New topic split from 'concise criticism of analytic idealism' thread.

[AshvinP]

Federica, I'm finding your dialogue with Ashvin as a very rich addition to this forum. It constantly tempts me to chime in but I'm going to withhold my habit for now in favor of seeing where you and Ashvin wll take it. In the meantime, my compliments to all.

Ashvin, Is your motto (signature) a quote from Steiner, or where?

Thanks, Lou. The motto is an esoteric teaching Steiner mentions in a lesson, but it isn't attributed to anyone specifically.

Again, I'd like to stay clear of hitchhiking onto your dialogue with Fredricka but perhaps you can indulge me in adding one question to your list -- does your motto apply to thinking?

It's fine, Lou, the dialogue is for anyone to read and join if they are interested. The more the merrier.

Yes most especially for thinking. A person can easily overextend their will, or their feelings, but it's hard these days to think 'too much'. Unless one is thinking with pure intellect in a circular loop, we can always think more often and deeply about what we are experiencing. When we reach key insights and meaning, we should never stop and rest comfortable, because there is always deeper meaning to be mined. It is really the course of time and evolution which turns solid and helpful insights into regressive dogma. I have often quoted Steiner's saying, "all evil is untimely good". There was a time not too long ago when analytic philosophy and materialism, intellectual thinking of all sorts, were very helpful in developing our reasoning faculties and skills. But as the tide of evolution progresses more towards more continuity of consciousness between the physical (intellect) and spiritual (imagination and higher), sticking only with the former leads to excessive fragmentation and eventually to unconsciousness (or at another regressive extreme, black magic), as the higher perceptual capacities remain dormant and unable to resonate with the higher Ideations which are increasingly being manifested.

[Lou Gold]

Thanks, Lou. The motto is an esoteric teaching Steiner mentions in a lesson, but it isn't attributed to anyone specifically.

Again, I'd like to stay clear of hitchhiking onto your dialogue with Fredricka but perhaps you can indulge me in adding one question to your list -- does your motto apply to thinking?

It's fine, Lou, the dialogue is for anyone to read and join if they are interested. The more the merrier.

Yes most especially for thinking. A person can easily overextend their will, or their feelings, but it's hard these days to think 'too much'. Unless one is thinking with pure intellect in a circular loop, we can always think more often and deeply about what we are experiencing. When we reach key insights and meaning, we should never stop and rest comfortable, because there is always deeper meaning to be mined. It is really the course of time and evolution which turns solid and helpful insights into regressive dogma. I have often quoted Steiner's saying, "all evil is untimely good". There was a time not too long ago when analytic philosophy and materialism, intellectual thinking of all sorts, were very helpful in developing our reasoning faculties and skills. But as the tide of evolution progresses more towards more continuity of consciousness between the physical (intellect) and spiritual (imagination and higher), sticking only with the former leads to excessive fragmentation and eventually to unconsciousness (or at another regressive extreme, black magic), as the higher perceptual capacities remain dormant and unable to resonate with the higher Ideations which are increasingly being manifested.

I really don't want to hijack the discussion into new directions, as I'm enjoying the exchanges between you and Federica.

I'm glad to hear you say that your motto applies as well to "thinking". It is my own faith that the Truth cannot be turned off but it can can be obscured by "wrong" (limited) thinking, for example a paradigm that exceeds its limited usefulness. Thusly, when certain traditions advise the practitioner to "stop thinking", the only thing that can be stopped with human will are obfuscating thoughts. I'm not being mystical. In the ever presence of the light the only thing that can block it is a shadow which must be placed in front of one. I'm not a Buddhist but Zen has an interesting way to express it...

A monk asked Kegon, "How does an enlightened one return to the ordinary world?" Kegon replied, "A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen flowers never go back to the old branches."

Scriptures are indeed rich, especially in their ability to hold paradox (the mysteriousness) in ways that promote and nurture creativity. OK, nuff said.

[Federica]

Thanks, Lou. The motto is an esoteric teaching Steiner mentions in a lesson, but it isn't attributed to anyone specifically.

Let me add some more thoughts on Federica's question, since it's such a massive and important topic for our time. It is the polar relation of Necessity (Karma - Earth) and Freedom (Heaven), which is simply another manifestation of that between Unconsciousness and Consciousness, Differentiation and Integration, Willing (or Perceiving) and Thinking. A very interesting verse in scripture to contemplate is, "I have not come to abolish the Law or Prophets, but to fulfill them." The Law associates with morality given from without as instincts, impulses, traditions, etc., while the Christ impulse is that of moral conscience from within, born of living spiritual knowledge. The latter allows the continuation of the former but, instead of as external compulsions, as inner impulse of the individual agency in complete freedom.

It is really helpful here to consider what we call animal and human 'instincts' as nothing other than Divine Ideas which subconsciously direct our behavior. That is what Steiner refers to when he comments that the 'spirits of darkness' are only operative in thinking now, but not in our emotions and will impulses. It's yet another inversion of the common modern way of understanding these things - our lower bodily nature is associated with lofty Divine beings, while our upper head nature (physical intellect) is more associated with lower Earthly forces, i.e. spirits of darkness. Yet as the impulse to freedom unfolds, if the lower instincts remain unconscious, then they begin to feel as external forces compelling and oppressing us. That is the basis of why moderns view the unconscious as some absolutely dark realm, blind will, mindless matter, nothingness, emptiness, etc. It is actually a realm filled with luminous and supra-moral Beings, but they appear 'dark' due to our own lack of living consciousness.

