Science and Religon via The Vault

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Below I'm sharing the results of a performance art group that was known as The Vault who worked with Rudolf Steiner's lectures (and others) in the context of transforming and modifying them via free renderings. My impression of their artistic pieces was that it was somewhat like what happens when people make 'mashups' of their favorite directors by skillfully conflating and abstracting out aspects from several different movies. Many of us found The Vault a fascinating project and this one contains some ideas that I thought this group might really like to dig into.

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The ritual of science is to repeat prescribed methods of action and attention,
until there is a conscious mental encounter with the unknown."

{{ Today the VAULT bring us a talk that looks at the dynamic polarity between science and religion. The text has been spaced artificially to emphasize the dancing nature of these two archetypal gestures }}

We have spent quite a considerable amount of time examining many ways in which true religion and science should overlap more than they do in our current materialistic culture. But let us not lose sight of what we might call the fundamental “archetypal gesture” of each. For no matter how much Anthroposophy will bring them together, they will each always express unique functions of the evolving human being.

Both religion and science express forms of habitual knowing, except where each leads beyond its own current presumptions into the esoteric.
Religion makes profound use of the method of ritual, or the repetition of what previously had been found to be auspicious and revealing.
Science makes equally profound use of the ritual of method, which is also the repetition of what previously had been found to be auspicious and revealing.

The method of religion is to repeat prescribed rituals of action and attention, until there is a deep experiential encounter with the unknown.

The ritual of science is to repeat prescribed methods of action and attention, until there is a conscious mental encounter with the unknown.

Therefore, both religion and science pursue the experiential knowledge of the unknown.

Religious ritual is the science of the communal capacity of intuition.

Scientific method is the religion of the analytical capacity of comprehension.

Both religion and science are founded upon the urge to transform the present limitations acting within and upon human experience.

Religion cannot and should not do what science is intended to do, because religion is not fundamentally oriented toward a mental comprehension of the world of phenomena.

Science cannot and should not do what religion is intended to do, because science is not fundamentally oriented toward sacred unity with the world of phenomena.

Anthroposophy works to bring science and religion closer to each other’s spheres of experience, yet they will necessarily maintain and express unique gestures of humanity.

[AshvinP]

Below I'm sharing the results of a performance art group that was known as The Vault who worked with Rudolf Steiner's lectures (and others) in the context of transforming and modifying them via free renderings. My impression of their artistic pieces was that it was somewhat like what happens when people make 'mashups' of their favorite directors by skillfully conflating and abstracting out aspects from several different movies. Many of us found The Vault a fascinating project and this one contains some ideas that I thought this group might really like to dig into.

..........
Anthroposophy works to bring science and religion closer to each other’s spheres of experience, yet they will necessarily maintain and express unique gestures of humanity.

What does it mean to "transform and modify [Steiner's and others' lectures] by free renderings"?

And, if it is anything what it sounds like, which is basically to change them to reflect whatever they desire, feel, and think, via severe levels of fragmentation and abstraction form the original holistic meaning, then why do they still say "Anthroposophy works to..." instead of, "our free renderings of Steiner's and others' lectures work to..."?

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The quoted material is the piece. That is why they don't meta-comment from within the piece, in my opinion.

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"Anthroposophy works to bring science and religion closer to each other’s spheres of experience, yet they will necessarily maintain and express unique gestures of humanity."

I wonder if students of Steiner -- including myself - would be surprised to discover this was or was not something he said?

In the windows of most Waldorf schools we find beautiful quotes from Steiner (or so we assume) and almost no students object to them being taken out of context. An interesting meditation.

[AshvinP]

"Anthroposophy works to bring science and religion closer to each other’s spheres of experience, yet they will necessarily maintain and express unique gestures of humanity."

I wonder if students of Steiner -- including myself - would be surprised to discover this was or was not something he said?

In the windows of most Waldorf schools we find beautiful quotes from Steiner (or so we assume) and almost no students object to them being taken out of context. An interesting meditation.

