On the Spiritual Essence of the Catch-22 (Part I)

[Federica]

I want to say, it's quite incredible that I post this thought one day, that PoF is....

"an artistic conceptual expression of a holistic, omnipresent reality. Therefore, any attempt to make an ulterior summary of it (not saying SM had that as a goal) is misled and doomed to fail. One can discuss it, work with it, write *about* it (which is possibly what SM aimed to), further elaborate and/or illustrate related ideas dialogically, analogically, but summarizing it is preposterous. Would anyone ever attempt to summarize a temple, a poem, a concert?"

and a few days later, I happen to buy this book by Kühlewind (Working with Anthroposophy) and find in it the same thought:

"To come to “know” what is in a spiritual scientific communication is empty illusion, since it contains no information. If high-level communications are summed-up, i.e. formulated and repeated by the intellect, then they are reduced to a level where they become "distorted truths”. Then, they do no service to the subject, the summarizer, or the listeners. It occurs to none (we hope) to “summarize” the Gospel of St. John. (...) Just as a poem cannot be rendered in other words, so too fairy tales, myths, and the communications of spiritual science cannot be reproduced."

This is striking to me!

That you (Ashvin) fiercely attacked my thought, while agreeing (what else?) with Kühlewinds is another story...

[Federica]

(...)We also got rid of the epistemology critique, since merely using that word which, in your non-shared opinion isnt in symbolic resonance with PoF, doesn't reflect on the substance of what Miller was doing.
(...)

(...)The epistemology critique is actually still there, since Miller put it as title of the essay, which, in my view does have a resonance and an impact on the reader.

By the way I would be interested in whether you agree with this:
"So, if your critique was correct, it should also mean that if a verse is beautiful, a poem is beautiful, it's because the reader is interpreting the words in a certain way rather than another. Of course that is not how things stand."

I'm not sure how this relates to my critique. I can agree that whenever we evaluate something as 'beautiful', we are necessarily attaching certain meaningful intuitions to percepts. When those intuitions are unduly colored by personal soul factors, we call it subjective, and when they are experienced in more purity, we call it objective or transcendent.

So it's clear, the critique I am making can also be applied to the bold - the mere titling of an essay can only have a negative impact on us, the reader, if our thinking is associative. It can only distract our thinking from objectively working through the recursive thought-organism if we are not in full control of our thinking, but rather under the compulsion of subconscious associations that distract us. We are no longer resonating with the soul perspective of the author but attaching our personal meanings to the textual perceptions. If our thinking is not associative, on the other hand, not only will the title not distract us, but it may even give us more opportunity to resonate with the underlying soul perspective. We may approach the textual meaning from an angle we are not too familiar with and therefore perceive shades of meaning in the text, corresponding to the author's intention, that would otherwise be obscured. In any case, the title won't phase us.

It seems to me that you are still not getting what I am trying to say. So let me refresh: Your critique is that I am stuck in particular words, and that means that I attach by association personal meaning to them, which blocks me from resonating with the author's perspective. In your words:

I think this is a really important point but I'm not sure how to convey it differently. Why are WE reducing and flattening Steiner's work by simply using the word "epistemology" to characterize it? That could only be because our thinking automatically associates "epistemology" with some theoretical inquiry. It is similar to when Eugene et al. would automatically associate "thinking" or "idea" with floating thoughts in the intellect and therefore remained incredulous that they could characterize much more integrated and unified spiritual experiences. There is no need for our thinking to automatically make these associations if it pays attention to the overall meaningful context in which such terms are used and therefore brings more dynamic meaning to the otherwise fixed word-forms. This is an example of 'saving the appearances' through our spiritual activity.

My reply to that was - and is - that your point is true for discursive communications - science, philosophy, conceptual illustrations, and the like. Proof that I am able to avoid attaching subjective, associative meaning to words and "resonate with the perspective of the author" is that both you and Cleric have often discussed the same spiritual scientific ideas, with very different intuitive contexts, styles, and vocabulary, and despite that I could resonate with both, and recognize that it was a case of two different viewpoints on the same ideas. And this is one thing.
HOWEVER, when we exit the realm of discursive communication and enter the realm of artistic expression in language, the realm of beauty, then words do have a precise, symbolic value. It's not anymore a matter of keeping the concepts and ideas flexible. It's a matter of resonating with the word as symbol, and touching its resonance (beauty) in the context. That this is true is easy to verify if we consider a poem. If a poem could be approached in the way you have described - not appreciating the exact words, but remaining flexible to the author's perspective - we would lose the beauty and reason for being of the poem. The exact words expressed in the poem are essential. Similar words could maintain the concepts, but compromise the beauty of the poem, obviously. Which is also why Kühlewind says that spiritual science cannot be summarized or reproduced, like it is for a poem, or the Gospel of Saint John.


