On Attaining Spiritual Sight (Part I)

[AshvinP]

The other day I saw a guy walking around in circles on the path, flicking and stomping on little ladybug-like insects. A sense of disgust immediately washed over me, like I was witnessing the expression of an underlying cruelty, which also reflects back the same underlying cruelty within myself. But of course I didn't say anything to him or try to intervene. In a certain sense, yes, it would be silly to do so in my current state, but I can still recognize how this situation testifies to a glaring incompleteness within myself and our culture. I can still try to sense how, under more ideal evolutionary conditions, we may feel like stomping helpless insects is not so radically different from torturing helpless human beings.

I did a quick search for this in my area, and came across this article:

https://northernvirginiamag.com/news/20 ... er-radars/

Meteorologists in the DMV area have noticed signals on the weather radars that look like rain clouds — when there’s no rain in the forecast. Instead of precipitation, these signals are showing a swarm of spotted lanternflies.

The Washington Post and NBC4 Washington both reported yesterday that weather radars have been capturing a massive swarm of lanternflies in the mid-Atlantic.

Spotted lanternflies are an invasive species that have invaded the Northern Virginia area over the past several years. They feed on crops like grapes, hops, and apples and can cause significant damage to those plants.

According to The Washington Post, meteorologists use three types of data to understand that lanternflies are what’s showing up on the radar. The first, reflectivity, shows “how much stuff is in the atmosphere.” The correlation coefficient shows the shape of what’s in the atmosphere; biological signals like bugs, bats, and birds have irregular, spiky shapes on the radar. And velocity shows which way the objects are moving.

Bugs appear on the weather radar “somewhat regularly,” according to The Washington Post. Cicadas were visible on the radar during summer 2021.

Since the population is now so high in the area, management tactics have to go beyond stepping on every lanternfly you see. To help control the lanternfly population — at least from your own yard — experts suggest removing host plants such as Tree of Heaven that attract the bug and using contact or systemic insecticides. You can also search for and remove any egg masses you see on trees or outdoor furniture.

So it turns out the guy I saw was carrying out the officially advised 'management tactics'

Of course, such tactics make great sense in terms of our current evolutionary conditions and we can't simply ignore them. Yet we can surely think about the disharmonious inner processes which make such things necessary in the first place, and potential trajectories of development that would eventually render them obsolete. This begins with trying to imagine how our inner life would need to transform such that the pests are no longer attracted to our gardens. This also fits in with the discussion on the other thread. There is nothing stopping us from contemplating how the current disorderly relationships with our Earthly environment stem from an avoidance of co-creative responsibility within the experiential flow, rather than only focusing on how the sandbox can be tweaked to our liking through 'management tactics' while our inner perspective on the flow remains practically the same.

[Federica]

For me, the connection is in getting a more refined feeling for how my current sense of 'self' is radically incomplete. It is comprised of my dim feelings about such experiences as 'beauty' and 'ugliness', which I would also relate to health and illness, harmonious and disharmonious inner workings. These momentary impressions and feelings can be traced into a much wider context of inner relations. The species-specific conditioning of such feelings is one way of getting a better sense of that incompleteness. Even though I know, at a logical and somewhat intuitive level, that the human form is a paint stroke on the holistic canvas of all Earthly forms, this knowledge cannot yet penetrate deep enough to transform my dim species-specific feelings too much.

The outer form, of course, is only a testimony to holistic inner processes. When I see the dead mouse on the path, the physical impressions testify to the fact of predator-prey relationships, that other animals and human beings are still at each other's throats. The fact that this form on the middle of the path doesn't bother me much testifies to how natural such conditions have started to feel for us, how dead animal carcasses strewn about the roads simply feels like an unquestionable fact of our existence at this time. We casually walk or drive around such carcasses without much concern. Comparing that to the imagination of dead human beings, whose corpses would also testify to a wider constellation of disharmonious inner processes, helps me feel how unnatural the whole situation should be.

I think it is a sign of inner development when we start to feel either the beauty/pleasure or the ugliness/disgust of the outer forms, in terms of the inner processes they testify to, as more commensurate with each other. But we should make no mistake that this is something we start out with or is easily attainable. At first, we can only weave together mental pictures that logically confirm their equivalence, yet when we pay close attention to examples such as these in our daily experience, it it will become evident that, in our feeling life, there is still a huge phase-gap between them. The other day I saw a guy walking around in circles on the path, flicking and stomping on little ladybug-like insects. A sense of disgust immediately washed over me, like I was witnessing the expression of an underlying cruelty, which also reflects back the same underlying cruelty within myself. But of course I didn't say anything to him or try to intervene. In a certain sense, yes, it would be silly to do so in my current state, but I can still recognize how this situation testifies to a glaring incompleteness within myself and our culture. I can still try to sense how, under more ideal evolutionary conditions, we may feel like stomping helpless insects is not so radically different from torturing helpless human beings.

