Deeper reading, Steeper Art

[findingblanks]

The following was the first piece from The Vault I ever experienced. For context, I was in Portland Oregon and had been invited to attend a new study group on The Philosophy of Freedom being led by a very energetic 22 year old. He handed each of us a piece of paper before the first session and said, "Welcome to The Vault." From there, we would find new art pieces in various situations associated with our Anthroposophical work. This young man was and still is an incredible biodynamic farmer. I recently asked him if he had any new pieces from The Vault and he wrote back, "Nope. Those guys are working on something new. is all I know."

The following piece is interesting to me for several reasons, one of which is with regard to themes related to reading and contextual aspects of intuition with regard to receiving a work of art.

.......

{{ This translation from the VAULT was composed of 12 different contexts (lectures, gatherings, informal asides and first person reports) in which Steiner spoke. This piece is not meant to be used or shared as representing one occasion, however the connection between the lines of thought is coherent. More importantly, the transitions and translations within this production allow the viewer to 'read between' the lines with regard to their own aesthetic practices. This is a bite size composition because the VAULT is busy translating a Christmas message. }}

“Recently I was asked by an active member of our youth movement what, in essence, I was pointing out in my book The Philosophy of Freedom. I asked her what she thought the primary idea of that book was and she replied that it was the fact that thinking can become its own object of observation.

We spoke of this for a few moments. Our time was limited but before we parted she asked me how this primary fact of The Philosophy of Freedom was connected to the wider culture and our current historical moment. Because my young friend is here tonight and because it is an excellent question, I would like to close tonight’s talk with a brief response.

When you are reading The Philosophy of Freedom you must eventually realize that there is a real process that is happening as you read the text. This process does not have merely one experiential quality, however it can be experienced as one whole process. It is the process of awakening to thinking’s self-sustaining nature; this process of recognizing thinking’s true nature is quite literally the evolution of humanity in our times. In other words, in order for humanity to grow and flourish, there must be- at the level of each individual- real observation of this activity of your current and ongoing cognition.

My friends, we must not make mental pictures of the heavenly being of Anthroposophia floating down from above and blessing us into understanding. This is nonsense, yet it is what many of you are doing without awareness. You do a bit of meditation and then pray that someday you will be blessed with such an experience. Anthroposophia is a being, yes, but she must be embraced as a moral force in the continual unfolding of your living thinking. Perhaps if {fragment lost} which is why the making of mental pictures of so-called “reality”- whether spiritual or physical reality- is one of the greatest barriers to the cultivation of living thinking. For a long time humanity had no choice and, therefore, mental pictures were the most appropriate way to come to know and understand the Cosmos.

Spiritual science is absolutely clear that this is not at all what the evolution of humanity needs anymore. An anthroposophical spiritual science composed mostly of mental pictures is a marketplace of tasty food for the adversaries. Each human being must strive to find his particular way into the process of cognition. It must take place as real, deeply sensitive, and endlessly creative activity in every case. There is no formula and it will never be a uniform experience. However, we can say that a general test as to the degree to which you have penetrated The Philosophy of Freedom is whether you will persist as love, whether you will see and think with the full, creative and limitless force of your heart.”

[findingblanks]

"Anthroposophia is a being, yes, but she must be embraced as a moral force in the continual unfolding of your living thinking..."

If an atheist were having this insight, I wonder what kinds of concepts it would clothe itself within....

I'm not dogmatically declaring that it would need to be grasped in merely one set of concepts. No way. But there would probably be
some ways of articulating it that would be more likely than others. They clearly wouldn't articulate it (or represent it) in the way mentioned in the
piece above.

[Cleric K]

"Anthroposophia is a being, yes, but she must be embraced as a moral force in the continual unfolding of your living thinking..."

If an atheist were having this insight, I wonder what kinds of concepts it would clothe itself within....

I'm not dogmatically declaring that it would need to be grasped in merely one set of concepts. No way. But there would probably be
some ways of articulating it that would be more likely than others. They clearly wouldn't articulate it (or represent it) in the way mentioned in the
piece above.

Blanks, this is painful to witness You've once again taken a sentence in isolation and try asking questions about it in a way which the whole quote especially warns against. RS speak precisely about entering into living, experienced thinking and not about making mental pictures - exactly what you want to do.

You're basically asking if the atheist having this 'insight' will conceptualize things as EM waves, information, etc. Well, if he feels the need to explain things in this way, it simply means he hasn't had any insight yet. Anyone who has had that insight simply sees the literal truth of the sentence you quoted.