I really hope that with this I have made my point very clear!


So, when Miller, or anyone else, wants to discuss PoF, work with it, elaborate on it - as you and Cleric have done hundreds of times here - that is perfectly fine, and your reasoning applies. Words are used not as tokens of beauty, but precisely to stimulate the reader to resonate with a perspective.
HOWEVER, when someone decides to reproduce a poem, the Gospel of Saint John, or the overall idea of PoF - not elaborate it, discuss it, work with it, which is fine - but summarize it, reproduce it, within the words "Steiner's epistemology", then it's as if one was trying to re-title a poem, to condense it under a label, the summarize it, which is, as just argued, not beautiful. As Kühlewind says: "just as a poem cannot be rendered in other words, so too fairy tales, myths, and the communications of spiritual science cannot be reproduced".


By the way, why this seeming resistance to the experience of beauty in words?
May I ask you: have you ever written a poem, in whatever form or style, or started writing one, or thought you would?

[AshvinP]

I'm not sure how this relates to my critique. I can agree that whenever we evaluate something as 'beautiful', we are necessarily attaching certain meaningful intuitions to percepts. When those intuitions are unduly colored by personal soul factors, we call it subjective, and when they are experienced in more purity, we call it objective or transcendent.

So it's clear, the critique I am making can also be applied to the bold - the mere titling of an essay can only have a negative impact on us, the reader, if our thinking is associative. It can only distract our thinking from objectively working through the recursive thought-organism if we are not in full control of our thinking, but rather under the compulsion of subconscious associations that distract us. We are no longer resonating with the soul perspective of the author but attaching our personal meanings to the textual perceptions. If our thinking is not associative, on the other hand, not only will the title not distract us, but it may even give us more opportunity to resonate with the underlying soul perspective. We may approach the textual meaning from an angle we are not too familiar with and therefore perceive shades of meaning in the text, corresponding to the author's intention, that would otherwise be obscured. In any case, the title won't phase us.

It seems to me that you are still not getting what I am trying to say. So let me refresh: Your critique is that I am stuck in particular words, and that means that I attach by association personal meaning to them, which blocks me from resonating with the author's perspective. In your words:

I think this is a really important point but I'm not sure how to convey it differently. Why are WE reducing and flattening Steiner's work by simply using the word "epistemology" to characterize it? That could only be because our thinking automatically associates "epistemology" with some theoretical inquiry. It is similar to when Eugene et al. would automatically associate "thinking" or "idea" with floating thoughts in the intellect and therefore remained incredulous that they could characterize much more integrated and unified spiritual experiences. There is no need for our thinking to automatically make these associations if it pays attention to the overall meaningful context in which such terms are used and therefore brings more dynamic meaning to the otherwise fixed word-forms. This is an example of 'saving the appearances' through our spiritual activity.

My reply to that was - and is - that your point is true for discursive communications - science, philosophy, conceptual illustrations, and the like. Proof that I am able to avoid attaching subjective, associative meaning to words and "resonate with the perspective of the author" is that both you and Cleric have often discussed the same spiritual scientific ideas, with very different intuitive contexts, styles, and vocabulary, and despite that I could resonate with both, and recognize that it was a case of two different viewpoints on the same ideas. And this is one thing.
HOWEVER, when we exit the realm of discursive communication and enter the realm of artistic expression in language, the realm of beauty, then words do have a precise, symbolic value. It's not anymore a matter of keeping the concepts and ideas flexible. It's a matter of resonating with the word as symbol, and touching its resonance (beauty) in the context. That this is true is easy to verify if we consider a poem. If a poem could be approached in the way you have described - not appreciating the exact words, but remaining flexible to the author's perspective - we would lose the beauty and reason for being of the poem. The exact words expressed in the poem are essential. Similar words could maintain the concepts, but compromise the beauty of the poem, obviously. Which is also why Kühlewind says that spiritual science cannot be summarized or reproduced, like it is for a poem, or the Gospel of Saint John.


I really hope that with this I have made my point very clear!


