Why I believe Analytic Idealism is flawed

[Soul_of_Shu]

Anyway, the only thing I wanted to point out is that neither BK nor Pageau are pursuing intuitive thinking as a spiritual path. These things have very precise meaning and we need to be clear on that meaning. Whatever path they are on, and however useful it may be, it's not that one.

Well, we seem to have listened to quite different conversations, as I'm not seeing how Pageau is not being highly intuitive in his approach, as most artists tend to be ... In any case, synchronistically pertinent to the direction this conversation has evolved, this recent offering from Mark Vernon may be instructive ...

[Lou Gold]

I don't have such experiences to share at this point. This is the issue. As Cleric often points out, he has only been writing about the same one or two topic from various angles since the inception of this forum. And I have only been writing about sub-topics of those one or two topics. What is the topic? It is about the very first step in any genuine esoteric path of the Spirit, which is knowing there is a path within one's own thinking psyche and having genuine conviction one can lift their feet high enough to take it. BK and Pageau simply don't realize there is a viable path to take in that respect. They may have heard about such a path, but it is entirely speculative woo-woo from their perspective. Generally, people simply need to ask more questions. It does no good to pretend this is all understood and proceed accordingly. I understand very little of the path. It's not as if my taking the first step gives me deep knowledge of Cosmic secrets. All I know is that realms of inquiry have opened up which I could not have imagined existing before (literally). There are questions to ask of others which I didn't know were possible to ask before. There are paths to higher knowledge in this world that we simply don't know and can't know until we take the first steps. If these were experienced, then the potential would be shouted from the rooftops from anyone who had the platform. Actually, they would retreat into solitude for quite some time to learn and experience more, before reemerging with the message. There is a certain vested interest in material pursuits which make such a thing very difficult for people in those positions. Why should we bind up our own spiritual path in those pursuits when we don't have any such vested interest yet? We are extremely fortunate to have more mobility in that respect. We need not let that Fortune go to waste. It's not that anyone's spiritual experience lacks profundity, but that a certain characteristic shift in perspective, which resonates through one's entire being, is needed before one realizes just how profound they are.

No issue with that, but that seems to me to be what BK and Pageau are wrestling with in their exchange, in their own way, in getting at how to render the sacred/'spiritual' as inextricable from the profane. That they aren't taking Steiner's way into account is not an issue as far as I'm concerned, however much you may advocate for making the case that everyone should be taking Steiner into account, while gainsaying pretty much everyone who doesn't. Suffice to say, I feel great appreciation for their offerings, as well as yours, and will continue to listen with trust that all are on their unique path for reasons crucial to their transfiguration, however it may otherwise appear from any given alternative perspective.

This isn't about Steiner. He is mentioned simply because his writings/lectures are so extensive, comprehensive, and suited for philosophically or scientifically minded people who are familiar with concepts and terminology of Western philosophy and science (at least they used to be). Steiner isn't the sum total of Christian esotericism itself. Anyway, the only thing I wanted to point out is that neither BK nor Pageau are pursuing intuitive thinking as a spiritual path. These things have very precise meaning and we need to be clear on that meaning. Whatever path they are on, and however useful it may be, it's not that one.

Ashvin,

If I understand you correctly:

1) there are two kinds of thought, intuitive and intellectual
2) by self-description, you are a beginner on the path of intuitive thinking and at this point have no significant intuitive experiences to share

Would it be fair to say that your criticism, not Steiner's or Cleric's but your criticism is therefore intellectual? If not, what experience is the basis of your judgement?

[AshvinP]

No issue with that, but that seems to me to be what BK and Pageau are wrestling with in their exchange, in their own way, in getting at how to render the sacred/'spiritual' as inextricable from the profane. That they aren't taking Steiner's way into account is not an issue as far as I'm concerned, however much you may advocate for making the case that everyone should be taking Steiner into account, while gainsaying pretty much everyone who doesn't. Suffice to say, I feel great appreciation for their offerings, as well as yours, and will continue to listen with trust that all are on their unique path for reasons crucial to their transfiguration, however it may otherwise appear from any given alternative perspective.

