Spiritual Insights from Valentin Tomberg

[AshvinP]

Right. I actually prefer that way of putting it because it emphasizes the ricochet effect of those inverse and subtly amoral efforts. No doubt that Gurdjieff and his students, for ex., would feel that spawning new energetic bodies from within the psycho-physical organization is a viable path to "liberation" from 'machine-man' and therefore towards their spiritual ideals. The same thing goes for materialistic scientists like Elon Musk and his technologies, through which he feels to be helping people "liberate" from major physical obstacles like paralysis and thereby expand the expression of their spiritual capacities. And of course, we have become familiar here with how one-sided mysticism seeks loving ideals of spiritual unity but, in the process, only enslaves its thinking further to the fragmented physical spectrum. So the real outcome of these efforts is quite the opposite of what is intended by most of those pursuing them. Instead of liberating the soul into a more spiritual thinking experience, it conditions and chains the soul-spirit more to its lower psycho-physical complex.

This looks like a very good reason to prefer to put emphasis on the bodily focus of these endeavors of inverted crystallization. With this, it looks like I've come full circle, back to the starting point. Thanks for the tour, Ashvin
Does Tomberg explicitly speak of black powers somewhere in what you have read?

He does reference the hierarchies of the left and other 'demonic' powers (there is a distinction to be drawn there) in various places. I would recommend looking at the meditation on the tarot of The Devil (Lecture XV). There he also provides the following caution. I found it a refreshing perspective on the forces of evil and our approach to it, particularly since I am coming from an Anthroposophical foundation. Many Anthroposophists distanced themselves from Tomberg around the time of WWII and continue to do so today because of his independent thinking and his refusal to simply endorse everything said by Steiner and done by the Society, but I find it is exactly for that reason, among many others, that we should pay close attention to his meditative ideas.

***

As it is a matter in the Tarot of a series of spiritual or Hermetic exercises, and as, on the other hand, every spiritual exercise tends to lead to the identification of the meditant with the subject of meditation, i.e. to an act of intuition, the fifteenth Arcanum of the Tarot, in so far as it is a spiritual exercise, cannot—and must not—lead to an experience of identification of the meditant with the subject of meditation. One should not arrive at an intuition of evil, since intuition is identification, and identification is communion.

Unfortunately many authors—occultist and non-occultist—have dealt without rhyme or reason with the profound things of both good and evil. They believed they should “do their best” with respect to depth and penetration in their treatment of the subject of the mysteries of good and, equally, that of the secrets of evil. It is thus that Dostoyevsky released into the world certain profound truths of Christianity, and, at the same time, certain secret practical methods of evil. This is above all the case in his novel The Possessed.

Another example of an excessive accentuation of the knowledge of evil—and therefore of an occupation of consciousness with evil—is the preoccupation with the problem of the twofold (even threefold) evil amongst German Anthroposophists. Lucifer and Ahriman (and even Adzura), the two principles of evil, subjective and objective, the seducing principle and the hypnotising principle, have so taken possession of the consciousness of Anthroposophists that there is hardly a single thing which would not fall under the category of being Ahrimanic or Luciferic. Science is Ahrimanic in so far as it is objective; Christian mysticism is Luciferic in so far as it is subjective. The East is under the domination of Lucifer, because it denies matter; the West is under the domination of Ahriman, because it has created a material civilisation and tends to materialism. All machines—including the apparatus of radio and television—incorporate Ahrimanic demons. Laboratories are the fortresses of Ahriman; theatres—and churches, some believe—are the fortresses of Lucifer. And so on. Anthroposophists are led to classify thousands of facts from the point of view of the category of evil which is revealed through them—which suffices to occupy them for the whole day. And to so occupy oneself amounts to contact with evil and a corresponding reduction of living and inspiring contact with good. The result is a lame wisdom without wings, deprived of creative élan, which only repeats and comments to satiety what the master, Dr. Rudolf Steiner, said. And yet Rudolf Steiner has certainly said things of a nature to awaken the greatest creative élan! His series of lectures on the four Gospels, his lectures at Helsingfors and Düsseldorf on the celestial hierarchies—without mentioning his book on the inner work leading to initiation (Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. How is it achieved?)—would alone suffice to inflame a deep and mature creative enthusiasm in every soul who aspires to authentic experience of the spiritual world. But it is the preoccupation with evil which has clipped the wings of the Anthroposophical Movement and which has rendered it such as it is since the death of its founder: a movement for cultural reform (art, education, medicine, agriculture) deprived of living esotericism, i.e. without mysticism, without gnosis and without magic, which have been replaced by lectures, study and intellectual work aiming at establishing a concordance between the writings and stenographed lectures of the master.

One ought not to occupy oneself with evil, other than in keeping a certain distance and a certain reserve, if one wishes to avoid the risk of paralysing the creative élan and a still greater risk—that of furnishing arms to the powers of evil. One can grasp profoundly, i.e. intuitively, only that which one loves. Love is the vital element of profound knowledge, intuitive knowledge. Now, one cannot love evil. Evil is therefore unknowable in its essence. One can understand it only at a distance, as an observer of its phenomenology.

This is why you will certainly find luminous descriptions—although schematic—of the celestial hierarchies by St. Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Bonaventura, St. Thomas Aquinas, and also in the Cabbala and in the work of Rudolf Steiner, but you will search in vain for an analogous tableau with regard to the hierarchies of evil. You will certainly find amongst sorcerers’ grimoires and in the practical Cabbala (by Abramelin the Mage, for example) a host of names of particular beings belonging to the hierarchies of evil, but you will not find a description of their general classification in the manner of that by St. Dionysius the Areopagite of the celestial hierarchies. The world of the hierarchies of evil appears like a luxuriant jungle, where you can certainly, if necessary, distinguish hundreds and thousands of particular plants, but where you can never attain to a clear view of the totality. The world of evil is a chaotic world—at least, such as it presents itself to the observer.

One ought not to enter this jungle if one does not want to lose one’s way there; one should be an observer from outside. This is why meditation on the Arcanum “The Devil” must obey the laws indicated above concerning the attitude towards evil. It will therefore be a matter of an effort to comprehend this Arcanum at a distance by means of the phenomenological method.

Anonymous . Meditations on the Tarot (pp. 402-403). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[Federica]

Does Tomberg explicitly speak of black powers somewhere in what you have read?

He does reference the hierarchies of the left and other 'demonic' powers (there is a distinction to be drawn there) in various places. I would recommend looking at the meditation on the tarot of The Devil (Lecture XV). There he also provides the following caution. I found it a refreshing perspective on the forces of evil and our approach to it, particularly since I am coming from an Anthroposophical foundation. Many Anthroposophists distanced themselves from Tomberg around the time of WWII and continue to do so today because of his independent thinking and his refusal to simply endorse everything said by Steiner and done by the Society, but I find it is exactly for that reason, among many others, that we should pay close attention to his meditative ideas.

***

As it is a matter in the Tarot of a series of spiritual or Hermetic exercises, and as, on the other hand, every spiritual exercise tends to lead to the identification of the meditant with the subject of meditation, i.e. to an act of intuition, the fifteenth Arcanum of the Tarot, in so far as it is a spiritual exercise, cannot—and must not—lead to an experience of identification of the meditant with the subject of meditation. One should not arrive at an intuition of evil, since intuition is identification, and identification is communion.

Unfortunately many authors—occultist and non-occultist—have dealt without rhyme or reason with the profound things of both good and evil. They believed they should “do their best” with respect to depth and penetration in their treatment of the subject of the mysteries of good and, equally, that of the secrets of evil. It is thus that Dostoyevsky released into the world certain profound truths of Christianity, and, at the same time, certain secret practical methods of evil. This is above all the case in his novel The Possessed.