Why is this inversion horizon from Necessity to Freedom called the "Christ impulse"? We don't need to rely on any dogma for this, and actually this is quite unknown to mainstream religious tradition. They sense it only vaguely, buried beneath the piles of abstract doctrines which accrued mostly post-Reformation. It's interesting to see just how many 'inversions' are actually recounted in scripture itself, without any modern dogmas.


Christ as a Cosmic Being, the Divine Word, incarnates as a 'puny' human being of flesh and blood.

The great Sun-Spirit unites himself with the Earth evolution.

He turns water into wine.

He says, "the last shall be first and the first shall be last".

He says, "That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him."

"He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."

“To what shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what parable shall we picture it? It is like a mustard seed which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth; but when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs, and shoots out large branches, so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade.”

He tells people to 'love your enemies' and 'turn the other cheek'.

Christ Jesus triumphally rides into Jerusalem as the 'King of the Jews', the Messiah, on a donkey, a jackass (when everyone would be expecting a white horse).

Those are just a few of many examples littered throughout the Gospels. The epistles of St. Paul also stress the inversion horizon often - "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

Other thinkers like Jean Gebser have located this momentous time as that in which the Space-consciousness begins its inversion into Time-consciousness, the latter irrupting much more fully in our own time, as reflected by many philosophical, scientific, and aesthetic developments (such as GR and QM). (related to that, via Imaginative cognition, we can also begin to behold Memory more in spatial configuration, as depicted in movies like Interstellar, except it's not a physical occurrence of course).

The new mutation of consciousness, on the other hand, as a consequence of arationality, receives its decisive stamp from the manifest perceptual emergence of the spiritual... Two apocryphal statements of Christian doctrine clarify in their way what is meant here: “This world is a bridge, cross it but do not make of it your dwelling place,” and “I have chosen you before the earth began.” They point to the spiritual origin prior to all spatio-temporal materialization. We may regard such materialization as a bridge that makes possible the merging or coalescence, the concrescere of origin and the present. The great church father Irenaeus presumably had these sayings in mind when he stated: “Blessed is he who was before the coming of man.” We have seen him; he revealed himself in space and time. In his departure he was beheld by his disciples in his transparency, a transparency appropriate only to the spiritual origin (if anything can be appropriated to it), the transparency which a time-free and ego-free person can presentiate in the most fortunate certainty of life. The grand and painful path of consciousness emergence, or, more appropriately, the unfolding and intensification of consciousness, manifests itself as an increasingly intense luminescence of the spiritual in man.

- Jean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin

So we are living in an epoch when the fruits of the Christ impulse can really manifest themselves and humanity can transmute outer Divine necessity into inner spiritual freedom. But for this, we must realize that we are "in the world, but not of the world". The materialistic, reductionistic, selfish ways of the modern world must be flipped on their head, inverted within our own consciousness. For the worldly human, the pole of Willing service and faithfulness to God cannot coexist with the pole of Thinking freedom of soul and spirit. It is an irresolvable paradox. For the human who lives with his consciousness in higher worlds, these two are naturally and inextricably linked, One eternally giving rise to the Other in their Cosmic dance. "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come."

Again, I got ahead of myself. Instead of just wisely waiting, I couldn't help but ask. But the question lies two steps ahead, or above, or rather the answer does it, and then I can’t contain the overflow of your answer, Ashvin.

The spirits of darkness highjack the intellect. Only use intellect in gracious service of Divine Ideas. Instincts are Divine Ideas moving us unconsciously. Which is the really helpful inversion. The candle was blue and yellow and not red. It has a soothing effect, even after it’s blown out. The picture has no effect. I should breathe into the picture any effects I aim to create, but I can’t employ the picture. I can’t impart anything whatsoever to it. Lacking imagination.

This is becoming a massive list of things I can not do. At least five. I shouldn’t be liking it.
But maybe it’s fine. Lou is wisely waiting, but he shouldn’t. Lou, you shouldn’t. Are you by any chance reading this as entertainment? What about you today, not the one who was there 49 years ago but you now. Would you tell us about this one please?
Or maybe it’s not fine, and this is just another face of ‘holding fast to worldly pleasures and pushing off inner transformation’. The good thing is that it’s not secret, right? So enough lingered, let’s uncover the secret unconscious now. When will it start to become painful?

Lou, what do you have to sacrifice? To sacrifice, not to make sacred - no poetic thoroughfare here. What do you have to kill in yourself and make a separate percept of, before you reintegrate it in concept. …so? True, I don’t really know where I am going with that, still, it could turn out really helpful. These are anyway not my ideas, so just pick it from here. Obviously, you are interested. Sure, sometimes I say to myself, what the hell are you doing on a public forum, something really grotesque. And I’m not sure if I am feeling proud or ashamed about that, or proud to be ashamed, or ashamed to be proud about it. What I do know is that I feel the urgency, so I am doing it anyway, which I guess I am feeling good enough about. Hence, it can’t be the right direction either. The right direction should be painful, OK. And remember, no revert to intellectualized stuff for the sake of it. But one can only sacrifice what one is aware of, it seems like. So it must be about taking enough rounds, and persevering. Alright. I will.

[AshvinP]

Again, I got ahead of myself. Instead of just wisely waiting, I couldn't help but ask. But the question lies two steps ahead, or above, or rather the answer does it, and then I can’t contain the overflow of your answer, Ashvin.

