The source of the 'Hard Problem of Consciousness'

[Federica]

I would like to offer my own thoughts on that essay actually, section by section, to see if this will be of any value to the discussion. And maybe some feedback would be available from anyone interested in giving it. I do see its relevance to the discussion on "hard problems" in science and philosophy by the way, so I appreciate the link as a suggestion.

viewtopic.php?p=19458#p19458

THE human being—as an “I”—first, in a pre-conscious activity of destruction, strips reality of its coherence. This is not something he does so much as something he is. To wit, the human being is situated in the world in such a manner that he bifurcates and disintegrates its structure in the manner indicated above as a condition for his perception and cognition of it. Hence, the activity of his consciousness consists in an initial reduction of being to pure chaos and nothingness—to non-being.

We learn that we have slept not by sleeping, but through inference—by the fact of waking. Similarly, we know that we disintegrated the true being of the object of our perception by the fact of its manifestation to our consciousness.

So, looking through things as a whole, it seems the context is about examining our thought-life and how it shapes our perceptions of the world at large? Indeed. Although I'm not sure what is meant by "stripping reality of its coherence" or "Hence, the activity of his consciousness consists in an initial reduction of being to pure chaos and nothingness—to non-being." I am having trouble with the vocabulary. I guess you are wary of having trouble with vocabulary, but in fact you are not really having much trouble with it! Is this meant to be saying how our percepts and concepts initially are divided, and there seems to be a dichotomy of self and world? And that the cause of this lies within our own inner organization, Yes! if that is the right term. It's the right meaning - which is all that counts

The initial annihilation of being proceeds by the extraction of (a) the concept from the wholeness of reality. This leaves (b) a field of percepts to which (a) the concept was lending coherence, organization, and intelligibility. The latter (b) instantaneously disintegrates into dust, like matter without life. The Book of Genesis depicts the function of the concept as soul:

“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul…you return to the ground–because out of it were you taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” (2:7, 3:10)

So what this is saying is that percepts, without the corresponding concept to imbue them with meaning, lack intelligibility or sense to us? Yes, I agree! It brings to mind Owen Barfield's "Saving the Appearances", and the "crisis of meaning" that has popped up in our modern times. As I tried to explain briefly in my initial post here (the first page), there is a type of unconscious process in us that terms raw sense-data into meaningful phenomenon, which is referred to further down in the essay. This same faculty allows us to reunite the idea and meaning with what we are perceiving in the world at large. Is that an accurate interpretation so far? I would say it is. I only read the first few chapters of "Saving the Appearances". On that basis, my impression is similar to yours: both are phenomenologies of cognition, consistent with each other and with Steiner's. Only vocabulary is slightly different.

It follows from the above that there can be no “problem of knowledge” in the classical epistemological sense of Descartes and Kant any more than the meaning of the words I write is withheld from me. Certainly the words of others are opaque to my understanding in this way, to begin with, but only until I undertake this same process of death and resurrection described above in respect to them, at which point the speaker and I are one in spirit and I share in the meaning of what was expressed.

I like the analogy here. If I don't understand what someone else is saying, i.e. they speak a language I do not, it seems unintelligible to me, even if I know there is a meaning being conveyed by the words they use. Unless I try to learn the language they speak, and practice it, it will remain this way. So it seems to be a similar process with gaining higher knowledge. Yes, for instance. And in terms of abstract models, the solutions to the "hard problems" seem opaque because there is a 'language' we aren't aware of yet, and must learn to develop in ourselves. Yes! That's a more elevated way to look at it. A more immediate way in which the hard problem dissipates is by looking at the given of experience, realizing in concrete terms the process we go through (as we are summarizing now with the help of this essay, PoF, and Barfield.)

The archetype of knowledge is creatio ex nihilo. Hence it is an imitatio Christi in identitatem Logos—“an imitation of Christ in his identity as the Logos”—for as it is written, “in the beginning was the Logos…All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:1, 3) As Christ rose from the dust on the third day, so knowledge is the final moment following death and entombment.

The new Creation shimmers before the backdrop of non-being. It is perennially fresh because it has never existed before, like the virginal birth of Venus, who floats on the foam of chaos, born on the scallop-shell of consciousness to arrive on the shore of knowledge.