Your question is like "If a blind man regains his sight (corresponds to the insight), in what concepts he would clothe the words 'a colorful ball'?" This is nonsense, isn't it? He might be clothing 'a colorful ball' in concepts only while he was still blind. Then he would have thought "For me a colorful ball is something like low-pitch fragrance soft on the touch". These are the mental picture which RS warns about. We need these mental pictures only because we're not yet dealing with realities. When we gain our sight, 'colorful ball' becomes literal expression of living reality. In the same sense, if an atheist (or theist, idealist, whoever) has the insight, which is really the experience of living thinking, where he awakens to his spiritual being, then your quoted sentence becomes literal expression. Then we can still use mental pictures (analogies, metaphors) to communicate these things but with the goal to lead others to the state where they'll see the colorful ball for themselves and the words will become literal truth and not only theories of something that forever remains beyond the horizon of reality.

[findingblanks]

"Blanks, this is painful to witness You've once again taken a sentence in isolation and try asking questions about it in a way which the whole quote especially warns against. RS speak precisely about entering into living, experienced thinking and not about making mental pictures - exactly what you want to do."

Read more closely and you'll make an important correction to your interpretation of what I'm doing. I know you feel 100% that you reflected back the point i was making, but you did not. You can do this. I sort of need to see at this point that you really can pivot and start afresh. Otherwise, I just see the tracks you run down. There is certainly at least two other ways you see my point. But if you so quickly 'capture' my point in your schemas, of course you won't change your mind because you'll be right. I don't expect you to have the time nor want to take the time to prove to me you can do this. I'm just saying that it is a personal request that would let me feel excited about engaging with you again. Of course I am NOT suggesting you owe htis or should do this or that it is the only moral response. Of course not. But when I see you so confident that you've grasped my point, at this point, after all I've read of your interpretations, I'd just personally need to see that you have the capacity to hold more than one possibility when reading those words. I woke up to a private message from a new person (new to me) that was very excited to engage with my question and is helping me explore this aspect of the question. He certainly didn't interpret my words the way you did. But he was also more open to realizing he might not be fully graspoing and that's how he started the dialog. I think some people find that kind of approach a weakness. I certainly don't. But, either way, thanks for sharing.

[AshvinP]

"Blanks, this is painful to witness You've once again taken a sentence in isolation and try asking questions about it in a way which the whole quote especially warns against. RS speak precisely about entering into living, experienced thinking and not about making mental pictures - exactly what you want to do."

Read more closely and you'll make an important correction to your interpretation of what I'm doing. I know you feel 100% that you reflected back the point i was making, but you did not. You can do this. I sort of need to see at this point that you really can pivot and start afresh. Otherwise, I just see the tracks you run down. There is certainly at least two other ways you see my point. But if you so quickly 'capture' my point in your schemas, of course you won't change your mind because you'll be right. I don't expect you to have the time nor want to take the time to prove to me you can do this. I'm just saying that it is a personal request that would let me feel excited about engaging with you again. Of course I am NOT suggesting you owe htis or should do this or that it is the only moral response. Of course not. But when I see you so confident that you've grasped my point, at this point, after all I've read of your interpretations, I'd just personally need to see that you have the capacity to hold more than one possibility when reading those words. I woke up to a private message from a new person (new to me) that was very excited to engage with my question and is helping me explore this aspect of the question. He certainly didn't interpret my words the way you did. But he was also more open to realizing he might not be fully graspoing and that's how he started the dialog. I think some people find that kind of approach a weakness. I certainly don't. But, either way, thanks for sharing.

Just spit it out for God's sake What is the correction to his interpretation you want him to consider?? Your entire post above is psychoanlysis without any mention, not even a tiny hint, about what in the world you are actually referring to. "Read more closely" doesn't count... be specific! It's easy.

[findingblanks]

You don't know what 'psychoanalysis' means. Or you are using it colloquially and then, yes, you constantly are psychoanalyzing. Either way, I stand by my request and my claim that he of course can justify ignoring it. That's how the world works. It can be nice and fun and frustrating, especially if you know the right way that people need to respond to you. Soul recently used the word 'goad' in this group. He talked about his own goading of somebody. I asked my co-workers if they think there is a wide range of interpreting what 'goading' would be. They all said yes. I agree. I love that word. And I really appreciate a good goading, in both directions. It feels very different than shadow projections. But we probably all agree that there can be a fuzzy boundary when the one merges into the other. That's gotta be okay. I know, I know...some will claim they know exactly when one is happening and the other isn't. And, yes, I admit that I think that kind of certainty is an expression of their sweet ol' shadow. And mine. Thanks.

