On Symbolic Ordering, Theology, and Hierarchical Mystagogy

[AshvinP]

But what you are speaking of here are your concepts about steering the experience of the tree into your flow of becoming. The concepts are pointing to realities in some way or another, but you don't experience the manifestation of the tree with the same intuitive clarity that you experience your own conscious intent that manifests the hexagon image. When we stop to voice such experiences to ourselves after the fact through the mediation of concepts, it can seem like we experience them in a similar way, but that is simply masking the intuitive experience underneath.

Ashvin - I have already explained, I hope clearly, that I don’t experience the tree and the hexagon in a similar way. In the first case there is multiplicity to balance and there is an equilibrium, intersection, or synthesis, however we want to call it, to find. In the second case, unity, oneness, is already present. So I can say, with you, that there’s more intuitive clarity in the supersensible hexagon. But my remark was about something else! It’s about the man-made feature, that comes from Scaligero. I don’t think it’s important. There’s the same effort of balancing multiplicity in the experience of the tree and of the man-made table. That I made the table, or that someone else did, so that I can conceptualize that process, has no major role in how transparently I experience the table. That’s all I was saying!

Yes, Scaligero is referring to the 1/6 exercise to control thinking with "concentration". The mandala exercise is what he would refer to as "meditation".

Referring back to Cleric's image of the morphic spaces. Do you see how spreading our intellectual concepts through the lower spaces would give rise to a differentiated structure of concepts that are more or less attenuated from the experience of intent that we find in our own thinking morphic space? It doesn't really matter what labels we use to describe this differentiated structure, but there must be some experiential differentiation between concepts that remain in the thinking space versus those that reach into the emotional space versus those that reach into the life and physical spaces, correct? It is really nothing other than Steiner's oft-mentioned observation that we are awake in our thinking, dreaming in our feeling, and sleeping in our will.

Absolutely correct, it’s again the same thing I am trying to say! It seems like you have not read my first reply (yes, I know ) I absolutely confirm the different experience of the hexagon. That’s because it remains within the thinking and feeling spaces exclusively. On the contrary, both the tree and the table reach down into the physical space, and that’s why, as you say, they are less intuitively clear. They require some conceptual trial, error, and funneling. Now they may be slightly different from each other because there could be less life in a table than in a tree, but this has nothing to do with the fact that the table is man-made! A stone is not man-made, still it descends in a similar way into the physical space, with similar opaqueness compared to the table and the tree, maybe just with some less life and feeling. But to all relevant intents and puposes here, table and tree are eqally transparent. So I ask you: can we let go of this man-made distinction once and for all?

Perhaps this will provide more context:

The concentration exercise consists in evoking a human-made object that, preferably, is exhaustible in a minimal series of mental pictures, by means of which the maximum thinking-force can be expressed. Therefore, it must be the simplest of objects.

Since the goal of concentration is to experience the synthetic element of thinking, normally alienated in the analytical-rational process, the object must be one whose meaning does not exert any influence upon the operation, since this operation demands only the arid a-psychic willful determination of thought. The original force of thinking lies within this willful determination. We only need to discover it. This force is itself in movement within the activity aimed at discovering it. Such movement is fundamental to the whole life of the soul and its relation with the spirit and the body, because, for the first time, the typical order, “I”-soul-body, normally contradicted by everyday experience is realized. Therefore, this basic exercise is the key to the equilibrium and wellbeing of the soul and the body. The fact that—despite its elementary nature—it is always difficult to realize, can be explained by means of its truly exceptional task, namely, to be the ideal operation that reconstitutes the original equilibrium of the formative human principles.

The wisdom of the exercise lies in its simplicity. One evokes the object—needle, or pencil, or button, etc.—and describes it with precision. One then briefly makes out its history and individualizes its function. This essential operation, conducted with a least amount of indispensable mental pictures, finally gives rise to an image synthesis, or concept, which is useful to keep before one's consciousness, objectively, as the initial image of the object. The more such an image-synthesis can be objectively contemplated, the more the concentration becomes the experience of the spirit. During the exercise, one must not be distracted by any other thoughts. If this distraction occurs, one must reascend the unrelated mental image to the point in which it illegitimately intervened.

Scaligero, Massimo. A Practical Manual of Meditation . Lindisfarne. Kindle Edition.

This additional context just shows that Scaligero for some reason mixes up the purpose of Steiner's first basic exercise, control of thinking, and the purpose of concentration on a supersensible object in order to grasp the hidden nature-force of pure thinking, such as the type of concentration typically initiating a meditation. He says that both are for the purpose of grasping the force of pure thinking, which is contradictory, as it seems, because he recommends a man-made object in the first case (which is not recommended for concentration-meditation) and a supersensible object or verse in the latter, saying that both are intended to enter the pure force of thinking.

As I understand it, the first basic exercise - which can benefit from being done on man-made objects - has little to do with entering the force of thinking. It’s ‘merely’ a strength exercise that builds up the habit to direct our thinking activity at will, resisting distractions and sort of activating a beam of thinking intention that we can apply to whatever object we want, intensively and continuously. But Scaligero’s mixing up the two exercises!

Federica,

Perhaps there is a relation between your confusion about Scaligero's elaboration of the concentration exercise and your feeling that the man-made distinction for our experience of concepts is an arbitrary one, or generally not helpful. And it all may relate back to your general antipathy or suspicion towards cultural institutions which are, of course, also man-made. At the metaphysical level, we know that none of these things are strictly "man-made" - not the tree, not the table, not the cultural institution, nor the hexagon. But with our phenomenological inquiry, we can say the table and the cultural institution are man-made and the hexagon is our personal making.

Now if you look at the stone vs. a table while observing your conceptual activity, you don't sense any difference in the intuitive clarity? Related to that, do you sense how what you were calling the 'multiplicity to balance' vs. the unity relates to your intuitive resonance with the underlying intents that structure the phenomena? In esoteric terms, we experience the tree concept as a greater multiplicity to balance because our "I" normally doesn't coincide with the group-ego of the plants (or the minerals), whereas our "I" does coincide with the consciousness soul that weaves in sense-free abstractions. If we were materialists, then we could object at this point that there is no reason for us to assume any underlying intents or group-egos for Nature, but since we already know better, we don't need to avoid that reality in our inquiry. I am really trying to understand why you feel the threefold distinction of concepts is arbitrary when I clearly experience an intuitive difference between the supersensible, the man-made, and the natural. There is a further difference within the latter between the instinctive (animal), organic (plant) and the inorganic (stone), but the last two are more subtle in my experience.

[Federica]

But what you are speaking of here are your concepts about steering the experience of the tree into your flow of becoming. The concepts are pointing to realities in some way or another, but you don't experience the manifestation of the tree with the same intuitive clarity that you experience your own conscious intent that manifests the hexagon image. When we stop to voice such experiences to ourselves after the fact through the mediation of concepts, it can seem like we experience them in a similar way, but that is simply masking the intuitive experience underneath.

Ashvin - I have already explained, I hope clearly, that I don’t experience the tree and the hexagon in a similar way. In the first case there is multiplicity to balance and there is an equilibrium, intersection, or synthesis, however we want to call it, to find. In the second case, unity, oneness, is already present. So I can say, with you, that there’s more intuitive clarity in the supersensible hexagon. But my remark was about something else! It’s about the man-made feature, that comes from Scaligero. I don’t think it’s important. There’s the same effort of balancing multiplicity in the experience of the tree and of the man-made table. That I made the table, or that someone else did, so that I can conceptualize that process, has no major role in how transparently I experience the table. That’s all I was saying!

Yes, Scaligero is referring to the 1/6 exercise to control thinking with "concentration". The mandala exercise is what he would refer to as "meditation".

Referring back to Cleric's image of the morphic spaces. Do you see how spreading our intellectual concepts through the lower spaces would give rise to a differentiated structure of concepts that are more or less attenuated from the experience of intent that we find in our own thinking morphic space? It doesn't really matter what labels we use to describe this differentiated structure, but there must be some experiential differentiation between concepts that remain in the thinking space versus those that reach into the emotional space versus those that reach into the life and physical spaces, correct? It is really nothing other than Steiner's oft-mentioned observation that we are awake in our thinking, dreaming in our feeling, and sleeping in our will.

Absolutely correct, it’s again the same thing I am trying to say! It seems like you have not read my first reply (yes, I know ) I absolutely confirm the different experience of the hexagon. That’s because it remains within the thinking and feeling spaces exclusively. On the contrary, both the tree and the table reach down into the physical space, and that’s why, as you say, they are less intuitively clear. They require some conceptual trial, error, and funneling. Now they may be slightly different from each other because there could be less life in a table than in a tree, but this has nothing to do with the fact that the table is man-made! A stone is not man-made, still it descends in a similar way into the physical space, with similar opaqueness compared to the table and the tree, maybe just with some less life and feeling. But to all relevant intents and puposes here, table and tree are eqally transparent. So I ask you: can we let go of this man-made distinction once and for all?

Perhaps this will provide more context:




Scaligero, Massimo. A Practical Manual of Meditation . Lindisfarne. Kindle Edition.

This additional context just shows that Scaligero for some reason mixes up the purpose of Steiner's first basic exercise, control of thinking, and the purpose of concentration on a supersensible object in order to grasp the hidden nature-force of pure thinking, such as the type of concentration typically initiating a meditation. He says that both are for the purpose of grasping the force of pure thinking, which is contradictory, as it seems, because he recommends a man-made object in the first case (which is not recommended for concentration-meditation) and a supersensible object or verse in the latter, saying that both are intended to enter the pure force of thinking.