This is another area I am unfamiliar with the vocabulary. How are people here using the term "Christ" and "Logos"? As in, what is the meaning of these terms? Just so that I can get on the same page. Don't worry about vocabulary - As Ashvin said here, we should "entrust the terminology and lofty ideas we are not yet familiar with to the higher spiritual forces latent within our intellect."

So we awaken in the perception of the thought-output (we perceive our thoughts) only after they have reached down to the world of senses, and not as they unfold within the cognitive process. This is despite the fact that we ourselves have full responsibility for the unfolding.
So the first point that becomes extra-clear reading the essay is that human cognition is the unaware designer and operator of a sort of ‘secret industrial facility’ that continually precipitates thoughts down into the level where they become sensible to us.

This description in the first commentary from Federica is clear. There seems to be a 'black box' between the conscious mind and the actual source of our conscious thoughts, feelings, etc. Similarly to how there seems to be a 'black box' between when we go to sleep and when we wake up (maybe we'll remember what we dreamed about). There is a stage between that normally is opaque (on a conscious level). This seems to be connected with why philosophers end up in labyrinths of complicated mental pictures of reality, and limitations of possible knowledge (e.g. Kantian dualism), or bottom-up material models. Yes! This same parallel you make between sleep-wake cycle and thinking cycle has Cleric recently made in this other thread on meditation: "So in a strange way we constantly reincarnate in our thoughts" similarly to how we reincarnate in our Earthly life, and in our every waking day too.

And since this forum focuses on Bernardo Kastrup's idealism as well, I would like to bring up an interview he did with Richard Brown a few years ago which I believe is relevant to the discussion. It might seem off-topic but I think is still relevant to what is being discussed. Hopefully the link embeds.



Around 19 minutes into the video, Brown brings up an issue or a type of 'hard problem', which Bernardo responds to. Brown's point goes along the lines of: Why is that the thoughts of Mind at Large (MAL) should appear to us as the particular qualities of experience? Why should MAL appear to our 'dissociated consciousness' as the green of a tree? Why green; why not something else like red? The green of the tree seems arbitrary compared to the actual objective reality e.g. "the thoughts of MAL". This is a very tough objection of course. Bernardo tries to point out how a thought can influence emotions, because he wants to show that, whilst our dissociated minds may seem different from MAL, they are still of the same substance. So there isn't really any 'hard problem' here for how thoughts of MAL become what we experience as humans. Fair response. But here is his second response, which I think is worth examining further.
Bernardo's second response appeals to evolution by natural selection, where evolution has simplified or coded the thoughts of MAL into a kind of simplified dashboard for the sake of survival. The tree in it self (which is the thoughts of the universal Mind) appears to us as the qualities and physical properties we know such as green-ness, sounds, texture, solidity, extension in space, etc. It appears to us this way simply due to this 'dashboard' produced by evolutionary pressures.

I would be interested to hear what anyone reading this may have to comment on that. Because it does seem like it is a product of this 'black box' between our own mind, and the universal mind. The seeming 'black box' between our conscious thoughts and feelings, and their origins.
By appealing to evolution by natural selection, it sounds like it offers a solution that functions the same as materialism; where colour is reduced to something merely arbitrary; the concept is split apart from the percept (as Max's essay seems to be talking about). I wonder instead how this 'problem' could be explored instead with Steiner's epistemology (e.g. the first person approach). As I said, it is a very tough objection for Bernardo to respond to (especially for abstract theory), so I understand if his response is a bit limited or not really answering the 'problem' as deeply as Brown seemed to desire.



I haven't watched the video yet, so I will have to postpone comment on this part. As a starting point, I would say that the 'black box' is who we are, is our double nature as humans, it's the way we cognize reality at our current point of evolution, rather than something in between us and the objects of our perception. Also, taken from another angle, we are immersed in Thinking substance, rather than: "thinking is something that pertains to our activity, something originating from our mind" (very easy to lose sight of this one, speaking for myself).