[Cleric K]

Read more closely and you'll make an important correction to your interpretation of what I'm doing. I know you feel 100% that you reflected back the point i was making, but you did not. You can do this. I sort of need to see at this point that you really can pivot and start afresh.

OK Starting afresh. I'm entering into atheistic mindset. It's not at all difficult for me because It's a living part of my life journey. Then one day I arrive at the following insight:

"Anthroposophia is a being, yes, but she must be embraced as a moral force in the continual unfolding of your living thinking..."

Then Blanks asks:

If an atheist were having this insight, I wonder what kinds of concepts it would clothe itself within....

I'm not dogmatically declaring that it would need to be grasped in merely one set of concepts. No way. But there would probably be
some ways of articulating it that would be more likely than others. They clearly wouldn't articulate it (or represent it) in the way mentioned in the
piece above.

I could articulate my insight thus (one of the many possible ways, as you say):

For me the Anthoposophia is an implicit order of entanglement in the fabric of the Cosmos. The quantum field reverberates with energetic oscillations. These pass through our personalized vibratory whirlpools of structured energy. When the Anthro(Man)Sophia(Wisdom) is embraced, the vibrations of that field swirl through our own vortices and cross-correlate our oscillatory patterns to others at superluminal speeds. This entanglement cross-correlation synchronizes the disparate holographic templates and from our perspective acts as Coriolis moral force, which manifests as if outside our reference frame. Our thinking unfolds according to these synchronized vibratory nodes, secretly entangled and correlated in the quantum information field.

[findingblanks]

Cleric, thanks. I will come back and respond to your sweet response. But to be clear: I was hoping you could re-read my comment and come back with a different understanding of my point. Not the one you thought I was making at first but perhaps the one I was making. I'm talking about your original But you took time and said some great stuff, so I will certainly come back and respond to your above paragraph. Thanks!

To be clear I am speaking of your first interpretation that led you to conclude:

"Blanks, this is painful to witness You've once again taken a sentence in isolation and try asking questions about it in a way which the whole quote especially warns against. RS speak precisely about entering into living, experienced thinking and not about making mental pictures - exactly what you want to do....You're basically asking if the atheist having this 'insight' will conceptualize things as EM waves, information, etc.."

[Cleric K]

Cleric, thanks. I will come back and respond to your sweet response. But to be clear: I was hoping you could re-read my comment and come back with a different understanding of my point. Not the one you thought I was making at first but perhaps the one I was making. I'm talking about your original But you took time and said some great stuff, so I will certainly come back and respond to your above paragraph. Thanks!

To be clear I am speaking of your first interpretation that led you to conclude:

"Blanks, this is painful to witness You've once again taken a sentence in isolation and try asking questions about it in a way which the whole quote especially warns against. RS speak precisely about entering into living, experienced thinking and not about making mental pictures - exactly what you want to do....You're basically asking if the atheist having this 'insight' will conceptualize things as EM waves, information, etc.."

Blanks, believe me - I have no clue what your point is

I didn't know that your question is making a point. I thought it was looking for an answer. I was only commenting on your question. I have no idea what your secret motives (point) for asking the question might have been.

[Martin_]

Read more closely and you'll make an important correction to your interpretation of what I'm doing. I know you feel 100% that you reflected back the point i was making, but you did not. You can do this. I sort of need to see at this point that you really can pivot and start afresh.

OK Starting afresh. I'm entering into atheistic mindset. It's not at all difficult for me because It's a living part of my life journey. Then one day I arrive at the following insight:

"Anthroposophia is a being, yes, but she must be embraced as a moral force in the continual unfolding of your living thinking..."

Then Blanks asks:

If an atheist were having this insight, I wonder what kinds of concepts it would clothe itself within....

I'm not dogmatically declaring that it would need to be grasped in merely one set of concepts. No way. But there would probably be
some ways of articulating it that would be more likely than others. They clearly wouldn't articulate it (or represent it) in the way mentioned in the
piece above.

I could articulate my insight thus (one of the many possible ways, as you say):

For me the Anthoposophia is an implicit order of entanglement in the fabric of the Cosmos. The quantum field reverberates with energetic oscillations. These pass through our personalized vibratory whirlpools of structured energy. When the Anthro(Man)Sophia(Wisdom) is embraced, the vibrations of that field swirl through our own vortices and cross-correlate our oscillatory patterns to others at superluminal speeds. This entanglement cross-correlation synchronizes the disparate holographic templates and from our perspective acts as Coriolis moral force, which manifests as if outside our reference frame. Our thinking unfolds according to these synchronized vibratory nodes, secretly entangled and correlated in the quantum information field.

I was going to say "Spacetime is an illusion, and the REAL dimensions cut in a totally different plane". But yours is better.