The spirits of darkness highjack the intellect. Only use intellect in gracious service of Divine Ideas. Instincts are Divine Ideas moving us unconsciously. Which is the really helpful inversion. The candle was blue and yellow and not red. It has a soothing effect, even after it’s blown out. The picture has no effect. I should breathe into the picture any effects I aim to create, but I can’t employ the picture. I can’t impart anything whatsoever to it. Lacking imagination.

Federica,

Please don't take what I am writing as a list of things to do, as they are not intended that way at all. Let's be clear that what I am writing is not actually living knowledge of the underlying dynamics of spiritual evolution. It's not even very solid conceptual knowledge, just the most broad resolution outlines in somewhat philosophical and religious terms. If anything, you can think of them as loose connections to keep in mind if/when you delve deeper into Steiner's philosophy and spiritual science. No doubt you will need to keep most of this stuff as references to return to later in that situation - that is mostly what I did for many of Cleric's posts here, in order to gain a more holistic appreciation of what he was writing. I still can't say that I have taken the necessary steps to actually experience the inner reality of many things. Still, our logical appreciation of what is written goes a long way towards forming the conceptual foundation which will prove critical later. Based on what you have written so far, including this last comment, it's clear you definitely appreciate the logical contours. In fact you have summarized what I wrote quite well in those few brief sentences.

(re: breathing new life into the pictures detached from nature - this is exactly what we are doing with Imaginative meditation, such as the vowel exercise. If you become conscious of any inward changes that give greater understanding of what you are doing with your activity from such an exercise, then you are already resurrecting the pictures into living images.)

It should be said here, that many people deep into Theosophy, Anthroposophy, spiritual science, and similar spiritual paths are not well-versed in the philosophical underpinnings we are discussing here. They are not too familiar with Goethean Science, Riddles of Philosophy, PoSA, etc. or consider them of secondary importance, even though Steiner said PoSA was the most important foundation of all his subsequent work. So what we discuss here is somewhat unique in that regard. I have not come across any similar Anthroposophical forum or writings from people today, such as those from Cleric which illustrate the foundations with scientific/technological associations which simply weren't around at Steiner's time, some not until the very end of 20th century and beginning of 21st century (all those related to digital technology for ex.). They may be around, but are probably few and far between. I try to add some philosophical angles as well, which are more common but still not emphasized much elsewhere.

We must always keep in mind, this spiritual path is about becoming more conscious of what most people are already doing with their spiritual activity. Your spirit is already weaving through the meaning of the higher worlds throughout the day and even more so during dreams and sleep, yet you lack the perceptual faculties for most of this to reflect into self-consciousness (as do I to a great degree). That is what many spiritualists, mediums, clairvoyants, visionaries, etc. fail to grasp - the physical body (and higher bodies) with their reflective perceptual organs are absolutely necessary for our "I" to become self-conscious of the true significance of what it is experiencing in higher imaginative states. This only comes through spiritual training. Philosophy (and science/math) is like a proto-tool of spiritual training, a forerunner to the higher cognitive faculties which come through prayer, meditation, various other spiritual exercises and ways of living. Artistic thinking and creation is even closer to that threshold. As long as we are self-conscious of this fact, these will prove invaluable.

Here is an interesting dynamic to consider. What we call now the sensible physical world is the crystallized remnants of the supersensible worlds from which our Spirit descended. So we only perceive a tiny portion of those worlds with the waking conscious intellect and in a crystallized form. Yet the higher worlds are ever-present in our experience. Every moment we exist is an image of the entire drama of spiritual evolution from Alpha to Omega - all the supersensible forces of bygone ages and future ages are 'interfering' within us at every moment to constitute our current perspective, based on our particular context and stage of development. We don't really need to understand this deeply, but just as a basic preface to ask the question - where can we outwardly detect any remnants of these supersensible forces from bygone ages of evolution? That is, with philosophical or scientific tools? Steiner refers to three fundamental stages of evolution - which reflect conditions of human consciousness - before our Earth stage, as Old Saturn, Old Sun, Old Moon. These names have deeper significance for why they are used, but that doesn't matter now, only that they reflect these past stages of human evolution still embedded within our modern psyche.

In that connection, consider the following passage.

I should like to give you an example of something where you can still recognise the Sun-part that is active, although attention can only be directed to it in a veiled way. Those of you who have acquainted yourselves with the new edition of my book, Riddles of Philosophy in Outline will have found that four periods in the development of Philosophy are distinguished. I have called the first period “The World-conceptions of the Greek Thinkers”. This lasted from 800 B.C. — in round numbers — or 600 B.C. to the birth of Christ, i.e. into the age of the origin of Christianity. A second period lasted from the rise of Christianity to about 800 – 900 A.D. up to the time of John Scotus Erigena. Then came a third period which I have called “the World-conception of the Middle Ages”, and which lasted from 800, 900 A.D. to 1600 A.D. And then there is the forth period up to our own time; we are just in this period. Eight-hundred year periods have been assigned to the history of philosophy, presented in such a way as was possible in a book meant for a public still quite unacquainted with Spiritual Science.