For me the idea that the sense of beauty should not be species-specific - in the sense you are using this expression - has a mystical flavor. At the end of times, animals will not be animals anymore and the soul traits we have extended to them will perhaps be extinguished. But for now, many animals have no other choice than to express aggressiveness, and our acknowledgment of that lack of choice - which implies that we are less concerned by a dead mouse - reflects the makeup of the holistic canvas of all Earthly forms. It reflects the nature of evolution itself. So I don’t think it should be unnatural (I don’t think it’s wrong) that, in our epoch, one gives less consideration to the dead mouse. In all likelihood, a corpse in the park testifies to a wider constellation of disharmonious inner processes (and humans have a choice) but not necessarily so a dead animal, unless of course it was killed by human cruelty, or to manage “invasive species”. Otherwise let’s just say that all reality is disharmonious, as long as it has not cohered back into God’s bosom.

You speak of more ideal evolutionary conditions, but evolutionary conditions can only be non-ideal. Why should the much far ahead evolutionary conditions determine what should feel unnatural today? I guess there are other things which testify to disharmonious processes, which are much more at our reach along the same gradient, like the ugliness of the meat industry. For example, would you say that buying animal food for a pet equals being at the animals’ throat? There are, I believe, other things that should start to feel unnatural now, rather than our relatively little concern for the fact that there are predator-prey relations within the animal kingdom.


PS. I also would not associate beauty with health, because - as an extreme simplification - illness is consciousness, therefore illness and health are indissociable facets of the beauty of life and its evolution. I would say that a vision where health equals beauty and illness equals ugliness is an unnaturally static interpretation of beauty.

[AshvinP]

For me, the connection is in getting a more refined feeling for how my current sense of 'self' is radically incomplete. It is comprised of my dim feelings about such experiences as 'beauty' and 'ugliness', which I would also relate to health and illness, harmonious and disharmonious inner workings. These momentary impressions and feelings can be traced into a much wider context of inner relations. The species-specific conditioning of such feelings is one way of getting a better sense of that incompleteness. Even though I know, at a logical and somewhat intuitive level, that the human form is a paint stroke on the holistic canvas of all Earthly forms, this knowledge cannot yet penetrate deep enough to transform my dim species-specific feelings too much.

The outer form, of course, is only a testimony to holistic inner processes. When I see the dead mouse on the path, the physical impressions testify to the fact of predator-prey relationships, that other animals and human beings are still at each other's throats. The fact that this form on the middle of the path doesn't bother me much testifies to how natural such conditions have started to feel for us, how dead animal carcasses strewn about the roads simply feels like an unquestionable fact of our existence at this time. We casually walk or drive around such carcasses without much concern. Comparing that to the imagination of dead human beings, whose corpses would also testify to a wider constellation of disharmonious inner processes, helps me feel how unnatural the whole situation should be.

I think it is a sign of inner development when we start to feel either the beauty/pleasure or the ugliness/disgust of the outer forms, in terms of the inner processes they testify to, as more commensurate with each other. But we should make no mistake that this is something we start out with or is easily attainable. At first, we can only weave together mental pictures that logically confirm their equivalence, yet when we pay close attention to examples such as these in our daily experience, it it will become evident that, in our feeling life, there is still a huge phase-gap between them. The other day I saw a guy walking around in circles on the path, flicking and stomping on little ladybug-like insects. A sense of disgust immediately washed over me, like I was witnessing the expression of an underlying cruelty, which also reflects back the same underlying cruelty within myself. But of course I didn't say anything to him or try to intervene. In a certain sense, yes, it would be silly to do so in my current state, but I can still recognize how this situation testifies to a glaring incompleteness within myself and our culture. I can still try to sense how, under more ideal evolutionary conditions, we may feel like stomping helpless insects is not so radically different from torturing helpless human beings.

For me the idea that the sense of beauty should not be species-specific - in the sense you are using this expression - has a mystical flavor. At the end of times, animals will not be animals anymore and the soul traits we have extended to them will perhaps be extinguished. But for now, many animals have no other choice than to express aggressiveness, and our acknowledgment of that lack of choice - which implies that we are less concerned by a dead mouse - reflects the makeup of the holistic canvas of all Earthly forms. It reflects the nature of evolution itself. So I don’t think it should be unnatural (I don’t think it’s wrong) that, in our epoch, one gives less consideration to the dead mouse. In all likelihood, a corpse in the park testifies to a wider constellation of disharmonious inner processes (and humans have a choice) but not necessarily so a dead animal, unless of course it was killed by human cruelty, or to manage “invasive species”. Otherwise let’s just say that all reality is disharmonious, as long as it has not cohered back into God’s bosom.