[Federica]

Bernardo's second response appeals to evolution by natural selection, where evolution has simplified or coded the thoughts of MAL into a kind of simplified dashboard for the sake of survival. The tree in it self (which is the thoughts of the universal Mind) appears to us as the qualities and physical properties we know such as green-ness, sounds, texture, solidity, extension in space, etc. It appears to us this way simply due to this 'dashboard' produced by evolutionary pressures.

I would be interested to hear what anyone reading this may have to comment on that. Because it does seem like it is a product of this 'black box' between our own mind, and the universal mind. The seeming 'black box' between our conscious thoughts and feelings, and their origins.
By appealing to evolution by natural selection, it sounds like it offers a solution that functions the same as materialism; where colour is reduced to something merely arbitrary; the concept is split apart from the percept (as Max's essay seems to be talking about). I wonder instead how this 'problem' could be explored instead with Steiner's epistemology (e.g. the first person approach).

Watched the video - I agree, BK gives an arbitrary answer, and naturally the question can be explored with Steiner's phenomenology. This has been discussed here from multiple angles, and without any doubt it would be instructive to revisit it along the lines of your personal angles of inquiry. If I may point to two "discussion starters" (there are more hidden in the threads of the forum):


- This exchange about the problem with metaphysical (arbitrary, non experiential) idealism from just a few months ago.

- This 'live' discussion taking place on the other thread (maybe you could take it form p. 11 as per the link, no need to read the whole thing) where the discussion is exploring how ideas from 'mind at large' precipitate in our consciousness. The example of photons is being used as an illustration from the sensory world. This is a current discussion, so maybe more compelling than revisiting older posts first, and it seems to me that you can move around and resume the various ways to approach this issue in whatever order, so if it feels relevant to your initial hard problem question, please surf to these other threads and weigh in

[AshvinP]

The hard problem of consciousness emerges from trying to swap our innermost beings for abstract models. Our scientists try in vain to solve the puzzle. It is their discipline of abstract thinking, of modeling reality, that brings these problems to light. In principle, it is not possible to squeeze our spiritual activity into thoughts and say that this chain of thoughts is the reason for my spiritual activity, although without the activity that produces them and their meaning, this chain of thoughts would never have existed.
Our physiology correlates with our states of consciousness, but this fact is not sufficient to reduce our consciousness to those. I recently read that Steiner recommends perceiving things in the outside world as symbols, for example snow for purity and so on....
Wouldn't human physiology also be a symbol for our innermost being? I find it interesting to think about the esoteric meaning of our body.

Hi Guney,

I hope you are doing well. The above is nicely put.

When it comes to the human bodily organism, I find it is most helpful to think of it in terms of interwoven rhythms of WFT activity. Although there is certainly spiritual symbolism to the spatial images of the body as well, it is generally more helpful for the growth of our thinking organism to start with temporal processes and then eventually expand out to how the spatial images partially reflect those. You may have seen the resource Federica shared on the other thread re: the sleeping-waking rhythm, which is very helpful to contemplate. All of these rhythms involving our local body-soul-spirit organism find their Cosmic counterparts in those of the planets and stars (in relation to the Earth). The latter can esoterically be associated with the ongoing Wise spiritual guidance of humanity, as collective and individual souls.

This study can also be coupled with exercises for centering our own TFW rhythms, such as here and here. Our intellectual thinking rhythm is often running far ahead of pace in modern times. It helps to entrain that activity by purposefully slowing down the pace of certain things we do. For ex., if I am practicing a song on piano, sometimes I purposefully play the notes at a much slower pace than normal. I find this to be uncomfortable and my thinking generally wants to rush back, but I remain patient and continue. Over time these seemingly trivial exercises can really discipline our mind and reharmonize our intellectual rhythm, thereby making it easier to penetrate from the living details of experience into archetypal spiritual ideas.

[Anthony66]

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’"

That's right. And what is the Will of the Father?

"I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one:
I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." (John 17)

Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23)

From that time began Jesus to preach, and to say, Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matthew 4:17)

That does not mean there is no work needed to be done on our part. Quite the opposite, realizing this Christ's call to oneness requires an extraordinary undertaking on our part. And the key part of this undertaking is transcending our ego-consciousness:

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. (Matthew 16:24)

“I am crucified with Christ, but I live; yet not I anymore, but Christ lives in me" Galatians 2:20

The above is about the Christ's message, but if we look at the core esoteric practices/teachings of other world's spiritual traditions, such as Buddhism, Taoism, Advaita or Shaivism of Hindu tradition, Sufism of Islamic tradition, they are also essentially about experientially reaching to Oneness.

