Esoteric knowledge for skeptics

[Güney27]

When you try to deal with concepts from Spiritual science, you quickly come to the problem of having to think about things that cannot be perceived by the senses.
Here everything can quickly be absorbed abstractly; one can imagine ether or astral body as color forms and prescribe attributes to them, but then one forms various abstract fantasies. That's why I understand one hundred percent those people who say that esotericism is nonsense.

The abstract images that one creates lead to nothing and are mostly fantasy.
The great difficulty is to try to use spiritual scientific concepts, such as ether body astral body......
to relate vividly to the inner experience. For today's people it makes no sense to start with esoteric teachings, one should first learn the thinking that can give one an understanding of these topics. How would you try to give a skeptic a meaningful and simple introduction to esotericism?

To the extent that it is at least taken seriously and is not directly labeled as new age.
Giving someone Steiner's epistemological books will do no good, because hardly anyone will take the time to study it, and most won't be able to understand it.

[AshvinP]

When you try to deal with concepts from Spiritual science, you quickly come to the problem of having to think about things that cannot be perceived by the senses.
Here everything can quickly be absorbed abstractly; one can imagine ether or astral body as color forms and prescribe attributes to them, but then one forms various abstract fantasies. That's why I understand one hundred percent those people who say that esotericism is nonsense.

The abstract images that one creates lead to nothing and are mostly fantasy.
The great difficulty is to try to use spiritual scientific concepts, such as ether body astral body......
to relate vividly to the inner experience. For today's people it makes no sense to start with esoteric teachings, one should first learn the thinking that can give one an understanding of these topics. How would you try to give a skeptic a meaningful and simple introduction to esotericism?

To the extent that it is at least taken seriously and is not directly labeled as new age.
Giving someone Steiner's epistemological books will do no good, because hardly anyone will take the time to study it, and most won't be able to understand it.

These are good points, Guney. Frankly, I don't think it's possible. I think of a 'skeptic' as someone who won't lift a finger to exercise their thinking muscles unless everything is presented to them in abstract conceptual proofs. Such a person cannot even follow a phenomenology of thinking-perception, let alone more involved esoteric discussion. The inner realities are what give rise to our ability to formulate 'proofs' yet cannot themselves be proved - that would be like trying to reconstruct a living person from the broken shards of a mirror that once reflected her image. It is even difficult for people well-versed in spiritual science to get a concrete inner understanding of the stages of evolution, planes, bodies, ethers, etc. for this reason.

It is all about re-orienting our normal intuition of the 'way the world works', deconditioning that intuition from very narrow assumptions, beliefs, and preferences. But our normal intuition is also conditioned by a narrow memory, a narrow experiential landscape, that has nothing to compare itself to. It can't remember its more living and organic childhood mode of thinking, let alone its modes of thinking in previous epochs of human history. So it needs to perceive the helplessness of its current situation and take a reasoned leap of faith towards trusting in a Wisdom beyond its narrow confines. The skeptic is practically by definition someone unwilling to trust in anything that is not already spread before him in known perceptions and concepts that can be passively absorbed.

Any person who wants a chance to understand their inner experience concretely needs to be very open and willing to struggle with their thinking, to sacrifice many accumulated beliefs and habits in the pursuit of Truth. And this is how it should be. It would be a terrible thing if we could 'prove' genuine esotericism to a skeptic or anyone else through a passively absorbed set of logical arguments. That would practically be the end of all striving towards inner perfection of creative and moral capacities, which is practically the end of human evolution. So we shouldn't get too concerned about convincing others of these inner realities. First, we need to continue working on our own intuitive orientation because there is surely a lot more work to be done at any given time. The most powerful means of transmission is through living examples to others of the noble ways we think, feel, and act.

[lorenzop]

You've convinced yourself and me to the folly of spiritual science

[Güney27]

You've convinced yourself and me to the folly of spiritual science

Hey Lorenzo,

Did you read PoF?
If you did what is your opinion about it?

[lorenzop]

No I have not read PoF.

I grab this phrase (below) from WikiPedia - I disagree with Steiner's claim, and it contradicts what scripture tends to report.

Steiner begins exploring the nature of human freedom by accepting "that an action, of which the agent does not know why he performs it, cannot be free," but asking what happens when a person becomes conscious of his or her motives for acting. He proposes (1) that through introspective observation we can become conscious of the motivations of our actions, and (2) that the sole possibility of human freedom, if it exists at all, must be sought in an awareness of the motives of our actions.[19]

[AshvinP]

No I have not read PoF.