This isn't about Steiner. He is mentioned simply because his writings/lectures are so extensive, comprehensive, and suited for philosophically or scientifically minded people who are familiar with concepts and terminology of Western philosophy and science (at least they used to be). Steiner isn't the sum total of Christian esotericism itself. Anyway, the only thing I wanted to point out is that neither BK nor Pageau are pursuing intuitive thinking as a spiritual path. These things have very precise meaning and we need to be clear on that meaning. Whatever path they are on, and however useful it may be, it's not that one.

Ashvin,

If I understand you correctly:

1) there are two kinds of thought, intuitive and intellectual
2) by self-description, you are a beginner on the path of intuitive thinking and at this point have no significant intuitive experiences to share

Would it be fair to say that your criticism, not Steiner's or Cleric's but your criticism is therefore intellectual? If not, what experience is the basis of your judgement?

This isn't the case. We are all inuitively thinking, all the time. We could not coherently experience a world with spatial dimension, for ex., if we weren't thinking intuitively. But if I ask you or Dana or myself, how exactly does your consciousness take non-spatial dynamic activity and spatialize it in three dimensions (or four including linear Time-experience), we can't answer that. We are not conscious of the inner dynamic by which our intuitive thinking weaves the world of spatial experience. Similarly, we are not conscious of how our inspirative thinking weaves the world of flowing movement within space. We also are not conscious of how our imaginative thinking weaves the world of colors and forms. I am speaking of the average person with normal waking cognition here.

We won't become conscious of our intuitive thinking until we first become conscious of our imaginative and inspirative thinking. These are levels of our archetypal Self which cognizes from the invisible spiritual pole of existence, while most of us are currently polarized to the atomized, visible, physical pole of existence. PoSA, or Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path, points towards our individual capacity to spiral these two poles into closer and closer Unity through both outward and inward thinking exercises, in tandem with our normal logical reasoning and devotional soul mood towards our higher Self. I would say that I personally have minimal development of certain germinal soul organs necessary for imaginative thinking-sight (these are literal organs of perception which everyone has). That's not really important, because if most of what we have written sounds new, then clearly we are speaking of something beyond the average academic philosophy and religion. The fact is, if we were to ask BK or Pageau whether these things are possible, they would a) have no idea what we're talking about or b) say "no, I doubt it".

The only recent criticism here has been, we shouldn't confuse the act of thinking intuitively (or inspiratively or imaginatively), which we all do to varying degrees, with intuitive thinking as a conscious spiritual path. Apart from that, we critique the critical idealist philosophy which declares this spiritual path impossible from the outset (Kantian and Schop). Those are intellectual critiques, yes. All of these critiques are made through the faculty of intellect, because that is simply necessitated at our current stage of evolution, and can be grasped by anyone with healthy, sound reasoning, regardless of higher cognitive development. But if we want to more clearly grasp fundamental secrets of the Cosmos, God, higher worlds, higher cognition, etc., we need to actually enter onto the spiritual path and use what knowledge is imparted from the higher worlds as feedback for our normal waking intellect, so as to 'triangulate' the higher meaning.

If one resorts to dream phenomena in order to acquire knowledge of the soul's nature, one ultimately is forced to admit that the object of one's search is wearing a mask. Behind the symbolizations of bodily conditions and processes, behind the fantastically connected memory experiences, one may surmise the soul's activity. It cannot be maintained, however, that one is face to face with the true form of the soul.

On awaking, one realizes how the active part of the dream is interwoven with the function of the body and thereby subject to the external world of nature. Through the backward-directed view of self-observation one sees in the soul life only the images of the external world, not the life of the soul itself. The soul eludes the ordinary consciousness at the very moment one would grasp it cognitively.

