On Attaining Spiritual Sight (Part I)

[Federica]

There are still things we may talk about, for example how the two aspects will revolve together (also I'm not sure what you imply about the Dirac meditation being past-based) but I'm again with limited access and will be able to write more in a few days.

I was expecting that I only mean that a phenomenal snapshot is taken, which includes all layers, and once it is taken it’s already past. It’s like a small scientific experiment, through the depth of experience. And that experiment is the basis of the meditation, since it starts from there. That’s all I mean.

The "too healthy" indeed drew my attention, because health is a synonym of harmony, resonance, etc. As such it is a feature of the high ideal. We agree that if it is taken in a one-sided way (as in pursuit of purely physical well-being) it can be seen as swinging the pendulum sideways. But Health in a higher sense is the musical expression of body, soul, and spirit in resonance with the Cosmos. As such, it is the High Ideal and there's no need to worry we may become too Healthy.

So putting aside the one-sided pursuit of health, what is the practical sign of getting 'too healthy'? At what point you become concerned and say "I'm getting dangerously healthy. I should take countermeasures." What would these countermeasures be like?

Ok, I see that I have not been able to make myself understood. “Too healthy” refers to a more zoomed-in, ‘technical’ level compared to the level of high ideals from which you speak of Health with a capital H. It has to do with zooming into the processes that comprise the human organization, in relation to the formative forces and the ethers. Then the sense perceptible physical body can be seen (even meditatively) as the manifest side of circular supersensible processes, going from potential to manifestation and again into potential - from solution to salification, to use a chemical metaphor.

I attempted to exemplify this before, but I'll try with new examples. Whithin this organized circular flow carried within the etheric body - but imprinted through the influences of all other bodies - every movement or process, is a vector for essential life functions - healthy functions. However, each slightest excess in the playing out of each health-generating movement inevitably trespasses to the side of illness, and vice versa. Illness can therefore be seen as simply the continuation of processes of health, when these latter are too strongly experienced, for some reason. Hence each excess of health-bringing activity immediately coalesces into a compensating movement that may be experienced as illness (not always, not immediately). We don't need to worry about these alternating oscillations as long as they remain within limits. It's the normal way in which we become, in our human organziation.

Steiner gives countless examples of this dynamic. For instance, in the health-building, anabolic process of nutrition - where food-forces are overcome and recombined through the working of the life and chemical ether in metabolism - the nutrients ray up towards the head, to bring healthy nourishment. But, if this health process becomes excessive for some reason - if we become “too healthy” - too much life/health is distributed throughout the body, and a pathological dissolving tendency arises; even the head becomes softened, numbed, which is not really in its nature to be. Conversely, if the warmth and light ether - which healthily support the head function of thought precipitation - begin to stream too strongly through the head, trespassing into the rest of the body, all starts to become head-like, dry, rigid, physical. What was a healthy process in the head becomes damaging when it touches metabolism, impeding the intake of nourishment in the entire body.

Every process pushes towards health and toward illness, in an oscillatory movement. Imbalances come from processes overshooting their mark, on either side of the movement. Because all that brings health from one perspective, brings illness from another. Not everything is symptomatic, unless certain limits are trespassed. And trespassing can happen in healing too. If healing is excessive, it leads right into another phase of illness (different from the one initially addressed).

Even trivial situations somewhat reflect these supersensible dynamics. If I cut myself using a tool, the pain will regulate the activity, and I will be guided to healthier behaviors, thanks to the pain signal. Or if I am too lightminded, car-free, driven by the bare rhythms of my etheric body, I may become insensitive, including indifferent to others. My intensity of consciousness is reduced, I loose empathy, while the soul can’t really impress as it should in my etheric body. Then I may perhaps begin to sleep too much, wake up late, be sleepy all morning, so that what was originally a healthy etheric thriving may transform into a source of imbalances, and possibly illness. Things like that!

I hope this shows there’s no contradiction with the state of Health you speak of. It's a different level of granularity.

[Cleric]

Ok, I see that I have not been able to make myself understood. “Too healthy” refers to a more zoomed-in, ‘technical’ level compared to the level of high ideals from which you speak of Health with a capital H. It has to do with zooming into the processes that comprise the human organization, in relation to the formative forces and the ethers. Then the sense perceptible physical body can be seen (even meditatively) as the manifest side of circular supersensible processes, going from potential to manifestation and again into potential - from solution to salification, to use a chemical metaphor.

I attempted to exemplify this before, but I'll try with new examples. Whithin this organized circular flow carried within the etheric body - but imprinted through the influences of all other bodies - every movement or process, is a vector for essential life functions - healthy functions. However, each slightest excess in the playing out of each health-generating movement inevitably trespasses to the side of illness, and vice versa. Illness can therefore be seen as simply the continuation of processes of health, when these latter are too strongly experienced, for some reason. Hence each excess of health-bringing activity immediately coalesces into a compensating movement that may be experienced as illness (not always, not immediately). We don't need to worry about these alternating oscillations as long as they remain within limits. It's the normal way in which we become, in our human organziation.

Steiner gives countless examples of this dynamic. For instance, in the health-building, anabolic process of nutrition - where food-forces are overcome and recombined through the working of the life and chemical ether in metabolism - the nutrients ray up towards the head, to bring healthy nourishment. But, if this health process becomes excessive for some reason - if we become “too healthy” - too much life/health is distributed throughout the body, and a pathological dissolving tendency arises; even the head becomes softened, numbed, which is not really in its nature to be. Conversely, if the warmth and light ether - which healthily support the head function of thought precipitation - begin to stream too strongly through the head, trespassing into the rest of the body, all starts to become head-like, dry, rigid, physical. What was a healthy process in the head becomes damaging when it touches metabolism, impeding the intake of nourishment in the entire body.

Every process pushes towards health and toward illness, in an oscillatory movement. Imbalances come from processes overshooting their mark, on either side of the movement. Because all that brings health from one perspective, brings illness from another. Not everything is symptomatic, unless certain limits are trespassed. And trespassing can happen in healing too. If healing is excessive, it leads right into another phase of illness (different from the one initially addressed).

Even trivial situations somewhat reflect these supersensible dynamics. If I cut myself using a tool, the pain will regulate the activity, and I will be guided to healthier behaviors, thanks to the pain signal. Or if I am too lightminded, car-free, driven by the bare rhythms of my etheric body, I may become insensitive, including indifferent to others. My intensity of consciousness is reduced, I loose empathy, while the soul can’t really impress as it should in my etheric body. Then I may perhaps begin to sleep too much, wake up late, be sleepy all morning, so that what was originally a healthy etheric thriving may transform into a source of imbalances, and possibly illness. Things like that!

I hope this shows there’s no contradiction with the state of Health you speak of. It's a different level of granularity.

Got it. In that case, I think more fitting terms for this polarity could be something like 'forces of growth and breakdown'. It feels clear why unchecked growth cannot be good, the obvious example being the tumor. On the other hand, it sounds strange to say that the tumor is 'health gone too far'.

[Federica]

Got it. In that case, I think more fitting terms for this polarity could be something like 'forces of growth and breakdown'. It feels clear why unchecked growth cannot be good, the obvious example being the tumor. On the other hand, it sounds strange to say that the tumor is 'health gone too far'.

Yet, that's exactly how Steiner presents it.

The point is that the processes producing illness are only further stages of those that must be present in the healthy human being. If we could not become ill, we could neither think nor feel. Everything that lives in the soul in feeling and thinking is organically a system of forces that produces illness when it exceeds its proper measure.

And for example a tumor is exactly a health process gone too far, as he explains it. I gave the example of tumor above.
As Klocek adds, this is evident in the health process of inflammation too. Inflammation is meant to liberate the body from an external attack. Inflammation gone too far gives rise to a hardening, or tumor, that is sclerosis.
I don't think it's strange. Tumor is the process of depositing. In itself it's a health process. Our bones for example are an effect of depositing and hardening processes. The association we normally make between tumor and illness refers to hardening processes gone too far. But "tumor" in itself - depositing and hardening - is healthy, that is, necessary to life.

I know this is not your favorite topic and there's no need to reply, but I have to point this out. Because of this viewpoint on the nature of illness and health, the other day I had to take in paragraphs and paragraphs of "you are not getting a thing about the spiritual path" : )