So, when Miller, or anyone else, wants to discuss PoF, work with it, elaborate on it - as you and Cleric have done hundreds of times here - that is perfectly fine, and your reasoning applies. Words are used not as tokens of beauty, but precisely to stimulate the reader to resonate with a perspective.
HOWEVER, when someone decides to reproduce a poem, the Gospel of Saint John, or the overall idea of PoF - not elaborate it, discuss it, work with it, which is fine - but summarize it, reproduce it, within the words "Steiner's epistemology", then it's as if one was trying to re-title a poem, to condense it under a label, the summarize it, which is, as just argued, not beautiful. As Kühlewind says: "just as a poem cannot be rendered in other words, so too fairy tales, myths, and the communications of spiritual science cannot be reproduced".

Federica,

Your point is very clear but I don't agree with it, as stated. There is no hard line between the phenomenology of spiritual activity and artistic expression because, in fact, the whole technique of the former is to render intuitive experiences of spiritual activity into symbolic language artistically. I am not sure why you call the former (or spiritual science more generally) "discursive communication", in that sense, because that's exactly what it is not and what commonly blocks people from understanding it properly. That happens precisely because they treat it as discursive communication of facts and information rather than artistic expressions of meaningful intuitions, just as a painting, a poem, a musical composition, etc. Steiner makes this connection clear:

Life is made up of many different realms, and every one of them calls for a different kind of scientific approach. But life itself is a unity, and to the extent that science devotes itself to exploring separate areas it loses sight of the living oneness of the cosmos. We must have a science concerned with discovering in the separate scientific fields elements capable of leading us back again to that living wholeness. Investigators in special scientific fields use the facts they discover to build up a picture of the world and its workings. This book [PoF] has a philosophic goal: that of making science itself alive and organic. The single sciences are only preparatory steps toward the science we are envisioning here.

A similar situation exists in the art realm. A composer works according to the rules of composition. Music theory is a body of knowledge that one must have acquired before starting to compose, and in composing, the laws of composition are made to serve life, to create something absolutely real. Philosophy is an art in exactly the same sense. Real philosophers have always been conceptual artists. The ideas of humankind were the artistic medium in which they worked, and in their hands scientific method became artistic technique. This endows abstract thinking with concrete individual life; ideas become living forces. When this happens, it means not merely knowing about things but transforming knowledge into a real, self-controlling organism, and our true, active consciousness lifts itself above the level of a merely passive taking-in of facts.

My book [PoF] addresses itself mainly to the question of how philosophy deals as an art with the subject of human freedom, what the nature of freedom really is, and whether we already possess it or can develop it. (Soziales Verständnis, Vol. IV, Lecture 2.)

Of course, you and Kuhlewind are correct if someone is trying to summarize or reproduce an artistic work, like a poem. That has already been established and it has further been established that SM was not doing that. IF one concludes he is doing that based on the title "Steiner's epistemology" or the use of the word epistemology more generally (which of course is a domain of philosophy through which we can express conceptual art, in Steiner's sense above), rather than the intuitive movements expressed through the substance of the text, then that is associative thinking on the part of the reader. The only way we can freely reach the conclusion he is attempting to reproduce an artistic work is by moving our thinking through the whole text and seeing if it intuitively feels like an attempt at reproduction, rather than an independent artistic rendering of inner experiences.

What is ironic is that the act of declaring such an article unhelpful based on "symbolic dissonance" in the wording of the title, or whatever other subjective impressions are imported into parts of the text, is a kind of summary of PoF. It is a statement that "only artistic renderings that agree with my personal sensibility of symbolic resonance can be helpful for orienting to the core artistic phenomenology of PoF". This necessarily delimits the artistic value of PoF, just as if we said that the Christ events could only be painted in certain colors and not others or poetically expressed in a certain language and not others, because that's what we, as personalities in a particular time, place, life situation, etc., symbolically resonate with. Expressing the thought is a great start, but embodying it in our thinking is the next step.

We should really strive to approach the work of others in this domain as if they are works of art:



(The Temptation of St. Anthony, Martin Schongauer)


If I approach the above with some inherent doubt, skepticism, antipathy, with personal sensibilities, without charity and reverence, etc., then I will never penetrate to its true symbolic value for the path of initiation. The meaning will be staring me in the face but I simply won't be able to see it. I will only be able to see in it what I am projecting into it and perhaps rationalize the dissonance as some color swatch of the painting that conflicts with my objective 'sense of beauty'. This is also at the heart of these Catch-22 essays. As long as we treat the prospect of attaining inner knowledge through phenomenology as separate from highly aesthetic and moral development, we will be fundamentally limited in the resonance we can attain through the former.