The intention was to give everything that could stimulate the mind and let the spiritual structure of these periods work upon one. The characteristic of the first period consists in the fact that a transition is found from a very remarkable ancient thinking to what one can call the life of thought in ancient Greece. Our age has not made much progress in the understanding of such differences, the difference, for instance, between the thought life of our own time and that of ancient Greece. Our clumsy thinking believes that thought lived in an ancient Greek head just as it lives today in the head of modern man. Thought lived in Socrates, Plato, even in Aristotle quite differently from how it lives in present-day mankind; this present thought-life first awoke in the 7th, 6th century B.C. Before that there was no actual life of thought. As my book sets out, one can speak of a beginning, of a birth of thought-life in this age of ancient Greece.
...
If you follow this scheme it is actually the part that I could not show in my book for the public, though it lies in it. And if you read the descriptions given of the separate epochs you will, if you are proper Anthroposophists, very clearly connect them with what I have written here... Beings are evolving and they make use of human forces in the sentient soul, in the intellectual soul etc. Through man and his works pass other beings with other laws than those of human development.

You see — these are activities of the Sun-laws!

Here we need not ascend to such super-sensible regions as when we investigate human destiny. It is in the philosophical development of mankind that we have an example of what remains from the Sun-laws... And while men believe that they themselves philosophise, Sun-laws work in them — inasmuch as men bear within them what the Sun-evolution laid down in their physical and etheric bodies. And the laws of the Sun-existence, working from epoch to epoch, cause philosophy to become precisely what it is...

You see how everything is linked together. But inasmuch as the Christ, the Sun-Being, enters in, he comes into connection with an evolution which is not the human evolution, not man's earthly evolution, but actually Sun-evolution within Earth existence.

Sun-evolution within Earth existence! Just think what we have actually reached in these reflections. We are considering the course of philosophical development, philosophical thought since the time of ancient Greece, and when we consider how this has evolved from philosopher to philosopher we say to ourselves: there are active within not earthly laws, but Sun laws!

Again, we shouldn't expect to deeply understand the above yet, but only enough to see that the very act of studying philosophy is also the act of studying the supersensible forces and their higher laws which manifest through our systematic inner thought-life. We don't need to accept this as true right now, but only to see how, in this spiritual understanding of the Cosmos, there is no duality between what we have been doing as human beings with our spiritual activity through cultural history, the history of inner thought, what we are still doing now, and the loftiest forces of spiritual beings in the higher worlds. In fact, this connection is the one critical for us to become conscious of in our time, especially at the beginning of our higher development. If we are not aware of the connection, then we are still passively flowing along with this evolution through our activity, but entirely unconsciously. When we become conscious of it, in a living way (not as mere concepts), then suddenly everything we have been doing and continue to do every day of our lives takes on new, higher, enriched meaning, and puts us back in living participatory connection with lofty spiritual beings who are raising humanity back up to its Origin, as we remain fully conscious for the ascent. We are then given, in the first time of all human evolutionary history, the freedom to choose whether and how we participate in this Cosmic process with our thought-life, and to a lesser extent our life of feelings and actions.

[AshvinP]

Again, I'd like to stay clear of hitchhiking onto your dialogue with Fredricka but perhaps you can indulge me in adding one question to your list -- does your motto apply to thinking?

It's fine, Lou, the dialogue is for anyone to read and join if they are interested. The more the merrier.

Yes most especially for thinking. A person can easily overextend their will, or their feelings, but it's hard these days to think 'too much'. Unless one is thinking with pure intellect in a circular loop, we can always think more often and deeply about what we are experiencing. When we reach key insights and meaning, we should never stop and rest comfortable, because there is always deeper meaning to be mined. It is really the course of time and evolution which turns solid and helpful insights into regressive dogma. I have often quoted Steiner's saying, "all evil is untimely good". There was a time not too long ago when analytic philosophy and materialism, intellectual thinking of all sorts, were very helpful in developing our reasoning faculties and skills. But as the tide of evolution progresses more towards more continuity of consciousness between the physical (intellect) and spiritual (imagination and higher), sticking only with the former leads to excessive fragmentation and eventually to unconsciousness (or at another regressive extreme, black magic), as the higher perceptual capacities remain dormant and unable to resonate with the higher Ideations which are increasingly being manifested.

I really don't want to hijack the discussion into new directions, as I'm enjoying the exchanges between you and Federica.

I'm glad to hear you say that your motto applies as well to "thinking". It is my own faith that the Truth cannot be turned off but it can can be obscured by "wrong" (limited) thinking, for example a paradigm that exceeds its limited usefulness. Thusly, when certain traditions advise the practitioner to "stop thinking", the only thing that can be stopped with human will are obfuscating thoughts. I'm not being mystical. In the ever presence of the light the only thing that can block it is a shadow which must be placed in front of one. I'm not a Buddhist but Zen has an interesting way to express it...

A monk asked Kegon, "How does an enlightened one return to the ordinary world?" Kegon replied, "A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen flowers never go back to the old branches."

Scriptures are indeed rich, especially in their ability to hold paradox (the mysteriousness) in ways that promote and nurture creativity. OK, nuff said.

Lou,

Perhaps my response to Federica clarified my own thinking here. We should never seek to avoid past thinking paradigms, old patterns of thought, most of which we are still unconscious to, but actually confront them so as to become more self-conscious of them. We already have plenty of shadows blocking the Light, now comes the task of redeeming them.

When I commented that we are all flowing along with evolution, even if unconsciously, this can be misunderstood. We may ask, why become self-conscious of exactly how we are evolving if it will happen regarless? Apart from the much greater meaning we get from navigating it consciously, therefore more livingly and efficiently, there is even deeper significance. Here we need keen obersvation of how our inner life responds when we we are unconsciously and passively flowing along. These things are known throughout psychology and cognitive science, although rather dimly. When this flowing goes on for awhile, we start to sense it as an external compulsion. Evolution feels like it is dragging us along and we will begin to respond with resentment and violence inwardly, which we will be mostly unconscious of (it's a real catch 22, negative feedback loop), but will manifest as all sorts of pathologies.

