Nature of memory and time - Split from "Why do we reincarnate without memories"

[Lou Gold]

Your position surely expresses one imaginative version -- yes, a common usage dominant paradigm one -- of what words like "animal" and "passion" mean. For an expanded view of these core words, I would urge one to read "Becoming Animal" by the ecologist, anthropologist and philosopher David Abram as well as his previous highly acclaimed book "The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World " For a deeper understanding of the word "passion", there is probably nothing better than contemplating the Passion of Christ. Lighting the candles of those behind is surely the core Bodhisattva mission of one like Thich Nhat Hanh. As far as human will is concerned, I know that you offer, as well, a more spiritual version of many words. So much depends on how one chooses to place one's imagination and open the doors of perception. Then comes the discipline and work, which thankfully there are many ways to perform.

PS: I really like your current avatar image, which somehow expresses for me both Blake's aphorism, "Eternity is in love with the productions of time." and an instinctual urge to discover what's over the horizon. Did you create the image?

Actually, Lou, Mr. Abram and his modern animism has been running in the background of my mind in our recent dialogues, because I remembered you highlighted his work a few times before. It is exactly that mindset, as featured in someone like Abram, which is so dangerous for our times, mostly because it is born out of ignorance. Again, if you hold these things abstractly, then it might make sense to call the difference between an animal and a human "common usage dominant paradigm one" and change the meaning of "animal" as one sees fit. If one values a precise scientific understanding of life, on the other hand, which of course requires a higher-than-animal consciousness, then no such linguistic games will be played at the expense of the objective truth. It's not about valuing the animal lesser than the human or vice versa, but coming to actually understand the relation in precise detail. Only then can we orient ourselves properly and evaluate these modern animistic worldviews fairly.

We must now also consider the other side, and not overlook the radical distinction between what man performs with his soul, and the animal with its soul. As an example, we will start from a definite fact. Travelers have often noticed that if they kindled a fire because of the cold, after they left it the apes would come and warm themselves at it. They never observed, however, that an ape had fetched some wood, to keep the fire going. It cannot arrive at this combination, and that is eminently important. It can never, from its own spiritual powers, do anything new, such as stir up the fire, etc.

If we want to make clear to ourselves the animal soul, we must start with this difference from the human soul. A further difference between the animal and human soul is that you can write a biography of each human soul, but not of the animal. That is very important. If you ask yourselves about your interests in different beings, you will find that you bring the same interest to an individual man as in the case of the animals, to a whole group of similar ones. Think of a lion. You feel the same towards the lion-grandfather, father, son, grandson, etc., but this idea would appear to you nonsensical, if applied to human beings.

It says nothing when a dog owner perhaps maintains that he could write a biography of his dog. You could also write a biography of a pen, or the differences in the life of a pin and a needle. That is only an overdrawn distinction. Just as strongly as one whole animal species differs from another, does the single individual person differ from another.
...
Soul life in the animals is graduated in many variations in the different animals because, in creating the organs, the spirit has in each case given them a particular stamp. But we see that the spiritual activity of creation — which is anchored in the astral body — expends itself in organic formations, in what the animal actually brings with it into the world. In creating these specific formations, the spirit expends itself. The animal brings with it into the world what it is able to bring and what existence allows it to experience. It can go very little beyond this. This is evidence that the spirit has spent itself, has poured itself out, in the fashioning of the organs. In the formation of the organs, however, the species of animal is revealed to us. Therefore to the question: “What is it that the animal enjoys and experiences in its life of soul?” we can answer: From birth until death the animals' experiences are determined by its species. — It experiences in its soul life, and from out of its own organism, what it has been given by the spirit to accompany it into existence.

Goethe was one who reflected deeply about the life of the animals and of man and he wrote these fine words: “The animals are instructed by their organs — so said the men of old. I add to that: men, too, but they have the advantage of being able to instruct their organs afresh."
...
An important consideration in the study of human life is that from birth to death a man is capable of learning new languages, and what is equally significant is that if a man were to grow upon a distant, uninhabited island, he could not develop this faculty at all. The same applies to the faculty of forming concepts, and the development of the mental picture of the “I.” These are things which have nothing to do with heredity, and which cannot be transmitted by heredity, because they do not belong to the species or genus. In what does not belong to heredity, in faculties that remain capable of development beyond and apart form heredity, man has something that is not conditioned by the species or genus, but belongs to the individuality. And in the faculty of speech, in the possibility of forming ideas, and in the experience of the Ego concept, there lies what man himself so brings into the world that by means of it he instructs his organs afresh, teaching them what they have not yet received, but which they must acquire.

