagine there are isolated perceptions which can be matched up with one another in propositional form. All such propositions are practically meaningless because they imply a perspective which doesn't exist in reality.

It helps to remember the meaning of "theory" in scientific theory. When we perceive meaning in the aims and purposes of human culture, including religion, we are also theorizing like we are in science. All such theorizing, if aimed to perceive something of essence behind the propositional forms (as opposed to aimed merely at applied technological purposes in some limited domain of experience), or to apply science towards technological aims with Wisdom, which necessarily entails moral meaning, must eventually employ vertical thinking to redeem those rigid forms into more poetic flows. It is then about consciously perceiving more and more meaningful activity underlying the forms, building confidence that a form like "Jesus died for our sins" points our vision towards higher order conscious activity of deep significance, rather than trying to prove some rigid propositional form is "true" at any given time (which is impossible).

https://theoriapress.substack.com/p/the ... cebook&s=r

Theoria (from the Greek θεωρία, thea “a view, a sight” + horan “to see”) is the term I have settled on to designate the energy and experience of vision. The discovery of a conceptual, intelligible, or noetic essence that is already present in everything perceptual is an entry point into theoria. It’s connection to the familiar English word “theory” will be apparent and for this reason, I present a brief inquiry into the term below.

A theory is not only intended to explain what can be readily observed. Instead, the function of theory is more elementary than this. To wit, a theory is intended to disclose specific phenomena, patterns, and relations that may otherwise escape notice. Put another way, the function of a theory is to reveal the logic and lawfulness in what would appear mere happenstance to the untutored eye. Indeed, therefore, it is only in light of the proper theory that anything can be perceived, to begin with, and subsequently explained. Hence, it should be clear that a theory must be more than an explanation of what can be readily observed since the theory was also present as a necessary condition for observation as such. Since the meaning of the term “theory” has contracted over the years (especially since the Scientific Revolution), it will be necessary to recover an older, broader understanding of the term.

Do you think it would be a fair summary to say that outside of a fairly restricted set of phenomena, horizontal propositional reasoning is very limited. In the realm of the moral in particular, horizontal and vertical reasoning is required to plumb an expansive meaning of phenomena.

[AshvinP]

Cleric,

I've been reading carefully some of the dialog associated with this thread and a few more pieces have come together for me. I certainly grok TCT, I might even be able to use my own words and concepts to articulate it.

My "question of the day" pertains to the truths that can be extracted from the perceptions in front of the veil, without development of the depth thinking. I think we agree that our science is very successful and taking our fragments of perception and establishing horizontal relationships and laws that appear to govern these. But what about discerning spiritual truths or evaluating the various religious claims, for example the propositions, "Jesus died for our sins", "Jesus rose bodily from the dead" or "there is an un-caused first mover"?

This is the domain of the religious apologist and they operate in the domain of the horizontal. The inferences they make are convincing to some and belief results in changes to willful actions. But being devoid of the vertical element, are such arguments of little weight for the esoterist? How do you engage with such claims?

Anthony,

If I may offer a brief comparison - consider the 'proposition', "Beethoven's symphonies are the most beautiful musical compositions conceived by man so far". Now we are in the realm of aesthetic meaning, but it's clear that this claim cannot be investigated by horizontal intellectual thinking. "Jesus died for our sins" is in the realm of moral meaning, which is even further removed from intellectual thinking. They are so far removed that the propositions are practically meaningless. So I would answer yes, without the vertical element they have no practical relevance for our spiritual inquiries through deepened thinking.

We can also start to perceive with our reason why aesthetic and moral meaning are also woven into all that we normally consider amenable to horizontal thinking, like basic scientific observations. The 'laws' of secular science are completely stripped of this meaning, and without reintroducing that meaning through our own vertical thinking, we really know nothing about what deeper sources of phenomenal existence they are pointing to. We are then only studying our own abstractions and their mechanical movements within the 'perceptual interface', like studying movement of quantitative shapes of images on a mirror to try and understand the agentic source of inner experience which gives rise to the mirror images.

Genuine science is based on first-person observation, without added abstract assumptions, and we only observe meaning, of no different kind than the meaning we observe in art, books, movies, or anything in human culture that speaks to us of great aesthetic and moral purpose. Anyone can test this out by looking around the room, inhabiting their own 1st-person perspective, and noticing how they are only conscious of some meaning of all that is perceived. The perceptual structures by themselves are vague, their precise quantitative measurements are not known, and for all things there are no delimiting boundaries after a bit of reflection. For ex. where does the light by which you perceive all the things begin and end?