This is the basis of all worldviews which really convey a sense of returning to past stages of evolution, the 'glory days', or even to the womb of complete unconsciousness. That is subconsciously felt as the only escape to this 'oppressive' evolution dragging us along. Our backs are turned to the future as we fall into it, so it feels like monsters and predators emerging from the unknown darkness, constantly threatening our existence. Our natural predator defense instincts kick in, again subconsciously. We are forced to choose fight or flight - materialism chooses to fight the spiritual by declaring it nonexistent, modern mysticism to flee into the past of mediumship, nature worship, and other such practices. When we speak of "abstract" intellect, it becomes abstract precisely because it is flowing along unconsciously, and therefore limited in the range of spiritual activity to become self-conscious of. It begins revolving around in tiny conceptual loops, based on sensory impressions and familiar concepts. This can even include the impressions of beautiful nature around us and concepts of "mysteriousness".

So if we choose to flow along passively and mostly unconsciously, we should at least do so with more complete knowledge of what it will mean for our inner life. These things are not random, arbitrary, or subjective. They will happen with certainty. We can't choose to have half of the self-conscious path and half of the shadowy subconscious path to balance them out into something harmonious. It simply won't work that way. Some people may actually decide it's worth the risk of inner rebellion rather than accepting the difficult responsibility of becoming self-conscious. But we can only freely make this decision if we are informed of the dynamics involved. Otherwise the decision is simply being made for us and we are none the wiser. Sorry if this sounds too directly confrontational to your comment, but I must speak directly and honestly about how I view these dynamics in our most precarious juncture of spiritual evolution.

[Federica]

Federica,

Please don't take what I am writing as a list of things to do, as they are not intended that way at all. Let's be clear that what I am writing is not actually living knowledge of the underlying dynamics of spiritual evolution. It's not even very solid conceptual knowledge, just the most broad resolution outlines in somewhat philosophical and religious terms. If anything, you can think of them as loose connections to keep in mind if/when you delve deeper into Steiner's philosophy and spiritual science. No doubt you will need to keep most of this stuff as references to return to later in that situation - that is mostly what I did for many of Cleric's posts here, in order to gain a more holistic appreciation of what he was writing. I still can't say that I have taken the necessary steps to actually experience the inner reality of many things. Still, our logical appreciation of what is written goes a long way towards forming the conceptual foundation which will prove critical later. Based on what you have written so far, including this last comment, it's clear you definitely appreciate the logical contours. In fact you have summarized what I wrote quite well in those few brief sentences.

(re: breathing new life into the pictures detached from nature - this is exactly what we are doing with Imaginative meditation, such as the vowel exercise. If you become conscious of any inward changes that give greater understanding of what you are doing with your activity from such an exercise, then you are already resurrecting the pictures into living images.)

It should be said here, that many people deep into Theosophy, Anthroposophy, spiritual science, and similar spiritual paths are not well-versed in the philosophical underpinnings we are discussing here. They are not too familiar with Goethean Science, Riddles of Philosophy, PoSA, etc. or consider them of secondary importance, even though Steiner said PoSA was the most important foundation of all his subsequent work. So what we discuss here is somewhat unique in that regard. I have not come across any similar Anthroposophical forum or writings from people today, such as those from Cleric which illustrate the foundations with scientific/technological associations which simply weren't around at Steiner's time, some not until the very end of 20th century and beginning of 21st century (all those related to digital technology for ex.). They may be around, but are probably few and far between. I try to add some philosophical angles as well, which are more common but still not emphasized much elsewhere.

We must always keep in mind, this spiritual path is about becoming more conscious of what most people are already doing with their spiritual activity. Your spirit is already weaving through the meaning of the higher worlds throughout the day and even more so during dreams and sleep, yet you lack the perceptual faculties for most of this to reflect into self-consciousness (as do I to a great degree). That is what many spiritualists, mediums, clairvoyants, visionaries, etc. fail to grasp - the physical body (and higher bodies) with their reflective perceptual organs are absolutely necessary for our "I" to become self-conscious of the true significance of what it is experiencing in higher imaginative states. This only comes through spiritual training. Philosophy (and science/math) is like a proto-tool of spiritual training, a forerunner to the higher cognitive faculties which come through prayer, meditation, various other spiritual exercises and ways of living. Artistic thinking and creation is even closer to that threshold. As long as we are self-conscious of this fact, these will prove invaluable.

Here is an interesting dynamic to consider. What we call now the sensible physical world is the crystallized remnants of the supersensible worlds from which our Spirit descended. So we only perceive a tiny portion of those worlds with the waking conscious intellect and in a crystallized form. Yet the higher worlds are ever-present in our experience. Every moment we exist is an image of the entire drama of spiritual evolution from Alpha to Omega - all the supersensible forces of bygone ages and future ages are 'interfering' within us at every moment to constitute our current perspective, based on our particular context and stage of development. We don't really need to understand this deeply, but just as a basic preface to ask the question - where can we outwardly detect any remnants of these supersensible forces from bygone ages of evolution? That is, with philosophical or scientific tools? Steiner refers to three fundamental stages of evolution - which reflect conditions of human consciousness - before our Earth stage, as Old Saturn, Old Sun, Old Moon. These names have deeper significance for why they are used, but that doesn't matter now, only that they reflect these past stages of human evolution still embedded within our modern psyche.