Another example of an excessive accentuation of the knowledge of evil—and therefore of an occupation of consciousness with evil—is the preoccupation with the problem of the twofold (even threefold) evil amongst German Anthroposophists. Lucifer and Ahriman (and even Adzura), the two principles of evil, subjective and objective, the seducing principle and the hypnotising principle, have so taken possession of the consciousness of Anthroposophists that there is hardly a single thing which would not fall under the category of being Ahrimanic or Luciferic. Science is Ahrimanic in so far as it is objective; Christian mysticism is Luciferic in so far as it is subjective. The East is under the domination of Lucifer, because it denies matter; the West is under the domination of Ahriman, because it has created a material civilisation and tends to materialism. All machines—including the apparatus of radio and television—incorporate Ahrimanic demons. Laboratories are the fortresses of Ahriman; theatres—and churches, some believe—are the fortresses of Lucifer. And so on. Anthroposophists are led to classify thousands of facts from the point of view of the category of evil which is revealed through them—which suffices to occupy them for the whole day. And to so occupy oneself amounts to contact with evil and a corresponding reduction of living and inspiring contact with good. The result is a lame wisdom without wings, deprived of creative élan, which only repeats and comments to satiety what the master, Dr. Rudolf Steiner, said. And yet Rudolf Steiner has certainly said things of a nature to awaken the greatest creative élan! His series of lectures on the four Gospels, his lectures at Helsingfors and Düsseldorf on the celestial hierarchies—without mentioning his book on the inner work leading to initiation (Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. How is it achieved?)—would alone suffice to inflame a deep and mature creative enthusiasm in every soul who aspires to authentic experience of the spiritual world. But it is the preoccupation with evil which has clipped the wings of the Anthroposophical Movement and which has rendered it such as it is since the death of its founder: a movement for cultural reform (art, education, medicine, agriculture) deprived of living esotericism, i.e. without mysticism, without gnosis and without magic, which have been replaced by lectures, study and intellectual work aiming at establishing a concordance between the writings and stenographed lectures of the master.

One ought not to occupy oneself with evil, other than in keeping a certain distance and a certain reserve, if one wishes to avoid the risk of paralysing the creative élan and a still greater risk—that of furnishing arms to the powers of evil. One can grasp profoundly, i.e. intuitively, only that which one loves. Love is the vital element of profound knowledge, intuitive knowledge. Now, one cannot love evil. Evil is therefore unknowable in its essence. One can understand it only at a distance, as an observer of its phenomenology.

This is why you will certainly find luminous descriptions—although schematic—of the celestial hierarchies by St. Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Bonaventura, St. Thomas Aquinas, and also in the Cabbala and in the work of Rudolf Steiner, but you will search in vain for an analogous tableau with regard to the hierarchies of evil. You will certainly find amongst sorcerers’ grimoires and in the practical Cabbala (by Abramelin the Mage, for example) a host of names of particular beings belonging to the hierarchies of evil, but you will not find a description of their general classification in the manner of that by St. Dionysius the Areopagite of the celestial hierarchies. The world of the hierarchies of evil appears like a luxuriant jungle, where you can certainly, if necessary, distinguish hundreds and thousands of particular plants, but where you can never attain to a clear view of the totality. The world of evil is a chaotic world—at least, such as it presents itself to the observer.

One ought not to enter this jungle if one does not want to lose one’s way there; one should be an observer from outside. This is why meditation on the Arcanum “The Devil” must obey the laws indicated above concerning the attitude towards evil. It will therefore be a matter of an effort to comprehend this Arcanum at a distance by means of the phenomenological method.

Anonymous . Meditations on the Tarot (pp. 402-403). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Another thin line to apprehend, as it were. It reminds me of the different type of comments von Halle writes in "Descent into the depths of the Earth", speaking of "Confrontation with the adversarial powers on the path of schooling":


"Every person who follows the path of knowledge through the layers of the earth's interior must be prepared to meet not only the two polar adversarial powers, but also another dark power. Rudolf Steiner spoke relatively seldom about this power, in contrast to his comment on Lucifer and Ahriman. No doubt one reason for this is that Steiner spent most of his life developing a new mode of human thinking and instructing people in this (...) At a time when people's attention first had to be drawn to the existence of the duality of Lucifer and Ahriman, it is likely that it would not have been helpful or useful to speak in much detail about powers overarching that duality. When it was necessary to mention it, he did speak of it aphoristically here and there - yet no less clearly for that. But he was forced to realize that most people to whom he spoke of this entity found the theme too much to contemplate. Many took note of his remarks but felt no need to pursue them further independently. This is hardly surprising given that we already have enough to do coping daily with the effects of Lucifer and Ahriman within us and keeping them within due bounds. From a certain perspective at least - entirely understandable - stance prevails of preferring to open oneself to pleasant rather than unpleasant aspects of the world. Those who tentatively begin to study that third dark power - something so necessary today - may often be regarded as pessimists or even, in the worst case, diagnosed as having a particular affinity with evil."

[von Halle, J. (2011). Descent into the Depths of the Earth. Temple Lodge Publishing - p. 24-26]


Interestingly, this suggests a view of German Anthroposophists in contrast to Tomberg's. Maybe it's because a few decades separate the two accounts...

[AshvinP]

Does Tomberg explicitly speak of black powers somewhere in what you have read?

He does reference the hierarchies of the left and other 'demonic' powers (there is a distinction to be drawn there) in various places. I would recommend looking at the meditation on the tarot of The Devil (Lecture XV). There he also provides the following caution. I found it a refreshing perspective on the forces of evil and our approach to it, particularly since I am coming from an Anthroposophical foundation. Many Anthroposophists distanced themselves from Tomberg around the time of WWII and continue to do so today because of his independent thinking and his refusal to simply endorse everything said by Steiner and done by the Society, but I find it is exactly for that reason, among many others, that we should pay close attention to his meditative ideas.

***

As it is a matter in the Tarot of a series of spiritual or Hermetic exercises, and as, on the other hand, every spiritual exercise tends to lead to the identification of the meditant with the subject of meditation, i.e. to an act of intuition, the fifteenth Arcanum of the Tarot, in so far as it is a spiritual exercise, cannot—and must not—lead to an experience of identification of the meditant with the subject of meditation. One should not arrive at an intuition of evil, since intuition is identification, and identification is communion.

Unfortunately many authors—occultist and non-occultist—have dealt without rhyme or reason with the profound things of both good and evil. They believed they should “do their best” with respect to depth and penetration in their treatment of the subject of the mysteries of good and, equally, that of the secrets of evil. It is thus that Dostoyevsky released into the world certain profound truths of Christianity, and, at the same time, certain secret practical methods of evil. This is above all the case in his novel The Possessed.

Another example of an excessive accentuation of the knowledge of evil—and therefore of an occupation of consciousness with evil—is the preoccupation with the problem of the twofold (even threefold) evil amongst German Anthroposophists. Lucifer and Ahriman (and even Adzura), the two principles of evil, subjective and objective, the seducing principle and the hypnotising principle, have so taken possession of the consciousness of Anthroposophists that there is hardly a single thing which would not fall under the category of being Ahrimanic or Luciferic. Science is Ahrimanic in so far as it is objective; Christian mysticism is Luciferic in so far as it is subjective. The East is under the domination of Lucifer, because it denies matter; the West is under the domination of Ahriman, because it has created a material civilisation and tends to materialism. All machines—including the apparatus of radio and television—incorporate Ahrimanic demons. Laboratories are the fortresses of Ahriman; theatres—and churches, some believe—are the fortresses of Lucifer. And so on. Anthroposophists are led to classify thousands of facts from the point of view of the category of evil which is revealed through them—which suffices to occupy them for the whole day. And to so occupy oneself amounts to contact with evil and a corresponding reduction of living and inspiring contact with good. The result is a lame wisdom without wings, deprived of creative élan, which only repeats and comments to satiety what the master, Dr. Rudolf Steiner, said. And yet Rudolf Steiner has certainly said things of a nature to awaken the greatest creative élan! His series of lectures on the four Gospels, his lectures at Helsingfors and Düsseldorf on the celestial hierarchies—without mentioning his book on the inner work leading to initiation (Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. How is it achieved?)—would alone suffice to inflame a deep and mature creative enthusiasm in every soul who aspires to authentic experience of the spiritual world. But it is the preoccupation with evil which has clipped the wings of the Anthroposophical Movement and which has rendered it such as it is since the death of its founder: a movement for cultural reform (art, education, medicine, agriculture) deprived of living esotericism, i.e. without mysticism, without gnosis and without magic, which have been replaced by lectures, study and intellectual work aiming at establishing a concordance between the writings and stenographed lectures of the master.