As I understand it, the first basic exercise - which can benefit from being done on man-made objects - has little to do with entering the force of thinking. It’s ‘merely’ a strength exercise that builds up the habit to direct our thinking activity at will, resisting distractions and sort of activating a beam of thinking intention that we can apply to whatever object we want, intensively and continuously. But Scaligero’s mixing up the two exercises!

Federica,

Perhaps there is a relation between your confusion about Scaligero's elaboration of the concentration exercise and your feeling that the man-made distinction for our experience of concepts is an arbitrary one, or generally not helpful. And it all may relate back to your general antipathy or suspicion towards cultural institutions which are, of course, also man-made. At the metaphysical level, we know that none of these things are strictly "man-made" - not the tree, not the table, not the cultural institution, nor the hexagon. But with our phenomenological inquiry, we can say the table and the cultural institution are man-made and the hexagon is our personal making.

Now if you look at the stone vs. a table while observing your conceptual activity, you don't sense any difference in the intuitive clarity? Related to that, do you sense how what you were calling the 'multiplicity to balance' vs. the unity relates to your intuitive resonance with the underlying intents that structure the phenomena? In esoteric terms, we experience the tree concept as a greater multiplicity to balance because our "I" normally doesn't coincide with the group-ego of the plants (or the minerals), whereas our "I" does coincide with the consciousness soul that weaves in sense-free abstractions. If we were materialists, then we could object at this point that there is no reason for us to assume any underlying intents or group-egos for Nature, but since we already know better, we don't need to avoid that reality in our inquiry. I am really trying to understand why you feel the threefold distinction of concepts is arbitrary when I clearly experience an intuitive difference between the supersensible, the man-made, and the natural. There is a further difference within the latter between the instinctive (animal), organic (plant) and the inorganic (stone), but the last two are more subtle in my experience.

Ashvin,

I have now briefly checked what Scaligero writes just above the quote you shared and it makes it more difficult. He states that we should not look, but only figure the object in the mind's eye. Then it says that concentration is simply impossible with a non man-made object (!) because he distinguishes between universal thinking and human thinking! And, he says, we can only concentrate through human thinking, so for him, concentration would never work on an hexagon, or on a rose cross. So this question of the man-made quality of an object is more radical than expected in Scaligero. But I don't recognize such a distinction between universal thinking and human thinking in Steiner! Do you? It seems worrying to me, it's like the introduction of a duality in thinking... I don't understand it. The whole point is to recover the unity of thinking! When Cleric speaks of concentration on a circle with a dot at its center, it's not a man-made object!
I'm curious how you are going to go about reconciling these two approaches.
Anyway before answering your last questions, I need a more quiet moment, which I'm not sure when I will be able to have.

[AshvinP]

Ashvin - I have already explained, I hope clearly, that I don’t experience the tree and the hexagon in a similar way. In the first case there is multiplicity to balance and there is an equilibrium, intersection, or synthesis, however we want to call it, to find. In the second case, unity, oneness, is already present. So I can say, with you, that there’s more intuitive clarity in the supersensible hexagon. But my remark was about something else! It’s about the man-made feature, that comes from Scaligero. I don’t think it’s important. There’s the same effort of balancing multiplicity in the experience of the tree and of the man-made table. That I made the table, or that someone else did, so that I can conceptualize that process, has no major role in how transparently I experience the table. That’s all I was saying!






Absolutely correct, it’s again the same thing I am trying to say! It seems like you have not read my first reply (yes, I know ) I absolutely confirm the different experience of the hexagon. That’s because it remains within the thinking and feeling spaces exclusively. On the contrary, both the tree and the table reach down into the physical space, and that’s why, as you say, they are less intuitively clear. They require some conceptual trial, error, and funneling. Now they may be slightly different from each other because there could be less life in a table than in a tree, but this has nothing to do with the fact that the table is man-made! A stone is not man-made, still it descends in a similar way into the physical space, with similar opaqueness compared to the table and the tree, maybe just with some less life and feeling. But to all relevant intents and puposes here, table and tree are eqally transparent. So I ask you: can we let go of this man-made distinction once and for all?






This additional context just shows that Scaligero for some reason mixes up the purpose of Steiner's first basic exercise, control of thinking, and the purpose of concentration on a supersensible object in order to grasp the hidden nature-force of pure thinking, such as the type of concentration typically initiating a meditation. He says that both are for the purpose of grasping the force of pure thinking, which is contradictory, as it seems, because he recommends a man-made object in the first case (which is not recommended for concentration-meditation) and a supersensible object or verse in the latter, saying that both are intended to enter the pure force of thinking.

As I understand it, the first basic exercise - which can benefit from being done on man-made objects - has little to do with entering the force of thinking. It’s ‘merely’ a strength exercise that builds up the habit to direct our thinking activity at will, resisting distractions and sort of activating a beam of thinking intention that we can apply to whatever object we want, intensively and continuously. But Scaligero’s mixing up the two exercises!

Federica,

Perhaps there is a relation between your confusion about Scaligero's elaboration of the concentration exercise and your feeling that the man-made distinction for our experience of concepts is an arbitrary one, or generally not helpful. And it all may relate back to your general antipathy or suspicion towards cultural institutions which are, of course, also man-made. At the metaphysical level, we know that none of these things are strictly "man-made" - not the tree, not the table, not the cultural institution, nor the hexagon. But with our phenomenological inquiry, we can say the table and the cultural institution are man-made and the hexagon is our personal making.

Now if you look at the stone vs. a table while observing your conceptual activity, you don't sense any difference in the intuitive clarity? Related to that, do you sense how what you were calling the 'multiplicity to balance' vs. the unity relates to your intuitive resonance with the underlying intents that structure the phenomena? In esoteric terms, we experience the tree concept as a greater multiplicity to balance because our "I" normally doesn't coincide with the group-ego of the plants (or the minerals), whereas our "I" does coincide with the consciousness soul that weaves in sense-free abstractions. If we were materialists, then we could object at this point that there is no reason for us to assume any underlying intents or group-egos for Nature, but since we already know better, we don't need to avoid that reality in our inquiry. I am really trying to understand why you feel the threefold distinction of concepts is arbitrary when I clearly experience an intuitive difference between the supersensible, the man-made, and the natural. There is a further difference within the latter between the instinctive (animal), organic (plant) and the inorganic (stone), but the last two are more subtle in my experience.

Ashvin,

I have now briefly checked what Scaligero writes just above the quote you shared and it makes it more difficult. He states that we should not look, but only figure the object in the mind's eye. Then it says that concentration is simply impossible with a non man-made object (!) because he distinguishes between universal thinking and human thinking! And, he says, we can only concentrate through human thinking, so for him, concentration would never work on an hexagon, or on a rose cross. So this question of the man-made quality of an object is more radical than expected in Scaligero. But I don't recognize such a distinction between universal thinking and human thinking in Steiner! Do you? It seems worrying to me, it's like the introduction of a duality in thinking... I don't understand it. The whole point is to recover the unity of thinking! When Cleric speaks of concentration on a circle with a dot at its center, it's not a man-made object!
I'm curious how you are going to go about reconciling these two approaches.
Anyway before answering your last questions, I need a more quiet moment, which I'm not sure when I will be able to have.

Federica,

He does also provide for the sort of exercises you are speaking of, but he calls that "meditation". I'm not sure if this distinction is in Steiner as well, so I would have to check for that. The way I understand it, the "concentration" exercise is a sort of preparation for meditation. It is meditation-lite since it does not seek to reach the archetypal creative ideas of Nature through imagination, inspiration, or intuition, but only the creative ideas of humanity that have gone into structuring civilization. It is more active thinking in comparison to meditation, where we attain inner soul silence and our personal thought processes become receptive to Cosmic feeling and will impulses that incarnate through the spiritual content of the meditation and guide it. 

On the contrary, to meditate is to directly arouse the soul forces by means of a spiritual content. That which rises up spontaneously from its engagement, is received and nourished. Since the inner force matters more than its dialectics, the task of the spiritual practitioner that meditates is—when all is said and done—to render continuous and objective, for a certain number of minutes, the initial moment of the lighting up of inner forces according to a given theme of the spirit—namely, an image, a phrase or a symbol, which winds up being capable of resounding by way of its own force within the soul.

Scaligero, Massimo. A Practical Manual of Meditation . Lindisfarne. Kindle Edition. 

Concentration helps to experientially restore the original relation of the "I" to perception, i.e. the relation through which particular concepts and perceptions are structured by formative Ideas. Meditation helps experientially restore the original relation of our "I" to superconscious impulses or higher "I"-beings, i.e. the way our very soul-life is structured by Cosmic impulses. That is my understanding of the distinction at the moment, but of course, it is always subject to revision. To be honest, I haven't done the concentration exercises in some time so I don't have a good inner feel for them. 

That is also why I think it is helpful to become clear about this distinction between man-made concepts and natural ones since it helps us inwardly experience more subtle differentiations that occur within our soul-life. Of course, there is only value if we discover these differentiations inwardly. In addition to the previous questions, or if you prefer as a substitute for them, let's focus on the opposite pole of conceptual activity i.e. perceptual structure. For this experiment, we should use real objects such as a table and a tree rather than imagined ones. The distinction can still be sensed with the latter but it is much more difficult. When focusing on the perceptual structure of a man-made object in comparison to a natural object, I am wondering whether you sense a difference in relation to your feeling and will?