Now if the response to this careful observation and reasoning is, "well I'm not a philosopher or a scientist, just a storyteller... and I choose to tell myself the story that fits with what I (and Abram, etc.) desire to be true", then there is no further discussion possible. Then we are content with pure speculation while the real stakes at play from these living ideas which are at work in the world go ignored. I have little interest in such idle and counter-productive speculation.

One thing that might be good to contemplate is how the ascent bias that assigns evil or dark energies to "lower" (ex: animal or "instinctual") realms tends to obscure that these dark forces are also at play in the beyond realms and reach into corporeal realms to push, pull and guide actions. I'm reminded of the anthropologist Wade Davis asking the Vodun priest in Haiti if there exists both white and black magic, to which the priest responds, "Both exist. The difference between our culture and yours is that we know the difference." Mediums spend a lot of time helping people clear or release from unruly non-corporeal beings that have attached and caused suffering. It's not all rising up from a lower corporeal nature.

You say, "Now if the response to this careful observation and reasoning is, "well I'm not a philosopher or a scientist, just a storyteller... and I choose to tell myself the story that fits with what I (and Abram, etc.) desire to be true", then there is no further discussion possible." This is an excellent example of the kind of strawmanning projection that leads to grave misunderstandings.

Steiner says about the animal soul, "Travelers have often noticed that if they kindled a fire because of the cold, after they left it the apes would come and warm themselves at it. They never observed, however, that an ape had fetched some wood, to keep the fire going. It cannot arrive at this combination, and that is eminently important. It can never, from its own spiritual powers, do anything new, such as stir up the fire, etc."

And yet modern science offers examples of animals that stir up fire to generate food. My careful consideration would want to acknowledge these behaviors.

BTW, I'm sincerely interested in your avatar image. Did you design it.

[AshvinP]

PS: I really like your current avatar image, which somehow expresses for me both Blake's aphorism, "Eternity is in love with the productions of time." and an instinctual urge to discover what's over the horizon. Did you create the image?

No, I got it from a post on Steiner's facebook group, presumably it was created by the poster and I can no longer locate it.

I think it's time for a change!

[Lou Gold]

PS: I really like your current avatar image, which somehow expresses for me both Blake's aphorism, "Eternity is in love with the productions of time." and an instinctual urge to discover what's over the horizon. Did you create the image?

No, I got it from a post on Steiner's facebook group, presumably it was created by the poster and I can no longer locate it.

I think it's time for a change!

I liked the avatar image for the reasons I explained. Here is a more minimalist view offered by the fine photographer Bob Douglas here in Hawaii. There's a lot going on in it about the play of light and dark. Form and emptiness, dualism and non-dualism as well. It's a fine contemplation.

[AshvinP]

One thing that might be good to contemplate is how the ascent bias that assigns evil or dark energies to "lower" (ex: animal or "instinctual" realms) tends to obscure that these dark forces are also at play in the beyond realms and reach into corporeal realms to push, pull and guide actions. I'm reminded of the anthropologist Wade Davis asking the Vodun priest in Haiti if there exists both white and black magic, to which the priest responds, "Both exist. The difference between our culture and yours is that we know the difference." Mediums spend a lot of time helping people clear or release from unruly non-corporeal beings that have attached and caused suffering. It's not all rising up from a lower corporeal nature.

As already outlined before, what is "evil" is not the lower forces in isolation, because nothing exists in isolation, but the clinging to lower forces and ancient modes of thinking, like mediumship, at an evolutionary stage which is no longer appropriate for them. As you said, we need to come to terms with our spiritual forces as they are now, not as they were in the past and linger on in very isolated areas today. This is why I keep mentioning you are ignoring the pole of future becoming, because individual agency and freedom is exactly what the future entails. The individual can never become a free creative agency by relying on mediums to clear out the forces "pushing, pulling, guiding" them. These forces certainly exist but the question is whether we have any interest in making them more conscious from within through the Light of our own lucid, spiritual scientific cognition.

Mediumship is a regression in evolution to dream-consciousness of higher worlds, not a progression towards the individual awakening to those higher worlds.

For this reason I must also speak of borderline regions which through their very abnormality point to certain secrets of existence but can only really be understood through Spiritual Science and without it are bound to lead to countless fallacies about the true nature of spiritual life. The vast range, the interest and enigmatic character of the borderline region of which I shall speak is to some extent known to everyone, for it points to certain connections between external life and its hidden foundations. I am referring to man's life of dream. Starting from this life of dream it will be necessary also to consider other borderline regions of existence whose phenomena, if experienced in an abnormal way, might induce the belief that they lead a man to the foundations of life. I shall therefore also speak of the phenomena of hallucination, of visionary life and of somnambulism and mediumship, as far as this is possible in the framework of a single lecture.