One ought not to occupy oneself with evil, other than in keeping a certain distance and a certain reserve, if one wishes to avoid the risk of paralysing the creative élan and a still greater risk—that of furnishing arms to the powers of evil. One can grasp profoundly, i.e. intuitively, only that which one loves. Love is the vital element of profound knowledge, intuitive knowledge. Now, one cannot love evil. Evil is therefore unknowable in its essence. One can understand it only at a distance, as an observer of its phenomenology.

This is why you will certainly find luminous descriptions—although schematic—of the celestial hierarchies by St. Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Bonaventura, St. Thomas Aquinas, and also in the Cabbala and in the work of Rudolf Steiner, but you will search in vain for an analogous tableau with regard to the hierarchies of evil. You will certainly find amongst sorcerers’ grimoires and in the practical Cabbala (by Abramelin the Mage, for example) a host of names of particular beings belonging to the hierarchies of evil, but you will not find a description of their general classification in the manner of that by St. Dionysius the Areopagite of the celestial hierarchies. The world of the hierarchies of evil appears like a luxuriant jungle, where you can certainly, if necessary, distinguish hundreds and thousands of particular plants, but where you can never attain to a clear view of the totality. The world of evil is a chaotic world—at least, such as it presents itself to the observer.

One ought not to enter this jungle if one does not want to lose one’s way there; one should be an observer from outside. This is why meditation on the Arcanum “The Devil” must obey the laws indicated above concerning the attitude towards evil. It will therefore be a matter of an effort to comprehend this Arcanum at a distance by means of the phenomenological method.

Anonymous . Meditations on the Tarot (pp. 402-403). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Another thin line to apprehend, as it were. It reminds me of the different type of comments von Halle writes in "Descent into the depths of the Earth", speaking of "Confrontation with the adversarial powers on the path of schooling":


"Every person who follows the path of knowledge through the layers of the earth's interior must be prepared to meet not only the two polar adversarial powers, but also another dark power. Rudolf Steiner spoke relatively seldom about this power, in contrast to his comment on Lucifer and Ahriman. No doubt one reason for this is that Steiner spent most of his life developing a new mode of human thinking and instructing people in this (...) At a time when people's attention first had to be drawn to the existence of the duality of Lucifer and Ahriman, it is likely that it would not have been helpful or useful to speak in much detail about powers overarching that duality. When it was necessary to mention it, he did speak of it aphoristically here and there - yet no less clearly for that. But he was forced to realize that most people to whom he spoke of this entity found the theme too much to contemplate. Many took note of his remarks but felt no need to pursue them further independently. This is hardly surprising given that we already have enough to do coping daily with the effects of Lucifer and Ahriman within us and keeping them within due bounds. From a certain perspective at least - entirely understandable - stance prevails of preferring to open oneself to pleasant rather than unpleasant aspects of the world. Those who tentatively begin to study that third dark power - something so necessary today - may often be regarded as pessimists or even, in the worst case, diagnosed as having a particular affinity with evil."

[von Halle, J. (2011). Descent into the Depths of the Earth. Temple Lodge Publishing - p. 24-26]


Interestingly, this suggests a view of German Anthroposophists in contrast to Tomberg's. Maybe it's because a few decades separate the two accounts...

Right, I recently had a chance to read von Halle's book and found it helpful. On the other hand, it's really short and to the point, and of course the main theme is that of Christ's loving descent into the depths. So it seems the 'confrontation with the adversarial powers' is still kept to a minimum in terms of outer conceptual study. I was expecting to find a lot more detail about the evil hierarchies involved with the Earth's interior, but it seemed more like a summary of what Steiner also lectured on but from a slightly different angle. It was clearly rooted in her own interior investigation, though, and not simply a repetition of information from other sources.

Perhaps the time lapse does make it necessary to start focusing more on the third adversarial power. The way I see it, we will get as close as we need to by simply following the inner path into the depths of our soul-life, which will also reveal the pervasive influences of these forces in the outer culture that we are immersed in. It can't hurt to also investigate these powers conceptually from time to time by consulting various sources. Despite Tomberg's caution above, I came away from that particular chapter feeling much better informed about the nature of evil in our living experience and its subtle differentiations.

As usual, I think it's all about the overall disposition we have when approaching the topic. Some people are prone to begin wallowing in such things to an unhealthy degree, trying to decipher every little detail about the 'chaotic' world of evil, distracting from their focus on the Good, Beautiful, and True to be found in our experience, which surely demands the lion's share of our attention. I think people generally underestimate how subtly yet quickly such a focus on the evil powers can start conditioning the way we perceive and think about the World. That's why I think Tomberg emphasizes that we should approach as phenomenological observers, to discern the practical symptoms of these powers in the World around us (such as the transhumanist pursuits we were discussing), with a loving orientation towards their eventual redemption within the overarching context of the Good.

[AshvinP]

On the function of the normal 'Moon' intelligence reflecting continuous movement into discontinuous and immobile matter, and its reunion with the active 'Sun' intelligence through faith

This is perhaps one of the most important principles to return to over and over again, from many different angles, on the esoteric path of intuitive thinking. We should gradually understand the entire World of our normal thinking experience, including our own inner states of being, as the extension of our spatial/material intelligence into diverse, overlapping domains of continuous and nested temporal movement. Cleric presented this principle quite comprehensively on this thread, in terms of 'configuration spaces' of sub-sensory and supra-sensory activity into which our thinking, straddling the lower and higher spaces, projects its percepts-concepts and thereby derives physical objects, life processes, and soul experiences 'below' it, and the archetypal domains of theoretical science, aesthetics, and morality (religion) above it. Over time, we need to gradually experience how this projective thinking conditions our entire understanding of the World around us and within us. Everything outwardly visible and inwardly conceivable is formatted in this way.

It is perhaps most difficult to experience that in relation to our inner conceptual life, because we naturally feel that to be immune from the formatting of our spatial intelligence. The path of intuitive thinking through meditation helps reveal to us how our normal conceptual life only grasps what is immobile and discontinuous, and how this harvest of fragmented thought-forms is related to the activity which sows it. That can even be extended to our entire understanding of who we are, as personalities who were born at some point and will die at some later point. This personality is experienced as an isolated unit, discontinuous from Cosmic intents and further fragmented into discontinuous periods of memory between waking and re-awakening each day. Reuniting our 'Moon' intelligence with the Sun (Christ) intelligence, i.e. our normal intellect with Intuitive thinking, is the process of cohering our isolated personality into a continuous Whole with the process of World Evolution. We cease overestimating our ability to grasp what already is with our current intelligence and cease underestimating our ability to create what has yet to be through spiritual potential. Discerning the conditioned state of our normal intelligence can really inspire us to hunger and thirst after the living Spirit that animates it, through meditation and faithful submission of intelligence to conscience. "Good speech is silver, but silence in pure gold." (St. Ephraim the Syrian)

***

It should be formally pointed out that the eighteenth Arcanum of the Tarot reveals the relationship between the moon and the earth; it deals with the couple “moon—earth” as such—just as, for example, Henri Bergson deals with the couple “intelligence—matter” as such. For materiality (i.e. the material and mechanical aspect of the world) is to intelligence (i.e. to the faculty of consciousness which proceeds from effects to causes by induction and deduction) as the earth is to the moon. Intelligence is attuned to matter, and the latter is attuned to intelligence by lending itself easily to analysis and synthesis. Matter thus adapts itself to intelligence, and the latter “is characterised by the unlimited power of decomposing according to any law and of recomposing into any system.” (Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution; trsl. A. Mitchell, London, 1964, p. 165). They constitute an inseparable couple. 