[Federica]

Federica,

Perhaps there is a relation between your confusion about Scaligero's elaboration of the concentration exercise and your feeling that the man-made distinction for our experience of concepts is an arbitrary one, or generally not helpful. And it all may relate back to your general antipathy or suspicion towards cultural institutions which are, of course, also man-made. At the metaphysical level, we know that none of these things are strictly "man-made" - not the tree, not the table, not the cultural institution, nor the hexagon. But with our phenomenological inquiry, we can say the table and the cultural institution are man-made and the hexagon is our personal making.

Now if you look at the stone vs. a table while observing your conceptual activity, you don't sense any difference in the intuitive clarity? Related to that, do you sense how what you were calling the 'multiplicity to balance' vs. the unity relates to your intuitive resonance with the underlying intents that structure the phenomena? In esoteric terms, we experience the tree concept as a greater multiplicity to balance because our "I" normally doesn't coincide with the group-ego of the plants (or the minerals), whereas our "I" does coincide with the consciousness soul that weaves in sense-free abstractions. If we were materialists, then we could object at this point that there is no reason for us to assume any underlying intents or group-egos for Nature, but since we already know better, we don't need to avoid that reality in our inquiry. I am really trying to understand why you feel the threefold distinction of concepts is arbitrary when I clearly experience an intuitive difference between the supersensible, the man-made, and the natural. There is a further difference within the latter between the instinctive (animal), organic (plant) and the inorganic (stone), but the last two are more subtle in my experience.

Ashvin,

I have now briefly checked what Scaligero writes just above the quote you shared and it makes it more difficult. He states that we should not look, but only figure the object in the mind's eye. Then it says that concentration is simply impossible with a non man-made object (!) because he distinguishes between universal thinking and human thinking! And, he says, we can only concentrate through human thinking, so for him, concentration would never work on an hexagon, or on a rose cross. So this question of the man-made quality of an object is more radical than expected in Scaligero. But I don't recognize such a distinction between universal thinking and human thinking in Steiner! Do you? It seems worrying to me, it's like the introduction of a duality in thinking... I don't understand it. The whole point is to recover the unity of thinking! When Cleric speaks of concentration on a circle with a dot at its center, it's not a man-made object!
I'm curious how you are going to go about reconciling these two approaches.
Anyway before answering your last questions, I need a more quiet moment, which I'm not sure when I will be able to have.

Federica,

He does also provide for the sort of exercises you are speaking of, but he calls that "meditation". I'm not sure if this distinction is in Steiner as well, so I would have to check for that. The way I understand it, the "concentration" exercise is a sort of preparation for meditation. It is meditation-lite since it does not seek to reach the archetypal creative ideas of Nature through imagination, inspiration, or intuition, but only the creative ideas of humanity that have gone into structuring civilization. It is more active thinking in comparison to meditation, where we attain inner soul silence and our personal thought processes become receptive to Cosmic feeling and will impulses that incarnate through the spiritual content of the meditation and guide it. 

On the contrary, to meditate is to directly arouse the soul forces by means of a spiritual content. That which rises up spontaneously from its engagement, is received and nourished. Since the inner force matters more than its dialectics, the task of the spiritual practitioner that meditates is—when all is said and done—to render continuous and objective, for a certain number of minutes, the initial moment of the lighting up of inner forces according to a given theme of the spirit—namely, an image, a phrase or a symbol, which winds up being capable of resounding by way of its own force within the soul.

Scaligero, Massimo. A Practical Manual of Meditation . Lindisfarne. Kindle Edition. 

Concentration helps to experientially restore the original relation of the "I" to perception, i.e. the relation through which particular concepts and perceptions are structured by formative Ideas. Meditation helps experientially restore the original relation of our "I" to superconscious impulses or higher "I"-beings, i.e. the way our very soul-life is structured by Cosmic impulses. That is my understanding of the distinction at the moment, but of course, it is always subject to revision. To be honest, I haven't done the concentration exercises in some time so I don't have a good inner feel for them. 

That is also why I think it is helpful to become clear about this distinction between man-made concepts and natural ones since it helps us inwardly experience more subtle differentiations that occur within our soul-life. Of course, there is only value if we discover these differentiations inwardly. In addition to the previous questions, or if you prefer as a substitute for them, let's focus on the opposite pole of conceptual activity i.e. perceptual structure. For this experiment, we should use real objects such as a table and a tree rather than imagined ones. The distinction can still be sensed with the latter but it is much more difficult. When focusing on the perceptual structure of a man-made object in comparison to a natural object, I am wondering whether you sense a difference in relation to your feeling and will?

Ashvin,

Still not answering your questions, because I want to try out things first, but I am having a lot to do with work, intellectual and physical, so I’ll wait till I restore some energy. But a few thoughts still:

You don’t have to search the Steiner archive for Scaligero’s exercises I guess if Steiner had spoken of a meditation-lite where one actively concentrates on man-made objects, you would have known that very clearly by now!! You explained it so beautifully to freefrommainstream, in what seems to me like a really inspired description, a stroke of genius. Clearly, you weren’t stuck in ideas of man-made stuff as you were writing that:

So we need to find where God lives in our experience - in what activity does He come to expression? One could label this activity many things - in our activity of love, conscience, devotion, hope, upward striving, etc. But to express it in a way that encompasses all those, we could call it thoughtful 'attention'. When we pay attention to something, like the white clouds in the sky, we can't simultaneously observe the activity by which we are paying attention to those clouds. But that is precisely the activity where God lives, the temple into which he incarnates. God is the force by which we pay attention and bring the World of appearances into manifestation.

How to recover the experience of this force, by which alone we attain inner certainty of God's existence? Our attention must sacrifice the object of its activity for it to recover the activity itself. But if our attention is spread around many objects, hopping back and forth, then it would require infinite effort to withdraw attention from each object. That is why we must first learn to concentrate attention on a single object or theme and this object-theme then becomes a symbol for our activity of attention that sustains its existence. Then our consciousness can effortlessly flow between the object of attention and the activity of attending, bring them into harmony. There are many objects-theme we could choose to concentrate on, but could there be any better symbol for the God who lives in our attentive activity than the perfect image of God himself?

By the way, that Scaligero’s meditation-lite does not seek to reach the archetypal creative ideas is incorrect, I think. Scaligero argues that one does discover the hidden,”original force of thinking” by this man-made concentration. It’s his own words: “This force is itself in movement within the activity aimed at discovering it. Such movement is fundamental to the whole life of the soul and its relation with the spirit and the body, because, for the first time, the typical order, “I”-soul-body, normally contradicted by everyday experience is realized”.


Then he says that meditation “is to directly arouse the soul forces by means of a spiritual content”.
But there’s nothing direct about it! Not in the preparation, not in the way the thought-image is bypassed, not in the way the imaginations manifest. As I see it, he has a method that is different from Steiner’s. And I never heard you mention this man-made criterium, before it’s come up through Scaligero.

Concentration helps to experientially restore the original relation of the "I" to perception, i.e. the relation through which particular concepts and perceptions are structured by formative Ideas. Meditation helps experientially restore the original relation of our "I" to superconscious impulses or higher "I"-beings, i.e. the way our very soul-life is structured by Cosmic impulses.

This sounds well written and logic, but in truth, it has a dualistic quality: there is no “original relation of the I to perception", other than the one we normally experience already, with our physical body! That is the original perceptual way. That’s the result of the original sin. It’s already original as it is! There’s only one recovery to be done on Thinking, and it goes beyond perception, not that now, all of a sudden, we partition True Hidden Thinking in True Hidden Universal Thinking on one side, and True Hidden Human Thinking on the other. Are you feeding the multitude of thinking with Scaligero’s man-made stuff?

(as said, I am not skipping your questions - thanks for those - I will consider them and answer them asap)

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

Still not answering your questions, because I want to try out things first, but I am having a lot to do with work, intellectual and physical, so I’ll wait till I restore some energy. But a few thoughts still:

You don’t have to search the Steiner archive for Scaligero’s exercises I guess if Steiner had spoken of a meditation-lite where one actively concentrates on man-made objects, you would have known that very clearly by now!! You explained it so beautifully to freefrommainstream, in what seems to me like a really inspired description, a stroke of genius. Clearly, you weren’t stuck in ideas of man-made stuff as you were writing that:

So we need to find where God lives in our experience - in what activity does He come to expression? One could label this activity many things - in our activity of love, conscience, devotion, hope, upward striving, etc. But to express it in a way that encompasses all those, we could call it thoughtful 'attention'. When we pay attention to something, like the white clouds in the sky, we can't simultaneously observe the activity by which we are paying attention to those clouds. But that is precisely the activity where God lives, the temple into which he incarnates. God is the force by which we pay attention and bring the World of appearances into manifestation.

How to recover the experience of this force, by which alone we attain inner certainty of God's existence? Our attention must sacrifice the object of its activity for it to recover the activity itself. But if our attention is spread around many objects, hopping back and forth, then it would require infinite effort to withdraw attention from each object. That is why we must first learn to concentrate attention on a single object or theme and this object-theme then becomes a symbol for our activity of attention that sustains its existence. Then our consciousness can effortlessly flow between the object of attention and the activity of attending, bring them into harmony. There are many objects-theme we could choose to concentrate on, but could there be any better symbol for the God who lives in our attentive activity than the perfect image of God himself?