All perceptions are embedded within a context of other perceptions in this same way - we cannot even imagine them as isolated. We cannot imagine the color 'blue' without a context for its appearance. This context is what we call "meaning" and it is the only thing science studies because it is only meaning that can be perceived. This is only forgotten when we fantasize a 3rd-person perspective which doesn't exist, a 'view from nowhere', and then imagine there are isolated perceptions which can be matched up with one another in propositional form. All such propositions are practically meaningless because they imply a perspective which doesn't exist in reality.

It helps to remember the meaning of "theory" in scientific theory. When we perceive meaning in the aims and purposes of human culture, including religion, we are also theorizing like we are in science. All such theorizing, if aimed to perceive something of essence behind the propositional forms (as opposed to aimed merely at applied technological purposes in some limited domain of experience), or to apply science towards technological aims with Wisdom, which necessarily entails moral meaning, must eventually employ vertical thinking to redeem those rigid forms into more poetic flows. It is then about consciously perceiving more and more meaningful activity underlying the forms, building confidence that a form like "Jesus died for our sins" points our vision towards higher order conscious activity of deep significance, rather than trying to prove some rigid propositional form is "true" at any given time (which is impossible).

https://theoriapress.substack.com/p/the ... cebook&s=r

Theoria (from the Greek θεωρία, thea “a view, a sight” + horan “to see”) is the term I have settled on to designate the energy and experience of vision. The discovery of a conceptual, intelligible, or noetic essence that is already present in everything perceptual is an entry point into theoria. It’s connection to the familiar English word “theory” will be apparent and for this reason, I present a brief inquiry into the term below.

A theory is not only intended to explain what can be readily observed. Instead, the function of theory is more elementary than this. To wit, a theory is intended to disclose specific phenomena, patterns, and relations that may otherwise escape notice. Put another way, the function of a theory is to reveal the logic and lawfulness in what would appear mere happenstance to the untutored eye. Indeed, therefore, it is only in light of the proper theory that anything can be perceived, to begin with, and subsequently explained. Hence, it should be clear that a theory must be more than an explanation of what can be readily observed since the theory was also present as a necessary condition for observation as such. Since the meaning of the term “theory” has contracted over the years (especially since the Scientific Revolution), it will be necessary to recover an older, broader understanding of the term.

Do you think it would be a fair summary to say that outside of a fairly restricted set of phenomena, horizontal propositional reasoning is very limited. In the realm of the moral in particular, horizontal and vertical reasoning is required to plumb an expansive meaning of phenomena.

Yes, definitely. Assuming we don't only want to understand how clocks and such function, but actually penetrate to the meaningful activity underlying the phenomenal world, then vertical is necessary. Even the technological uses of horizontal thinking are running dry now. The key, of course, is how actually to go about developing the vertical. I think Cleric has provided a lot of excellent resources for that here, which I can say have greatly helped me.

Horizontal thinking will still be necessary for some time to come, especially for communicating the understanding we attain from higher worlds to others. Thinking of any kind should never be an end in itself, but a means to more usefully serving the high ideals of human existence. Most of all, voluntary sacrificial deeds for the raising up of others into higher consciousness.

[Cleric K]

Do you think it would be a fair summary to say that outside of a fairly restricted set of phenomena, horizontal propositional reasoning is very limited. In the realm of the moral in particular, horizontal and vertical reasoning is required to plumb an expansive meaning of phenomena.

Let's first keep in mind that the horizontal and vertical are not isolated phenomena. So even when we're engaged in horizontal reasoning, we're still using the vertical forces which drive thinking, yet this thinking keeps reprojecting itself on the perceptual plane in a kind of infernal loop. This is important to keep in mind. Even our most mundane thinking is still activity of our spirit. It is the patterns, rhythms, loops into which that activity flows, which give it its peculiar character. A broken record which snaps back at the same position still produces sound in the same way as a normal record. It's the infernal dynamics which make the activity to keep snapping back onto the same patterns.

Anthony, I started writing a post that turned out rather long as usual but then I thought that it would be better to address the core issues more directly. So can you tell what is your main struggle at this point? I think I have some idea. You have mentioned it before and your latest few questions seem to revolve around it.