Imagine what the state of intelligence would be if it were deprived of the environment of the material world, where there is the “unlimited power of decomposing according to any law and of recomposing into any system”. Not only would it be incapable of separating out particular things from their enduring totality and grouping them into categories and classes, but also it would be powerless to manufacture the implements and machines which it makes use of to supplement the organs of action and perception with which Nature has endowed the human being. 

The divisibility and malleability of inorganic matter (or matter rendered inorganic) are as indispensable to intelligence as water is to a fish which swims, or as the air is to a bird which flies. They constitute its vital element. 

"The essential function of our intellect, as the evolution of life has fashioned it, is to be a light for our conduct, to make ready for our action on things, to foresee, for a given situation, the events, favourable or unfavourable, which may follow thereupon. Intellect therefore instinctively selects in a given situation whatever is like something already known; it seeks this out, in order that it may apply its principle that “like produces like”. In just this does the prevision of the future by common sense consist. Science carries this faculty to the highest possible degree of exactitude and precision, but does not alter its essential character. Like ordinary knowledge, in dealing with things science is concerned only with the aspect of repetition. Though the whole be original, science will always manage to analyse it into elements or aspects which are approximately a reproduction of the past. Science can work only on what is supposed to repeat itself…Anything that is irreducible and irreversible in the successive moments of history eludes science." (Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution; trsl. A. Mitchell, London, 1964, p. 31) 

At the same time there is reason to point out that the aspect of the repetition of things that intelligence seeks in the first place corresponds to the almost innate inclination of intelligence to reduce movement to immobility and to transform time into space. “Repetition” is only the immobile element in movement and the spatial element in time. When, for example, we speak of the yearly cycle of seasons, we turn the movement of time into space; we replace movement by the representation of a circle in space. And this circle signifies the stable repetition of the course of the seasons; springtime—summer—autumn—winter—springtime, etc.

No one has stated this postulate of intelligence—i.e. repetition, and the consequent transformation of time into space—with more force than Solomon, who says in Ecclesiastes; 

"What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said: See, this is new? It has been already, in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to happen among those who come after." (Ecclesiastes i, 9-11) 

Clearly, it is a matter here of a postulate—a dogma of faith for intelligence—because the statement by Solomon surpasses the limits of experience by affirming that something which arises as new in the field of immediate experience must be the repetition of something old, fallen into forgetfulness, and that it is only ignorance due to the forgetfulness of the past which makes it appear as new, and that it will be just the same in the future, i.e. everything that will be judged as new will be thanks only to forgetfulness of what happens in the present. Time creates nothing; it only combines and recombines that which is given for ever in space. Time is like the wind, and space is like the sea; the wind produces waves in infinite repetition on the surface of the sea, but the sea remains the same; it does not change at all. Therefore there is nothing—and there cannot be anything—new under the sun....But let us return to the pair “intelligence—matter” or “intellectuality—materiality”: 

"…the intellect aims, first of all, at constructing. This fabrication is exercised exclusively on inert matter, in this sense, that even if it makes use of organised material, it treats it as inert, without troubling about the life which animated it. And of inert matter itself, fabrication deals only with the solid; the rest escapes by its very fluidity. If, therefore, the tendency of the intellect is to fabricate, we may expect to find that whatever is fluid in the real will escape it in part, and whatever is life in the living will escape it altogether. Our intelligence, as it leaves the hands of Nature, has for its chief object the unorganised solid." (Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution; trsl. A. Mitchell, London, 1964, pp. 161-162)

For this reason not only science decomposes, e.g. objects into chemical substances, the latter into molecules, molecules into atoms, and atoms into electrons, but also occult science (which would like to equal official science) decomposes. For example, the human being is decomposed into three principles—spirit, soul, and body—when it is a matter of the place that man occupies between God and Nature; or into four principles—physical body, vital body, astral body, and ego (self)—when it is a matter of the practical task of mastership by the operant of his “instruments”, as is the case in Raja-yoga; or even into seven principles—physical body, etheric body, astral body, lower self, reason, intuition, and higher Self—when it is a matter of the evolution of the human being in time; or lastly into nine principles—three corporeal principles, three soul principles, and three spiritual principles—when it is a matter of the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm, with its nine spiritual hierarchies, which reflect, in their turn, the divine Holy Trinity. If we add here also that Christian theology divides man into only two principles—body and soul—that the Vedanta and the Cabbala divide him into five principles—for the Cabbala these are basar, nephesh, neshamah, hayah, and yehidah—that Cabbalists also divide man into ten principles, according to the ten Sephiroth, and that certain astrologers divide him into twelve principles, according to the twelve signs of the zodiac, it becomes evident that man easily allows himself diverse modes of decomposition, according to the aims of the intelligence which applies them. But he admits of this operation only in so far as he is given over to the manipulations of intelligence which treat him in the way proper to it, i.e. which decompose him according to a system corresponding in the best possible way to the ends that the will is aiming at. Because intelligence—even when it is engaged in occult science—clearly represents to itself only the discontinuous. 

For this reason intelligence represents motion to itself as if it were discontinuous. It reconstructs motion by means of a motionless series that it places side by side, i.e; it makes the motion stop a desired number of times, obtaining in this way a cinematographic film, that it then makes roll: 

"Suffice it now to say that to the stable and immobile our intellect is attached by virtue of its natural disposition. Of immobility alone does the intellect form a clear idea." (Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution; trsl. A. Mitchell, London, 1964, p. 164)

Intelligence concentrates only on the harvest, i.e. on the product, and not on the production—which is, for it, only the means, a series of steps, for arriving at the product. It is always the result to which it aspires. It is always the “autumn” of things and events which it has in view. It is orientated towards facts—accomplished things—and not towards the process of creation, or that of becoming. The “springtime” and the “summer” of things and events either escape it or are taken into account only under the aspect of “autumn”—as its stages of preparation. Germination and growth are then considered only in relation to the harvest. Mobility coming into being —this is germination and growth; whilst the harvest is what is “become”—it is the product. 

Quite other than the principle underlying intelligence—the principle of autumn—is that underlying the intuition of faith: 

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and nothing that was made was made without him. In him was life, and the life was the light of men." (John i, 1-4) 

The Gospel according to John advances here the principle of the intuition of faith, the principle of springtime. It is the beginning, the springtime of things of the world, to which the Gospel of St. John aspires, and it is the creative Word—the mobility itself at the heart of life and underlying the light of consciousness—that it advances as the point of departure for all that follows. The Gospel of St. John invites us from the outset to an unparalleled act of violence to our intelligence—in transposing from autumn, where it is at home, to full springtime; from the harvest to the sowing; from things made to the creative Word; from vivified things to Life itself; from illumined things to Light itself.
...
"We have shown that intellect has detached itself from a vastly wider reality but that there has never been a clean cut between the two; all around conceptual thought there remains an indistinct fringe which recalls its origin. And further we compared the intellect to a solid nucleus formed by means of condensation. This nucleus does not differ radically from the fluid surrounding it. It can only be reabsorbed in it because it is made of the same substance. He who throws himself into the water, having known only the resistance of the solid earth, will immediately be drowned if he does not struggle against the fluidity of the new environment: he must perforce still cling to that solidity, so to speak, which even water presents. Only on this condition can he get used to the fluid’s fluidity. So of our thought, when it has decided to make the leap.