By the way, that Scaligero’s meditation-lite does not seek to reach the archetypal creative ideas is incorrect, I think. Scaligero argues that one does discover the hidden,”original force of thinking” by this man-made concentration. It’s his own words: “This force is itself in movement within the activity aimed at discovering it. Such movement is fundamental to the whole life of the soul and its relation with the spirit and the body, because, for the first time, the typical order, “I”-soul-body, normally contradicted by everyday experience is realized”.


Then he says that meditation “is to directly arouse the soul forces by means of a spiritual content”.
But there’s nothing direct about it! Not in the preparation, not in the way the thought-image is bypassed, not in the way the imaginations manifest. As I see it, he has a method that is different from Steiner’s. And I never heard you mention this man-made criterium, before it’s come up through Scaligero.

Concentration helps to experientially restore the original relation of the "I" to perception, i.e. the relation through which particular concepts and perceptions are structured by formative Ideas. Meditation helps experientially restore the original relation of our "I" to superconscious impulses or higher "I"-beings, i.e. the way our very soul-life is structured by Cosmic impulses.

This sounds well written and logic, but in truth, it has a dualistic quality: there is no “original relation of the I to perception", other than the one we normally experience already, with our physical body! That is the original perceptual way. That’s the result of the original sin. It’s already original as it is! There’s only one recovery to be done on Thinking, and it goes beyond perception, not that now, all of a sudden, we partition True Hidden Thinking in True Hidden Universal Thinking on one side, and True Hidden Human Thinking on the other. Are you feeding the multitude of thinking with Scaligero’s man-made stuff?

(as said, I am not skipping your questions - thanks for those - I will consider them and answer them asap)

Federica,

Scaligero clearly states that the concentration exercise should lack spiritual content so that it does not arouse our personal feelings or will i.e. soul forces. He also states that the aim is not to reach the creative ideas of Nature through this exercise because that would not work. The Ideas which incarnate as the natural forms are beyond the sphere of our normal I-consciousness, so it requires an inverse spiritual activity rather than the strengthening of our normal spiritual activity that weaves in conceptual thought-forms. The concentration exercise is geared towards the latter, which nevertheless will prove very useful when we need to quiet our thoughts in meditation for the inverse activity to take hold. That's why I say concentration is preparation for meditation, although they obviously can be practiced concurrently.

Normally we only become aware of our I-activity after it has been reflected through the physical sense organism and then we start to believe the sensory spectrum is the cause of that activity, because we are unaware of its initial descent. And we may even start to believe that the sensory spectrum must be the cause of all conscious activity i.e. materialism. That is what he speaks of as the normal conditioning where the I-spirit is conditioned by the body and soul, whereas the proper or true relation is when the body and soul are conditioned by spirit. The original Fall into sin certainly planted the seed for this inverse conditioning but it is only in the 5th epoch that it could become so potent, because the "I' is so firmly rooted in the physical sense organism, that the sensory spectrum could be experienced as the foundation of sentient existence (or subsensible abstractions postulated as the foundation by intellectuals). Notice how medieval realism still understood the proper relation to some extent before the rise of nominalism. The concentration exercise helps us experience the original relation, i.e. the 'image-synthesis' that structures all particular instances of the man-made object we observe. 

Therefore, the object cannot be anything that is not produced by human beings. It cannot be a crystal, or a plant, or an animal, or the sky, etc. Concentration on these objects does not realize the wisdom of the exercise, which consists in drawing from an object all the thinking that thought it, so as to be able to eliminate the sensory support and be in the presence of the synthesis-idea. In the crystal, in the plant, in the sky, etc., we find ourselves before an object that incarnates a thought that is not our thought, and that we can therefore only speculatively grasp as a conceptual determination. But the concentration exercise has nothing to do with speculative processes, which sometimes, instead, can be called to cooperate, according to a conscious dosage, in the exercise of meditation...

If we were to begin concentrating on objects in which universal thinking is directly expressed, we would never arrive at it, because we would, nonetheless, always move by means of our own mental picturing bound to the sensory realm. We would mediate the universal abstractly with a thought that nevertheless bears within itself an opposition to the Universal.

...Since the goal of concentration is to experience the synthetic element of thinking, normally alienated in the analytical-rational process, the object must be one whose meaning does not exert any influence upon the operation, since this operation demands only the arid a-psychic willful determination of thought. The original force of thinking lies within this willful determination. We only need to discover it.
. 
Scaligero, Massimo. A Practical Manual of Meditation. Lindisfarne. Kindle Edition. 

But since I quoted this before and you also re-quoted it, let me just ask you, what would you describe as the reason why we don't use pencils or buttons as the object-theme of our meditations, but that Steiner recommends such simple man-made objects for the control of thinking exercise, as referred to below? Clearly, there is some differentiation in the method between this exercise and imaginative meditation, correct? But since you don't like Scalgero's elaboration of the difference, I am wondering what yours would be. 

There is therefore no occasion for the exercises to deal with remote or complicated objects, much rather should they have reference to simple objects that are ready to hand. Whoever succeeds in directing his thought, for at least five minutes daily, and for months on end, to some quite commonplace object — say, for example, a needle or a pencil— and in shutting out during those five minutes all thoughts that have no connection with the object, will have made very good progress in this direction. (A fresh object may be chosen each day, or one may be continued for several days.) Even a person who considers himself a trained intellectual thinker should not be too proud to qualify for spiritual training by an exercise of this simple nature. For when we are riveting our thought for a considerable time upon something that is entirely familiar, we may be quite sure that our thinking is in accord with reality. If we ask ourselves: what is a lead pencil made of? How are the different materials prepared? How are they put together? When were lead pencils invented? And so on, we can be more sure of our thoughts being consistent with reality than if we were to ponder the question of the descent of man — or, let us say, of the meaning of life. Simple exercises in thinking are a far better preparation for forming commensurate conceptions of Saturn, Sun and Moon evolution than are complicated and learned ideas. As to our thinking, what is important at this stage is not the object or event to which it is directed, but that it should be strong and vigorous and to the point. If it has been educated to be so in reference to simple physical realities that lie open to view, it will acquire the tendency to be so even when it finds itself no longer under the control of the physical world and its laws. The pupil will find he gets rid in this way of any tendency he had before to loose and extravagant thinking.

[Federica]

Scaligero clearly states that the concentration exercise should lack spiritual content so that it does not arouse our personal feelings or will i.e. soul forces. He also states that the aim is not to reach the creative ideas of Nature through this exercise because that would not work. The Ideas which incarnate as the natural forms are beyond the sphere of our normal I-consciousness, so it requires an inverse spiritual activity rather than the strengthening of our normal spiritual activity that weaves in conceptual thought-forms. The concentration exercise is geared towards the latter, which nevertheless will prove very useful when we need to quiet our thoughts in meditation for the inverse activity to take hold. That's why I say concentration is preparation for meditation, although they obviously can be practiced concurrently.

This sounds vague and confusing. What does Scaligero mean?

Spiritual content: what is spiritual content? Hexagons and the like?

And of course personal feelings are aroused in all cases, including by man-made objects.

He says, the aim is not to reach the creative ideas of Nature, but it’s nevertheless to discover the hidden,”original force of thinking” as he stated, meaning the Y axis in the hysteresis process. So I wonder, is it possible to discover the original force of thinking and at the same time not to reach the creative ideas of Nature? And I wonder: once we experience the original force of thinking, beyond the mere object of thought, what sense does it make to partition that force and limit our discoveries to certain categories of being/ideas?

The Ideas which incarnate as the natural forms are beyond the sphere of our normal I-consciousness

Sure, but Scaligero states that concentration does bring us beyond the sphere of our normal I-consciousness. He does not say that it’s just the strengthening of our normal thinking activity. This is what Steiner says, with reference to the first basic exercise, as I understand it.

The concentration exercise is geared towards the latter [normal spiritual activity that weaves in conceptual thought-forms]

In Steiner, yes, In Scaligero, no.
He sees that a discovery has to be done, the discovery of the original force of thinking. I have to re-quote:

this operation demands only the arid a-psychic willful determination of thought. The original force of thinking lies within this willful determination. We only need to discover it.

In the crystal, in the plant, in the sky, etc., we find ourselves before an object that incarnates a thought that is not our thought, and that we can therefore only speculatively grasp as a conceptual determination.

I don’t agree with that. If that was true, concentration on a mandala, which incarnates a thought that is not our own, would be useless. But we know it’s not useless. And even if he refers only to natural objects, the blue sky, the white snow, the blossoming of plants, have been given by Steiner as possible objects of concentration (not for the first basic exercise, but for concentration).


Coming to your last question: “what would you describe as the reason why we don't use pencils or buttons as the object-theme of our meditations, but that Steiner recommends such simple man-made objects for the control of thinking exercise, as referred to below? Clearly, there is some differentiation in the method between this exercise and imaginative meditation, correct?”