But how about expanding our consciousness to the knowledge of the World Though-content on higher levels through the practice of living thinking? Yes, it is also needed and it will become even more available to us once we transcend the bubble of our ego-consciousness and reach to the Oneness in Essense:

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matt 6. 33)

While oneness might be suggested from these texts, they certainly don't represent the broader teaching of the NT texts which surround the forgiveness of sins and the atoning death on the cross of Christ. At least that is what a plain reading of the texts suggest of which the broader Christianity has latched onto. I realize there are more esoteric ways of reading these things which I'm trying to get my head around, but the aspect of sacrifice is hard to ignore.

[AshvinP]

While oneness might be suggested from these texts, they certainly don't represent the broader teaching of the NT texts which surround the forgiveness of sins and the atoning death on the cross of Christ. At least that is what a plain reading of the texts suggest of which the broader Christianity has latched onto. I realize there are more esoteric ways of reading these things which I'm trying to get my head around, but the aspect of sacrifice is hard to ignore.

That is a key point, Anthony. Thanks for bringing it up.

I think it's intuitive that we can't go picking apart the text for verses which, when translated into English, seem to support one preferred religious conception or another. Without developing higher cognition to unveil the esoteric meanings in a deep and holistic way, we can still discern themes/patterns which emerge from the texts as a whole. Sacrifice is indeed hard to ignore, even though it often is by the modern mystics. Not just sacrifice in some broad sense of 'getting rid of the ego to realize oneness with everything', but concrete incarnational sacrifice which unfolds in our devoted thinking through the World Content. John's Gospel was quoted at length here for its support of Onenesss, which of course it does point to in many ways, but I think the first chapter, and the first few verses, was largely ignored.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
...
The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

In other words, the Divine Oneness which is responsible for all creation descended into human flesh, because something needed to be accomplished which was never possible before. Once we enter into the living inner details, we begin to discern how it was a gradual process of Incarnation which began at the very beginning of human involution into the sensory spectrum, and now serves as the archetypal Ideal which has been made possible for us to strive towards through our own sacrificial effort. The Divine Word is found exactly within our ego-consciousness which makes us individual beings, independent of gender, race, blood ties, nationality, etc., capable of showing Love to our fellow brothers and sisters, and beings of the Earth, through living knowledge of their innermost soul-spirit states of being, which interfere to shape our own. We can only express Love towards beings who are felt as entirely distinct from us, to begin with. We can only forgive the sins we know about, and that living knowledge also provides the inspiration for forgiveness. Obviously none of this happens in a snap - it is an entire gradient of development/evolution. In this way, we gradually expand our thinking consciousness back into archetypal realms and inherit creative responsibility for the Earth organism as a whole.

When we use language [symbolically], we bring it about of our own free will that an appearance means something other than itself... that a manifest 'means' an unmanifest. We start with an idol, and we ourselves turn the idol into representation... we use the phenomenon as a 'name' for what is not phenomenal... As consciousness develops into self-consciousness, the remembered phenomena become detached or liberated from their original [meanings] and so, as images, are in some measure at man's disposal... they are at the disposal of his imagination to employ as it chooses. If it chooses to impart its own meaning, it is doing... with the remembered phenomena what their Creator once did with the 'external appearances' themselves. Thus there is a real analogy between [symbolical] usage [of language] and original participation [in the creation of 'external appearances']... there is a valid analogy if, but only if, we admit that, in the course of the earth's history, something like a Divine Word has been gradually clothing itself with the humanity it first gradually created - so that what was first spoken by God may eventually be respoken by man."

- Barfield, Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry (1957)

[Stranger]

While oneness might be suggested from these texts, they certainly don't represent the broader teaching of the NT texts which surround the forgiveness of sins and the atoning death on the cross of Christ. At least that is what a plain reading of the texts suggest of which the broader Christianity has latched onto. I realize there are more esoteric ways of reading these things which I'm trying to get my head around, but the aspect of sacrifice is hard to ignore.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not denying or ignoring the forgiveness and sacrifice, this is all given and implied in Gospels, but I am emphasizing the aspect of oneness in Christ's message-mission because I see it missing in both traditional Christianity and Anthroposophy.