I grab this phrase (below) from WikiPedia - I disagree with Steiner's claim, and it contradicts what scripture tends to report.

Steiner begins exploring the nature of human freedom by accepting "that an action, of which the agent does not know why he performs it, cannot be free," but asking what happens when a person becomes conscious of his or her motives for acting. He proposes (1) that through introspective observation we can become conscious of the motivations of our actions, and (2) that the sole possibility of human freedom, if it exists at all, must be sought in an awareness of the motives of our actions.[19]

Can we really speak of 'what scripture reports' if meaningful patterns of text only exist in our head

For my own subjective pattern detector, scripture reports many interesting layers of meaning.

"And God looked upon all that He had made, and indeed, it was very good."

In other words, God introspectively observed the result of his creative thinking activity and evaluated it as very good.

"But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God."

When the Spirit incarnates in our thinking, we can become aware of the deep inner tendencies of our soul that we are otherwise blind to and therefore unwittingly allow to rule over us.

"For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members."

With our minds, we can delight in the 'law of God after the inward man' and search out the motives of the flesh that bring us into captivity, causing us to stray from our ideals even when we know better.

Of course, we don't need scripture to verify what Steiner observes. Has anyone felt more free while they were addicted to some drug in ignorance, letting it dictate practically every decision they make, compared to when later they introspected and became aware of the motive that leads them to seek out the drug? This is how it is with every action in our stream of experience.

[Cleric K]

When you try to deal with concepts from Spiritual science, you quickly come to the problem of having to think about things that cannot be perceived by the senses.
Here everything can quickly be absorbed abstractly; one can imagine ether or astral body as color forms and prescribe attributes to them, but then one forms various abstract fantasies. That's why I understand one hundred percent those people who say that esotericism is nonsense.

The abstract images that one creates lead to nothing and are mostly fantasy.
The great difficulty is to try to use spiritual scientific concepts, such as ether body astral body......
to relate vividly to the inner experience. For today's people it makes no sense to start with esoteric teachings, one should first learn the thinking that can give one an understanding of these topics. How would you try to give a skeptic a meaningful and simple introduction to esotericism?

To the extent that it is at least taken seriously and is not directly labeled as new age.
Giving someone Steiner's epistemological books will do no good, because hardly anyone will take the time to study it, and most won't be able to understand it.

Guney, I’m guessing that your question is not simply about skeptics in general but probably you have tried to talk about these things with someone – friends, family, etc. – and found out that they show no understanding. Alas, in our age it is still rare that much if any of our closest people will share into this path towards reality. These are very harsh life lessons but at the same time they could be the most valuable.

We are still at a stage where it is very tempting to fall into sleepy comfort. As a personal example, my older brother to this day remains materialistically-scientifically minded. We have spent great amounts of hours speaking about these things, but nothing seems capable of moving him off his seat. He is not hostile, he doesn’t deny that in the end it could turn out that these things are true, but he prefers the position of materialistic parsimony. He grasps at the content of the senses, feels comfortable with scientific explanations of their dynamics and as a result sees all talks about spiritual depth only as additional layers of abstraction that make everything much more complicated than it needs to be, without adding anything of value.

The result of all these talks has been that I was forced to stress-test my own understanding from the most varied directions. I will always be grateful to him because it is primarily through his constant opposition that I could refine and clarify my intuitions. Without this opposition, if he simply agreed with everything, we would probably both remain at a certain level of comfort. So when we see things in this way, we may feel that the opposition we meet in our immediate environment is really there only to make us stronger and more lucid.

There’s another, deeper aspect of our attempts to explain things to people and change their minds. Probably anyone who struggles with these new ideas and meditates on them, at one point or another has caught themselves to argue with people in their imagination. This should be a fairly common experience especially for those here on the forum, who occasionally get into heated debates and certainly the arguments continue to reverberate in our thoughts and feelings even when we are away from the keyboard.

We should be aware that there could be a great amount of egoism in these debates. It is possible that we try to convince others just because of the fulfilment we would get when we turn out victorious. Or it might be that we just don’t want to thread the path on our own, we want to make those around us esoteric buddies.

In the course of development, such tendencies are gradually purified. Then when we reach deeper levels of meditation, these inner arguments begin to show themselves in their macrocosmic nature. We begin to understand that these oppositions are the Cosmic debate between Christ, Ahriman and Lucifer. Of course, they don’t debate with words as we do, but their macrocosmic friction shapes the higher order potential that gives momentum to our ideas and thoughts. When we see things from such macrocosmic perspective, we understand that arguments between human individualities are really stepped down arguments of what humanity as a collective entity has in Cosmic consciousness.