Correct. I understand Steiner’s control of thinking as something very different from concentration, and in a way, less ambitious. It’s a basic exercise. The exercise is not difficult in itself, the difficulty is the discipline that it calls forth, both during its execution - when we need to watch for the continuous threat of distraction - and to actually maintain a regular daily execution. (Scaligero says, that 'his' concentration is always difficult). In my view, the reason why a simple man-made object is recommended by Steiner for training the control of thought, is to allow for a focused execution without causing too much strain. Not that it wouldn’t be possible with a hexagon. A man-made object is advised in order to give the thoughts something easy to stick to. A pencil, or paper clip, offers enough grip for the thoughts to experience the perceptual and conceptual flow materialized in the object without slipping too much. We can start stabilizing the activity, we can get a sense of steering it with more and more ease and intent. The discipline required within and without the exercise is enough of a challenge for the beginner. Hence an easy object is provided. But I believe it would be possible to do the exercise with any object.

The reason why we don’t meditate on the theme of pencils and pins is because it’s not interesting. One wants to bring within the meditative space a theme that has some depth to be explored, certainly bigger and more mysterious than the depth of the concept of pin, how it came into being and made it to my desk. We want to focus attention, but then expand it on the wings the we are offered, and maybe a pin doesn't hint to any large expanse to fill with our powered attention. That's why we don't choose it as a meditation theme.
Now if you ask me why we don’t concentrate on the thought-image on a pin as a way to ask supersensible beings to allow us to make contact with some of the territory beyond the threshold, and open a meditative space, then I have to say, I am not sure. I don’t see an in-principle hindrance that would make it impossible to concentrate on a pin. After all, it's simply a pretext to allow us to screen out random activities of various kinds. I think it should work. But typically one just does not do it. We prefer to concentrate on an image that has some relation to the meditation theme, for example a verse that speaks of the I to meditate on the I, a Symbol of Jesus Christ to meditate on various aspects of His gift to humanity, and so on. Again, I don't understand or recognize this division of the spiritual world in thinking that comes from the universe and thinking that comes from humans, as separate veins of thinking with separate depths, that should be penetrated with separate approaches. So at this point I believe there is no substantial reason that the image of a pin shouldn't work to concentrate thinking, in view of opening a meditative space.

[AshvinP]

Federica,

It may be helpful to know that Scaligero was an Anthroposophist par excellence, who always remained immersed in and devoted to Steiner's teachings, and perhaps an initiate as well. That doesn't mean we have to agree with everything he writes, but I would say that it earns him the benefit of the doubt that we naturally harbor when confronting new teachings or new ways of expressing things. I'm not saying that to defend his honor beyond the grave, but because this charitable and trusting approach genuinely strengthens and disciplines our soul forces over time. It makes us more sensitive to insights we otherwise pass by without a second thought. Since these inner 'laws' unfold over longer periods of time than the physical sensory laws we are used to, they require a certain amount of faithful commitment to the Spirit and the higher individualities through which it works. Unwarranted and premature skepticism, cynicism, and doubt, on the other hand, tend to dull our sensitivity to these insights. They prevent us from resonating with the inner soul forces that are animating the outer forms we are encountering. "Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

Scaligero clearly states that the concentration exercise should lack spiritual content so that it does not arouse our personal feelings or will i.e. soul forces. He also states that the aim is not to reach the creative ideas of Nature through this exercise because that would not work. The Ideas which incarnate as the natural forms are beyond the sphere of our normal I-consciousness, so it requires an inverse spiritual activity rather than the strengthening of our normal spiritual activity that weaves in conceptual thought-forms. The concentration exercise is geared towards the latter, which nevertheless will prove very useful when we need to quiet our thoughts in meditation for the inverse activity to take hold. That's why I say concentration is preparation for meditation, although they obviously can be practiced concurrently.

This sounds vague and confusing. What does Scaligero mean?

Spiritual content: what is spiritual content? Hexagons and the like?

And of course personal feelings are aroused in all cases, including by man-made objects.

He says, the aim is not to reach the creative ideas of Nature, but it’s nevertheless to discover the hidden,”original force of thinking” as he stated, meaning the Y axis in the hysteresis process. So I wonder, is it possible to discover the original force of thinking and at the same time not to reach the creative ideas of Nature? And I wonder: once we experience the original force of thinking, beyond the mere object of thought, what sense does it make to partition that force and limit our discoveries to certain categories of being/ideas?

The Ideas which incarnate as the natural forms are beyond the sphere of our normal I-consciousness

Sure, but Scaligero states that concentration does bring us beyond the sphere of our normal I-consciousness. He does not say that it’s just the strengthening of our normal thinking activity. This is what Steiner says, with reference to the first basic exercise, as I understand it.

The concentration exercise is geared towards the latter [normal spiritual activity that weaves in conceptual thought-forms]

In Steiner, yes, In Scaligero, no.
He sees that a discovery has to be done, the discovery of the original force of thinking. I have to re-quote:

this operation demands only the arid a-psychic willful determination of thought. The original force of thinking lies within this willful determination. We only need to discover it.

In the crystal, in the plant, in the sky, etc., we find ourselves before an object that incarnates a thought that is not our thought, and that we can therefore only speculatively grasp as a conceptual determination.

I don’t agree with that. If that was true, concentration on a mandala, which incarnates a thought that is not our own, would be useless. But we know it’s not useless. And even if he refers only to natural objects, the blue sky, the white snow, the blossoming of plants, have been given by Steiner as possible objects of concentration (not for the first basic exercise, but for concentration).


Coming to your last question: “what would you describe as the reason why we don't use pencils or buttons as the object-theme of our meditations, but that Steiner recommends such simple man-made objects for the control of thinking exercise, as referred to below? Clearly, there is some differentiation in the method between this exercise and imaginative meditation, correct?”

Correct. I understand Steiner’s control of thinking as something very different from concentration, and in a way, less ambitious. It’s a basic exercise. The exercise is not difficult in itself, the difficulty is the discipline that it calls forth, both during its execution - when we need to watch for the continuous threat of distraction - and to actually maintain a regular daily execution. (Scaligero says, that 'his' concentration is always difficult). In my view, the reason why a simple man-made object is recommended by Steiner for training the control of thought, is to allow for a focused execution without causing too much strain. Not that it wouldn’t be possible with a hexagon. A man-made object is advised in order to give the thoughts something easy to stick to. A pencil, or paper clip, offers enough grip for the thoughts to experience the perceptual and conceptual flow materialized in the object without slipping too much. We can start stabilizing the activity, we can get a sense of steering it with more and more ease and intent. The discipline required within and without the exercise is enough of a challenge for the beginner. Hence an easy object is provided. But I believe it would be possible to do the exercise with any object.

The reason why we don’t meditate on the theme of pencils and pins is because it’s not interesting. One wants to bring within the meditative space a theme that has some depth to be explored, certainly bigger and more mysterious than the depth of the concept of pin, how it came into being and made it to my desk. We want to focus attention, but then expand it on the wings the we are offered, and maybe a pin doesn't hint to any large expanse to fill with our powered attention. That's why we don't choose it as a meditation theme.

Now if you ask me why we don’t concentrate on the thought-image on a pin as a way to ask supersensible beings to allow us to make contact with some of the territory beyond the threshold, and open a meditative space, then I have to say, I am not sure. I don’t see an in-principle hindrance that would make it impossible to concentrate on a pin. After all, it's simply a pretext to allow us to screen out random activities of various kinds. I think it should work. But typically one just does not do it. We prefer to concentrate on an image that has some relation to the meditation theme, for example a verse that speaks of the I to meditate on the I, a Symbol of Jesus Christ to meditate on various aspects of His gift to humanity, and so on. Again, I don't understand or recognize this division of the spiritual world in thinking that comes from the universe and thinking that comes from humans, as separate veins of thinking with separate depths, that should be penetrated with separate approaches. So at this point I believe there is no substantial reason that the image of a pin shouldn't work to concentrate thinking, in view of opening a meditative space.

The spiritual content is anything with a direct spiritual significance for our soul life, even if we are not very clear in our conceptual thought on what that significance is, to begin with. Practically all supersensible concept-images have this significance, such as the mantras, the Rose Cross image, the mandala, and so forth. Even the string of vowels have this significance insofar as they symbolize the inner dimension of the Cosmic Word in contrast to consonants which symbolize the outer form of the Word. That is in contrast to content that has a natural significance for our soul life, i.e. the trees, the sky, etc., that incarnate thought that is not our own thought. We don't draw images of hexagons or mandalas or rose crosses or vowel-strings from our memory experience of the natural world or even the normal cultural world for that matter. These are images that really wouldn't be manifest in our contemplative experience unless we willed them into existence, hence they have more transparency of intent than motor vehicles on the road or clouds in the sky.

What you have written sounds to me like a description of the outer symptoms that manifest as a result of the underlying archetypal differentiation between the domains of experience, but which you are very hesitant to attribute to anything more foundational. You seem to view it as a mere surface-level distinction that has to do with our convenience and comfort. Scaligero is elaborating on the deeper archetypal foundations, i.e. the inner reasons why the concentration exercise works or the 'wisdom of that exercise' in comparison to meditation and 'pure perception' (discussed below). We also need to have a certain amount of reasoned faith in the archetypal structure of reality. It's interesting that there is a threefold structure here - concentration on man-made objects, meditation on supersensible objects, and pure perception of natural objects. This distinction of structure is found in both Steiner and Scaligero. We should ask ourselves, if the Spirit expresses itself at the level of nature, at the level of human culture, and at the level of sense-free and culture-free relations, then doesn't it stand to reason that we would employ different methods to encounter the Spirit within these different domains of experience? Pure perception is another inner elaboration by Scaligero on exercises given by Steiner.