But leap it must, that is, leave its own environment. Reason, reasoning on its powers, will never succeed in extending them, though the extension would not appear at all unreasonable once it were accomplished. Thousands and thousands of variations on the theme of walking will never yield a rule for swimming: come, enter the water, and when you know how to swim, you will understand how the mechanism of swimming is connected with that of walking. Swimming is an extension of walking, but walking would never have pushed you on to swimming. So you may speculate as intelligently as you will on the mechanism of intelligence; you will never, by this method, succeed in going beyond it. You may get something more complex, but not something higher nor even something different. You must take things by storm: you must thrust intelligence outside itself by an act of will." (Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution; trsl. A. Mitchell, London, 1964, pp. 202-204)

Anonymous . Meditations on the Tarot (pp. 495-496). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

[Federica]

Great way to keep our thinking fluid by means of this 'exercise'. So fittingly laid out here by Tomberg, Bergson, and you.
It's clearly the same core understanding of living thinking we have discussed many times, that requires to leave behind the familiar approach, abstract and intellectual. Yet I doubt the ideas in this post are easily accessible for the average reader who tries to understand. I use my own efforts in relation to results as a measure. I have put in lots of effort. As a result, I do understand the difference at some sufficient level, but it still doesn't come spontaneously, I have to put new effort every time. I believe the most common misleading ways to deal with this idea are:

1. It's a kind of artistic approach to reality, not a rational one, but a more creative, poetic one (vague)

2. It stresses the importance of the first-person perspective (but this is understood abstractly again, as the importance of practice and experiment)

3. Repetition is seen as fully appropriate understanding of phenomena in time, and the idea that repetition annihilates time sounds paradoxical

4. Decomposition is seen as a clever pedagogical tool, rather than an arbitrary procedure that sucks life and reality out of any unfolding stream of events. It's not seen that it affects the nature itself of the stream of events, because neat separation is unknowingly assumed between the events and the sense we make of them, etc.

I wonder if additional expressions can be found that would push the intellect a little further on familiar territory, before asking it to take the plunge, rather than pushing it to take the plunge first, with such an unfamiliar exercise. To walk from the Big Ben to the National Theatre, I could cross the Thames immediately on Westminster Bridge, then walk along the southern side, or I could take a walk north of the Thames, and only cross it on Waterloo Bridge.
But clearly, it’s easier said than done…

[AshvinP]

Great way to keep our thinking fluid by means of this 'exercise'. So fittingly laid out here by Tomberg, Bergson, and you.
It's clearly the same core understanding of living thinking we have discussed many times, that requires to leave behind the familiar approach, abstract and intellectual. Yet I doubt the ideas in this post are easily accessible for the average reader who tries to understand. I use my own efforts in relation to results as a measure. I have put in lots of effort. As a result, I do understand the difference at some sufficient level, but it still doesn't come spontaneously, I have to put new effort every time. I believe the most common misleading ways to deal with this idea are:

1. It's a kind of artistic approach to reality, not a rational one, but a more creative, poetic one (vague)

2. It stresses the importance of the first-person perspective (but this is understood abstractly again, as the importance of practice and experiment)

3. Repetition is seen as fully appropriate understanding of phenomena in time, and the idea that repetition annihilates time sounds paradoxical

4. Decomposition is seen as a clever pedagogical tool, rather than an arbitrary procedure that sucks life and reality out of any unfolding stream of events. It's not seen that it affects the nature itself of the stream of events, because neat separation is unknowingly assumed between the events and the sense we make of them, etc.

I wonder if additional expressions can be found that would push the intellect a little further on familiar territory, before asking it to take the plunge, rather than pushing it to take the plunge first, with such an unfamiliar exercise. To walk from the Big Ben to the National Theatre, I could cross the Thames immediately on Westminster Bridge, then walk along the southern side, or I could take a walk north of the Thames, and only cross it on Waterloo Bridge.
But clearly, it’s easier said than done…

Federica,

These are all valid points. I too wonder what the optimal gradient might be in terms of conceptually understanding the path of living thinking. I linked to Cleric's post again because I still find that the most helpful, since it is approaching from a variety of angles and using technical metaphors that most people are naturally familiar with (even if they don't realize the familiarity at first, like I didn't). Simply living in Western civilization at this time leads our consciousness to absorb many of these technical ideas about aliasing, fourier transform, relativity, geodesics, curvatures, configuration spaces, and so forth. Even though I had never heard of the Moire patterns before, it just intuitively made sense after a little bit of contemplation that the intellect is viewing reality from within the context of all those interfering sheets. A set of visual cues in one form or another always helps me. Of course, we still need to be careful not to take the metaphors too literally or assume there is any 1:1 correspondence between them and higher cognitive experience.

Bergson and Tomberg provide a more philosophical and religious approach above. Ultimately, in my experience, the process of beginning to understand these things, apart from drawing intuitive and inspirational forces from prayer and meditation (which is most important), has been that of circumambulating the topic from as many different angles as possible - scientific, philosophical, religious, aesthetic, etc. It is powerful when we can correlate an insight in one domain to those in other domains. Tomberg provides a synthesis of all that in MoT, so I am hoping these snippets really encourage others reading to delve into it at some point, exactly as Bergson suggests in that final quote. For ex., the snippet in question here is only the beginning of his discussion on the Arcanum of the Moon tarot. I figure the snippets will provide some helpful food for thought and maybe some discussion, but they are not at all sufficient to get a more holistic understanding of the Arcanum in question. Just as Steiner says we can't read PoF out of order and expect to get the same experiential insights from it, I am sure Tomberg intentionally structured MoT to unleash deeper spiritual experiences within us.

It also comes back to the question of humbly cultivating the sense of 'helplessness' we were discussing on the other thread. As Bergson says, "So you may speculate as intelligently as you will on the mechanism of intelligence; you will never, by this method, succeed in going beyond it. You may get something more complex, but not something higher nor even something different." We need to start moving in an orthogonal direction to whatever we are accustomed to based on past habits of thinking and be-ing. For many, that direction will take the form of things they never felt like doing before and never suspected could possibly help augment their understanding. Things like meditating, praying more, doing the exercises for willpower, emotional equilibrium, etc., sacrificing personal conveniences, watching their diet, establishing healthy daily rhythms of sleeping and waking, and many other such things. I think it's also important not to become too one-sided in any direction. We can devote some time to meditation, some to reading, some to will exercises, some to our normal work and healthy hobbies like art, music, and so forth, and rhythmically revolve through these with humility, patience, courage, and devotion.

Related to all of that, I think we can also cultivate the sense of reverence and trust that the higher spheres of spiritual activity are beyond our wildest dreams. They are the source of our wildest dreams. That doesn't mean we should start fantasizing all sorts of things about it, but only that the most remarkable and moral qualities of human existence and our intimate experience are all real, alive, and weaving as relations of spiritual beings. The beings of myths, scriptures, fairy tales, legends, poems, plays, etc. They are beckoning us towards our unsuspected destiny as their co-creative helpers in World Evolution.

[Federica]

Federica,

These are all valid points. I too wonder what the optimal gradient might be in terms of conceptually understanding the path of living thinking. I linked to Cleric's post again because I still find that the most helpful, since it is approaching from a variety of angles and using technical metaphors that most people are naturally familiar with (even if they don't realize the familiarity at first, like I didn't). Simply living in Western civilization at this time leads our consciousness to absorb many of these technical ideas about aliasing, fourier transform, relativity, geodesics, curvatures, configuration spaces, and so forth. Even though I had never heard of the Moire patterns before, it just intuitively made sense after a little bit of contemplation that the intellect is viewing reality from within the context of all those interfering sheets. A set of visual cues in one form or another always helps me. Of course, we still need to be careful not to take the metaphors too literally or assume there is any 1:1 correspondence between them and higher cognitive experience.