You speak of more ideal evolutionary conditions, but evolutionary conditions can only be non-ideal. Why should the much far ahead evolutionary conditions determine what should feel unnatural today? I guess there are other things which testify to disharmonious processes, which are much more at our reach along the same gradient, like the ugliness of the meat industry. For example, would you say that buying animal food for a pet equals being at the animals’ throat? There are, I believe, other things that should start to feel unnatural now, rather than our relatively little concern for the fact that there are predator-prey relations within the animal kingdom.


PS. I also would not associate beauty with health, because - as an extreme simplification - illness is consciousness, therefore illness and health are indissociable facets of the beauty of life and its evolution. I would say that a vision where health equals beauty and illness equals sickness is an unnaturally static interpretation of beauty.

Note - I didn't say health equals beauty.

Do you acknowledge that, on a path of inner development, we should try to feel how something like predator-prey relationships could be experienced as unnatural under different conditions (conditions which existed before and can exist again)? As far as I can tell, this was the main theme of Cleric's original response and discussing the sense of physical beauty between animal/human forms was only one of many facets by which we can explore this inner theme. I mentioned another facet, which is that of inner dismay when it comes to the degradation of such forms. Meat eating is another good example - clearly, most of us at the intellectual stage of development would feel much more revulsed at the prospect of consuming human meat than animal meat.

Doesn't it make sense that this inner revulsion (or sense of beauty) in the human case can be expanded to resonate with a broader constellation of beings, which would indicate a concrete trajectory of development toward this ideal?

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Is 11)

In a certain sense, the 'survival of the fittest' evolutionary process only emerges because ego-beings can only intuitively resonate with a narrow sphere of intents and corresponding forms. For the animals, the ego-being encompasses all the members that comprise what we conceive as a 'species'. That is why predation within the species is limited, while different species prey on each other. For the human, at the intellectual scale, the sphere has contracted further to only encompass the blood relations, nation, or, increasingly, only the individual. It's even to the point where some people will prey on their own living bodies. Although we may still feel a lingering revulsion when we imagine consuming the flesh of other humans, hardly anyone is going to take proactive steps to intervene in cannibalistic practices or wars happening on the other side of the world. At the same time, it is only through this contracted ego-sense that we attain the potential to freely expand resonance back out toward other human souls and all the natural kingdoms.

It's not about denying our current evolutionary conditions and pretending that we can somehow mystically transcend them, but we should also see how concretely imagining the future conditions through our inner practice is a precondition for their eventual realization. This is the most important principle on the inner path - we can only realize the deeper, more integrated scales of being if we faithfully take steps in their direction, starting here and now. Of course, these steps will first only unfold in our imaginative life, but that's how it all starts. We will always feel like the deeper cognitive-moral scales are a remote and nebulous ideal if we feel satisfied with the seemingly 'natural' conditions today. Through my inner work, I have at least become more sensitive to how satisfied I really am with those conditions, and that at least gives me a basis to remain honest with myself and properly orient to my 'distance' from the more ideal conditions.

[Federica]

Note - I didn't say health equals beauty.

Ok, sorry. What did you say then?

Do you acknowledge that, on a path of inner development, we should try to feel how something like predator-prey relationships could be experienced as unnatural under different conditions (conditions which existed before and can exist again)? As far as I can tell, this was the main theme of Cleric's original response and discussing the sense of physical beauty between animal/human forms was only one of many facets by which we can explore this inner theme. I mentioned another facet, which is that of inner dismay when it comes to the degradation of such forms. Meat eating is another good example - clearly, most of us at the intellectual stage of development would feel much more revulsed at the prospect of consuming human meat than animal meat.

Doesn't it make sense that this inner revulsion (or sense of beauty) in the human case can be expanded to resonate with a broader constellation of beings, which would indicate a concrete trajectory of development toward this ideal?

I didn't see this theme in Cleric's original response, but maybe it's only because of my limitations. Anyway, yes, it does make sense, but only after the most proximate elements of dysfunction are addressed first. Otherwise it's like building a house starting from the roof. Before imagining how the animal group souls should evolve, it seems to me that it makes more sense to take care of our own ego, to imagine how our predatory attitudes should subside.

[AshvinP]

Note - I didn't say health equals beauty.

Ok, sorry. What did you say then?

Generally, the aim of my comments is never to 'prove' any firm conclusions, establish static definitions of 'beauty', 'health', etc., to postulate abstract equivalences, or anything similar. That is simply not the 'order' of thinking that I intend my comments to stimulate. Rather, they are intended to stimulate a loose intuitive exploration of various inner constraints that shape our imaginative process and content. The intuitive consonances and dissonances in which our deeper being weaves project through the scale spectrum in distinct ways, as related to the experience of truth, beauty, health, etc. We can always try to trace the experience of those dim thoughts and feelings to the deeper scales where their functions are more integrated. There will come a time when outer beauty more explicitly reflects inner health and moral integrity, as Steiner indicates in various places.