By virtue of the attention deliberately turned toward a perception—just as we learned to turn it toward a thought in concentration—we practice isolating its suprasensory content. In concentration, we usually manage to contemplate our own past thought. In the exercise of pure perceiving, we contemplate a past thought that is more powerful, namely, that of creative nature. This thought can arise in us, to the extent that we bring a silent consciousness toward it. It is thought that we do not have to think; we simply allow it to act within the soul. It makes no sense to contemplate a human-made object. Such an object can only be evoked through the concentration exercise. However, it cannot be contemplated through the exercise of pure perception, which requires objects, whose creating thought is immanent. Only the distinction between the perceptions of the inanimate human-made product and the animate product of nature can, in preparatory way, be useful to the aims of a comparison between the two types of perception. In an advanced phase of the spiritual practice, we can experience—by means of inner perception (which “spirit” inhabits the human-made inanimate object).
...
Visual impressions typically lend themselves to the practice of pure perceiving, whose process, once possessed, can later be extended to all sensations, with a gradualness that goes from the most conscious sensations to those that are less conscious, such as smell, taste, touch, etc. As a preparation, it is helpful to turn to objects whose nature allows one to easily separate the inner content from sensation—for example, crystals, metals, plants, flowers, water, sky, the relation of light between a plant and the background of the sky. The operation consists in contemplating the object, with utmost attention and, at the same time, with total silence of thought, until becoming absolutely immobile before it. Sensation and mental pictures must become silent. In the presence of nature's creation, immobility spontaneously passes over into profound quiet. This quiet is that of the power of universal thinking, which manifests in etheric-physical forms.

Scaligero, Massimo. A Practical Manual of Meditation . Lindisfarne. Kindle Edition.

It might be theoretically possible for advanced practitioners to use any object for concentration, meditation, or pure perception, but we aim to work optimally at our own level of development and minimize unnecessary obstacles as much as possible, especially when we have direct control over them. As mentioned before, the most obvious differentiation is our ability to resonate with the underlying intents which structure the phenomena. The domain of supersensible concepts is most transparent, the domain of man-made concepts is less transparent, but still relatively so compared to the domain of natural concepts. We could also tease it out temporally and say that supersensible ideation evolved most recently, cultural ideation evolved next recently, and natural ideation is the most ancient. We could also speak of it as concept-images experienced within the ego as such, those experienced within the astral body, and those experienced within the physical-etheric. Kuhlewinde is another Anthroposphical thinker who makes this archetypal distinction.

It is equally important that we fully understand the difference between perception and mental representation. Because of its immediacy, perception appears to exist here and now. A mental picture or representation, on the other hand, appears more like a memory. The existential, here-and-now quality of the perceptual world can be explained only if we take into account the difference between concepts relating to natural phenomena and those relating to products of purely human activities of consciousness. Concepts produced by human beings are clear and transparent (for example, mathematical and geometrical concepts or those of man-made objects).“Concepts” that relate to nature, on the other hand, at first seem to be names, mental pictures, or collective concepts formed on the basis of external characteristics rather than the constitutive ideas of the phenomena of nature. Such constitutive ideas are unthinkable and inconceivable for normal comprehension. Mighty ideas stand behind natural phenomena—not something nonideal, as naïve thinkers believe. Just this is what gives perception its existential quality, since we ourselves are, after all, still open to these ideas. To overlook or disavow this existential quality is an aberration of theory due to inexact observation. It is the “introverted,” complementary form of the same error whose “extroverted” form we see in the outer-directed focus of materialism.

Kühlewind, Georg. The Logos-Structure of the World . Lindisfarne Books. Kindle Edition. 

There are many common elements to all the exercises. We need to quiet our analytical discursive thoughts for all of them, even the concentration exercise. We are always aiming to resonate with underlying intents that structure the domains of experience in question. Personally, I think a background feeling of devotional purpose is helpful for everything we do spiritually as well. We should feel like what we are doing is just as necessary for our whole being as eating, breathing, and sleeping. Or they are appointments with friends that we are making and that we intend to keep, devoting our full attention to them. All of the exercises serve as preparation and inner strengthening for the others. We rhythmically move through them to accomplish our spiritual purposes just like we move through waking, dreaming, and sleeping each day.

[Federica]

Ashvin, I find it a little disconcerting that you first asked me specific questions about how I see the difference between this and that exercice, but when I provide precise answers, you wipe it all off, and you tell me off, suggesting that I lack respect (basically that’s what you’re saying) and devotion towards Scaligero, and that I lack “reasoned faith”, and even hospitality. I pointed to very specific discrepancies between Scaligero and Steiner, and between what Scaligero writes and what you stated he means, but these are wiped off all at once. You say that this tripartite classification, that includes man-made objects, is to be found in Steiner as well, but then you don’t quote Steiner, you quote Scaligero again and again, and Kühlewind. You have more or less stopped quoting Steiner, anyway. And the most surprising is this partition that you have now accepted from Scaligero, between human thoughts and universal thoughts. You used to speak of a tree citing PoF, but now very surprisingly you speak of a tree as incarnating a thought that is not our own, and of a table as incarnating a thought of our own. What does that even mean from a PoF perspective? Not to speak of this idea of “pure perception”.
Can you please show where Steiner endorses all that?

Sorry if the question is not devotional enough, but what I notice is, I never heard you refer to such a partition of thinking before this thread. Scaligero states it, you are finding it valuable, for reasons that I don’t get, and now we are all supposed to show devotion, be hospitable, and accept it as well. I get that in your views spiritual science has gone out of trend, as an approach to knowledge, but I am sorry, I don’t feel sorry for still appreciating it (which doesn’t prevent me from having a reasoned faith in the individuality of Rudolf Steiner) and I really would like to see how Steiner makes these distinctions in his own words, if it’s true that they can be found in his work.

To be honest, Ashvin, I have the feeling that, once you have recognized an author as an authentic spiritual seer, you feel that you absolutely have to integrate and validate everything they have written, at all costs. Opposites have to spiral together, and you will make them spiral. It’s almost like you make it a determined exercise. For a long time, you have been quoting Steiner profusely, but this has almost ceased today. More recently you have been reading Tomberg, and so you were addressing any questions with quotes from Tomberg, to the point that Güney told you the other day that the quote you used didn’t bring any clarity to the question, Anthony also expressed that, and I certainly felt the same, more than once. With Tomberg, it seemed that you had decided to abandon the idea of “structure” (a word you had previously been consistently fond of) in favor of the idea of order, within the context of Tomberg’s symbolic logic. It made complete sense. But now, as it happens, you are reading Scaligero, and so you have come back to your old favorite word “structure”, whilst Tombergs symbolic ordering seems to sink down into the background. And right now nearly every topic calls for a Scaligero quote. I feel that you are making this into a firm exercise, and I get that feeling of arm-twisting again, and arbitrariness. Last year every topic had a Steiner-answer, last month every topic had a Tomberg-answer, and now every topic has started to have a Scaligero-answer, that we like it or not. And if we don’t like it, it’s because one is intellectual, analytical, or down right respectless towards an Anthroposophist par excellence (I don’t know what exact meaning the expression has come to acquire in English, but in French it basically means “the archetypal Anthroposophist”).
While I see the value of such an exercise, and I understand the importance of uncovering the common thread across all esoteric authors, and across all reality for that matter, don’t you think that it stands to reason that there’s a limit and a balance pressing against the ideal of unity in our time, and that although we can and should act in ourselves the convergence we grasp as fundamental principle of all reality, and we can use certain inbuilt flexibility to push evolution forward through conscious intent, there is at the same time a lawful limit to how much we can force the opposites to coincide by making them coincide with/in our willed activity? We have abundantly criticized Eugene for his attitude of bypassing reality, and burning bridges into the ashes of unconsciousness, in order to instantly become Oneness. But when we do acknowledge the bridges, and work through them, only to squeeze them tightly together all the way towards non-existence, by declaring them spiraling, or spiraled, are we not in the end manifesting an intent of a similar nature?

[AshvinP]

Ashvin, I find it a little disconcerting that you first asked me specific questions about how I see the difference between this and that exercice, but when I provide precise answers, you wipe it all off, and you tell me off, suggesting that I lack respect (basically that’s what you’re saying) and devotion towards Scaligero, and that I lack “reasoned faith”, and even hospitality. I pointed to very specific discrepancies between Scaligero and Steiner, and between what Scaligero writes and what you stated he means, but these are wiped off all at once. You say that this tripartite classification, that includes man-made objects, is to be found in Steiner as well, but then you don’t quote Steiner, you quote Scaligero again and again, and Kühlewind. You have more or less stopped quoting Steiner, anyway. And the most surprising is this partition that you have now accepted from Scaligero, between human thoughts and universal thoughts. You used to speak of a tree citing PoF, but now very surprisingly you speak of a tree as incarnating a thought that is not our own, and of a table as incarnating a thought of our own. What does that even mean from a PoF perspective? Not to speak of this idea of “pure perception”.
Can you please show where Steiner endorses all that?

Sorry if the question is not devotional enough, but what I notice is, I never heard you refer to such a partition of thinking before this thread. Scaligero states it, you are finding it valuable, for reasons that I don’t get, and now we are all supposed to show devotion, be hospitable, and accept it as well. I get that in your views spiritual science has gone out of trend, as an approach to knowledge, but I am sorry, I don’t feel sorry for still appreciating it (which doesn’t prevent me from having a reasoned faith in the individuality of Rudolf Steiner) and I really would like to see how Steiner makes these distinctions in his own words, if it’s true that they can be found in his work.