Would it be right to say that you logically feel that only deeper implicit order of the spiritual Cosmos can give satisfactory understanding of reality (not just theoretically but as actual development of consciousness into new domains) yet you're fighting with the fact that you can't feel intellectual security in this idea? In other words, you arrive at a point where you feel a leap of faith is demanded and you still don't feel sufficiently certain that such a leap won't lead into a dogmatic belief?

[Anthony66]

Would it be right to say that you logically feel that only deeper implicit order of the spiritual Cosmos can give satisfactory understanding of reality (not just theoretically but as actual development of consciousness into new domains) yet you're fighting with the fact that you can't feel intellectual security in this idea? In other words, you arrive at a point where you feel a leap of faith is demanded and you still don't feel sufficiently certain that such a leap won't lead into a dogmatic belief?

I'm certainly open to the depth aspect of reality, understand some of the logic, and may even have an intuitive feel of what is being described. But I lack a strong experiential conviction.

What is driving my question above is whether, in light of this depth reality, I may need to do a certain revisiting of my conclusions regarding the religious faiths, particularly Christianity. As I've mentioned a number of times, I'm a former evangelical and I rejected that for a wide range of reasons. For example, on the question of the bodily resurrection of Jesus I decided the historical evidence was insufficient to support that conclusion. But the reasoning that led to that end was based on flattened thinking, logically stitching the factoids together, running those through a Bayesian like model and popping out an answer. But if we can develop higher cognition and an expanded thinking capability, perhaps one may arrive at a very different conclusion. Not that I can ever imagine going back to my evangelical days, but a drift towards esoteric forms of Christianity or the other faiths might be on the cards. But I'm sure you will say that is a secondary consideration compared to our posture within the Cosmos.

[lorenzop]

I'm certainly open to the depth aspect of reality, understand some of the logic, and may even have an intuitive feel of what is being described. But I lack a strong experiential conviction.

What is driving my question above is whether, in light of this depth reality, I may need to do a certain revisiting of my conclusions regarding the religious faiths, particularly Christianity. As I've mentioned a number of times, I'm a former evangelical and I rejected that for a wide range of reasons. For example, on the question of the bodily resurrection of Jesus I decided the historical evidence was insufficient to support that conclusion. But the reasoning that led to that end was based on flattened thinking, logically stitching the factoids together, running those through a Bayesian like model and popping out an answer. But if we can develop higher cognition and an expanded thinking capability, perhaps one may arrive at a very different conclusion. Not that I can ever imagine going back to my evangelical days, but a drift towards esoteric forms of Christianity or the other faiths might be on the cards. But I'm sure you will say that is a secondary consideration compared to our posture within the Cosmos.

The notion of thinking as 'vertical' or in layers is not counter-intuitive . . . we have thoughts that are very concrete and almost audible, and thoughts that are subtle and abstract - and everything in between. An example from mathematics would be:
Natural numbers 1,2,3,...
Whole numbers 0,1,2,3,...
Integers ...,-3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3,...
Rationals 1/3
Reals .469344...
etc.
The natural numbers we use at the market, buy 3 apples, etc. Simply adding 0 to the natural numbers offers an additional layer of abstraction and power.
The addition of negative integers gives more abstraction - and more power. Eventually math becomes powerful enough to do calculus, and eventually quantum mechanics.
Appreciating thought at finer levels gives thinking more power and capacity.
----
Re the bodily resurrection of Jesus, or any testimony of any religious or spiritual event - - I think the standard should be: Even if it was proven beyond any doubt that Jesus never stepped on the face of the earth - does the principle of 'bodily resurrection ' still stand? Even if Jesus never existed, does His teaching/knowledge stand on it's own merit?

[Martin_]

A very good example of multi-layered thinking can be found in computer systems, where each layer of machine code -> programming language -> operating system -> application -> ... -> ...
are layeres of higher and higher abstraction. These levels did not appear by themselves. A human being thought them up.

Not sure that's what Ashvin means with vertical thinking though. The computer- and math- types of abstraction seem pretty mineralized to me...

Then again, maybe this is exactly vertical thinking, it's just that we would do better if we applied it to ourselves instead of the outside world...

[Cleric K]

I'm certainly open to the depth aspect of reality, understand some of the logic, and may even have an intuitive feel of what is being described. But I lack a strong experiential conviction.