There are few important lessons from these experiences. First, at this stage of evolution it is not possible to convince Ari. We should understand that the peculiar conscious experiences of Ari and Lu rest on a Cosmic error. They explore a path of experience that they are still enthusiastic about. Just like we can see human beings who are overly enthusiastic about technological progress and would laugh at anyone who tries to show that there are also other aspects, so these beings are deaf to any arguments that their path may be headed towards a dead end.

When we argue with the skeptic, we argue with Ari. Yet these arguments tend to go into loops and Ari is unable (or rather unwilling) to see this. His existence depends on not seeing the errors. Lu on the other hand doesn’t delve too far into arguments. At the critical point he simply lifts upwards and looks from the heights with haughty smile. It is like he says “you fool, with all your arguments you are bogged down and can never see what I see from my lofty heights.” This is how Lu ends every argument.

Christ on the other hand is the Man of example. He doesn’t argue but lets his words become deeds of Love.

Having some knowledge of such things can give us great strength in our life. OMA has given an advice in this direction, although he didn’t speak with such concreteness. I can’t find the exact quote, but the essence was that when in our meditations we feel challenged by inner arguments, we should stop and say to our inner interlocutors “Just watch and see for yourself.” While we have limited abilities to communicate whole states of being to other people, when we have these arguments in our imagination, we can easily show them our inner state – we just have to assume that state. When we try to do this for the first time we might be surprised when we realize that most of the time we fight only with words and concepts but the things that we try to explain remain theoretical even for ourselves. There’s no wonder that such arguments can lead to inner exhaustion. We are simply on Ari’s territory. He can play that game indefinitely. But when we truly move towards the states that we otherwise only describe, then these inner opponents become quiet. Nothing can be said in the face of the facts. This doesn’t mean that they will change their mind or leave forever. But at least we know how to deal with them.

These inner skills are directly transferable to our outer life. Our whole attitude changes. When we see that a person is not receptive, instead of continuing to hammer them with arguments, we smile within ourselves, fill our soul with the Divine Love that the Christ abundantly pours through us, and we imagine how we gently bathe them with that Love. Of course, these people won’t feel anything, they may even never change in this life, but some small seeds would have been planted. Sometimes they may go home and think “There’s something in that person, I wonder how could he or she radiate such calmness, patience, understanding.” Of course, it’s important that it shouldn’t become our goal to make such impressions on others. Our only goal should be to give way of the Divine through us. What impressions others receive is none of our business.

In the long term, this is how Ari and Lu will be saved. At this stage they are very powerful. We shouldn’t underestimate their power even for a moment. They see the human soul as their own instrument. It is what allows them to have their consciousness. From their perspective, our intellectual arguments are like an inconvenient spiritual itch, but they are hardly moved by it. Yet when the Christ force grows within our souls, this itch becomes for them much more substantial, it becomes educational factor for them, which will ultimately awaken them to the Truth. But there’s a long way until this. For the time being we should quietly work and remember that our words only have power when they can become true transformative forces into the world. We can’t speak anything to others about the Christ if Love doesn’t radiate from our every gesture, every word, our whole being (If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have Love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal). Humanity won’t recognize the Divine Spirit because they are intellectually convinced, like if some historians succeed to prove that Jesus was a real historical figure and the Christ lived in him. This recognition can come only when they feel that there’s an inexhaustible source of Love and Strength, that has real transformative power in the world.

As a final note, we should also remember that in our Earthly life, Ari, Lu and Christ are all present in our soul. It would be very illusionary if we want to be only Christ and imagine that Ari and Lu are far away from our soul (it is precisely in such situations that they have the greatest power because they can work from the background). We can’t think about the perceptual World if Ari’s consciousness wasn’t present in us in every such act. We would never be able to form images of the higher worlds without Lu’s power of Imagination. It’s not that these faculties have to eliminated but that they should be utilized in the service of Truth. They become educational factors for Ari and Lu when they turn into channels for Divine Love.

[lorenzop]

When you try to deal with concepts from Spiritual science, you quickly come to the problem of having to think about things that cannot be perceived by the senses.
Here everything can quickly be absorbed abstractly; one can imagine ether or astral body as color forms and prescribe attributes to them, but then one forms various abstract fantasies. That's why I understand one hundred percent those people who say that esotericism is nonsense.

The abstract images that one creates lead to nothing and are mostly fantasy.
The great difficulty is to try to use spiritual scientific concepts, such as ether body astral body......
to relate vividly to the inner experience. For today's people it makes no sense to start with esoteric teachings, one should first learn the thinking that can give one an understanding of these topics. How would you try to give a skeptic a meaningful and simple introduction to esotericism?