By the way, why this seeming resistance to the experience of beauty in words?
May I ask you: have you ever written a poem, in whatever form or style, or started writing one, or thought you would?

I have not yet because I don't think I have developed the deep moral (sefless) sensibility that would be needed to carry that task out properly. There is no resistance to the experience of beauty in words, but resistance to delimiting our capacity to experience beauty in words due to personal sensibilities. Why you are able to experience the beauty in Cleric's posts or sometimes my posts but not in SM's article is something for you to contemplate, since they are all artistically exploring the same underlying intuitive experience of spiritual activity.

[Federica]

Federica,

Your point is very clear but I don't agree with it, as stated. There is no hard line between the phenomenology of spiritual activity and artistic expression because, in fact, the whole technique of the former is to render intuitive experiences of spiritual activity into symbolic language artistically. I am not sure why you call the former (or spiritual science more generally) "discursive communication", in that sense, because that's exactly what it is not and what commonly blocks people from understanding it properly. That happens precisely because they treat it as discursive communication of facts and information rather than artistic expressions of meaningful intuitions...

Ashvin,

Are you trying to drive me crazy? That's a good exercise, and some time ago it would have worked. But today, I need other types of exercise. So, I don't know why, but somehow my point was not clear to you. Maybe it was expressed unclearly. You say you are not sure why I call spiritual science discursive. Well, I have called spiritual science the exact opposite of discursive, supported by what I thought was an extensive and clear elaboration. It's all there. Now, I don't immediately see how I could elaborate it better, so that you don't get the opposite of what I mean. I'll think about it, and if I come up with something, I'll come back.

[AshvinP]

Federica,

Your point is very clear but I don't agree with it, as stated. There is no hard line between the phenomenology of spiritual activity and artistic expression because, in fact, the whole technique of the former is to render intuitive experiences of spiritual activity into symbolic language artistically. I am not sure why you call the former (or spiritual science more generally) "discursive communication", in that sense, because that's exactly what it is not and what commonly blocks people from understanding it properly. That happens precisely because they treat it as discursive communication of facts and information rather than artistic expressions of meaningful intuitions...

Ashvin,

Are you trying to drive me crazy? That's a good exercise, and some time ago it would have worked. But today, I need other types of exercise. So, I don't know why, but somehow my point was not clear to you. Maybe it was expressed unclearly. You say you are not sure why I call spiritual science discursive. Well, I have called spiritual science the exact opposite of discursive, supported by what I thought was an extensive and clear elaboration. It's all there. Now, I don't immediately see how I could elaborate it better, so that you don't get the opposite of what I mean. I'll think about it, and if I come up with something, I'll come back.

No, Federica, I'm not trying to drive you crazy. And asking a question like that just reinforces my point that you consistently let personal sensibilities and emotions influence your understanding of what is written, almost as if that is the proper way of approaching spiritual reality. I don't think you realize just how often you do this. Adding "maybe it was expressed unclearly" after that question doesn't give me much confidence that you actually realize this is the case.

Before you wrote a list of reasons for why SM's article was unhelpful, capped with the "summary" criticism, and told me I was misunderstanding, because you were very clear that SM was not summarizing. It was all there.

Now you wrote:

My reply to that was - and is - that your point is true for discursive communications - science, philosophy, conceptual illustrations, and the like. Proof that I am able to avoid attaching subjective, associative meaning to words and "resonate with the perspective of the author" is that both you and Cleric have often discussed the same spiritual scientific ideas, with very different intuitive contexts, styles, and vocabulary, and despite that I could resonate with both, and recognize that it was a case of two different viewpoints on the same ideas. And this is one thing.

HOWEVER, when we exit the realm of discursive communications and enter the realm of artistic expression in language, the realm of beauty, then words do have a precise, symbolic value.

Now if you still can't see how I reached the understanding expressed before, it's simply because you don't want to see. And if your intention was not to imply our 'conceptual illustrations' were in the 'realm of discursive communications', then yes, you need to work on expressing yourself MUCH more carefully and clearly. At this point, I have to assume you are capable of such clear expression and therefore mean exactly what is suggested in the above wording.

That would fit in with your feeling that "epistemology" is dissonant with PoF's artistic nature, even though Steiner himself says that real philosophy has always been conceptual art.