Federica,

There is no doubt that this 'tri-partite classification' is found in Steiner and practically all other esoteric thinkers who speak on the topic. Scaligero and Kuhlewind are simply examples of people who internalized Anthroposophy/SS better than most other people in the world, so I think their thoughts on the matter are worth taking seriously. We have discussed it here on this forum plenty of times as well, just not in the particular form you are encountering it now in Scaligero. That's why I also referenced Cleric's essay on the morphic spaces - that, along with many other posts, are speaking of this exact same differentiation when it comes to our conceptual ability to resonate with the spiritual intents underlying various domains of experience. That is the basis for speaking of 'human thought' is distinction to 'universal thought', the latter being responsible for the higher three spaces that are also reflected in the lower three spaces. Obviously, this isn't an ontological or metaphysical division of "thinking" but a phenomenological distinction that is perfectly evident in our experience of the World.

I did quote Steiner in regards to the concentration exercise on man-made objects, but you are refusing to accept that he is speaking of the same thing as Scaligero and Kuhlewinde. Why? The only reason I can tell is because, to do so, would undermine your conclusion that Scaligero is way off base and is arbitrarily making up his own distinctions, and I am only defending him because I want to integrate him into the discussion like I wanted to with Tomberg. That's not at all true, though. Now I have quoted Kuhlewinde as well. At what point do we start to question ourselves and say, 'maybe the misunderstanding resides within my limited knowledge and perspective and I should withhold conclusive judgments until I have a chance to expand that out further'? That is why I bring up the underlying tendency of undue skepticism and judgment, which has been a recurring issue in these discussions. For ex. Cleric gave us a good example recently:

I won't pretend that I understand the OT in all (or even a few) of its aspects. There are so many things which are still complete mysteries to me. For example, I have no clue why circumcision has become a paramount aspect of the Covenant. It seems to me like a grotesque request for a God to make to its people. But so far I have no reason to doubt that these things will find their logical explanation when the corresponding depth is reached.

It's clear that you have a difficult time adopting that attitude when meeting with ideas that strike you as 'grotesque' from others, even after I provide plenty of reasons why they are sound spiritual scientific ideas. We can make untold progress in our development if we start to concretely understand everything that the wise guidance of Karma puts on our path as a means to develop our inner moral forces, not by forsaking our reasoning, but by freely holding it open, receptive, and humble. When it starts to become a consistent pattern that we question ideas from others only later to realize the intensity of our skepticism was not at all justified, we should take that as a lesson to learn from and an opportunity to help break out of repetitive cycles of habitual tendencies. That is the actual experience of spiritual evolution.

To be honest, Ashvin, I have the feeling that, once you have recognized an author as an authentic spiritual seer, you feel that you absolutely have to integrate and validate everything they have written, at all costs. Opposites have to spiral together, and you will make them spiral. It’s almost like you make it a determined exercise. For a long time, you have been quoting Steiner profusely, but this has almost ceased today. More recently you have been reading Tomberg, and so you were addressing any questions with quotes from Tomberg, to the point that Güney told you the other day that the quote you used didn’t bring any clarity to the question, Anthony also expressed that, and I certainly felt the same, more than once. With Tomberg, it seemed that you had decided to abandon the idea of “structure” (a word you had previously been consistently fond of) in favor of the idea of order, within the context of Tomberg’s symbolic logic. It made complete sense. But now, as it happens, you are reading Scaligero, and so you have come back to your old favorite word “structure”, whilst Tombergs symbolic ordering seems to sink down into the background. And right now nearly every topic calls for a Scaligero quote. I feel that you are making this into a firm exercise, and I get that feeling of arm-twisting again, and arbitrariness. Last year every topic had a Steiner-answer, last month every topic had a Tomberg-answer, and now every topic has started to have a Scaligero-answer, that we like it or not. And if we don’t like it, it’s because one is intellectual, analytical, or down right respectless towards an Anthroposophist par excellence (I don’t know what exact meaning the expression has come to acquire in English, but in French it basically means “the archetypal Anthroposophist”).
While I see the value of such an exercise, and I understand the importance of uncovering the common thread across all esoteric authors, and across all reality for that matter, don’t you think that it stands to reason that there’s a limit and a balance pressing against the ideal of unity in our time, and that although we can and should act in ourselves the convergence we grasp as fundamental principle of all reality, and we can use certain inbuilt flexibility to push evolution forward through conscious intent, there is at the same time a lawful limit to how much we can force the opposites to coincide by making them coincide with/in our willed activity? We have abundantly criticized Eugene for his attitude of bypassing reality, and burning bridges into the ashes of unconsciousness, in order to instantly become Oneness. But when we do acknowledge the bridges, and work through them, only to squeeze them tightly together all the way towards non-existence, by declaring them spiraling, or spiraled, are we not in the end manifesting an intent of a similar nature?

Steiner, Cleric, and myself have all written about the need for exploring spiritual reality from as many angles and perspectives as possible, because it is something fluid and dynamic that doesn't 'stand still' like physical reality. I try to insert my own reasoning and metaphors as well, and could probably do more of that, but I still feel most comfortable with a healthy dose of quotes from Steiner, Scaligero, Tomberg, Cleric, and whomever else has clearly demonstrated a depth of knowledge and wisdom concerning these inner realities. I am not simply integrating anyone and everyone who I happen to come across. I started to make that mistake with Martinus but, as soon as I spotted an inconsistency, I tried to rectify that. Even before that, I could tell that Martinus had not developed higher cognition proper. In stark contrast, it is perfectly clear to me that Scaligero and Tomberg had developed equal intuitive thinking capacities to Steiner himself. The more I read them, the more clear it becomes. We can't reach the corresponding depths where these things become inwardly clear to us, in a consistent and sustained way, unless we give ourselves the opportunities to do so, in humility and faith. We should be clear that our lower nature is constantly fighting against those opportunities, trying to distract and divert us from them. We shouldn't help its efforts by indulging the distractions through radical skepticism and cynicism. Steiner himself makes this point in many places, such as HTKHW, and I don't think I need to quote that for you.

Since you asked for something from Steiner on 'pure perception', here is an excerpt:

https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA322/En ... 02p01.html

I have spoken to you about the conception underlying my book, Philosophy of Freedom. This book is actually a modest attempt to win through to pure thinking, the pure thinking in which the ego can live and maintain a firm footing. Then, when pure thinking has been grasped in this way, one can strive for something else. This thinking, left in the power of an ego that now feels itself to be liberated within free spirituality [frei und unabhängig in freier Geistigkeit], can then be excluded from the process of perception. Whereas in ordinary life one sees color, let us say, and at the same time imbues the color with conceptual activity, one can now extract the concepts from the entire process of elaborating percepts and draw the percept itself directly into ones bodily constitution.

Goethe undertook to do this and has already taken the First steps in this direction. Read the last chapter of his Theory of Colors, entitled “The Sensory-Moral Effect of Color”: in every color-effect he experiences something that unites itself profoundly not only with the faculty of perception but with the whole man. He experiences yellow and scarlet as “attacking” colors, penetrating him, as it were, through and through, filling him with warmth, while he regards blue and violet as colors that draw one out of oneself, as cold colors. The whole man experiences something in the act of sense perception. Sense perception, together with its content, passes down into the organism, and the ego with its pure thought content remains, so to speak, hovering above. We exclude thinking inasmuch as we take into and fill ourselves with the whole content of the perception, instead of weakening it with concepts, as we usually do. We train ourselves specially to achieve this by systematically pursuing what came to be practiced in a decadent form by the men of the East. Instead of grasping the content of the perception in pure, strictly logical thought, we grasp it symbolically, in pictures, allowing it to stream into us as a result of a kind of detour around thinking. We steep ourselves in the richness of the colors, the richness of the tone, by learning to experience the images inwardly, not in terms of thought but as pictures, as symbols. Because we do not suffuse our inner life with the thought content, as the psychology of association would have it, but with the content of perception indicated through symbols and pictures, the living inner forces of the etheric and astral bodies stream toward us from within, and we come to know the depths of consciousness and of the soul.

And I will quote more from Kuhlewinde since he goes into the distinctions quite precisely, exactly as Scaligero does. He even separates them into 3 different chapters, from which I am taking a few excerpt each. But unless you are willing to consider your initial judgments were premature, based on incomplete information and a lack of depth, these things will keep sounding to you like they are "avoiding" the topic, when in fact they couldn't be speaking to the topic of the 'tri-partite classification' any more directly.

Once we have learned discontinuous, conceptual thinking and have become able to synthesize, and once this has brought us to the structure of the consciousness soul, we can continue the further development of consciousness through conscious schooling. For, by this time, because of the structure of the consciousness soul, we no longer receive anything positive from the given without effort on our part. Our first goal has to be to strengthen the autonomy of our consciousness, that is, to strengthen our attention, a considerable part of which is caught in subconscious formations and habits. We can realize this goal by concentrating our attention on objects that are not appealing or interesting in themselves. For this, we must choose things that we can completely think through. Man-made objects with their functional ideas are appropriate for such exercises.67

To avoid becoming distracted we must picture the object and think thoughts proper and relevant to it as a preparatory exercise. The actual concentration on the function or idea of the object, however, requires that our now-strengthened attention become more continuous. We cannot “think” an idea, such as an invention, or the function of an object, with interruptions because it is neither a word nor a picture. That is also why the idea or function cannot be remembered or repeated; rather, it requires continuous intuition. To ensure that an idea stays in our consciousness, our concentrated attention must stay in the immediate present. The mental image and thought of the object, as well as its idea, are woven out of our attention; they are this attention. That is why we must make our attention more and more continuous through these exercises. Then, with the help of the idea as subject to focus on, we raise our attention to the continuity of the immediate present.