What is driving my question above is whether, in light of this depth reality, I may need to do a certain revisiting of my conclusions regarding the religious faiths, particularly Christianity. As I've mentioned a number of times, I'm a former evangelical and I rejected that for a wide range of reasons. For example, on the question of the bodily resurrection of Jesus I decided the historical evidence was insufficient to support that conclusion. But the reasoning that led to that end was based on flattened thinking, logically stitching the factoids together, running those through a Bayesian like model and popping out an answer. But if we can develop higher cognition and an expanded thinking capability, perhaps one may arrive at a very different conclusion. Not that I can ever imagine going back to my evangelical days, but a drift towards esoteric forms of Christianity or the other faiths might be on the cards. But I'm sure you will say that is a secondary consideration compared to our posture within the Cosmos.

I don't want to go into the gospels but it's worth noting that the bodily resurrection is not something that one can gather literally from the text. As a matter of fact, if one reads with fresh eyes, free from prior conceptions, the resurrection story will be found to be quite strange. For example:

11 And they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not.
12 After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country.

"Appeared in another form" already hints that something not quite ordinary is happening.

Furthermore:

15 And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.
16 But their eyes were holden that they should not know him.
...
31 And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.

How could the disciples not recognize him if they lived with him for so long and last saw him just a day ago? Did they forget how he looked so quickly? What does it mean that he vanished? Actually, anywhere we read "... and their eyes were opened" we should be aware that it's a matter of quite another seeing. We don't imagine that the whole day they were walking around with their physical eyes shut, do we?

But anyway. As said, it's not the place in this forum to delve into these mysteries. My whole point was that we should begin backtracking our own knowledge and investigate how our own convictions came about. Things are such that many of the things we think we know, have been acquired in careless manner and they have sunk into a kind of emotional response. This vigilance is very important to develop especially in our day where media practically sculpts human consciousness. The same holds for science. Very few people stop to distinguish between the experimental readings of the instruments on one hand and the philosophical interpretations on the other. Needless to say, the media only focuses on the latter. We hear "scientists have found that this part of the brain is responsible for that subjective experience", which is quite different from the bare scientific fact of correlation between measured electrical activity and reported experience.

Most certainly you're not going back to your evangelic days and that would be indeed step backwards. Sadly, most of the churches today preach nothing but materialistic superstition. On the other hand, the kind of reading of the gospels which is needed in order to understand things like "... and their eyes were opened" is simply beyond the imagination of the modern secular mind. There simply are degrees of freedom of our spiritual activity that are completely dormant, without which one doesn't even know what to innerly do in order to imagine what such words imply. In a conversation with Hedge he used a very apt analogy. He mentioned how some people can't move their earlobes. They simply don't know what to innerly do for that to happen. They don't know what spiritual gesture to perform. It's similar with other forms of spiritual activity. If we see someone performing a specific bodily movement, in order to experience it for ourselves we need to find the inner willing gestures through which we can manifest it. Only when the perceptions of our body begin to correlate with those of the other person, we conclude that we have learned to do the same movement. To understand something, to understand a mathematical theorem for example, we need to set our thinking in motion. When we will our thinking into the patterns and rhythms of the thing in question and we feel how it embeds organically in a greater harmony of meaning, we say that we understand it. Yet we need to find the inner forces of our own spirit through which we can set our thinking in motion, in the same way we need to find the inner willing forces to move an earlobe. And things are even more difficult when we are speaking of spiritual gestures such as those needed to experience the gospels from their deeper perspective.

One of the most devastating prejudices of our age is that in our palette of inner expression (ordinary thinking, feeling and willing in relation to sensory perceptions), we have the complete spectrum of our deeper spiritual being. One of the greatest insults for modern man, especially those who consider themselves learned, is to say that there exist degrees of inner spiritual freedom that they don't even know about, that they don't even know what gesture to perform in order to move the 'earlobe' which would make words like "... and their eyes were opened" to be comprehended at a completely different level. And when we see today the various churches speaking of bodily resurrection, it only shows the concealed arrogance. It practically says "Since this is the only thing I can imagine with my Earthly consciousness, Jesus must have been resuscitated in the flesh, much like our paramedics today defibrillate someone back to life."