Bergson and Tomberg provide a more philosophical and religious approach above. Ultimately, in my experience, the process of beginning to understand these things, apart from drawing intuitive and inspirational forces from prayer and meditation (which is most important), has been that of circumambulating the topic from as many different angles as possible - scientific, philosophical, religious, aesthetic, etc. It is powerful when we can correlate an insight in one domain to those in other domains. Tomberg provides a synthesis of all that in MoT, so I am hoping these snippets really encourage others reading to delve into it at some point, exactly as Bergson suggests in that final quote. For ex., the snippet in question here is only the beginning of his discussion on the Arcanum of the Moon tarot. I figure the snippets will provide some helpful food for thought and maybe some discussion, but they are not at all sufficient to get a more holistic understanding of the Arcanum in question. Just as Steiner says we can't read PoF out of order and expect to get the same experiential insights from it, I am sure Tomberg intentionally structured MoT to unleash deeper spiritual experiences within us.

It also comes back to the question of humbly cultivating the sense of 'helplessness' we were discussing on the other thread. As Bergson says, "So you may speculate as intelligently as you will on the mechanism of intelligence; you will never, by this method, succeed in going beyond it. You may get something more complex, but not something higher nor even something different." We need to start moving in an orthogonal direction to whatever we are accustomed to based on past habits of thinking and be-ing. For many, that direction will take the form of things they never felt like doing before and never suspected could possibly help augment their understanding. Things like meditating, praying more, doing the exercises for willpower, emotional equilibrium, etc., sacrificing personal conveniences, watching their diet, establishing healthy daily rhythms of sleeping and waking, and many other such things. I think it's also important not to become too one-sided in any direction. We can devote some time to meditation, some to reading, some to will exercises, some to our normal work and healthy hobbies like art, music, and so forth, and rhythmically revolve through these with humility, patience, courage, and devotion.

Related to all of that, I think we can also cultivate the sense of reverence and trust that the higher spheres of spiritual activity are beyond our wildest dreams. They are the source of our wildest dreams. That doesn't mean we should start fantasizing all sorts of things about it, but only that the most remarkable and moral qualities of human existence and our intimate experience are all real, alive, and weaving as relations of spiritual beings. The beings of myths, scriptures, fairy tales, legends, poems, plays, etc. They are beckoning us towards our unsuspected destiny as their co-creative helpers in World Evolution.

Ashvin,

I agree that the technical metaphors are insightful and useful, but only as a supporting element, an additional angle, once the core idea has been intuited first. Once one is committed to the path of living thinking, to some extent at least, then the scientific illustrations are beneficial, exciting and evocative, rich with countless insights.
But in general, I’m convinced the most conducive explanation of that understanding has to be philosophical. Not religious, not technical, not scientific, not aesthetic, but primarily philosophical. Philosophy is the cognitive activity that stands closer to the faculties that need to be activated and rewired in order to move into the right direction here. When discussing philosophy, one is to some extent ready to challenge the way of thinking, open to turn attention to thinking itself.

The difficulty with using technical metaphors as leading insight is: those ideas exist too far apart from the regions of inquiry where people are found in a disposition to pay attention to, and question the method, rather than the results. When I say method, I don’t refer to the particular research methodologies applied to this or that scientific fields of inquiry. I mean the 'big-picture method', or attitude, of scientifically enquiring a series of phenomena. This method strongly catalyzes the attention all the way towards the object, the 'what', driving it away from the 'how'. Even if one is very conscious of the how, as a scientist, there is this mind disposition towards sharpness, and match, and correspondence. This is clearly counter-productive to our "orthogonal" purpose, because we need softness and elasticity here, not sharpness and clear-cut precision, to have a chance to intuit what is meant by living thinking. With the technical illustrations, the point of attention is mobilized, in both depth and breadth, towards grasping the “what”, in all its striking, sensory presence and appeal.

I think this mind disposition is the real risk, when we try to captivate someone’s attention by means of scientific models that prompt them in a direction pointing opposite to living thinking. We do it because in some sense, the content of illustration runs parallel to that target, so to say. But it runs parallel so far apart, that the plunge it will later become necessary to take, in order to meet the target, will be just too big.

I think this applies to scientifically- and non scientifically-minded people alike. If I’m not familiar with the technical or scientific example, my mindspace will be all poured into trying to get the idea, and once I do get a decent grasp on it, I will be short of fuel, not ready to conceive of any further plunge. And if I am scientifically-minded, I will be immediately attracted by the fascinating power of the concepts involved, which is exactly what we don’t want to foster, as mind attitude, in this case. Once I am caught in the cause-and-effect vortex run by the satisfying model, I would hardly have enough energy and agility left to listen to you telling me “Ok, now please quit this, let's go orthogonal”.

I guess the visual and nonvisual scientific illustrations have worked well for you, because you already had an understanding of, and a drive towards, the esoteric path before being exposed to them. In this capacity of corroborating illustrations, they are extremely meaningful, I believe. As you say, “it is powerful when we can correlate an insight in one domain to those in other domains”. But the tough question is, where to start when there’s nothing similar to leverage within the sphere of the already comprehended.

[AshvinP]

Federica,

These are all valid points. I too wonder what the optimal gradient might be in terms of conceptually understanding the path of living thinking. I linked to Cleric's post again because I still find that the most helpful, since it is approaching from a variety of angles and using technical metaphors that most people are naturally familiar with (even if they don't realize the familiarity at first, like I didn't). Simply living in Western civilization at this time leads our consciousness to absorb many of these technical ideas about aliasing, fourier transform, relativity, geodesics, curvatures, configuration spaces, and so forth. Even though I had never heard of the Moire patterns before, it just intuitively made sense after a little bit of contemplation that the intellect is viewing reality from within the context of all those interfering sheets. A set of visual cues in one form or another always helps me. Of course, we still need to be careful not to take the metaphors too literally or assume there is any 1:1 correspondence between them and higher cognitive experience.

Bergson and Tomberg provide a more philosophical and religious approach above. Ultimately, in my experience, the process of beginning to understand these things, apart from drawing intuitive and inspirational forces from prayer and meditation (which is most important), has been that of circumambulating the topic from as many different angles as possible - scientific, philosophical, religious, aesthetic, etc. It is powerful when we can correlate an insight in one domain to those in other domains. Tomberg provides a synthesis of all that in MoT, so I am hoping these snippets really encourage others reading to delve into it at some point, exactly as Bergson suggests in that final quote. For ex., the snippet in question here is only the beginning of his discussion on the Arcanum of the Moon tarot. I figure the snippets will provide some helpful food for thought and maybe some discussion, but they are not at all sufficient to get a more holistic understanding of the Arcanum in question. Just as Steiner says we can't read PoF out of order and expect to get the same experiential insights from it, I am sure Tomberg intentionally structured MoT to unleash deeper spiritual experiences within us.

It also comes back to the question of humbly cultivating the sense of 'helplessness' we were discussing on the other thread. As Bergson says, "So you may speculate as intelligently as you will on the mechanism of intelligence; you will never, by this method, succeed in going beyond it. You may get something more complex, but not something higher nor even something different." We need to start moving in an orthogonal direction to whatever we are accustomed to based on past habits of thinking and be-ing. For many, that direction will take the form of things they never felt like doing before and never suspected could possibly help augment their understanding. Things like meditating, praying more, doing the exercises for willpower, emotional equilibrium, etc., sacrificing personal conveniences, watching their diet, establishing healthy daily rhythms of sleeping and waking, and many other such things. I think it's also important not to become too one-sided in any direction. We can devote some time to meditation, some to reading, some to will exercises, some to our normal work and healthy hobbies like art, music, and so forth, and rhythmically revolve through these with humility, patience, courage, and devotion.