By studying dreams one cannot hope to arrive at the reality of the soul element. In order to preserve the soul activity in its innate form one would have to obliterate, through a strong inner activity, the symbolizations of the bodily conditions and processes, along with the memory of past experiences. Then one would have to be able to study that which had been retained. This is impossible. For the dreamer is in a passive state. He cannot undertake any autonomous activity. With the disappearance of the soul's mask, the sensation of one's own self disappears also.

It is different with the waking soul life. There the autonomous activity of the soul can not only be sustained when one erases all one perceives of the external world; it can also be strengthened in itself.

This happens if, while awake in the forming of mental pictures, one makes oneself as independent of the external world of the senses as one is in a dream. One becomes a fully conscious, wakeful imitator of the dream. Thereby, however, the illusory quality of the dream falls away. The dreamer takes his dream pictures for realities. If one is awake one can see through their unreality. No healthy person when awake and imitating the dream will take his dream images for realities. He will remain conscious of the fact that he is living in self-created illusions.

He will not be able to create these illusions, however, if he merely remains at the ordinary level of consciousness. He must see to it that he strengthens this consciousness. He can achieve this by a continually renewed self-kindling of thinking from within. The inner soul activity grows with these repeated kindlings. (I have described in detail the appropriate inner activity in my books Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment and An Outline of Occult Science).

[Soul_of_Shu]

But if I ask you or Dana or myself, how exactly does your consciousness take non-spatial dynamic activity and spatialize it in three dimensions (or four including linear Time-experience), we can't answer that.

I'd just write a poem

[Lou Gold]

This isn't about Steiner. He is mentioned simply because his writings/lectures are so extensive, comprehensive, and suited for philosophically or scientifically minded people who are familiar with concepts and terminology of Western philosophy and science (at least they used to be). Steiner isn't the sum total of Christian esotericism itself. Anyway, the only thing I wanted to point out is that neither BK nor Pageau are pursuing intuitive thinking as a spiritual path. These things have very precise meaning and we need to be clear on that meaning. Whatever path they are on, and however useful it may be, it's not that one.

Ashvin,

If I understand you correctly:

1) there are two kinds of thought, intuitive and intellectual
2) by self-description, you are a beginner on the path of intuitive thinking and at this point have no significant intuitive experiences to share

Would it be fair to say that your criticism, not Steiner's or Cleric's but your criticism is therefore intellectual? If not, what experience is the basis of your judgement?

This isn't the case. We are all inuitively thinking, all the time. We could not coherently experience a world with spatial dimension, for ex., if we weren't thinking intuitively. But if I ask you or Dana or myself, how exactly does your consciousness take non-spatial dynamic activity and spatialize it in three dimensions (or four including linear Time-experience), we can't answer that. We are not conscious of the inner dynamic by which our intuitive thinking weaves the world of spatial experience. Similarly, we are not conscious of how our inspirative thinking weaves the world of flowing movement within space. We also are not conscious of how our imaginative thinking weaves the world of colors and forms. I am speaking of the average person with normal waking cognition here.

We won't become conscious of our intuitive thinking until we first become conscious of our imaginative and inspirative thinking. These are levels of our archetypal Self which cognizes from the invisible spiritual pole of existence, while most of us are currently polarized to the atomized, visible, physical pole of existence. PoSA, or Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path, points towards our individual capacity to spiral these two poles into closer and closer Unity through both outward and inward thinking exercises, in tandem with our normal logical reasoning and devotional soul mood towards our higher Self. I would say that I personally have minimal development of certain germinal soul organs necessary for imaginative thinking-sight (these are literal organs of perception which everyone has). That's not really important, because if most of what we have written sounds new, then clearly we are speaking of something beyond the average academic philosophy and religion. The fact is, if we were to ask BK or Pageau whether these things are possible, they would a) have no idea what we're talking about or b) say "no, I doubt it".