In that connection, consider the following passage.

I should like to give you an example of something where you can still recognise the Sun-part that is active, although attention can only be directed to it in a veiled way. Those of you who have acquainted yourselves with the new edition of my book, Riddles of Philosophy in Outline will have found that four periods in the development of Philosophy are distinguished. I have called the first period “The World-conceptions of the Greek Thinkers”. This lasted from 800 B.C. — in round numbers — or 600 B.C. to the birth of Christ, i.e. into the age of the origin of Christianity. A second period lasted from the rise of Christianity to about 800 – 900 A.D. up to the time of John Scotus Erigena. Then came a third period which I have called “the World-conception of the Middle Ages”, and which lasted from 800, 900 A.D. to 1600 A.D. And then there is the forth period up to our own time; we are just in this period. Eight-hundred year periods have been assigned to the history of philosophy, presented in such a way as was possible in a book meant for a public still quite unacquainted with Spiritual Science.

The intention was to give everything that could stimulate the mind and let the spiritual structure of these periods work upon one. The characteristic of the first period consists in the fact that a transition is found from a very remarkable ancient thinking to what one can call the life of thought in ancient Greece. Our age has not made much progress in the understanding of such differences, the difference, for instance, between the thought life of our own time and that of ancient Greece. Our clumsy thinking believes that thought lived in an ancient Greek head just as it lives today in the head of modern man. Thought lived in Socrates, Plato, even in Aristotle quite differently from how it lives in present-day mankind; this present thought-life first awoke in the 7th, 6th century B.C. Before that there was no actual life of thought. As my book sets out, one can speak of a beginning, of a birth of thought-life in this age of ancient Greece.
...
If you follow this scheme it is actually the part that I could not show in my book for the public, though it lies in it. And if you read the descriptions given of the separate epochs you will, if you are proper Anthroposophists, very clearly connect them with what I have written here... Beings are evolving and they make use of human forces in the sentient soul, in the intellectual soul etc. Through man and his works pass other beings with other laws than those of human development.

You see — these are activities of the Sun-laws!

Here we need not ascend to such super-sensible regions as when we investigate human destiny. It is in the philosophical development of mankind that we have an example of what remains from the Sun-laws... And while men believe that they themselves philosophise, Sun-laws work in them — inasmuch as men bear within them what the Sun-evolution laid down in their physical and etheric bodies. And the laws of the Sun-existence, working from epoch to epoch, cause philosophy to become precisely what it is...

You see how everything is linked together. But inasmuch as the Christ, the Sun-Being, enters in, he comes into connection with an evolution which is not the human evolution, not man's earthly evolution, but actually Sun-evolution within Earth existence.

Sun-evolution within Earth existence! Just think what we have actually reached in these reflections. We are considering the course of philosophical development, philosophical thought since the time of ancient Greece, and when we consider how this has evolved from philosopher to philosopher we say to ourselves: there are active within not earthly laws, but Sun laws!

Again, we shouldn't expect to deeply understand the above yet, but only enough to see that the very act of studying philosophy is also the act of studying the supersensible forces and their higher laws which manifest through our systematic inner thought-life. We don't need to accept this as true right now, but only to see how, in this spiritual understanding of the Cosmos, there is no duality between what we have been doing as human beings with our spiritual activity through cultural history, the history of inner thought, what we are still doing now, and the loftiest forces of spiritual beings in the higher worlds. In fact, this connection is the one critical for us to become conscious of in our time, especially at the beginning of our higher development. If we are not aware of the connection, then we are still passively flowing along with this evolution through our activity, but entirely unconsciously. When we become conscious of it, in a living way (not as mere concepts), then suddenly everything we have been doing and continue to do every day of our lives takes on new, higher, enriched meaning, and puts us back in living participatory connection with lofty spiritual beings who are raising humanity back up to its Origin, as we remain fully conscious for the ascent. We are then given, in the first time of all human evolutionary history, the freedom to choose whether and how we participate in this Cosmic process with our thought-life, and to a lesser extent our life of feelings and actions.

Looking back to these two months on this forum, it’s clear how it’s never been a good idea to deviate ever so slightly from a diligent way of writing. It’s much better to stay consistent, as you always do, but sometimes I am just less inclined to stay disciplined, sorry, I should have integrated that by now. So I am aware that what you write is not the least to be understood as to-do lists and that you intend it as broad outlines, and I see the complementary value of what is written, as you have describe it. A value that is complementary to the texts, as you have mentioned, but still an enormous value, which I want to repeat, I am very grateful for. Still, and even if progress is slow, these texts should be, and are, at the center of my efforts.
Now, those who have already read all the texts, should certainly not withhold anything and not hesitate to weigh in : )

.

[AshvinP]

Looking back to these two months on this forum, it’s clear how it’s never been a good idea to deviate ever so slightly from a diligent way of writing. It’s much better to stay consistent, as you always do, but sometimes I am just less inclined to stay disciplined, sorry, I should have integrated that by now. So I am aware that what you write is not the least to be understood as to-do lists and that you intend it as broad outlines, and I see the complementary value of what is written, as you have describe it. A value that is complementary to the texts, as you have mentioned, but still an enormous value, which I want to repeat, I am very grateful for. Still, and even if progress is slow, these texts should be, and are, at the center of my efforts.
Now, those who have already read all the texts, should certainly not withhold anything and not hesitate to weigh in : )
.