To summarize all this, there's certainly much wrong with today's forms of religion - and not only Christian ones. People say "The church is so corrupt! They only care about power and money! If that's what "godly" things are about I don't want to have anything to do with it." And that's fine. It is mandatory than anyone today should see clearly this corruption. But what are the true reasons for turning away from "godly" things? Are they because in secular people we find the finest example of morality, disinterestedness, sacrifice? Or we simply like to feel more carefree, not having to pay attention to the nature of our impulses and desires?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that we need to become more pious as an ends in itself. The whole goal is to become more and more conscious of the forces which shape our spiritual activity in thinking, feeling and willing. Life experiences as the evangelic church are very valuable. They provide us with the means to investigate ourselves and see what is it that we really rebel about. Are we simply disappointed with the concrete conduct and beliefs of the people in that society? Or we gladly use the occasion in order to dismiss any possibility that the fabric of our own soul space might be weaved also of higher order Intelligences? And saying this doesn't aim to incite us into blind worship of Cosmic powers but to think with the utmost scientific seriousness about these things and what consequences all that would have for practical life.

[Cleric K]

A very good example of multi-layered thinking can be found in computer systems, where each layer of machine code -> programming language -> operating system -> application -> ... -> ...
are layeres of higher and higher abstraction. These levels did not appear by themselves. A human being thought them up.

Not sure that's what Ashvin means with vertical thinking though. The computer- and math- types of abstraction seem pretty mineralized to me...

Then again, maybe this is exactly vertical thinking, it's just that we would do better if we applied it to ourselves instead of the outside world...

This is a very good example but we should guard against something. In the realization of the computer algorithm, all our vertical thoughts are flattened on the physical medium of the silicon chip. This in itself can cause endless debates whether the higher orders are at all 'real' or only the physical layer of bouncing particles exists.

To move away from these fruitless speculations we should investigate directly the manifestation of verticality in our living experience. Take as an example a baby. Almost anything happening which clashes with its desires, results in cry. Think about it. Someone takes your toy - you cry, you're hungry - you cry. If the baby could investigate these things it would conclude that this is how the universe works. It's like a natural law - cause and effect, one billiard ball hits another and sets it in motion. Hunger causes cry. In connection with my post above - the baby doesn't yet know the inner degrees of freedom which can help it rule over its emotional body. Instead, its states of being are relentlessly thrown around on the waves of baser instincts, which appear as laws of the universe.

Note that as we grow up and begin to master our emotional body, it's not simply a refined skill but actual turning outside-in of our soul life. What for the baby was as if an external law of the universe, gradually becomes perceptible to our spirit and we even find the inner gestures to augment it. Then we can say "Aha! Now I see what my baby-self has been moving through. I see the waves of instinctive emotion that surge in my soul. Formerly these were as objective as the weather outside. Storms just sway, rain falls and my baby-self was simply being thrown around at the mercy of the soul-natural forces. Now part of these soul forces have become my conscious spiritual expression. It's like I have developed godly powers to at least partially command over the winds, the waves, the rain of my soul."

Now imagine that things continue even further. Our thinking also is being shaped by ideal weather which is largely a natural law for us. Some call that law the brain, others call it the soul, others call it the inexplicable one consciousness, the nothingness of potential, etc. But just as the growing baby, it is possible to continue turning our soul outside-in and we can develop godly powers over the ideal winds and waves. Our intellectual cognition is like debris flowing along these deeper flows. Yet, through proper education, just like a baby learns mastery over its instincts, so we can develop higher orders of cognition through which we shape the flow of our ideas. From here it is only a small step further to realize that this process doesn't stop at our current level of mastery. Our soul space is always embedded within more macroscopic 'weather' systems. Just because we don't see the causes that shape our opinions, prejudices, desires, beliefs, etc., doesn't mean that they don't exist and can't be turned outside-in. In the same way it would be foolish if the baby would declare that the causes of cry are its most essential nature or that they would forever remain inaccessible to consciousness behind a veil or something.

And this is really the vertical axis that we're talking about. We can move away from the abstract only when we feel what was described above in the most intimate way. Then we'll also feel how at every level we can span horizontal layers of thoughts which try to justify (and thus lock us at) that level. Horizontal thinking (in the sense of infernal loops) is thinking which refuses to acknowledge that it is possible to gain different kind of consciousness of the forces which currently feel to be immutable laws of the universe (or our atomic personality). And note that gaining mastery over the higher layers is not unconditionally desirable at face value. The baby may have its reasons to prefer to remain unfree ruled by the laws of instinctive life. Whether this decision is for its long-term benefit is another question.