Regarding Christianity, I find Michael Jones "Inspiring Philosophy" views making a lot of sense:

[AshvinP]

While oneness might be suggested from these texts, they certainly don't represent the broader teaching of the NT texts which surround the forgiveness of sins and the atoning death on the cross of Christ. At least that is what a plain reading of the texts suggest of which the broader Christianity has latched onto. I realize there are more esoteric ways of reading these things which I'm trying to get my head around, but the aspect of sacrifice is hard to ignore.

That is a key point, Anthony. Thanks for bringing it up.

I think it's intuitive that we can't go picking apart the text for verses which, when translated into English, seem to support one preferred religious conception or another. Without developing higher cognition to unveil the esoteric meanings in a deep and holistic way, we can still discern themes/patterns which emerge from the texts as a whole. Sacrifice is indeed hard to ignore, even though it often is by the modern mystics. Not just sacrifice in some broad sense of 'getting rid of the ego to realize oneness with everything', but concrete incarnational sacrifice which unfolds in our devoted thinking through the World Content. John's Gospel was quoted at length here for its support of Onenesss, which of course it does point to in many ways, but I think the first chapter, and the first few verses, was largely ignored.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
...
The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

In other words, the Divine Oneness which is responsible for all creation descended into human flesh, because something needed to be accomplished which was never possible before. Once we enter into the living inner details, we begin to discern how it was a gradual process of Incarnation which began at the very beginning of human involution into the sensory spectrum, and now serves as the archetypal Ideal which has been made possible for us to strive towards through our own sacrificial effort. The Divine Word is found exactly within our ego-consciousness which makes us individual beings, independent of gender, race, blood ties, nationality, etc., capable of showing Love to our fellow brothers and sisters, and beings of the Earth, through living knowledge of their innermost soul-spirit states of being, which interfere to shape our own. We can only express Love towards beings who are felt as entirely distinct from us, to begin with. We can only forgive the sins we know about, and that living knowledge also provides the inspiration for forgiveness. Obviously none of this happens in a snap - it is an entire gradient of development/evolution. In this way, we gradually expand our thinking consciousness back into archetypal realms and inherit creative responsibility for the Earth organism as a whole.

When we use language [symbolically], we bring it about of our own free will that an appearance means something other than itself... that a manifest 'means' an unmanifest. We start with an idol, and we ourselves turn the idol into representation... we use the phenomenon as a 'name' for what is not phenomenal... As consciousness develops into self-consciousness, the remembered phenomena become detached or liberated from their original [meanings] and so, as images, are in some measure at man's disposal... they are at the disposal of his imagination to employ as it chooses. If it chooses to impart its own meaning, it is doing... with the remembered phenomena what their Creator once did with the 'external appearances' themselves. Thus there is a real analogy between [symbolical] usage [of language] and original participation [in the creation of 'external appearances']... there is a valid analogy if, but only if, we admit that, in the course of the earth's history, something like a Divine Word has been gradually clothing itself with the humanity it first gradually created - so that what was first spoken by God may eventually be respoken by man."

- Barfield, Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry (1957)

I also want to elaborate on the above with excerpts from Steiner's lectures on St. John's Gospel, which also coincides with what is being discussed on the nature of Light via Cleric's posts on the other thread. It simply isn't imagined by the modern fundamentalists and the mystics how immanent and profound the Divine Oneness made flesh can be in our lives, as we steer our stream of becoming back into the Cosmos from which we descended.