Our consciousness thus arrives at the “how” of thinking, which is the logic of the discontinuous expression of our thoughts. The functional idea of the man-made object is given to us superconsciously in childhood as our ability-to-cognize all similar objects as the same. Now we seek to raise our consciousness to a level that is usually superconscious. This answers the question of whether thinking consciousness can come closer to its sources. It also allows us to describe the self-awareness of the I, which was mentioned in chapter 5, in more detail. When we practice the exercises presented above, we realize that the theme we pictured or thought of, especially the idea of the chosen object, consists of attention. This attention is concentrated by virtue of the theme and simultaneously focused on it. In other words, our attention is focused on itself. We can now experience and perceive it just like any other percept, because it has been strengthened within itself. In our attention's encounter with itself, the idea of the I lights up and is realized. This is how our experience of the I on the level of the immediate present develops. This experience is fundamental to our pursuit of spiritual science.

... (chapter on Meditation)

Meditation is an attempt—by means of concentration and a continuity of attention in thinking and representing—to reach a truth saturated with reality in the experience of evidence. In perception on the other hand, that is to say, in perceptual meditation [or pure perception], the attempt is—again in the experience of evidence—to come to a reality saturated with truth. Meditation in any form always involves words. In fact, even the themes of pictorial and perceptual meditation are wordlike, although we cannot express such “words” in a particular language. Meditation themes have been conceived with enhanced powers of cognition and are expressed in the form of a text or a picture. In perceptual meditation, we take our theme from nature; the phenomena of nature are in themselves expressions of higher concepts. The subjects we choose to meditate on do not describe facts or refer to a world that is already past. Rather, they point to the common source of world and cognition, that is, to the Logos. In the Logos all being is cognition and already contains the latter. We can cognize and know our outer and inner worlds because they are Logos worlds and are created through the Word. The text or theme we meditate on is taken from a phase of the way the word travels “downward” toward the world of the past and is then expressed in the words of a particular language or in a picture. For this reason a meditator can find the way up to the source of the theme through meditation—that is, we find the way into a “wordless” sphere, “wordless” if we define “word” as necessarily always having a sound.

... (chapter on Perceptual Meditation i.e. "pure perception")

If we do not elevate ourselves to the level of meditation, we will be blinded by the ideas of nature that exceed our comprehension. As these ideas are inaccessible to us, they implant themselves in our mind as perceptual sensations and make us believe that they contain a nonconceptual element. This nonconceptual element seems to affect our senses, but we could comprehend the ideal with our spirit. Our affected senses “respond,” give us a picture. We assume that there is a nonideal “reality-in-itself” behind this picture. However, in reality, these substitute concepts are merely mental pictures, impure “half-concepts,” and lead us to misunderstand the nature of ideas. We mistake ideas for abstractions from the nonconceptual, as though concepts were not already a precondition for abstraction: after all, we must select and decide what we are abstracting from. The systematic cultivation of “nonthoughts” leads to impenetrable inclusions in our consciousness that obstruct the healthy circulation of light. As a result, our intuitive thinking is more and more weakened. We construct a labyrinth made up of thoughts that move in circles, and we can hardly find a way out. The intuitive forces that are prevented from functioning in a healthy way then develop into the dynamic and powerful habits of our subconscious—into the inverted, yet profoundly effective, inspirations of our feeling and will. These work to prevent us from becoming truly human. Were they to succeed in this, nature would be eternalized in its obscured existence and unredeemed through our failure to read it with understanding—eternalized like a being that never wakes from its sleep, mummified while it sleeps. In pure perception we are no longer blinded, and the incomprehensible regains its rank as a high idea. Our perception dissolves into understanding, into spiritual presence in the here and now.

Kühlewind, Georg. The Logos-Structure of the World . Lindisfarne Books. Kindle Edition.

[Federica]

Ashvin,

Please stop saying that "there is no doubt" that Steiner distinguished these three types of cognition based on the nature of the object. The doubt is there, and I am that doubt.

I think their thoughts on the matter are worth taking seriously.

I don’t know how you don't get that I don't have anything against Scaligero, and that I am taking his thoughts seriously. It's obvious that I do. Which is also why I have now carefully reviewed Cleric's essay on cell intelligence, since you stated that we can find this tripartite distinction (man-made, nature-made, supersensible) in Steiner, and in that essay.
Cleric speaks of our “human level intuitive space”, and that “we live at our human-scale geodesics all the time”. To me this is very, very far from being “the exact same thing” (your words) as a distinction of the experience of man-made objects from the one of nature objects, and of supra-sensory objects. It's equally very far from loosely pointing to such distinction. As I understand it, we live in our human-scale geodesics all the time independent of the particular nature of the objects we happen to experience. These geodesics are nothing else than the continuous balance of our thinking activity between the polar opposites of Lucifer and Ahriman. Not that we hang there, in our human-scale geodesic, just when we think of tables, and then we suddenly fly towards the higher spheres when we think of hexagons. Instead, all the spheres are interfering all the time.

As a thinking being we’re steering in thinking intuitive space. When we think about matter and biology we project our thinking in that direction. Please note – in our intellectual life we don’t experience the full nature of the lower and higher spaces. They only act as constraints to our human-scale flow. Our consciousness spans through all spaces but we are clearly self-conscious only in the steering of thinking space
(...)
our thinking space provides us with a unique intuitive topology of the total interference of spaces through which we can traverse conscious states along smooth geodesics.

There is one self-reflecting thinking activity that we are consciously in full control of. What we don’t clearly experience in normal cognition is the depth of interference of all levels with all levels. Yes, there is a physical level with its own geodesic of course, that corresponds to the experience of Will, but at no point in the essay the slightest reference can be found to the possibility that this physical lower space is experienced as two differentiated levels, one for man-made objects and one for natural objects. It is rather the opposite experience we have - as you have also admitted, when I asked you where we should put the concept of materialism in this tripartite distinction:

I would put the concept of 'materialism' into the man-made category in so far as it is informed by thought-forms drawn from our cultural sphere, and in the natural category in so far as it is informed by thought-forms drawn from the natural sphere of molecules, atoms, electrons, etc. Most concepts span both the cultural and natural spheres. A table isn't only a human invention but is also made of natural objects like wood, glass, and so forth.

That is: the majority of thoughts project us towards an interference of various spaces.

So one can all the more wonder, what is the lawfulness of such tripartite distinction, since it is almost never experienced, not even in the perception of a table, by your own admission. Although you later corrected the first part of your sentence, I understand you still agree that most concepts span various “spheres”?
I could even ask you to provide an example of a concept that is exclusively experienced as man-made, if you can find one. By the way, in your later version of the answer, a practical uselessness of the man-made distinction is confirmed, as you put the concept of materialism, in both the supersensible and the cultural spheres. So here we have a concept that is both in universal thinking and in human thinking, but you insist the distinction is useful?

In short, there seems to persist a considerable level of confusion, at least for me, which keeps the doubt alive that these three spheres of Scaligero, that you call “obviously experiential” and “not at all metaphysical or ontological” are actually never experienced as such ( as distinctions) in the reality of thinking activity? If so, in which sense are they:

- experiential, as distinctions in the activity of thinking the concepts?

- useful for understanding reality?

- mentioned by Cleric or Steiner? - I have given you the exact reason why I believe that Steiner recommends man-made objects for the first basic exercise (please, let us not confuse things by calling this exercise “concentration” just because Scaligero does that, when we speak of Steiner’s exercise) so before stating that I “refuse to admit” the presence of Scaligero’s distinction in Steiner, you should prove my explanation wrong, instead of ignoring it, and then accusing me of nearly pathological mental tricks.


Regarding the last quotes you have shared, I have sincerely and repeatedly tried to grasp their orientation and meaning despite the obscure medium - for us who are not aware of the context of these excerpts - in which these spare parts were originally inserted. But the task has appeared very difficult, arbitrary, and actually unreasonable to me. I am not able to reasonably grasp what Külewind wants to signify, by trying quasi-divination based on these floating words you so much like to hang on the walls of almost each of your posts, like valuable paintings. Of course, for you who are reading the whole book, and are doing it within a certain larger ideal purpose, the situation is very different. But to be honest I am exhausted to try to constantly jump from fragment to fragment, trying to figure out every time anew what the ideal context may be in the particular quote, in what particular way the author uses the concepts, with which intents, etcetera.

It’s your spirit of collection, and your wish of abundance that you play by, with all these disparate quotes, but realize that on the receiver’s end it can easily become a highly dispersive, fragmentary, and strongly draining task, when you constantly ask the reader to reconstruct the trajectory of your ideas, intertwined with the quotes, based on completely fractional, or fractured information, extracted from a large diversity of ideal contexts. I don't deny that this habit may be valuable to others, but for me it amounts to extreme gymnastics. I am not a conceptual archaeologist either, and I can't endure the imposition of this constant field labor anymore. I am actually quite the opposite of an archeologist, so I will consider disparate quotes (in case there will be any to consider, of course) much more sparingly going forward.