The only recent criticism here has been, we shouldn't confuse the act of thinking intuitively (or inspiratively or imaginatively), which we all do to varying degrees, with intuitive thinking as a conscious spiritual path. Apart from that, we critique the critical idealist philosophy which declares this spiritual path impossible from the outset (Kantian and Schop). Those are intellectual critiques, yes. All of these critiques are made through the faculty of intellect, because that is simply necessitated at our current stage of evolution, and can be grasped by anyone with healthy, sound reasoning, regardless of higher cognitive development. But if we want to more clearly grasp fundamental secrets of the Cosmos, God, higher worlds, higher cognition, etc., we need to actually enter onto the spiritual path and use what knowledge is imparted from the higher worlds as feedback for our normal waking intellect, so as to 'triangulate' the higher meaning.

If one resorts to dream phenomena in order to acquire knowledge of the soul's nature, one ultimately is forced to admit that the object of one's search is wearing a mask. Behind the symbolizations of bodily conditions and processes, behind the fantastically connected memory experiences, one may surmise the soul's activity. It cannot be maintained, however, that one is face to face with the true form of the soul.

On awaking, one realizes how the active part of the dream is interwoven with the function of the body and thereby subject to the external world of nature. Through the backward-directed view of self-observation one sees in the soul life only the images of the external world, not the life of the soul itself. The soul eludes the ordinary consciousness at the very moment one would grasp it cognitively.

By studying dreams one cannot hope to arrive at the reality of the soul element. In order to preserve the soul activity in its innate form one would have to obliterate, through a strong inner activity, the symbolizations of the bodily conditions and processes, along with the memory of past experiences. Then one would have to be able to study that which had been retained. This is impossible. For the dreamer is in a passive state. He cannot undertake any autonomous activity. With the disappearance of the soul's mask, the sensation of one's own self disappears also.

It is different with the waking soul life. There the autonomous activity of the soul can not only be sustained when one erases all one perceives of the external world; it can also be strengthened in itself.

This happens if, while awake in the forming of mental pictures, one makes oneself as independent of the external world of the senses as one is in a dream. One becomes a fully conscious, wakeful imitator of the dream. Thereby, however, the illusory quality of the dream falls away. The dreamer takes his dream pictures for realities. If one is awake one can see through their unreality. No healthy person when awake and imitating the dream will take his dream images for realities. He will remain conscious of the fact that he is living in self-created illusions.

He will not be able to create these illusions, however, if he merely remains at the ordinary level of consciousness. He must see to it that he strengthens this consciousness. He can achieve this by a continually renewed self-kindling of thinking from within. The inner soul activity grows with these repeated kindlings. (I have described in detail the appropriate inner activity in my books Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment and An Outline of Occult Science).

And you know this because you personally have performed the protocols and have consciously attained the awareness and experience? I plead for a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer.

[Lou Gold]

But if I ask you or Dana or myself, how exactly does your consciousness take non-spatial dynamic activity and spatialize it in three dimensions (or four including linear Time-experience), we can't answer that.

I'd just write a poem

Yes! And I'd create an image, which seems as a fine way to express qualitative creativity. There are many ways and we don't need to conceptually grasp to understand and do what we do.

[Lou Gold]

Anyway, the only thing I wanted to point out is that neither BK nor Pageau are pursuing intuitive thinking as a spiritual path. These things have very precise meaning and we need to be clear on that meaning. Whatever path they are on, and however useful it may be, it's not that one.

Well, we seem to have listened to quite different conversations, as I'm not seeing how Pageau is not being highly intuitive in his approach, as most artists tend to be ... In any case, synchronistically pertinent to the direction this conversation has evolved, this recent offering from Mark Vernon may be instructive ...

Thanks for the continued referrals to Mark Vernon. I've been perusing his youtube collection, which is a rich and sensitive archive of the multiplicity of ways of spiritual inquiry including similarities, differences and lots of nuances in between.

[Cleric K]

And you know this because you personally have performed the protocols and have consciously attained the awareness and experience? I plead for a simple 'yes' or 'no' answer.

Asking yes/no questions implies that the inquirer understands the two alternatives and knows them to be mutually exclusive. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that people simply don't even try to understand what it's meant with 'intuitive thinking'. In our popular culture, this is instinctively equated with thinking driven by mysterious feelings. We stand at a crossroad and say "My intuition tells me that I must turn right". But this is not in the least the intuitive thinking we're talking about. This is simply intellectual reading into inexplicable sympathies. There's nothing thoughtful in choosing the path in this way. We simply feel one direction to be more sympathetic than the other and our thinking simply testifies of this feeling. We haven't thought anything out, we simply say "I feel better about this direction, even though I have no clue why".

I'm not saying that these feelings don't have their rightful place and that they shouldn't be taken into account. I'm only saying that 'intuitive thinking' implies something else.

There have been so many attempts to explain this that I have little hopes that this time it will be any different but nevertheless, here's one more try.

In our modern intellectual consciousness we feel our thoughts as tiny mental sparks zipping around and coalescing into logical structures. There's a saying that we hear often here: "The map is not the territory". These assemblies of mental sparks are considered to be nothing but a map of the real territory - the true reality. I doubt anyone here would disagree with this comparison.

Yet where people disagree strongly is when it is suggested that these mental sparks are only flown off particles of actual currents of reality. Let's imagine the supposed real territory, the maternal Cosmic Womb, the Cosmic Waters, as the all encompassing loving embrace of the Divine Feminine. The map analogy represents the human being as a small sack of amniotic fluid, part of the Cosmic Fluid. This representation happens through assemblies of tiny fluorescent sparks within our local amniotic fluid within the sac. Seen in this way, it's completely natural to feel the mental sparks as only a quite marginal, almost accidental, manifestation of true reality.

But what if the sparking activity is fully legitimate part of the Cosmic Being? What if it is not merely accidental assembly of sparks that only serve to represent as a map the supposed real territory? What if when we think the sparks, we live in portion of the actual territory? What if the territory is not only the Cosmic Waters but also the currents of Cosmic Fire? This is the fire of the Spirit, which runs like electricity through the waters and sets them in motion. It's the active, Masculine Cosmic principle.

Here's a metaphor:



Cosmic Fire forms shafts of plasma. But we can also see that small packets of plasma get disconnected. These can be likened to our floating mental sparks which mechanically assemble into maps of the supposed reality.

Intuitive thinking can only be approached when we realize that we indeed use the sparks as map building material but in its essence, the thinking activity that propels the sparks is in itself something of the territory. It is part of the Fiery aspect of the living Cosmos.

Obviously, the great difficulty is that we don't see thinking as something laid before us. What we perceive as thoughts is only the effects of thinking. Now another analogy comes to mind: Sonoluminescence. This is the phenomenon of light emission when bubbles are imploded through sound. Similarly, thinking is like the invisible spiritual activity which speaks its Word through the waters and produces light phenomena - perceptible thoughts. If we can't distinguish thought perceptions from the invisible first-person willed activity which excites these perceptions, it's impossible to make a step forward.

What do popular teachings do? They recognize that the map is not the territory. Perfect! They recognize that the assemblies of mental sparks form a map and as such they are not the territory. They point at reality but are not themselves that full realty. Excellent! Then what do the teachings do? They say "These pesky mental sparks only stand on our way to reality. The obstruct our perception of the territory by overlying it with mental maps." Fair enough. And what is the offered solution? "Let go of the sparking activity". Well, OK. But in this way we also lose our point of contact with half of reality - the first-person experienced fiery aspect of reality, which is active, creative, which excites the waters and shapes the temporal unfolding of the fluid dreamscape.

This one-sidedness is so simple, so obvious, so eye-poking that I still marvel how people simply pass through it without even noticing.

So this is it in a nutshell. Our mental sparks can indeed be assembled into maps but the thinking activity which assembles them is also the immediate aspect of the Fiery Territory of the Cosmos. In our thinking we live in the inner reality of that territory. When thinking begins to assemble sparks into maps and contemplate them, obviously it builds a veil. Yet simply stopping any thinking activity, cuts us off the Cosmic Fire. We remain in a pocket of hazy amniotic fluid, we feel the pulse of the maternal heartbeat through the fluid and call that reality. But that reality can only become complete when we find the complementary Cosmic Principle which arts through the waters. We can only approach this Principle when we investigate our thinking - which is direct manifestation of Cosmic Fire - and in this way we find how it is embedded in the Cosmic currents, which art the Cosmos at large. In this sense, intuitive thinking implies that instead of throwing away the disconnected pockets of plasma in the above metaphor, we begin to discover the Thinking of the Cosmos, how it runs through us and energizes us, how our sparkling thinking is only a severely limited manifestation of the Cosmic Fiery currents, which meaningfully art the dreamscape from within. This feeble thinking activity of ours is destined to evolve into the magical force of the Spirit which stirs the World Waters.

[Martin_]

Well if it's not that simple, then stop telling other ppl that they don't get it.

you
don't
know
that.

it's a fact.


You can't have the cake and eat it. It doesn't work that way.

[Cleric K]

Well if it's not that simple, then stop telling other ppl that they don't get it.

you
don't
know
that.

it's a fact.


You can't have the cake and eat it. It doesn't work that way.

Then how does it work?

Imagine you try to explain Magic Eye to someone. Clearly this is not something that the listener can simply understand intellectually and say "Aha, I get it". Instead, it requires certain effort, we need to develop a new skill, to focus our eyes in a way which everyday life hasn't taught us.

Now, as anyone of us who has tried to teach someone how to see Magic Eye stereograms knows, it's not that seldom for the person to say "Aaah, forget it." But imagine that that person instead of admitting he lacks patience to learn the skill or even simpler - that he simply has no interest in it - begins to try and convince you that you have somehow gotten it all wrong, that what you're trying to explain is nonsense, impossible, etc. It's only natural to give some additional information to support what you're talking about. In a similar way, the above video shows in a good way some of the science of Magic Eye and if the person thinks it through it will be clear that there's really something there and it's not that everyone has conspired to delude unsuspecting people.

The situation here is quite similar. All talks here are about the actual methods of focusing our thinking (instead of eye balls) such that the 2D canvas of thoughts that 'simply appear' attains 3D depth where spiritual activity weaves. All of this is supported from the most varied sides with analogies, metaphors, examples how these things make sense of physical reality, of spiritual traditions and so on.

If someone says "Aaah, forget it. I simply don't care about it, it's too much work" - then it is all fine. The conversation ends. Lorenzo for example said it plainly. It's too much effort for him to enter into the matter, he feels more comfortable in a world conception where everything 'simply appears' and that's all. No need to look for anything deeper than this. Fine by me.

But people rarely stop there. Not everyone has the courage of Lorenzo to simply say: "I don't care." People want to feel justified in their choice. For example, the person who abandoned the attempts to learn Magic Eye feels it gnaws at him. It's like he voluntarily gave up an opportunity. It's like there's a door behind which there's something of interest, yet it didn't open on first try. The person says "Aaah, forget it. Probably what's behind the door isn't even that interesting. Maybe there even isn't anything there." These are very common psychological patterns. We need to feel justified in our decision. And it may go so far that the person tries to convince the other party that maybe they are the deluded ones. That they only fantasize that Magic Eye stuff and try to lull everybody else.

The natural response in that case would be to give more explanations to the doubting person. Clearly, it's not very reasonable to lie to him and say "You're right, this Magic Eye stuff is nonsense. I made it all up to aggravate people and make them feel worthless because they don't get it."

So that sums it up. Nothing of the written above is intended to belittle others and make fun of them because 'they don't get it'. It's exactly the opposite - everything is intended with great loving enthusiasm to help everyone 'get it'. And what is there to be gotten doesn't require that much. We're not talking about developing high level of clairvoyance. It's enough of a start that we become clairvoyant for our own thinking process, to realize that within our living thinking, we experience a small in focus patch of the One spiritual world. When we become clairvoyant for our own thinking (and this requires nothing but living experience of actively willed thinking) then we'll also understand how this process can continue further and see how the levels of the Cosmic Spirit, of which our thinking is a manifestation, art the dreamscape.