Let us ask: — What then is essential for love? What is essential in order that one person love another? It is this — that he be in possession of his full self-consciousness, that he be wholly independent. No one can love another in the full sense of the word if this love be not a free gift of one person to another. My hand does not love my organism. Only one who is independent, one who is not bound to the other person, can love him. To this end the human being had to become an ego-being. The ego had to be implanted in the threefold human body, so that the Earth might, through mankind, fulfil its mission of love. Therefore, you will understand Esoteric Christianity when it says: — Just as other forces, of which wisdom is the last, streamed down from divine beings during the Moon period, so now love streams into the Earth and the bearer of love can only be the independent ego which develops by degrees in the course of the evolution of the Earth.
...
From the standpoint of Esoteric Christianity, what is it that is visible during waking-day consciousness? In the broadest sense of the word, we may ask: — Of what does the Earth consist? It is a manifestation of divine powers, an outer material manifestation of inner spirituality. If you turn your gaze upward toward the sun or toward what is to be found upon the earth, you will see everywhere a manifestation of Divine-Spirituality. This Divine-Spirituality, in the present form, lying as it does at the foundation of all that appears to clear, waking-day consciousness, in other words, the invisible world behind this entire visible day-world, this is called in Esoteric Christianity, the “Logos” or the “Word.” For just as from the human being speech can finally come forth, be uttered from his own inner being, so too has everything, animal kingdom, plant kingdom, mineral kingdom first come forth into existence from the Logos. Everything is an incarnation of the Logos and just as your soul rules invisibly within your inner being and creates an external body, so too everything in the world of a soul nature creates for itself the external body fitted to it and manifests itself through some sort of physical organism. Where, then, is the physical body of the Logos, of which the Gospel of St. John speaks? It is this we wish today to bring more and more into our consciousness. In its purest form, this external physical body of the Logos appears especially in the outer sunlight. But the sunlight is not merely material light. To spiritual perception, it is just as much the vesture of the Logos, as your outer physical body is the vesture of your soul.

If you were to confront a human being in the same way the greater part of humanity today confronts the sun, you could never learn to know that human being. Your relation to each human individual possessing a feeling, thinking and willing soul would be such that instead of presupposing a psycho-spiritual part within him, you would simply touch a physical body and imagine that it might even be made of papier maché. If, however, you wish to penetrate to the spiritual in the sunlight, you should consider it just as you consider the bodily part of a human being in order to learn to know his inner nature. The sunlight has the same relationship to the Logos as your body has to your soul. In the sunlight something spiritual streams down upon the Earth. If we are able to conceive not only the sun-body, but also the sun-spirit, we find that this spiritual part is the love that streams down upon the Earth. Not alone the physical sunlight awakens the plants into life — they would wither and die if the physical sunlight did not act upon them — but together with the physical sunlight, the warm love of the Godhead streams to earth. Human beings exist in order that they may take into themselves the warm love of the Divine, develop it and return it again to the Divine. But they can only do this by becoming self-conscious ego-beings. Only then will they be able to render back this love.
...
This figure of Jesus of Nazareth, in whom the Christ or the Logos was incarnated, brought into human life, into human history itself, what previously streamed down upon the earth from the sun, what was present only in the sunlight. “The Logos became flesh.” It is upon this fact that the Gospel of St. John places the greatest importance and the writer of this Gospel had to lay great emphasis upon it because it is a fact that after the appearance of a few initiated Christian pupils who understood what had occurred, there followed others who could not fully understand it. They understood full well that at the foundation of all material things, behind all that appears to us in substantial form, there exists a psycho-spiritual world. But what they could not comprehend was that the Logos itself, by being incarnated in an individual human being, became physically visible for the physical sense-world. This they could not comprehend. Therefore, that teaching which appeared in the early Christian centuries called the “Gnosis,” differs from the true Esoteric Christianity on this point. The writer of the Gospel of St. John pointed to this fact in powerful words, when he said: “No, you should not look upon the Christ as a super-sensible, ever invisible being only, one Who is the foundation of all material life, but you should consider this the important thing: ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’” This is the fine distinction between Esoteric Christianity and the primal Gnosis. The Gnosis, as well as Esoteric Christianity recognizes the Christ, but the former only as a spiritual being and in Jesus of Nazareth it sees at most a human herald, more or less bound to this spiritual being. It holds firmly to an ever invisible Christ. On the contrary, Esoteric Christianity has always held the idea of the Gospel of St. John, which rests upon the firm foundation of the words: “And the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us!”

[Stranger]

PS: Hasidic idealism is also an interesting perspective (again, if we consider it not as an abstract philosophy, but as pointers to deeper spiritual realities)