One interesting example to loosely explore the relationship is the experiments done with respect to women's attractiveness to men based on the odors of their t-shirts, which seems to be linked to genetic compatibility. Again, the point is not to come up with some rigid evolutionary explanation for this connection (as most of the researchers do), but just to notice and contemplate how the sense of beauty/attractiveness at the physical scale can be potentially traced to deeper subconscious experiences at the biological scale. These experimental facts can testify to more integrated scales where the meaning of our surface-level mental pictures is more closely entangled with the meaning of our biophysical states. Over the course of evolution, this subconscious relationship will grow more and more conscious and explicit, and we can try to imagine how our entire sense of 'beauty', and indeed our entire sense of who we are and what we are doing in life, will be transformed through such deeper knowledge.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claus_Wedekind

It has been suggested that MHC plays a role in the selection of potential mates, via olfaction. MHC genes make molecules that enable the immune system to recognise invaders; generally, the more diverse the MHC genes of the parents, the stronger the immune system of the offspring. It would obviously be beneficial, therefore, to have a system of recognizing individuals with different MHC genes and preferentially selecting them to breed with. Yamazaki et al. (1976) showed this to be the case for male mice, who show such a preference for females of different MHC. Similar results have been obtained with fish.[5]

In a 1995 experiment by Wedekind,[6] a group of female college students smelled t-shirts that had been worn by male students for two nights, without deodorant, cologne or scented soaps. Overwhelmingly, the women preferred the odors of men with dissimilar MHCs to their own. However, their preference was reversed if they were taking oral contraceptives.[7] The hypothesis is that MHCs affect mate choice and that oral contraceptives can interfere with this. A study in 2005 showed similar results.

Do you acknowledge that, on a path of inner development, we should try to feel how something like predator-prey relationships could be experienced as unnatural under different conditions (conditions which existed before and can exist again)? As far as I can tell, this was the main theme of Cleric's original response and discussing the sense of physical beauty between animal/human forms was only one of many facets by which we can explore this inner theme. I mentioned another facet, which is that of inner dismay when it comes to the degradation of such forms. Meat eating is another good example - clearly, most of us at the intellectual stage of development would feel much more revulsed at the prospect of consuming human meat than animal meat.

Doesn't it make sense that this inner revulsion (or sense of beauty) in the human case can be expanded to resonate with a broader constellation of beings, which would indicate a concrete trajectory of development toward this ideal?

I didn't see this theme in Cleric's original response, but maybe it's only because of my limitations. Anyway, yes, it does make sense, but only after the most proximate elements of dysfunction are addressed first. Otherwise it's like building a house starting from the roof. Before imagining how the animal group souls should evolve, it seems to me that it makes more sense to take care of our own ego, to imagine how our predatory attitudes should subside.

Right, we shouldn't imagine we can change the whole cultural or natural landscape with some utopian programs before we 'iron out' the disorderly currents of our soul life. The first step is always bringing more life and concreteness into our imaginative activity, such that we can discern what inner factors need to be ironed out and how to strategically implement the ironing technique. How do we infuse our imaginative life with more flexibility and concreteness?

If we take it in the context of occult science, someone could say, "I refuse to imagine too much about Old Saturn and Old Sun until I have thoroughly explored and experienced the most proximate details of Earth and Old Moon, otherwise I am leaning too much into mysticism and forgetting about the current conditions." Yet we know the initiates such as Steiner communicated details of all stages as something whole, because only in this way can our imagination properly orient to their respective influences in the evolutionary process and the organic movements between them, which are all still present along our depth axis today. Likewise, one could refuse to consider the details of Intuitive cognition before thoroughly working out Imagination. It is true that we cannot expect to ascend to the purity of the former without passing through the latter, but at the same time, we can't properly orient to the Imaginative scale without also contemplating how the Inspired and Intuitive scales are concealed within it. That is why they are almost always presented as a holistic spectrum.

This principle directly applies to the future conditions of Earthly life as well, since those conditions will be a recapitulation of past evolutionary conditions symbolized by the planetary stages. They will be a re-experiencing of our lives across the threshold where the garments of race, nation, gender, and even species are shed from our innermost Intuitive being. That is all described in detail by Steiner in the lectures concerning experiences across the threshold as we expand through the spheres. Even each night, we retrace the cognitive steps that we 'fell through' during our convolution into physical existence. The key point is that, by imaginatively exploring this holistic spectrum, we seed the potential for those more integrated spheres to also grow 'down' into our Earthly institutions, to spiritualize and cohere the flow. This is the very knowing process by which the integration should occur. How the animal groups will evolve, and how our own predatory attitudes will subside, will then be experienced as the same thing. We only feel the strict delineation between human cultural life and the life of the natural kingdoms at our intellectual scale - at deeper scales, the always existing overlap comes much more into focus.