I wouldn't be so sure, Frederica. When I wrote the last post, for ex, I hadn't planned on including that passage from Steiner. Because I couldn't even recall ever having read it. As I was writing, it then flashed back into recollection and I generally knew where to search for it. So these are all degrees of freedom we are building up, even if unaware of it at first (and that will mostly be the case). Whenever we actively and self-consciously engage our thinking to read or express something of this sort, especially when we are contemplating with our thinking the higher worlds which make that contemplation possible (in a sense, the higher worlds are contemplating themselves through us, spiraling the poles into unity), we are building up degrees of freedom which will be more readily accessible to us at later stages of development, than our ordinary process of memorizing and recalling.

It's actually the case that our ordinary memory starts to fade away on the path to higher development. These are simply another form of sense-impression, except very dimly experienced. The self-conscious spiritual path is about evolving thinking which is not reliant on any such impressions to discern relevant meaning and make decisions in the world. Of course that won't simply happen in a snap, it's an entire gradient of development, but we will notice real changes when doing Imaginative exercises for awhile. So the extent to which we are able to draw the basis of our actions directly from conscious intuitions, i.e. freely willed intent to bring up as current and fresh experience all the relevant past-future factors necessary, to utilize more and more of the degrees of freedom we have accrued at any given time, is the extent to which we become spiritually free.

That is only to say, don't feel like you aren't gaining anything from thinking through what is written about the self-conscious spiritual, in response to your own thoughtful questions and ponderings, even if you can't really make sense of it yet. Certainly there is no need to memorize any of it and, after some point, that would only get in the way. You may have already come across Ch 12 in PoSA:

A FREE spirit acts according to his impulses, i.e., intuitions, which his thinking has selected out of the whole world of his Ideas. For an unfree spirit, the reason why he singles out a particular intuition from his world of Ideas, in order to make it the basis of an action, lies in the perceptual world which is given to him, i.e., in his past experiences. He recalls, before making a decision, what someone else has done, or recommended as proper in an analogous case, or what God has commanded to be done in such a case, etc., and he acts on these recollections. For a free spirit these preliminary conditions are not the only impulses to action. He takes an absolutely original decision. He cares as little what others have done in such a case as what commands they had laid down. He has purely ideal reasons which determine him to select a particular concept out of the sum of his concepts, and to realize it in action.

Also, if you have not read Cleric's Deep MAL essay (his 2nd essay written here), I would say that is something to put on the 'to do' list! It is an excellent overview of the spiritual evolutionary process.

[Lou Gold]

It's fine, Lou, the dialogue is for anyone to read and join if they are interested. The more the merrier.

Yes most especially for thinking. A person can easily overextend their will, or their feelings, but it's hard these days to think 'too much'. Unless one is thinking with pure intellect in a circular loop, we can always think more often and deeply about what we are experiencing. When we reach key insights and meaning, we should never stop and rest comfortable, because there is always deeper meaning to be mined. It is really the course of time and evolution which turns solid and helpful insights into regressive dogma. I have often quoted Steiner's saying, "all evil is untimely good". There was a time not too long ago when analytic philosophy and materialism, intellectual thinking of all sorts, were very helpful in developing our reasoning faculties and skills. But as the tide of evolution progresses more towards more continuity of consciousness between the physical (intellect) and spiritual (imagination and higher), sticking only with the former leads to excessive fragmentation and eventually to unconsciousness (or at another regressive extreme, black magic), as the higher perceptual capacities remain dormant and unable to resonate with the higher Ideations which are increasingly being manifested.

I really don't want to hijack the discussion into new directions, as I'm enjoying the exchanges between you and Federica.

I'm glad to hear you say that your motto applies as well to "thinking". It is my own faith that the Truth cannot be turned off but it can can be obscured by "wrong" (limited) thinking, for example a paradigm that exceeds its limited usefulness. Thusly, when certain traditions advise the practitioner to "stop thinking", the only thing that can be stopped with human will are obfuscating thoughts. I'm not being mystical. In the ever presence of the light the only thing that can block it is a shadow which must be placed in front of one. I'm not a Buddhist but Zen has an interesting way to express it...

A monk asked Kegon, "How does an enlightened one return to the ordinary world?" Kegon replied, "A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen flowers never go back to the old branches."

Scriptures are indeed rich, especially in their ability to hold paradox (the mysteriousness) in ways that promote and nurture creativity. OK, nuff said.

Lou,

Perhaps my response to Federica clarified my own thinking here. We should never seek to avoid past thinking paradigms, old patterns of thought, most of which we are still unconscious to, but actually confront them so as to become more self-conscious of them. We already have plenty of shadows blocking the Light, now comes the task of redeeming them.

When I commented that we are all flowing along with evolution, even if unconsciously, this can be misunderstood. We may ask, why become self-conscious of exactly how we are evolving if it will happen regarless? Apart from the much greater meaning we get from navigating it consciously, therefore more livingly and efficiently, there is even deeper significance. Here we need keen obersvation of how our inner life responds when we we are unconsciously and passively flowing along. These things are known throughout psychology and cognitive science, although rather dimly. When this flowing goes on for awhile, we start to sense it as an external compulsion. Evolution feels like it is dragging us along and we will begin to respond with resentment and violence inwardly, which we will be mostly unconscious of (it's a real catch 22, negative feedback loop), but will manifest as all sorts of pathologies.