To the extent that it is at least taken seriously and is not directly labeled as new age.
Giving someone Steiner's epistemological books will do no good, because hardly anyone will take the time to study it, and most won't be able to understand it.

OK, so my calling spiritual science a folly was made in jocularity - truth is I just don't understand what spiritual science is. For myself, the main hurdle to understanding esoteria is the seemingly required use of a specialized secret language. The secret language comes off as simply creating a need for High Priests and Priestesses. Many phrases used here in this forum, which I assume mean something to somebody(s), I just don't get them. Even a seemingly simple phrase like 'archetypal patterns of meaning' - I have no entry point of understanding.

[Cleric K]

OK, so my calling spiritual science a folly was made in jocularity - truth is I just don't understand what spiritual science is. For myself, the main hurdle to understanding esoteria is the seemingly required use of a specialized secret language. The secret language comes off as simply creating a need for High Priests and Priestesses. Many phrases used here in this forum, which I assume mean something to somebody(s), I just don't get them. Even a seemingly simple phrase like 'archetypal patterns of meaning' - I have no entry point of understanding.

We’ve been through this before The question is do you have any interest at all in understanding something of what we’re talking about? Because if you don’t have any interest, then it is like seeing symbols like 1+1=2, 2+2=4 and complaining that it is a secret language that needs High Preist to decipher, while stubbornly refusing to count your fingers, which in itself would decode the glyphs. It’s true that some of the things in various threads are more advanced but the majority is really 1+1 and 2+2. It’s just that some elementary effort is needed to move our thinking. Because 1+1 is a picture of a thought. For example, when we see something like this, we know how to read it. It’s a picture of something that we have to do with our willing spiritual activity. Well, 1+1 is a picture that tells us what to do with our thinking spiritual activity. It’s a recipe for a thinking process. If we just stare at this picture, it will remain cryptic. But when we set our thinking in motion and try the recipe, we’ll know from our own experience some inner motions that we may have not had the slightest inkling were possible.

I don’t know if it is worth it but here’s one more attempt to get a hint about what is meant by meaning (although similar examples were already given before).

Imagine you decide to walk to the store to get some bread. You go on your way and think about many things as you walk and at some point you notice that you have arrived. Everyone has such experiences when we get so engrossed in something that when we arrive, we realize that we’ve been walking on autopilot. Yet, when you arrive you know why you are there.

Now compare this with another situation where you notice that you are at the store but have absolutely no clue why. This is probably what living with dementia is like. Try to go back and forth between these situations and feel the difference. What is it which makes the first case completely sensible while the second may leave you with the impression that life is inherently random, we just find ourselves in situations as if we’ve just been dropped in a movie.

The paragraph above is precisely 1+1. It’s not just a picture to be contemplated and wondered about but it’s a recipe for thought. If we go through it actively, we’ll have certain inner experiences. Most importantly, we’ll have a first-person experience of the thing in question that is different in both cases (I really hope you won’t say that you don’t find any difference).

I won’t call it meaning, nor intuition, nor anything. I leave it to you to pick a word that seems most suitable. For the time being we can call it X. But hopefully, you have concluded that this X adds a certain sense of orientation, something that makes the experience of life a little less chaotic and random.

Now since you are here at a forum that originated along the work of BK, I take it that you have formed at least some idea about MAL. Assuming that the dissociative boundary is not absolute (as BK admits, he calls it porous), does it make sense that for many things that happen in the dreamscape and seem random, there might be some experience similar to X, which we can reach when consciousness expands in the greater Mind? I’m not asking whether you can confirm that from your experience but only if you understand what this whole thing implies, whether you understand what it means to live in a reality where there’s something similar to X behind happenings in the dreamscape?

[lorenzop]

I’m not asking whether you can confirm that from your experience but only if you understand what this whole thing implies, whether you understand what it means to live in a reality where there’s something similar to X behind happenings in the dreamscape?

I would answer 'no'. I can navigate city streets with purpose and deliberation - pay attention and know the meaning of a Stop sign, and understand the consequences of oncoming traffic. However, I don't see the meaning of a Stop sign as lying within or behind the Stop sign. When perceiving a dog - the notion of dogness is not buried\latent within the dog.
You used the phrase 'willing spiritual activity' to describe the process of deciphering an How To poster on how to do Squats . . . why use this phrase when traditionally the phrase would refer to philosophical or religious activities? When all activity is 'willing spiritual activity' then the phrase loses it's utility.