Anyone who would have these borderline regions of human life explained in the light of Spiritual Science must bear in mind those essentials of genuine spiritual investigation through which they can be elucidated. From the range of what has been described in previous lectures I want therefore to select certain matters which will provide a basis for study of the phenomena in question. Spiritual Science must depend upon development of forces of the human soul which lie hidden in the everyday consciousness and also in the consciousness with which ordinary science works. As I have indicated, through certain exercises, certain procedures carried out purely in the life of soul and having nothing whatever to do with anything of a bodily nature, the human soul is able to evoke powers otherwise slumbering within it and so to gain insight into the true spiritual life.

...Certain other conditions must also be fulfilled by one who wishes to be capable of genuine spiritual investigation. The first condition is that the soul must be immune as far as possible from inner passivity. A man who likes to give himself up dreamily to life, to make himself ‘passive’, as the saying goes, in order that in a dreamlike, mystical state the revelations of spiritual reality may flow into him — such a man is ill-adapted to penetrate into the spiritual world. For it must be emphasised that in the realm of true spiritual life the Lord does not give to his own in sleep! On the contrary, what makes a man fit to penetrate into the spiritual world is vigour and activity of mind, zeal in following trains of thoughts, in establishing connections between thoughts seemingly remote from each other, quickness in grasping chains of ideas, a certain love of inner, spiritual activity. This quality is indispensable for genuine spiritual investigation. Mediumistic tendencies and a talent for genuine spiritual knowledge are as different as night from day.

You say, "Now if the response to this careful observation and reasoning is, "well I'm not a philosopher or a scientist, just a storyteller... and I choose to tell myself the story that fits with what I (and Abram, etc.) desire to be true", then there is no further discussion possible." This is an excellent example of the kind of strawmanning projection that leads to grave misunderstandings.

Steiner says about the animal soul, "Travelers have often noticed that if they kindled a fire because of the cold, after they left it the apes would come and warm themselves at it. They never observed, however, that an ape had fetched some wood, to keep the fire going. It cannot arrive at this combination, and that is eminently important. It can never, from its own spiritual powers, do anything new, such as stir up the fire, etc."

And yet modern science offers examples of animals that stir up fire to generate food. My careful consideration would want to acknowledge these behaviors.

BTW, I'm sincerely interested in your avatar image. Did you design it.

It's true that we can't lump all animals into the same category. Esoteric tradition speaks of man as fourfold in his nature, comprised of the Eagle nature, Man nature, Lion nature, Bull nature.





In that sense, the Eagle nature is even loftier than the 'Man nature', in the latter's isolated physical form. When we contemplate birds in the sky, it is pretty easy to discern we are dealing with a different nature than animals who only walk upon the Earth. There are deep spiritual scientific reasons for all of these things that can be discerned with clear thinking, things we otherwise write off as unknowable or irrelevant.

But all this has yet a much deeper side. Let us look at the bird in the air — the eagle, let us say, in his majestic flight — upon whom, as though by an outer gift of grace, the rays of the sun and their action bestowed his plumage, bestowed his horny beak — let us look at this eagle as he flies in the air. Certain forces work upon him there. The sun does not only possess the physical forces of light and warmth of which we usually speak. When I described the Druid Mysteries to you, I drew your attention to the fact that spiritual forces too emanate from the sun. It is these forces which give to the different species of birds their variegated colours, the special formation of their plumage. When we penetrate with spiritual perception into the nature of the sun's working, we understand why the eagle has his particular plumage and when we deepen our contemplation of this being of the eagle, when we develop an inner, artistic comprehension of nature which contains the spiritual within it, when we can perceive how formative forces work out of the impulses of the sun — strengthened by other impulses of which I shall speak later — when we see how the sun-impulses stream down over the eagle even before he has emerged from the egg, how they conjure forth the plumage, or, to be more exact, how they conjure it into his fleshy form, then we can ask ourselves: What is the significance of all this for man? The significance of this for man is that it is what makes his brain into the bearer of thoughts. And you have the right insight into the Macrocosm, into Great Nature, when you so regard the eagle that you say: The eagle has his plumage, his bright, many-coloured feathers; in these lives the self-same force which lives in you in that you make your brain into the bearer of thoughts. What makes the convolutions of your brain? What makes your brain capable of taking up that inner salt-force which is the basis of thinking? What really enables your brain to make a thinker of you? It is the same force which gives his feathers to the eagle in the air. Thus we feel ourselves related to the eagle through the fact that we think: we feel the human substitute for the eagle's plumage within us. Our thoughts flow out from the brain in the same way as the feathers stream out from the eagle.

The human individual is now tasked with reuniting all these natures, which associate with willing (bull), feeling (lion), and thinking (eagle), through the living spiritual knowledge we often speak of here. We simply cannot accomplish this task if we use superficial similarities to conclude its best for man to "become animal" rather than to redeem the animal natures from within. The latter, of course, won't make sense to anyone who still feels crude materialistic thinking, which really denies the reality of soul and spirit altogether, is the height of human scientific understanding. Unfortunately that seems to be the consensus among most people these days, even those who calls themselves "idealists".

[Lou Gold]

One thing that might be good to contemplate is how the ascent bias that assigns evil or dark energies to "lower" (ex: animal or "instinctual" realms) tends to obscure that these dark forces are also at play in the beyond realms and reach into corporeal realms to push, pull and guide actions. I'm reminded of the anthropologist Wade Davis asking the Vodun priest in Haiti if there exists both white and black magic, to which the priest responds, "Both exist. The difference between our culture and yours is that we know the difference." Mediums spend a lot of time helping people clear or release from unruly non-corporeal beings that have attached and caused suffering. It's not all rising up from a lower corporeal nature.

As already outlined before, what is "evil" is not the lower forces in isolation, because nothing exists in isolation, but the clinging to lower forces and ancient modes of thinking, like mediumship, at an evolutionary stage which is no longer appropriate for them. As you said, we need to come to terms with our spiritual forces as they are now, not as they were in the past and linger on in very isolated areas today. This is why I keep mentioning you are ignoring the pole of future becoming, because individual agency and freedom is exactly what the future entails. The individual can never become a free creative agency by relying on mediums to clear out the forces "pushing, pulling, guiding" them. These forces certainly exist but the question is whether we have any interest in making them more conscious from within through the Light of our own lucid, spiritual scientific cognition.

Mediumship is a regression in evolution to dream-consciousness of higher worlds, not a progression towards the individual awakening to those higher worlds.

For this reason I must also speak of borderline regions which through their very abnormality point to certain secrets of existence but can only really be understood through Spiritual Science and without it are bound to lead to countless fallacies about the true nature of spiritual life. The vast range, the interest and enigmatic character of the borderline region of which I shall speak is to some extent known to everyone, for it points to certain connections between external life and its hidden foundations. I am referring to man's life of dream. Starting from this life of dream it will be necessary also to consider other borderline regions of existence whose phenomena, if experienced in an abnormal way, might induce the belief that they lead a man to the foundations of life. I shall therefore also speak of the phenomena of hallucination, of visionary life and of somnambulism and mediumship, as far as this is possible in the framework of a single lecture.

Anyone who would have these borderline regions of human life explained in the light of Spiritual Science must bear in mind those essentials of genuine spiritual investigation through which they can be elucidated. From the range of what has been described in previous lectures I want therefore to select certain matters which will provide a basis for study of the phenomena in question. Spiritual Science must depend upon development of forces of the human soul which lie hidden in the everyday consciousness and also in the consciousness with which ordinary science works. As I have indicated, through certain exercises, certain procedures carried out purely in the life of soul and having nothing whatever to do with anything of a bodily nature, the human soul is able to evoke powers otherwise slumbering within it and so to gain insight into the true spiritual life.

...Certain other conditions must also be fulfilled by one who wishes to be capable of genuine spiritual investigation. The first condition is that the soul must be immune as far as possible from inner passivity. A man who likes to give himself up dreamily to life, to make himself ‘passive’, as the saying goes, in order that in a dreamlike, mystical state the revelations of spiritual reality may flow into him — such a man is ill-adapted to penetrate into the spiritual world. For it must be emphasised that in the realm of true spiritual life the Lord does not give to his own in sleep! On the contrary, what makes a man fit to penetrate into the spiritual world is vigour and activity of mind, zeal in following trains of thoughts, in establishing connections between thoughts seemingly remote from each other, quickness in grasping chains of ideas, a certain love of inner, spiritual activity. This quality is indispensable for genuine spiritual investigation. Mediumistic tendencies and a talent for genuine spiritual knowledge are as different as night from day.

You say, "Now if the response to this careful observation and reasoning is, "well I'm not a philosopher or a scientist, just a storyteller... and I choose to tell myself the story that fits with what I (and Abram, etc.) desire to be true", then there is no further discussion possible." This is an excellent example of the kind of strawmanning projection that leads to grave misunderstandings.

Steiner says about the animal soul, "Travelers have often noticed that if they kindled a fire because of the cold, after they left it the apes would come and warm themselves at it. They never observed, however, that an ape had fetched some wood, to keep the fire going. It cannot arrive at this combination, and that is eminently important. It can never, from its own spiritual powers, do anything new, such as stir up the fire, etc."

And yet modern science offers examples of animals that stir up fire to generate food. My careful consideration would want to acknowledge these behaviors.

BTW, I'm sincerely interested in your avatar image. Did you design it.

It's true that we can't lump all animals into the same category. Esoteric tradition speaks of man as fourfold in his nature, comprised of the Eagle nature, Man nature, Lion nature, Bull nature.





In that sense, the Eagle nature is even loftier than the 'Man nature', in the latter's isolated physical form. When we contemplate birds in the sky, it is pretty easy to discern we are dealing with a different nature than animals who only walk upon the Earth. There are deep spiritual scientific reasons for all of these things that can be discerned with clear thinking, things we otherwise write off as unknowable or irrelevant.

But all this has yet a much deeper side. Let us look at the bird in the air — the eagle, let us say, in his majestic flight — upon whom, as though by an outer gift of grace, the rays of the sun and their action bestowed his plumage, bestowed his horny beak — let us look at this eagle as he flies in the air. Certain forces work upon him there. The sun does not only possess the physical forces of light and warmth of which we usually speak. When I described the Druid Mysteries to you, I drew your attention to the fact that spiritual forces too emanate from the sun. It is these forces which give to the different species of birds their variegated colours, the special formation of their plumage. When we penetrate with spiritual perception into the nature of the sun's working, we understand why the eagle has his particular plumage and when we deepen our contemplation of this being of the eagle, when we develop an inner, artistic comprehension of nature which contains the spiritual within it, when we can perceive how formative forces work out of the impulses of the sun — strengthened by other impulses of which I shall speak later — when we see how the sun-impulses stream down over the eagle even before he has emerged from the egg, how they conjure forth the plumage, or, to be more exact, how they conjure it into his fleshy form, then we can ask ourselves: What is the significance of all this for man? The significance of this for man is that it is what makes his brain into the bearer of thoughts. And you have the right insight into the Macrocosm, into Great Nature, when you so regard the eagle that you say: The eagle has his plumage, his bright, many-coloured feathers; in these lives the self-same force which lives in you in that you make your brain into the bearer of thoughts. What makes the convolutions of your brain? What makes your brain capable of taking up that inner salt-force which is the basis of thinking? What really enables your brain to make a thinker of you? It is the same force which gives his feathers to the eagle in the air. Thus we feel ourselves related to the eagle through the fact that we think: we feel the human substitute for the eagle's plumage within us. Our thoughts flow out from the brain in the same way as the feathers stream out from the eagle.

The human individual is now tasked with reuniting all these natures, which associate with willing (bull), feeling (lion), and thinking (eagle), through the living spiritual knowledge we often speak of here. We simply cannot accomplish this task if we use superficial similarities to conclude its best for man to "become animal" rather than to redeem the animal natures from within. The latter, of course, won't make sense to anyone who still feels crude materialistic thinking, which really denies the reality of soul and spirit altogether, is the height of human scientific understanding. Unfortunately that seems to be the consensus among most people these days, even those who calls themselves "idealists".

We seem to have different missions Ashvin. I'm not trying to put down Steiner or others. Mine is not about judging which path is truest or highest or most scientific but to appreciate the glories of God that are found along many paths. I'm glad to learn that Steiner offers animal totems that are quite familiar to me from other paths. About mediumship all that I can say is that I've experienced the benefits of these communions and witnessed healings, which are serious and lasting. My bottom line is to be grateful for the blessings wherever and however they are found.

[Lou Gold]

One thing that might be good to contemplate is how the ascent bias that assigns evil or dark energies to "lower" (ex: animal or "instinctual" realms) tends to obscure that these dark forces are also at play in the beyond realms and reach into corporeal realms to push, pull and guide actions. I'm reminded of the anthropologist Wade Davis asking the Vodun priest in Haiti if there exists both white and black magic, to which the priest responds, "Both exist. The difference between our culture and yours is that we know the difference." Mediums spend a lot of time helping people clear or release from unruly non-corporeal beings that have attached and caused suffering. It's not all rising up from a lower corporeal nature.

As already outlined before, what is "evil" is not the lower forces in isolation, because nothing exists in isolation, but the clinging to lower forces and ancient modes of thinking, like mediumship, at an evolutionary stage which is no longer appropriate for them. As you said, we need to come to terms with our spiritual forces as they are now, not as they were in the past and linger on in very isolated areas today. This is why I keep mentioning you are ignoring the pole of future becoming, because individual agency and freedom is exactly what the future entails. The individual can never become a free creative agency by relying on mediums to clear out the forces "pushing, pulling, guiding" them. These forces certainly exist but the question is whether we have any interest in making them more conscious from within through the Light of our own lucid, spiritual scientific cognition.

Mediumship is a regression in evolution to dream-consciousness of higher worlds, not a progression towards the individual awakening to those higher worlds.

For this reason I must also speak of borderline regions which through their very abnormality point to certain secrets of existence but can only really be understood through Spiritual Science and without it are bound to lead to countless fallacies about the true nature of spiritual life. The vast range, the interest and enigmatic character of the borderline region of which I shall speak is to some extent known to everyone, for it points to certain connections between external life and its hidden foundations. I am referring to man's life of dream. Starting from this life of dream it will be necessary also to consider other borderline regions of existence whose phenomena, if experienced in an abnormal way, might induce the belief that they lead a man to the foundations of life. I shall therefore also speak of the phenomena of hallucination, of visionary life and of somnambulism and mediumship, as far as this is possible in the framework of a single lecture.

Anyone who would have these borderline regions of human life explained in the light of Spiritual Science must bear in mind those essentials of genuine spiritual investigation through which they can be elucidated. From the range of what has been described in previous lectures I want therefore to select certain matters which will provide a basis for study of the phenomena in question. Spiritual Science must depend upon development of forces of the human soul which lie hidden in the everyday consciousness and also in the consciousness with which ordinary science works. As I have indicated, through certain exercises, certain procedures carried out purely in the life of soul and having nothing whatever to do with anything of a bodily nature, the human soul is able to evoke powers otherwise slumbering within it and so to gain insight into the true spiritual life.

...Certain other conditions must also be fulfilled by one who wishes to be capable of genuine spiritual investigation. The first condition is that the soul must be immune as far as possible from inner passivity. A man who likes to give himself up dreamily to life, to make himself ‘passive’, as the saying goes, in order that in a dreamlike, mystical state the revelations of spiritual reality may flow into him — such a man is ill-adapted to penetrate into the spiritual world. For it must be emphasised that in the realm of true spiritual life the Lord does not give to his own in sleep! On the contrary, what makes a man fit to penetrate into the spiritual world is vigour and activity of mind, zeal in following trains of thoughts, in establishing connections between thoughts seemingly remote from each other, quickness in grasping chains of ideas, a certain love of inner, spiritual activity. This quality is indispensable for genuine spiritual investigation. Mediumistic tendencies and a talent for genuine spiritual knowledge are as different as night from day.

You say, "Now if the response to this careful observation and reasoning is, "well I'm not a philosopher or a scientist, just a storyteller... and I choose to tell myself the story that fits with what I (and Abram, etc.) desire to be true", then there is no further discussion possible." This is an excellent example of the kind of strawmanning projection that leads to grave misunderstandings.

Steiner says about the animal soul, "Travelers have often noticed that if they kindled a fire because of the cold, after they left it the apes would come and warm themselves at it. They never observed, however, that an ape had fetched some wood, to keep the fire going. It cannot arrive at this combination, and that is eminently important. It can never, from its own spiritual powers, do anything new, such as stir up the fire, etc."

And yet modern science offers examples of animals that stir up fire to generate food. My careful consideration would want to acknowledge these behaviors.

BTW, I'm sincerely interested in your avatar image. Did you design it.

It's true that we can't lump all animals into the same category. Esoteric tradition speaks of man as fourfold in his nature, comprised of the Eagle nature, Man nature, Lion nature, Bull nature.





In that sense, the Eagle nature is even loftier than the 'Man nature', in the latter's isolated physical form. When we contemplate birds in the sky, it is pretty easy to discern we are dealing with a different nature than animals who only walk upon the Earth. There are deep spiritual scientific reasons for all of these things that can be discerned with clear thinking, things we otherwise write off as unknowable or irrelevant.

But all this has yet a much deeper side. Let us look at the bird in the air — the eagle, let us say, in his majestic flight — upon whom, as though by an outer gift of grace, the rays of the sun and their action bestowed his plumage, bestowed his horny beak — let us look at this eagle as he flies in the air. Certain forces work upon him there. The sun does not only possess the physical forces of light and warmth of which we usually speak. When I described the Druid Mysteries to you, I drew your attention to the fact that spiritual forces too emanate from the sun. It is these forces which give to the different species of birds their variegated colours, the special formation of their plumage. When we penetrate with spiritual perception into the nature of the sun's working, we understand why the eagle has his particular plumage and when we deepen our contemplation of this being of the eagle, when we develop an inner, artistic comprehension of nature which contains the spiritual within it, when we can perceive how formative forces work out of the impulses of the sun — strengthened by other impulses of which I shall speak later — when we see how the sun-impulses stream down over the eagle even before he has emerged from the egg, how they conjure forth the plumage, or, to be more exact, how they conjure it into his fleshy form, then we can ask ourselves: What is the significance of all this for man? The significance of this for man is that it is what makes his brain into the bearer of thoughts. And you have the right insight into the Macrocosm, into Great Nature, when you so regard the eagle that you say: The eagle has his plumage, his bright, many-coloured feathers; in these lives the self-same force which lives in you in that you make your brain into the bearer of thoughts. What makes the convolutions of your brain? What makes your brain capable of taking up that inner salt-force which is the basis of thinking? What really enables your brain to make a thinker of you? It is the same force which gives his feathers to the eagle in the air. Thus we feel ourselves related to the eagle through the fact that we think: we feel the human substitute for the eagle's plumage within us. Our thoughts flow out from the brain in the same way as the feathers stream out from the eagle.

The human individual is now tasked with reuniting all these natures, which associate with willing (bull), feeling (lion), and thinking (eagle), through the living spiritual knowledge we often speak of here. We simply cannot accomplish this task if we use superficial similarities to conclude its best for man to "become animal" rather than to redeem the animal natures from within. The latter, of course, won't make sense to anyone who still feels crude materialistic thinking, which really denies the reality of soul and spirit altogether, is the height of human scientific understanding. Unfortunately that seems to be the consensus among most people these days, even those who calls themselves "idealists".

We seem to have different missions Ashvin. I'm not trying to put down Steiner or others. Mine is not about judging which path is truest or highest or most scientific but to appreciate the glories of God that are found along many paths. I'm glad to learn that Steiner offers animal totems that are quite familiar to me from other paths. About mediumship all that I can say is that I've experienced the benefits of these communions and witnessed healings, which are serious and lasting. My bottom line is to be grateful for the blessings wherever and however they are found.

[Lou Gold]

One thing that I do wonder about, Ashvin, is if, upon actually reading David Abram, one might see the emerging of a "redeemed" rather than a "regressive" animism -- redeemed, as in the light of a more evolved awareness that more authentically reconnects modern dissociated folks to their own bodies and the environments that have been so impacted unawaredly by human behavior? From my pov, a better connectedness to my embedded animal within alerts me to both positives (healthy) and negative (toxic) behaviors. In this sense of a "more redeemed more aware animism", there emerges more health and happiness for many involved (including other-than-humans). This is surely a practical and imaginative possibility, some of which I have directly experienced. As an aside, in my tradition this kind of process is called replanting and renewing the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and the Queen of the Forest. I'm sure there are many other ways as well to portray the evolutionary process, which includes non-corporeal beings who are surely also our relatives. VIVA! DIVERSITY and VIVA! CONNECTEDNESS

[Lou Gold]

Here are some shamanic teachings associated with this image >>>

The Ancient Sacred Seven Teachings or The Seven Grandfather Teachings:

To cherish knowledge is to know WISDOM;
To know LOVE is to know peace;
To honor all of the Creation is to have RESPECT;
BRAVERY is to face the foe with integrity;
HONESTY also means “righteousness”, be honest first with yourself – in word and action;
HUMILITY is to know yourself as a sacred part of the Creation,
TRUTH is to know all of these things.

[AshvinP]

One thing that I do wonder about, Ashvin, is if, upon actually reading David Abram, one might see the emerging of a "redeemed" rather than a "regressive" animism -- redeemed, as in the light of a more evolved awareness that more authentically reconnects modern dissociated folks to their own bodies and the environments that have been so impacted unawaredly by human behavior? From my pov, a better connectedness to my embedded animal within alerts me to both positives (healthy) and negative (toxic) behaviors. In this sense of a "more redeemed more aware animism", there emerges more health and happiness for many involved (including other-than-humans). This is surely a practical and imaginative possibility, some of which I have directly experienced. As an aside, in my tradition this kind of process is called replanting and renewing the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and the Queen of the Forest. I'm sure there are many other ways as well to portray the evolutionary process, which includes non-corporeal beings who are surely also our relatives. VIVA! DIVERSITY and VIVA! CONNECTEDNESS

We're just talking about completely different things, Lou. I am saying the animal group-souls, of which the particular forms are members like our fingers are members of our organism, are embedded within the human individual. This is literal and can be discerned scientifically by unprejudiced thinking, once we abandon dogmatic materialistic thinking where everything is atomized units combining from the 'bottom-up' to form more complex and more conscious beings, limited to myopic timeframes and/or the flattened earthly plane. Transient physical health and happiness is not the issue here, but spiritual evolution and integration over the course of many incarnations of humans which culminate in the reincarnation of the Earth herself. On this reincarnated Earth, the animal group-souls will then be able to go through their "human" stage (in a more spiritualized form), with our help. All of this is assuming humanity does, in fact, choose to keep evolving forwards and upwards, through clear scientific consciousness of the soul and spirit, not slide backwards and downwards.

Abram's work, as it is portrayed by you and the links you have posted summarizing it, as well as his Wiki page and the mere titles, "the spell of the sensuous" and "becoming animal", make clear that he believes our human cognition would benefit itself from regressing to that of dreamy animal cognition. This is only natural in our times when a person has blotted out the possibility of higher spiritual worlds and beings which are responsible for both human and animal cognition. There is a clear sense that the atomism, materialism, and disconnect with Nature in the modern age cannot be sustained longer, but there is no view of the path upwards into higher consciousness, so naturally the path downwards seems more alluring and the best option. Contrast Abram's desire for humans to go back under "the spell of the sensuous" with Steiner's desire that we begin to develop sense-free thinking. The latter is rooted in a clear view of what is supersensible and stands above the kingdoms of Nature.

“If we do not believe within ourselves this deeply rooted feeling that there is something higher than ourselves, we shall never find the strength to evolve into something higher.”
― Rudolf Steiner

[Lou Gold]

One thing that I do wonder about, Ashvin, is if, upon actually reading David Abram, one might see the emerging of a "redeemed" rather than a "regressive" animism -- redeemed, as in the light of a more evolved awareness that more authentically reconnects modern dissociated folks to their own bodies and the environments that have been so impacted unawaredly by human behavior? From my pov, a better connectedness to my embedded animal within alerts me to both positives (healthy) and negative (toxic) behaviors. In this sense of a "more redeemed more aware animism", there emerges more health and happiness for many involved (including other-than-humans). This is surely a practical and imaginative possibility, some of which I have directly experienced. As an aside, in my tradition this kind of process is called replanting and renewing the Doctrine of Jesus Christ and the Queen of the Forest. I'm sure there are many other ways as well to portray the evolutionary process, which includes non-corporeal beings who are surely also our relatives. VIVA! DIVERSITY and VIVA! CONNECTEDNESS

We're just talking about completely different things, Lou. I am saying the animal group-souls, of which the particular forms are members like our fingers are members of our organism, are embedded within the human individual. This is literal and can be discerned scientifically by unprejudiced thinking, once we abandon dogmatic materialistic thinking where everything is atomized units combining from the 'bottom-up' to form more complex and more conscious beings, limited to myopic timeframes and/or the flattened earthly plane. Transient physical health and happiness is not the issue here, but spiritual evolution and integration over the course of many incarnations of humans which culminate in the reincarnation of the Earth herself. On this reincarnated Earth, the animal group-souls will then be able to go through their "human" stage (in a more spiritualized form), with our help. All of this is assuming humanity does, in fact, choose to keep evolving forwards and upwards, through clear scientific consciousness of the soul and spirit, not slide backwards and downwards.

Abram's work, as it is portrayed by you and the links you have posted summarizing it, as well as his Wiki page and the mere titles, "the spell of the sensuous" and "becoming animal", make clear that he believes our human cognition would benefit itself from regressing to that of dreamy animal cognition. This is only natural in our times when a person has blotted out the possibility of higher spiritual worlds and beings which are responsible for both human and animal cognition. There is a clear sense that the atomism, materialism, and disconnect with Nature in the modern age cannot be sustained longer, but there is no view of the path upwards into higher consciousness, so naturally the path downwards seems more alluring and the best option. Contrast Abram's desire for humans to go back under "the spell of the sensuous" with Steiner's desire that we begin to develop sense-free thinking. The latter is rooted in a clear view of what is supersensible and stands above the kingdoms of Nature.

“If we do not believe within ourselves this deeply rooted feeling that there is something higher than ourselves, we shall never find the strength to evolve into something higher.”
― Rudolf Steiner

Your capsulation of the work of David Abram tells me that you have neither read nor understood him. However, it is not my mission to convince you argumentatively. You are surely capable of doing (or not doing) a personal inquiry and deep contemplation yourself.

As an example, you don't seem to grok that "the spell of the sensuous" is a double meaning word play on the impact of alphabetic language.