We should always keep sight of the tempting tendencies to either feel like we have already retraced the steps of the Fall (pride), or that it is quite impossible to retrace those steps in the current incarnation and thus to feel resigned or satisfied with the current conditions (fear of growing into the spiritual). These two tendencies feed off of each other in obscure ways. As long as we keep them in sight, however, we can learn to 'thread the needle' between them as we strive toward the deeper scales of species-free existence, simultaneously accompanied by sober judgment of the current conditions and constraints. 

[Federica]

Generally, the aim of my comments is never to 'prove' any firm conclusions, establish static definitions of 'beauty', 'health', etc., to postulate abstract equivalences, or anything similar. That is simply not the 'order' of thinking that I intend my comments to stimulate. Rather, they are intended to stimulate a loose intuitive exploration of various inner constraints that shape our imaginative process and content. The intuitive consonances and dissonances in which our deeper being weaves project through the scale spectrum in distinct ways, as related to the experience of truth, beauty, health, etc. We can always try to trace the experience of those dim thoughts and feelings to the deeper scales where their functions are more integrated. There will come a time when outer beauty more explicitly reflects inner health and moral integrity, as Steiner indicates in various places.

Yessir, understood! I will admit I prefer to read your comments to other people, where you sound less like Fräulein Rottenmeier and more like you make comments to make comments, rather than "to stimulate loose intuitive explorations of various inner constraints that shape our imaginative process and content". I will add in passing that I still disagree with your loose association of beauty and health. I recall that Steiner indicated that moral conduct will be outwardly visible in the future - as beauty or ugliness we could say - but I don't think he indicated that "outer beauty" will more explicitly reflect "inner health" in the future. I don't think so. That would make no sense, for the reasons I already evoqued. I would be surprised by any such statements by Steiner - please share if you think about one. Regarding the T-shirt experiment, for me it simply shows that physical attraction is indeed physical. There are catabolic forces at play that precipitate something which current science can characterize physically. I do conceive that in the future the interplay of cosmic and earthly forces in man will be brought more and more into waking consciousness, as the physical body loses its density, but I don't think the T-shirt study hints to that process. It only spells out physical attraction in its material components.

Right, we shouldn't imagine we can change the whole cultural or natural landscape with some utopian programs before we 'iron out' the disorderly currents of our soul life. The first step is always bringing more life and concreteness into our imaginative activity, such that we can discern what inner factors need to be ironed out and how to strategically implement the ironing technique. How do we infuse our imaginative life with more flexibility and concreteness?


If we take it in the context of occult science, someone could say, "I refuse to imagine too much about Old Saturn and Old Sun until I have thoroughly explored and experienced the most proximate details of Earth and Old Moon, otherwise I am leaning too much into mysticism and forgetting about the current conditions." Yet we know the initiates such as Steiner communicated details of all stages as something whole, because only in this way can our imagination properly orient to their respective influences in the evolutionary process and the organic movements between them, which are all still present along our depth axis today. Likewise, one could refuse to consider the details of Intuitive cognition before thoroughly working out Imagination. It is true that we cannot expect to ascend to the purity of the former without passing through the latter, but at the same time, we can't properly orient to the Imaginative scale without also contemplating how the Inspired and Intuitive scales are concealed within it. That is why they are almost always presented as a holistic spectrum.


This principle directly applies to the future conditions of Earthly life as well, since those conditions will be a recapitulation of past evolutionary conditions symbolized by the planetary stages. They will be a re-experiencing of our lives across the threshold where the garments of race, nation, gender, and even species are shed from our innermost Intuitive being. That is all described in detail by Steiner in the lectures concerning experiences across the threshold as we expand through the spheres. Even each night, we retrace the cognitive steps that we 'fell through' during our convolution into physical existence. The key point is that, by imaginatively exploring this holistic spectrum, we seed the potential for those more integrated spheres to also grow 'down' into our Earthly institutions, to spiritualize and cohere the flow. This is the very knowing process by which the integration should occur. How the animal groups will evolve, and how our own predatory attitudes will subside, will then be experienced as the same thing. We only feel the strict delineation between human cultural life and the life of the natural kingdoms at our intellectual scale - at deeper scales, the always existing overlap comes much more into focus.


We should always keep sight of the tempting tendencies to either feel like we have already retraced the steps of the Fall (pride), or that it is quite impossible to retrace those steps in the current incarnation and thus to feel resigned or satisfied with the current conditions (fear of growing into the spiritual). These two tendencies feed off of each other in obscure ways. As long as we keep them in sight, however, we can learn to 'thread the needle' between them as we strive toward the deeper scales of species-free existence, simultaneously accompanied by sober judgment of the current conditions and constraints.

Of course I accept the guidance and indications provided in a book such as Occult Science and try to actively imagine its pictures. But I didn't understand that in the conditions of Earthly life we lose the "garment of species" across the threshold. Please say more about that. My understanding is that even on Jupiter the animal kingdom will evolve distinctly from humanity. I know it's not that simple and linear, there are retarded beings at every step, and all sorts of intermediate or incomplete beings, but what do you mean by "losing the garment of species beyond the threshold"? (if you reply, please try to answer the question, rather than to stimulate loose intuitive explorations...)

[AshvinP]

I will add in passing that I still disagree with your loose association of beauty and health. I recall that Steiner indicated that moral conduct will be outwardly visible in the future - as beauty or ugliness we could say - but I don't think he indicated that "outer beauty" will more explicitly reflect "inner health" in the future. I don't think so. That would make no sense, for the reasons I already evoqued. I would be surprised by any such statements by Steiner - please share if you think about one. Regarding the T-shirt experiment, for me it simply shows that physical attraction is indeed physical. There are catabolic forces at play that precipitate something which current science can characterize physically. I do conceive that in the future the interplay of cosmic and earthly forces in man will be brought more and more into waking consciousness, as the physical body loses its density, but I don't think the T-shirt study hints to that process. It only spells out physical attraction in its material components.

Thanks for adding that "in passing"

We can at least initially explore the inner relationship between moral integrity and biological health without needing a reference from Steiner, to begin with. Does it make sense to you that these would be intimately linked together at deeper scales of our existence? That it is only so obscured at our intellectual-physical scale because of the out-of-phase relations (for example, a moral misdeed in one incarnation sows a seed of illness that only comes to manifestation in the next incarnation)? That, as evolution progresses toward deeper integration, the relations will grow more in-phase within the Earthly spectrum? We can add references from Steiner as convenient anchor points for this inner exploration, but our intuitive orientation to such topics is not dependent on whether Steiner said it or not.

I think you are missing the relevance of the T-shirt study, but I will have to think of some other way of characterizing it.

Of course I accept the guidance and indications provided in a book such as Occult Science and try to actively imagine its pictures. But I didn't understand that in the conditions of Earthly life we lose the "garment of species" across the threshold. Please say more about that. My understanding is that even on Jupiter the animal kingdom will evolve distinctly from humanity. I know it's not that simple and linear, there are retarded beings at every step, and all sorts of intermediate or incomplete beings, but what do you mean by "losing the garment of species beyond the threshold"?

If the varied animals forms were originally embedded within and 'cast out' from the archetypal human form, then doesn't it make sense that retracing the evolutionary process would lead to reintegration, such that we no longer strictly identify with the 'human species' over other animal species? Yes, there are many rhythms within rhythms, but during every period between death-rebirth we experience something of the Venus and Vulcan conditions as well, in which more kingdoms of beings will be experienced as belonging to our common organism. In other words, we won't experience specific memory states that feel like they belong only to Ashvin or Federica, or Americans or Italians, or humans or lions, but what the lion-soul experiences will feel as part of our coherent memory stream as well. Something of this overlap can already be experienced within the deeper scales of our Intuitive Being today.

[Federica]

We can at least initially explore the inner relationship between moral integrity and biological health without needing a reference from Steiner, to begin with. Does it make sense to you that these would be intimately linked together at deeper scales of our existence? That it is only so obscured at our intellectual-physical scale because of the out-of-phase relations (for example, a moral misdeed in one incarnation sows a seed of illness that only comes to manifestation in the next incarnation)? That, as evolution progresses toward deeper integration, the relations will grow more in-phase within the Earthly spectrum? We can add references from Steiner as convenient anchor points for this inner exploration, but our intuitive orientation to such topics is not dependent on whether Steiner said it or not.

I will continue tomorrow, but I would say, it makes sense at the point of singulararity, but otherwise I'm not sure, because as long as an astral body exists, illness exists. Moral conduct can impress as beauty but a soul-self is needed to express moral conduct. If etheric health could rule undisturbed, we would be a beautifully growing, not very moral zombie. And a zombie is also not very beautiful. Pure health correlates more with numbness than with beauty.

[AshvinP]

We can at least initially explore the inner relationship between moral integrity and biological health without needing a reference from Steiner, to begin with. Does it make sense to you that these would be intimately linked together at deeper scales of our existence? That it is only so obscured at our intellectual-physical scale because of the out-of-phase relations (for example, a moral misdeed in one incarnation sows a seed of illness that only comes to manifestation in the next incarnation)? That, as evolution progresses toward deeper integration, the relations will grow more in-phase within the Earthly spectrum? We can add references from Steiner as convenient anchor points for this inner exploration, but our intuitive orientation to such topics is not dependent on whether Steiner said it or not.

I will continue tomorrow, but I would say, it makes sense at the point of singulararity, but otherwise I'm not sure, because as long as an astral body exists, illness exists. Moral conduct can impress as beauty but a soul-self is needed to express moral conduct. If etheric health could rule undisturbed, we would be a beautifully growing, not very moral zombie. And a zombie is also not very beautiful. Pure health correlates more with numbness than with beauty.

You may already be adding more thoughts, but in the meantime, here are some additional considerations. I hope we can agree there is a whole evolutionary gradient between the current conditions and the point of singularity (if I am understanding your use of that phrase correctly), and most importantly, that this gradient is fluid and superimposed on the present state. In other words, it's not all or nothing. At any given time, a soul may be compressing more or less of this gradient into the present state. What we are striving to do in evolution is to live along more and more of the fullness of this gradient, to begin with, in our imaginative life. We are not simply progressing from our current state to some other more integrated state in the distant future (that can only live in our 'personal mind' now), but we are consciously unveiling more of the existing overlap or commonality.

So the 'future' gradient of integrated potential is already present today, as we may have gotten some feel for via Cleric's new meditation. By seeking attunement to how our present state is embedded within this contextual gradient, how our after-death consciousness can find its reflection in our current impulses, feelings, and thoughts, we help bring more of the integrated potential into manifest existence. Without such meditations, it is very difficult, practically impossible, for the intellect to take this reality seriously. It remains thoroughly obscured (decohered) by the out of phase relations between waves of interfering intents. Thus, it became more and more difficult for the intellectual soul to trace the karmic threads which connect moral behavior and physical health (among many other related connections we have lost sight of). Even in our daily lives, if we begin some cognitive work and try to remain attentive within the flow, we will be surprised at how many of our injuries, illnesses, aches and pains, upset stomachs, feelings of discomfort or simply being 'off ', can be traced to ways we instinctively conduct our spiritual activity, not just physical actions but also our feeling and thinking habits (which of course shape our actions). 

That's difficult enough for the average soul to trace effectively, so we can imagine how much more difficult it is for even less in-phase relations, like genetic abnormalities, chronic conditions from birth, deformities, 'accidents', and so on. Likewise, the pathological states of the animal and plant kingdoms - most people would find it absurd to trace those to human moral conduct, although it's not so difficult to see anymore with the rise of modern technology (which both amplifies the moral misdeeds and their influences on the health of living organisms, and our ability to detect those influences, even if superficially). That is why we may feel like there is little relationship today, and if anything, the connection will only become valid in the distant future as we approach the singularity. But as Cleric illustrates, the singularity is not only some remote state of purely idealized conditions, but is the already present, concentrated Impulse from which all other states deviate in varying phases. It is the already accessible wellspring of Life that we can dip into more and more consciously. What you say about the unchecked etheric health is accurate for the average current soul conditions, but it is precisely the question whether the astral body can be purified (through moral intuitions) to a state at which it begins to unfold its soul functions in harmonious concert with etheric health, rather than at the latter's expense. 

That is what we can experience across the threshold, after all, when we pass through the purifying 'fires' and begin to symphonically work on fashioning new healthy bodies for incarnation after the old ones decayed and dispersed. Because the relations are so out of phase, it is experienced as declining health on Earth, doing the work across the threshold, forgetting the work during incarnation, experiencing the results between birth and death, starting the new work after death based on the moral impulses we consciously cultivated, and so on. Yet if these inner relations grew more in phase, more of those otherwise extended rhythms would be compressed into the Earthly life. That is the basis for saying inner moral stature, i.e., how harmoniously we are conducting our spiritual activity for the common organism, will become more immediately expressed as beautiful outer physiognomy and biological health. The latter will no longer be in such tight conflict with expanding creative consciousness, as it is for the average intellectual soul that must destroy living matter to generate thoughts and sustain self-consciousness. The more the astral body is purified, the more these same thoughts are felt as symbolically recursive and thus become a means for dipping into the wellspring.

One way to imaginatively explore that relation is to think about how often we become complacent when in good health. We should really pay attention to the differences that manifest in our disposition towards life, when we are feeling very healthy versus in poor health. It may not be obvious at first, but we can grow more sensitive to it over time. When the biological 'machinery' is running smoothly, we tend to let our guard down, to feel safe, to take things for granted, to start paying less attention to the feedback of our inner states, the long-term picture, and focus more on what we desire in the moment. Then when we snap into a state of poor health, our attitudes and priorities subtly shift. We may even find ourselves making inner promises to live better and try new things if our health is restored. What if we gradually developed the moral stature to be disciplined, vigilant, attentive, and to refashion existing patterns and seek new and deeper experiential frontiers even when everything is humming along smoothly, healthwise? Then wouldn't this inner function of poor health become naturally more and more obsolete? This is generally how accidents, illnesses, and death will disappear from the Earthly spectrum, and there is already much of this gradient of potential that we can begin to imaginatively trace here and now. By imaginatively concentrating within this gradient, we refine our intuition for how our present state is embedded within a future perspective and the differential between them, which helps us nudge our flow of becoming in certain ways to realize more of their common aspects, both during life and after death.