This is very simple. In the liminal spaces of perception essay, which I think you appreciated, it was shown how all perceptual structures embed more meaning through their interconnections with other structures, which is why they don't simply disappear when we penetrate them with intellectual cognitive element, which is, by its very mode of functioning, fixing the meaning of perceptions in abstract space-time. The key is to take this from the realm of pure intellectual theory to the realm of 1st-person lived experience. Then we will very quickly understand the major flaws in this Vault approach, which is also reflected in your comments here. We feel this fact of perceptual structures cannot apply to the words and sentences we use, even though they are clearly perceptual structures and written language gives us a nice image of the liminal spaces we are speaking of (that was actually a simple illustration used in the essay).

By fragmenting the quotes here and there and then basing our conclusions of what Steiner meant on those fragments, we are doing nothing other than reifying our own abstract intellectual vision into 'the-thing-itself', the full extent of the perceptual meaning. As long as these things remain abstract theories to speculate over, we will feel this is an "unfair" or "irrelevant" criticism - it's fine for Goethe, Hegel, Emerson, etc. to write about nature, perception, cognition, etc., but if that is brought too close to our daily experience, and especially what we ourselves are doing in that experience, the same core ideas suddenly become incomprehensible to us. This is not about what "students" are doing, it is about what we ourselves should be doing if we want to remain logically consistent. I personally would object to any fragmented, out-of-context quote which was being used as a substitute for careful logical reasoning through the holistic meaning of the person's philosophical-spiritual approach, whether it portrayed that person in a positive or negative light.

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Major flaws in this piece of art! Ah, fascinating! What are the major flaws in Picasso, Joyce, and Shakespeare? The Vault's flaws must be (?) defined by their goals... Most people haven't found what the Vault was aiming for..... Why am I not surprised that you are already ready to teach a course on exactly what they were attempting and why it failed. Seriously impressed. And playfully.

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A lecture where Rudolf Steiner opens by paraphrasing Schopenhauer in his own words and then never explicitly ties the themes of the lecture to his rewording of Schopenhauer. He never even mentions his own free rendering again. Some would excoriate Steiner for that. Some wouldn't even a bit.

And that wouldn't be a piece of verbal art. Just a rhetorical move in a talk.

Who has read Ulysses? Does it have objective flaws?

[AshvinP]

Major flaws in this piece of art! Ah, fascinating! What are the major flaws in Picasso, Joyce, and Shakespeare? The Vault's flaws must be (?) defined by their goals... Most people haven't found what the Vault was aiming for..... Why am I not surprised that you are already ready to teach a course on exactly what they were attempting and why it failed. Seriously impressed. And playfully.

If someone makes a poor replica of a Picasso and then sells it as a Picasso, the major flaw, apart from committing a felony, is defrauding whoever bought it.

You seriously don't get why context matters when portrying another person's arguments, do you? I will stop trying to explain then... if Steiner did that habitually I would criticize him for it as well, but he didn't and I doubt whatever you are referencing even qualifies as an example. But once again, you failed to provide context when defending your failure to ever provide context

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"If someone makes a poor replica of a Picasso and then sells it as a Picasso, the major flaw, apart from committing a felony, is defrauding whoever bought it."

Ah, got it! Now I understand what you were assuming about their process and goals. And, yes, if they were selling their free renderings as lectures from Steiner, oh my goodness!!! Thanks for showing me your filter so clearly. Now I understand your certainty.

[AshvinP]

"If someone makes a poor replica of a Picasso and then sells it as a Picasso, the major flaw, apart from committing a felony, is defrauding whoever bought it."

Ah, got it! Now I understand what you were assuming about their process and goals. And, yes, if they were selling their free renderings as lectures from Steiner, oh my goodness!!! Thanks for showing me your filter so clearly. Now I understand your certainty.

From what you quoted, they are representing their "free renderings" as from Anthroposophy (Steiner). That is why I asked if you had any more insight into why they wrote, "Anthroposophy works to bring science and religion closer to each other’s spheres of experience, yet they will necessarily maintain and express unique gestures of humanity." But, as usual, you did not provide any more clarification.

But they are not the real issue here, because they are not on this forum constantly misrepresenting Steiner. You are the one doing that and you are also ignoring all of my attempts to explain how it is being done, just as you ignore all of Cleric's attempts to explain what Steiner was actually saying. That is the major fraudulent flaw in all of these posts.