And it should be added that "resonating with the perspective of the author" is always what we should be attempting to do, in spiritual art and science as well, not only in 'discursive communications'. It's only that the 'author' of spiritual artistic science is archetypal beings who creatively manifest our capacities for sensing, thinking, feeling, willing.

[Federica]

Federica,

Your point is very clear but I don't agree with it, as stated. There is no hard line between the phenomenology of spiritual activity and artistic expression because, in fact, the whole technique of the former is to render intuitive experiences of spiritual activity into symbolic language artistically. I am not sure why you call the former (or spiritual science more generally) "discursive communication", in that sense, because that's exactly what it is not and what commonly blocks people from understanding it properly. That happens precisely because they treat it as discursive communication of facts and information rather than artistic expressions of meaningful intuitions...

Ashvin,

Are you trying to drive me crazy? That's a good exercise, and some time ago it would have worked. But today, I need other types of exercise. So, I don't know why, but somehow my point was not clear to you. Maybe it was expressed unclearly. You say you are not sure why I call spiritual science discursive. Well, I have called spiritual science the exact opposite of discursive, supported by what I thought was an extensive and clear elaboration. It's all there. Now, I don't immediately see how I could elaborate it better, so that you don't get the opposite of what I mean. I'll think about it, and if I come up with something, I'll come back.

No, Federica, I'm not trying to drive you crazy. And asking a question like that just reinforces my point that you consistently let personal sensibilities and emotions influence your understanding of what is written, almost as if that is the proper way of approaching spiritual reality. I don't think you realize just how often you do this. Adding "maybe it was expressed unclearly" after that question doesn't give me much confidence that you actually realize this is the case.

Before you wrote a list of reasons for why SM's article was unhelpful, capped with the "summary" criticism, and told me I was misunderstanding, because you were very clear that SM was not summarizing. It was all there.

Now you wrote:

My reply to that was - and is - that your point is true for discursive communications - science, philosophy, conceptual illustrations, and the like. Proof that I am able to avoid attaching subjective, associative meaning to words and "resonate with the perspective of the author" is that both you and Cleric have often discussed the same spiritual scientific ideas, with very different intuitive contexts, styles, and vocabulary, and despite that I could resonate with both, and recognize that it was a case of two different viewpoints on the same ideas. And this is one thing.

HOWEVER, when we exit the realm of discursive communications and enter the realm of artistic expression in language, the realm of beauty, then words do have a precise, symbolic value.

Now if you still can't see how I reached the understanding expressed before, it's simply because you don't want to see. And if your intention was not to imply our 'conceptual illustrations' were in the 'realm of discursive communications', then yes, you need to work on expressing yourself MUCH more carefully and clearly. At this point, I have to assume you are capable of such clear expression and therefore mean exactly what is suggested in the above wording.

That would fit in with your feeling that "epistemology" is dissonant with PoF's artistic nature, even though Steiner himself says that real philosophy has always been conceptual art.

And it should be added that "resonating with the perspective of the author" is always what we should be attempting to do, in spiritual art and science as well, not only in 'discursive communications'. It's only that the 'author' of spiritual artistic science is archetypal beings who creatively manifest our capacities for sensing, thinking, feeling, willing.

Ashvin,

Leaving aside all your speculations on my supposed psychic state, and the manner in which you express those speculations, I'll make a note on the bold, that you have written just above. I hope it will be useful.

Of course, my intention WAS, indeed, to imply that your 'conceptual illustrations' ARE in the 'realm of discursive communications'. If it wasn't, then you would be right, I would then need to work on expressing myself MUCH more carefully and clearly. But it was.......

What you are missing is this (which I tried to clarify especially in the second part of my post in question):
Your conceptual illustrations (and Clerics) are not spiritual science. Those are discursive discussions about spiritual science, intended to convey, stimulate and develop intellectual support and intuition (in normale sense) as preparation and context for spiritual scientific development. As Kühlewind puts it: there are no esoteric contents (=information) there are only esoteric capacities.

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

Leaving aside all your speculations on my supposed psychic state, and the manner in which you express those speculations, I'll make a note on the bold, that you have written just above. I hope it will be useful.

Of course, my intention WAS, indeed, to imply that your 'conceptual illustrations' are in the 'realm of discursive communications'. If it wasn't, then you would be right, I would then need to work on expressing myself MUCH more carefully and clearly. But since that was precisely my intention.....

What you are missing is this (which I tried to clarify especially in the second part of my post in question):
Your conceptual illustrations (and Clerics) are not spiritual science. Those are discursive discussions about spiritual science, intended to convey, stimulate and develop intellectual support and intuition (in normale sense) as preparation and context for spiritual scientific development. As Kühlewind puts it: there are no esoteric contents (=information) there are only esoteric capacities.

Ok, I am glad we established this issue clearly, in a way that cannot possibly be misunderstood by me

I don't think it's helpful to make this distinction between conceptual illustrations as 'discursive communication' and spiritual science as the real artistic deal, so to speak, saying that the former is about the latter but not equivalent to it. In other words, one feels that the conceptual illustrations provide informational content and we will only experience the reality that content is pointing to at some later time, when we have the proper capacities in place.

I think Cleric has already expressed the problems with this understanding in various elucidating ways. For ex., the posts on study-meditating, on the 'thinking-dolls', on the meaning of 'ordinary, healthy human understanding', on experiencing the inner warmth of Old Saturn, etc. The key is that the conceptual illustrations will always remain thinking-dolls if we continue to enforce this distinction, treating it as informational content that is pointing to something else that will arrive later. We make it impossible for ourselves, in the Catch-22 sense, to understand their concrete overlap with higher cognitive research, i.e. the intimate investigation of our knowing capacity. We will remain in a perpetual preparatory phase, similar to the recursive researchers in science.

There is nothing other than that self-enforced division preventing us from feeling that, when we work through the conceptual illustrations, we are engaging in the very same spiritual scientific research that the clairvoyant engages in, except the latter does so with greater presentness and purity. Our conjunctions while working through the conceptual phenomenology are usually short-lasting and quickly collapse into instability due to personal emotions and thoughts overlaid on the meaning experienced, but that is something we can continually improve by seeking the inverted selfless perspective. We have to actively work on resisting and purifying those personal approaches to the meaning (which is certainly much easier said than done).

This was also discussed in Part II in the context of McLuhan's observation, "Indeed, it is only too typical that the 'content' of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium." Through the inverted perspective, however, we can engage the content without being blinded to the character of the medium, i.e. the underlying knowing gestures. Then we are truly engaged in spiritual science, not simply thinking about spiritual science from a distance with metaphors, illustrations, etc. while remaining outside the intimate intuitive movements that are artistically expressed through the symbols of spiritual science. In short, the content and the medium are increasingly realized as one and the same, not just in theory but in living experience, and none of what we do in this domain is experienced as discursive communication.

[Federica]

Ashvin,

Leaving aside all your speculations on my supposed psychic state, and the manner in which you express those speculations, I'll make a note on the bold, that you have written just above. I hope it will be useful.

Of course, my intention WAS, indeed, to imply that your 'conceptual illustrations' are in the 'realm of discursive communications'. If it wasn't, then you would be right, I would then need to work on expressing myself MUCH more carefully and clearly. But since that was precisely my intention.....

What you are missing is this (which I tried to clarify especially in the second part of my post in question):
Your conceptual illustrations (and Clerics) are not spiritual science. Those are discursive discussions about spiritual science, intended to convey, stimulate and develop intellectual support and intuition (in normale sense) as preparation and context for spiritual scientific development. As Kühlewind puts it: there are no esoteric contents (=information) there are only esoteric capacities.

Ok, I am glad we established this issue clearly, in a way that cannot possibly be misunderstood by me

I don't think it's helpful to make this distinction between conceptual illustrations as 'discursive communication' and spiritual science as the real artistic deal, so to speak, saying that the former is about the latter but not equivalent to it. In other words, one feels that the conceptual illustrations provide informational content and we will only experience the reality that content is pointing to at some later time, when we have the proper capacities in place.

I think Cleric has already expressed the problems with this understanding in various elucidating ways. For ex., the posts on study-meditating, on the 'thinking-dolls', on the meaning of 'ordinary, healthy human understanding', on experiencing the inner warmth of Old Saturn, etc. The key is that the conceptual illustrations will always remain thinking-dolls if we continue to enforce this distinction, treating it as informational content that is pointing to something else that will arrive later. We make it impossible for ourselves, in the Catch-22 sense, to understand their concrete overlap with higher cognitive research, i.e. the intimate investigation of our knowing capacity. We will remain in a perpetual preparatory phase, similar to the recursive researchers in science.

There is nothing other than that self-enforced division preventing us from feeling that, when we work through the conceptual illustrations, we are engaging in the very same spiritual scientific research that the clairvoyant engages in, except the latter does so with greater presentness and purity. Our conjunctions while working through the conceptual phenomenology are usually short-lasting and quickly collapse into instability due to personal emotions and thoughts overlaid on the meaning experienced, but that is something we can continually improve by seeking the inverted selfless perspective. We have to actively work on resisting and purifying those personal approaches to the meaning (which is certainly much easier said than done).

This was also discussed in Part II in the context of McLuhan's observation, "Indeed, it is only too typical that the 'content' of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium." Through the inverted perspective, however, we can engage the content without being blinded to the character of the medium, i.e. the underlying knowing gestures. Then we are truly engaged in spiritual science, not simply thinking about spiritual science from a distance with metaphors, illustrations, etc. while remaining outside the intimate intuitive movements that are artistically expressed through the symbols of spiritual science. In short, the content and the medium are increasingly realized as one and the same, not just in theory but in living experience, and none of what we do in this domain is experienced as discursive communication.

Of course we should not treat it as separate informational content never to be realized, and all the other things that you say. But the point was something else. It was about beauty. Sure, no hard line between prose and poetry (to say it in two words). Still, there is a way in which words can be beautiful rather than discursive, or vice versa. And when they are beautiful (or less so) it's because of their exact, symbolic, expressive form in the context, because of their poiesis (or lack thereof) as ML would say. That was the point. And being sensitive to that does not imply falling into all those errors that you have loaded on my shoulders. So that's why and how I say that there's no poiesis in the words: "Steiner's epistemology".

[AshvinP]

Ashvin,

Leaving aside all your speculations on my supposed psychic state, and the manner in which you express those speculations, I'll make a note on the bold, that you have written just above. I hope it will be useful.

Of course, my intention WAS, indeed, to imply that your 'conceptual illustrations' are in the 'realm of discursive communications'. If it wasn't, then you would be right, I would then need to work on expressing myself MUCH more carefully and clearly. But since that was precisely my intention.....

What you are missing is this (which I tried to clarify especially in the second part of my post in question):
Your conceptual illustrations (and Clerics) are not spiritual science. Those are discursive discussions about spiritual science, intended to convey, stimulate and develop intellectual support and intuition (in normale sense) as preparation and context for spiritual scientific development. As Kühlewind puts it: there are no esoteric contents (=information) there are only esoteric capacities.

Ok, I am glad we established this issue clearly, in a way that cannot possibly be misunderstood by me

I don't think it's helpful to make this distinction between conceptual illustrations as 'discursive communication' and spiritual science as the real artistic deal, so to speak, saying that the former is about the latter but not equivalent to it. In other words, one feels that the conceptual illustrations provide informational content and we will only experience the reality that content is pointing to at some later time, when we have the proper capacities in place.

I think Cleric has already expressed the problems with this understanding in various elucidating ways. For ex., the posts on study-meditating, on the 'thinking-dolls', on the meaning of 'ordinary, healthy human understanding', on experiencing the inner warmth of Old Saturn, etc. The key is that the conceptual illustrations will always remain thinking-dolls if we continue to enforce this distinction, treating it as informational content that is pointing to something else that will arrive later. We make it impossible for ourselves, in the Catch-22 sense, to understand their concrete overlap with higher cognitive research, i.e. the intimate investigation of our knowing capacity. We will remain in a perpetual preparatory phase, similar to the recursive researchers in science.

There is nothing other than that self-enforced division preventing us from feeling that, when we work through the conceptual illustrations, we are engaging in the very same spiritual scientific research that the clairvoyant engages in, except the latter does so with greater presentness and purity. Our conjunctions while working through the conceptual phenomenology are usually short-lasting and quickly collapse into instability due to personal emotions and thoughts overlaid on the meaning experienced, but that is something we can continually improve by seeking the inverted selfless perspective. We have to actively work on resisting and purifying those personal approaches to the meaning (which is certainly much easier said than done).

This was also discussed in Part II in the context of McLuhan's observation, "Indeed, it is only too typical that the 'content' of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium." Through the inverted perspective, however, we can engage the content without being blinded to the character of the medium, i.e. the underlying knowing gestures. Then we are truly engaged in spiritual science, not simply thinking about spiritual science from a distance with metaphors, illustrations, etc. while remaining outside the intimate intuitive movements that are artistically expressed through the symbols of spiritual science. In short, the content and the medium are increasingly realized as one and the same, not just in theory but in living experience, and none of what we do in this domain is experienced as discursive communication.

Of course we should not treat it as separate informational content never to be realized, and all the other things that you say. But the point was something else. It was about beauty. Sure, no hard line between prose and poetry (to say it in two words). Still, there is a way in which words can be beautiful rather than discursive, or vice versa. And when they are beautiful (or less so) it's because of their exact, symbolic, expressive form in the context, because of their poiesis (or lack thereof) as ML would say. That was the point. And being sensitive to that does not imply falling into all those errors that you have loaded on my shoulders. So that's why and how I say that there's no poiesis in the words: "Steiner's epistemology".

Ok so now the point wasn't what you expressly stated in no uncertain terms and with italic emphasis, the distinction between discursive communications about spiritual science and the esoteric capacities themselves...it was something else. This is the fastest-moving target in the history of forum discussions!

So, at the end of the day, your criticism of Miller's paper was based on nothing but personal 'sensitivity' to a word used. You didn't engage with any of the illustrations or reasoning provided, only with a single word in the title, "epistemology". Now you feel the need to defend that in any way possible, through all sorts of arguments that are continually morphing into something else. In the process, you are doing the exact thing that Steiner's epistemology, or whatever we want to call it, is meant to help us overcome. That is, dismissing ideas and resources for spiritual development based on personal sensibilities. True spiritual aesthetic value comes precisely from overcoming those sensitivities that continually collapse the pure meaning of the intuitive movements symbolically expressed through various concepts.

[Federica]

Of course we should not treat it as separate informational content never to be realized, and all the other things that you say. But the point was something else. It was about beauty. Sure, no hard line between prose and poetry (to say it in two words). Still, there is a way in which words can be beautiful rather than discursive, or vice versa. And when they are beautiful (or less so) it's because of their exact, symbolic, expressive form in the context, because of their poiesis (or lack thereof) as ML would say. That was the point. And being sensitive to that does not imply falling into all those errors that you have loaded on my shoulders. So that's why and how I say that there's no poiesis in the words: "Steiner's epistemology".

Ok so now the point wasn't what you expressly stated in no uncertain terms and with italic emphasis, the distinction between discursive communications about spiritual science and the esoteric capacities themselves...it was something else. This is the fastest-moving target in the history of forum discussions!

So, at the end of the day, your criticism of Miller's paper was based on nothing but personal 'sensitivity' to a word used. You didn't engage with any of the illustrations or reasoning provided, only with a single word in the title, "epistemology". Now you feel the need to defend that in any way possible, through all sorts of arguments that are continually morphing into something else. In the process, you are doing the exact thing that Steiner's epistemology, or whatever we want to call it, is meant to help us overcome. That is, dismissing ideas and resources for spiritual development based on personal sensibilities. True spiritual aesthetic value comes precisely from overcoming those sensitivities that continually collapse the pure meaning of the intuitive movements symbolically expressed through various concepts.

No Ashvin, This is all incorrect.
A part of the discussion, and only a part, was about beauty, and it's clear that you really dislike this theme, sneak out as much as possible. Speaking of which, does your silence about poiesis mean that you finally agree with what I said about it? Anyway, no worries if you prefer to leave it aside. For my part, I've said all that I wanted to say about it, in this context, and I have no need to pursue it further.

The bold you have written just above is plain and persistingly false. I have already expressed all that shows it.
Moreover, you said you are interested in coming back to why I find the mentioned essay by Miller not helpful for someone who struggle with PoF, and you gave the following reason for your interest - in Ashvin's most classic, signature style :

"I am interested only because it seems the most fruitful path for orienting better to the core of PoF. One of us sees the article as enormously helpful for orienting to PoF and the other as mostly dissonant with PoF, so there must be some discrepancy in our orientation to some aspect of PoF that is probably worth exploring if we can remain as objective as possible about it."

Let's notice, I have not said that Miller's essay is "mostly dissonant" with PoF. If you check back, you'll find I said it's "subtle" and "compatible", not dissonant, with PoF. Kind of like at a 175 degree angle from "mostly dissonant"? More or less.
The title is indeed tasteless, in my view, yes. But, like Miller, you too like the expression Steiner's epistemology, and are still able to write very insightful essays, so one more reason why (on top of all else I wrote!) you are not allowed to conclude that, just because I consider Miller's choice of title tasteless, I also consider his article dissonant with PoF.