Related to all of that, I think we can also cultivate the sense of reverence and trust that the higher spheres of spiritual activity are beyond our wildest dreams. They are the source of our wildest dreams. That doesn't mean we should start fantasizing all sorts of things about it, but only that the most remarkable and moral qualities of human existence and our intimate experience are all real, alive, and weaving as relations of spiritual beings. The beings of myths, scriptures, fairy tales, legends, poems, plays, etc. They are beckoning us towards our unsuspected destiny as their co-creative helpers in World Evolution.

Ashvin,

I agree that the technical metaphors are insightful and useful, but only as a supporting element, an additional angle, once the core idea has been intuited first. Once one is committed to the path of living thinking, to some extent at least, then the scientific illustrations are beneficial, exciting and evocative, rich with countless insights.
But in general, I’m convinced the most conducive explanation of that understanding has to be philosophical. Not religious, not technical, not scientific, not aesthetic, but primarily philosophical. Philosophy is the cognitive activity that stands closer to the faculties that need to be activated and rewired in order to move into the right direction here. When discussing philosophy, one is to some extent ready to challenge the way of thinking, open to turn attention to thinking itself.

The difficulty with using technical metaphors as leading insight is: those ideas exist too far apart from the regions of inquiry where people are found in a disposition to pay attention to, and question the method, rather than the results. When I say method, I don’t refer to the particular research methodologies applied to this or that scientific fields of inquiry. I mean the 'big-picture method', or attitude, of scientifically enquiring a series of phenomena. This method strongly catalyzes the attention all the way towards the object, the 'what', driving it away from the 'how'. Even if one is very conscious of the how, as a scientist, there is this mind disposition towards sharpness, and match, and correspondence. This is clearly counter-productive to our "orthogonal" purpose, because we need softness and elasticity here, not sharpness and clear-cut precision, to have a chance to intuit what is meant by living thinking. With the technical illustrations, the point of attention is mobilized, in both depth and breadth, towards grasping the “what”, in all its striking, sensory presence and appeal.

I think this mind disposition is the real risk, when we try to captivate someone’s attention by means of scientific models that prompt them in a direction pointing opposite to living thinking. We do it because in some sense, the content of illustration runs parallel to that target, so to say. But it runs parallel so far apart, that the plunge it will later become necessary to take, in order to meet the target, will be just too big.

I think this applies to scientifically- and non scientifically-minded people alike. If I’m not familiar with the technical or scientific example, my mindspace will be all poured into trying to get the idea, and once I do get a decent grasp on it, I will be short of fuel, not ready to conceive of any further plunge. And if I am scientifically-minded, I will be immediately attracted by the fascinating power of the concepts involved, which is exactly what we don’t want to foster, as mind attitude, in this case. Once I am caught in the cause-and-effect vortex run by the satisfying model, I would hardly have enough energy and agility left to listen to you telling me “Ok, now please quit this, let's go orthogonal”.

I guess the visual and nonvisual scientific illustrations have worked well for you, because you already had an understanding of, and a drive towards, the esoteric path before being exposed to them. In this capacity of corroborating illustrations, they are extremely meaningful, I believe. As you say, “it is powerful when we can correlate an insight in one domain to those in other domains”. But the tough question is, where to start when there’s nothing similar to leverage within the sphere of the already comprehended.

Federica,

I see the point you are making and generally agree - philosophy was certainly my entrance as well (including PoF phenomenology in 'philosophy'). I also think the optimal approach will depend on our Karmic disposition, i.e. our temperament, character, preferences, and overall soul-context. We all share many similar mental habits in the modern age, but there is also some differentiation in how we react to the ideas we encounter. Below is a general list of thoughts that arise for me in the context of this question, in no particular order. These are not directed to you in particular, but hopefully, they provide some helpful ways of contemplating our approach to cultivating living thinking that has loosened itself from the rigid mask of normal spatial intelligence. 

- There is no simple trick or hack that can lead one to a quick understanding of living thinking experience. It will always require copious amounts of persistent effort at deconditioning the normal intellectual mask from its rigid spatial formatting, as you and I have experienced. (but there are also many creative/imaginative directions through which that effort can be expressed). The only partial "exception" here is what Cleric described as 'tricking the intellect' through the technical models, but of course that still requires the person in question to devote a lot of open-minded effort into the relevant domains of study. 

- There is always a leap of faith required, once we have discerned that our normal intelligence presents us with Maya - that it can't satisfactorily explain the most basic aspects of our living conscious experience, as individuals and collectives - and we have discerned the basic functioning of our perception-thinking within the World Process, i.e. PoF phenomenology. Then we need to make the commitment that our highest ideal in life is to progressively unveil this living Truth and participate in its manifestation so as to harmonize collective human existence, trusting that the Spirit in our thinking will not lead us astray if we meet it with reverence, courage, persistence, and effort. That should begin to take priority over all else in our lives.
 
- Related to that, inner moral transformation is the key to all lasting comprehension. The non-spatial, supra-intelligent spiritual realms are synonymous with moral virtues, at the end of the day, so that is the only viable means of attuning our consciousness with them. That inner transformation is the only living power that can take what previously seemed like an unbridgeable chasm of comprehension, or an unthinkable plunge, and make it seem like the tiniest and most natural of steps forward. It is the 'orthogonal' direction we need to take, and it's orthogonal because we have never suspected the pursuit of moral perfection could have this integral relationship with true philosophical-scientific knowledge. That is because our entire environment conditions us to assume the opposite. We are conditioned to feel that moral values are 'subjective' and have little relation to the natural order of things that we explore in thinking. This relationship really needs to be inverted within us. 

- At some point, thoughtful concentration is always necessary to loosen the intellectual mask. Our cognition is fed a constant diet of spatialized sensory impressions, so we need to also start feeding it something else in the way of supra-sensory ideas while we quiet the outer sensory impressions and the various desires, feelings, and thoughts those evoke. This doesn't only need to be meditation, but can also be the study of philosophy, art, religion, and spiritual science, but we have to be more selective in what we choose. Probably it is best to focus on one or two core sources - like Steiner's core books, Tomber's MoT, or his Anthroposophical meditations on the scriptures - and simply spend a lot of intimate time with those. I actually purchased a Marseilles tarot deck to complement my contemplation while reading MoT. Here is also an insightful quote I came across on meditation:

Meditation (reflection) first purifies its own source, i.e., the soul, from which it arises. Then it regulates the inclinations, directs activity, moderates excess, shapes morals, makes life honest and regulated, and mediates knowledge of divine as well as human things. It is this which replaces confusion with order, checks the inclination to lose one self in uncertainty, gathers together that which is dispersed, penetrates into that which is hidden, discovers that which is true and distinguishes it from that which merely appears as such, and brings to light fiction and lie. Further, it is meditation which determines beforehand what is to be done and which brings that which has been done to consciousness, so that nothing remains in the soul which is in need of clarification and correction. Likewise, it is meditation which enables misfortune to be foreseen even when happiness prevails and which, during misfortune, makes it possible to preserve an attitude of not being dejected. It is the source of courage on the one hand and of prudence (prudentia) on the other.

Pay attention to what I mean by meditation (reflection). One should not conceive of meditation as being synonymous with contemplation (beholding) in every respect. In fact, contemplation presupposes the truth that is recognized as certain, whereas use is made of meditation (reflection) for finding this truth. Understood in this sense it seems to me that contemplation can be defined as true and certain intuition of the spirit of any reality whatsoever, or also as grasping that which is true and which eliminates doubt. As far as meditation is concerned, it is the intensive effort of thinking, the striving of the soul in the search for that which is true.