This is the basis of all worldviews which really convey a sense of returning to past stages of evolution, the 'glory days', or even to the womb of complete unconsciousness. That is subconsciously felt as the only escape to this 'oppressive' evolution dragging us along. Our backs are turned to the future as we fall into it, so it feels like monsters and predators emerging from the unknown darkness, constantly threatening our existence. Our natural predator defense instincts kick in, again subconsciously. We are forced to choose fight or flight - materialism chooses to fight the spiritual by declaring it nonexistent, modern mysticism to flee into the past of mediumship, nature worship, and other such practices. When we speak of "abstract" intellect, it becomes abstract precisely because it is flowing along unconsciously, and therefore limited in the range of spiritual activity to become self-conscious of. It begins revolving around in tiny conceptual loops, based on sensory impressions and familiar concepts. This can even include the impressions of beautiful nature around us and concepts of "mysteriousness".

So if we choose to flow along passively and mostly unconsciously, we should at least do so with more complete knowledge of what it will mean for our inner life. These things are not random, arbitrary, or subjective. They will happen with certainty. We can't choose to have half of the self-conscious path and half of the shadowy subconscious path to balance them out into something harmonious. It simply won't work that way. Some people may actually decide it's worth the risk of inner rebellion rather than accepting the difficult responsibility of becoming self-conscious. But we can only freely make this decision if we are informed of the dynamics involved. Otherwise the decision is simply being made for us and we are none the wiser. Sorry if this sounds too directly confrontational to your comment, but I must speak directly and honestly about how I view these dynamics in our most precarious juncture of spiritual evolution.

No problem with you speaking your mind directly. I'm definitely a transcend-and-include person. Agree that we can't regress although catastrophe might trigger a reset or new mix from an earlier context (example: modern agriculture embracing the terra preta technologies of the pre-Columbian central Amazon).

[Lou Gold]

This is becoming a massive list of things I can not do. At least five. I shouldn’t be liking it.
But maybe it’s fine. Lou is wisely waiting, but he shouldn’t. Lou, you shouldn’t. Are you by any chance reading this as entertainment? What about you today, not the one who was there 49 years ago but you now. Would you tell us about this one please?
Or maybe it’s not fine, and this is just another face of ‘holding fast to worldly pleasures and pushing off inner transformation’. The good thing is that it’s not secret, right? So enough lingered, let’s uncover the secret unconscious now. When will it start to become painful?

Lou, what do you have to sacrifice? To sacrifice, not to make sacred - no poetic thoroughfare here. What do you have to kill in yourself and make a separate percept of, before you reintegrate it in concept. …so? True, I don’t really know where I am going with that, still, it could turn out really helpful. These are anyway not my ideas, so just pick it from here. Obviously, you are interested. Sure, sometimes I say to myself, what the hell are you doing on a public forum, something really grotesque. And I’m not sure if I am feeling proud or ashamed about that, or proud to be ashamed, or ashamed to be proud about it. What I do know is that I feel the urgency, so I am doing it anyway, which I guess I am feeling good enough about. Hence, it can’t be the right direction either. The right direction should be painful, OK. And remember, no revert to intellectualized stuff for the sake of it. But one can only sacrifice what one is aware of, it seems like. So it must be about taking enough rounds, and persevering. Alright. I will.

Federica,

My Mark Vernon reference was not intended for a list of got-tos. I just wanted to share that I found his comments on purgatory as interesting.

No, I've not been reading this for entertainment. Across my years at this forum I've learn much from the dialogues of others, especially when they are on paths different from my own.

In my now, I have very little to sacrifice in the form of material possessions but letting go of judgement, feelings of self righteousness or superiority does continue as a shedding process. Across the years I've had many experiential examples of letting go resulting in something expanded or more spiritual. It's as if sacrifice creates sacred space.

[Federica]

That is only to say, don't feel like you aren't gaining anything from thinking through what is written about the self-conscious spiritual, in response to your own thoughtful questions and ponderings, even if you can't really make sense of it yet. Certainly there is no need to memorize any of it and, after some point, that would only get in the way. You may have already come across Ch 12 in PoSA:

A FREE spirit acts according to his impulses, i.e., intuitions, which his thinking has selected out of the whole world of his Ideas. For an unfree spirit, the reason why he singles out a particular intuition from his world of Ideas, in order to make it the basis of an action, lies in the perceptual world which is given to him, i.e., in his past experiences. He recalls, before making a decision, what someone else has done, or recommended as proper in an analogous case, or what God has commanded to be done in such a case, etc., and he acts on these recollections. For a free spirit these preliminary conditions are not the only impulses to action. He takes an absolutely original decision. He cares as little what others have done in such a case as what commands they had laid down. He has purely ideal reasons which determine him to select a particular concept out of the sum of his concepts, and to realize it in action.

Also, if you have not read Cleric's Deep MAL essay (his 2nd essay written here), I would say that is something to put on the 'to do' list! It is an excellent overview of the spiritual evolutionary process.

Thank you Ashvin. Yes, I’m sure I am gaining from reading what is written, no matter the extent of immediate understanding. No, I never try to memorize anything, and I haven’t started The philosophy of spiritual activity yet, the only one started is The philosophy of freedom. I am known though, for making ‘original decisions’, although probably not in the sense Steiner was meaning it : ) (Ok, this was half a joke)


Now I'm serious again, it’s about Deep Mind at Large. Your related comments here also helped. I didn’t read further until I gained at least a minimum viable meaning from what is written. I think this is necessary, to at least make the effort to connect the content further and so I understood enough for it to make my head spin. I don’t want to ask anything before I go to it again, I only want to say, I've seen no possible uncertainty in the course of evolution.