Also, I came across an anchor point from Steiner that may be helpful, and I'm sure there are many more similar passages exploring this theme in other lectures.

https://rsarchive.org/Articles/GA034/En ... ealth.html

In our time, however, such things are difficult to understand. What could seem more fantastic to contemporary thinking than someone claiming that physical illness has something to do with error, but that health has to do with true and correct ideas? The future will show that real superstition does not consist in the belief in this assertion, but in the denial of it. He who truly recognizes the soul and the spirit does not make them appendages of the material, but sees them as the rulers of the latter. And the essence of soul and spirit is truth and wisdom. Not only in an outward way do truth and wisdom create the good and the excellent, but as powers of the soul and the spirit they create the perfect in the external world. — It cannot be proved in a short discussion such as this, but it will become clear to everyone who delves into theosophy that the health of the body is the result of the wisdom and truth of the soul, while illness is the effect of error and unwise behavior. Anyone who takes a superficial view of this assertion must misunderstand it and can only find it fanciful. The cheap objection that there are very wise people with poor health and robust people with little wisdom can be made by anyone who makes the above claim. However, things are not that simple, and this objection does not say anything of significance. Cause and effect, error and evil are often far apart [out of phase]. And in order to penetrate the meaning of such a statement, one must delve deeper into the theosophical way of thinking.

Moral and physical evils arise from error: and he who works his way up to truth and wisdom promotes the moral good and also the physical health of the world. This is the truth of the assertions of spiritual healing. And it is a matter of realizing that man promotes the good and the healthy when he allows the divine wisdom, from which the harmony of the universe has arisen, to flow into his soul. “Theo-Sophia” is “divine wisdom”. What it proclaims are the great, divine thoughts according to which the primordial spirit guides the world, according to which life is formed and man develops. They are the laws of the life of the soul in the body, of its destiny in the world. To live in harmony with these great truths is the condition of goodness and health; to oppose them results in evil and disease. The more one penetrates into them, the more they become effective forces in the soul. If one understands theosophy correctly, this is what is meant when one says that mere knowledge, theoretical understanding, is not what matters, but life. But anyone who wanted to claim that he therefore did not need to concern himself at all with the teachings of wisdom would be denying the effectiveness of the idea, of the thought, that is, of that which constitutes the life of the spirit and the soul. If a force is to become effective, it must first exist. If the divine thoughts, which are the creative forces in the depths of the world's existence, are also to become the moralizing and healing powers in the human soul, then they must first make their entrance into this soul. The theosophical spiritual movement does not spread certain teachings in order to satisfy a mere thirst for knowledge, but because it wants to bring about true moral progress for humanity and, no less, true health for life.

[AshvinP]

I think you are missing the relevance of the T-shirt study, but I will have to think of some other way of characterizing it.

Coming back to this briefly, I think Cleric recently provided an interesting way to explore it, when he referenced how incarnating souls are intuitively active in bringing their parents into contact (and perhaps even more remote ancestors), and thus shaping the genetic stream of heredity. Of course, at these deeper scales, we are not atomic soul bubbles wielding arbitrary powers over the incarnate souls, but it's more like a symphony of disincarnate souls working in concert to create the most optimal incarnating conditions for each other within certain karmic constraints. We expand into our inner family reunion and utilize the shared Wisdom to work out the optimal intuitive steering toward the fully human ideals.

We can think of all sensory impressions as highly decohered experiences of these deeper interfering intents that shape the flow of destinies. In that way, the olfactory sense of beauty/attractiveness may testify to ways in which, at these deeper levels, we are partly steering the heredity flow toward healthy physical vehicles that will help further our inner development toward encompassing ideals. This may be reflected by how a potential mother's attraction to a potential father is partly based on their genetic compatibility for producing a stronger immune system. The intellect can surely find other mindless and mechanical evolutionary 'explanations' for the results of such experiments, but with the benefit of our phenomenological shift, we know there is no need to imagine any other mechanism at work in the stream of heredity, except the intuitive intents which shape and steer the soul contents of incarnate beings, and which we become intimately familiar with when we concentrate within the dynamics of our imaginative life.

As we discussed with the motor-sensory and flow-pump topics, the physical experimental results do not contain the supersensible realities, they do not somehow prove or reveal such realities. We can in no way expect that, by combining such facts in various ways, we will somehow reach the state of thinking, "Ah, it seems I am indeed active in the intuitive depths with other souls to steer the flow of heredity and this expresses at the physical scale for other souls as certain feelings of attractiveness based on sensory input". That can only be confirmed through inner experience. Yet, assuming the experimental results are validly reached (and, of course, that is not always the case), and when they are approached with our symbolically recursive thinking, we can see how they fit in quite harmoniously with the independently confirmed spiritual realities. They can be felt as profound testimonies to those realities which help us imaginatively explore the gradient.