(Bernard of Clairvaux, De Consideratione I, 7. [He wrote this treatise between 1149 and 1152 for Pope Eugene III].)

- None of our devoted efforts to understand supra-sensory ideals are ever lost, even if they appear to be running 'parallel' to higher cognitive experience for a long time. The 'moral/vertical memory' that Tomberg wrote about is able to recall (like the Clarion trumpet call) all of those efforts, or at least the fruits of their essential nature, to a new life within us at any given time. In fact, we could say the faith in our Resurrection at the end of Solar evolution is rooted in exactly that possibility. That 'final Resurrection' is progressively manifested along the gradient towards the Ideal where the beginning and the end  - the Alpha and the Omega - are then experienced as One. Just as there is a correspondence between forgetting, sleeping, and death, we can say that Resurrection = Reawakening = Remembering. It is critical to cultivate our reasoned faith that all which is Good, Beautiful, and True in our thinking is preserved and feeds back into our consciousness at the allotted times. 

[Federica]

Federica,

I see the point you are making and generally agree - philosophy was certainly my entrance as well (including PoF phenomenology in 'philosophy'). I also think the optimal approach will depend on our Karmic disposition, i.e. our temperament, character, preferences, and overall soul-context. We all share many similar mental habits in the modern age, but there is also some differentiation in how we react to the ideas we encounter. Below is a general list of thoughts that arise for me in the context of this question, in no particular order. These are not directed to you in particular, but hopefully, they provide some helpful ways of contemplating our approach to cultivating living thinking that has loosened itself from the rigid mask of normal spatial intelligence. 

- There is no simple trick or hack that can lead one to a quick understanding of living thinking experience. It will always require copious amounts of persistent effort at deconditioning the normal intellectual mask from its rigid spatial formatting, as you and I have experienced. (but there are also many creative/imaginative directions through which that effort can be expressed). The only partial "exception" here is what Cleric described as 'tricking the intellect' through the technical models, but of course that still requires the person in question to devote a lot of open-minded effort into the relevant domains of study. 

- There is always a leap of faith required, once we have discerned that our normal intelligence presents us with Maya - that it can't satisfactorily explain the most basic aspects of our living conscious experience, as individuals and collectives - and we have discerned the basic functioning of our perception-thinking within the World Process, i.e. PoF phenomenology. Then we need to make the commitment that our highest ideal in life is to progressively unveil this living Truth and participate in its manifestation so as to harmonize collective human existence, trusting that the Spirit in our thinking will not lead us astray if we meet it with reverence, courage, persistence, and effort. That should begin to take priority over all else in our lives.
 
- Related to that, inner moral transformation is the key to all lasting comprehension. The non-spatial, supra-intelligent spiritual realms are synonymous with moral virtues, at the end of the day, so that is the only viable means of attuning our consciousness with them. That inner transformation is the only living power that can take what previously seemed like an unbridgeable chasm of comprehension, or an unthinkable plunge, and make it seem like the tiniest and most natural of steps forward. It is the 'orthogonal' direction we need to take, and it's orthogonal because we have never suspected the pursuit of moral perfection could have this integral relationship with true philosophical-scientific knowledge. That is because our entire environment conditions us to assume the opposite. We are conditioned to feel that moral values are 'subjective' and have little relation to the natural order of things that we explore in thinking. This relationship really needs to be inverted within us. 

- At some point, thoughtful concentration is always necessary to loosen the intellectual mask. Our cognition is fed a constant diet of spatialized sensory impressions, so we need to also start feeding it something else in the way of supra-sensory ideas while we quiet the outer sensory impressions and the various desires, feelings, and thoughts those evoke. This doesn't only need to be meditation, but can also be the study of philosophy, art, religion, and spiritual science, but we have to be more selective in what we choose. Probably it is best to focus on one or two core sources - like Steiner's core books, Tomber's MoT, or his Anthroposophical meditations on the scriptures - and simply spend a lot of intimate time with those. I actually purchased a Marseilles tarot deck to complement my contemplation while reading MoT. Here is also an insightful quote I came across on meditation:

Meditation (reflection) first purifies its own source, i.e., the soul, from which it arises. Then it regulates the inclinations, directs activity, moderates excess, shapes morals, makes life honest and regulated, and mediates knowledge of divine as well as human things. It is this which replaces confusion with order, checks the inclination to lose one self in uncertainty, gathers together that which is dispersed, penetrates into that which is hidden, discovers that which is true and distinguishes it from that which merely appears as such, and brings to light fiction and lie. Further, it is meditation which determines beforehand what is to be done and which brings that which has been done to consciousness, so that nothing remains in the soul which is in need of clarification and correction. Likewise, it is meditation which enables misfortune to be foreseen even when happiness prevails and which, during misfortune, makes it possible to preserve an attitude of not being dejected. It is the source of courage on the one hand and of prudence (prudentia) on the other.

Pay attention to what I mean by meditation (reflection). One should not conceive of meditation as being synonymous with contemplation (beholding) in every respect. In fact, contemplation presupposes the truth that is recognized as certain, whereas use is made of meditation (reflection) for finding this truth. Understood in this sense it seems to me that contemplation can be defined as true and certain intuition of the spirit of any reality whatsoever, or also as grasping that which is true and which eliminates doubt. As far as meditation is concerned, it is the intensive effort of thinking, the striving of the soul in the search for that which is true.

(Bernard of Clairvaux, De Consideratione I, 7. [He wrote this treatise between 1149 and 1152 for Pope Eugene III].)

- None of our devoted efforts to understand supra-sensory ideals are ever lost, even if they appear to be running 'parallel' to higher cognitive experience for a long time. The 'moral/vertical memory' that Tomberg wrote about is able to recall (like the Clarion trumpet call) all of those efforts, or at least the fruits of their essential nature, to a new life within us at any given time. In fact, we could say the faith in our Resurrection at the end of Solar evolution is rooted in exactly that possibility. That 'final Resurrection' is progressively manifested along the gradient towards the Ideal where the beginning and the end  - the Alpha and the Omega - are then experienced as One. Just as there is a correspondence between forgetting, sleeping, and death, we can say that Resurrection = Reawakening = Remembering. It is critical to cultivate our reasoned faith that all which is Good, Beautiful, and True in our thinking is preserved and feeds back into our consciousness at the allotted times. 

Thank you, Ashvin, for these guiding thoughts on walking the esoteric path. They are evidently helpful, either as a benchmark for progression, or as orientation for future steps. For me, they are almost ordered from the easiest to realize, to the most difficult, and I have a long way to go in particular on the moral aspects, and on the last point about the End - for now a rather frightening thought.

But I understand well the commitment to harmonizing knowing and doing, and how it takes priority over other things. Maybe, I experience it more as a natural rearrangement, without the straining character of commitment. There is of course a part of strain, coming as a consequence of the rearrangement, in terms of adjustments that need to happen, in the relationships with others and in our bodies and activities, inner and outer.

I also easily relate to your thoughts on contemplating through reading. I remember Cleric once wrote about prayer merging with meditation, becoming a meditation, and I can easily see how reading and contemplating the content of a book can similarly become a meditative activity. And I am glad you have found such great inspiration in the words of Valentin Tomberg!

[Federica]

Ashvin,

If you haven't seen it already, there is this interview of Robert Powell, where he speaks very interestingly of many things, in particular of Valentin Tomberg, how Powell came to translating Meditations on the Tarot to English, how he understands Tomberg's move towards the Catholic Church, and some more insights from his works.
In the video there is a lengthy introduction by the hosts that I think is not necessary to watch, then Robert Powell starts talking about Tomberg through his discovery of Steiner, at 14:10 for about 15 minutes: