Philosophical Speculations

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 2:11 pm Yes, Federica, you are understood, and I can explain where the disagreement is. We both agree that sense-observation (experience) comes before concepts that lead to (functional) knowledge in the sensory domain, also reflected in the Steiner quote. If it helps, we can extend the previous metaphor so that we are passively observing the machine work before we form the relevant understanding to start doing something with our spiritual activity, i.e. turning the knobs. On the other hand, conceptual exploration comes before spiritual sight that leads to inner (functional and essential) knowledge in the soul-spiritual domain, as also reflected in Steiner's quote. Of course, we shouldn't imagine this is separated by a hard boundary either - knowing the functional essence of the soul-spiritual domain will certainly improve our functional knowledge of the sensory domain in unsuspected ways.

Where the disagreement comes in is what "conceptual exploration" means or implies in relation to the soul-spiritual domain. You seem to feel that a consecration or purification exercise involving bodily will gestures is something other than conceptual exploration, whereas I would say it is a kinesthetic stance (one of many) our thinking-will can take for precisely that conceptual exploration. The exercise is not an invocation or expectation of 'spiritual sight', in the way I understand the latter. Rather, it is a means of sweeping the astral volume and building an intuition for deeper rhythms of our soul life which can precipitate into concepts that give more finely textured meaning to that intuition.

This is further complicated by the fact that in the sensory domain we expect our 'sweeping' for concepts to be something where we do all the observing and discursive thinking while the objects of our study remain fixed and static. For the soul-spiritual domain, it is more like we make certain intentional gestures toward the object of our inquiry and the latter then speak back to us the concepts needed to kindle our intuition. In a sense, the object of our inquiry, i.e. soul-spiritual activity, is also observing and thinking us. I think mathematical thinking is the closest example of this we experience in normal life, as we make mathematical gestures to steer toward a certain region of intuitive space and then wait for the corresponding concepts to incarnate from mysterious depths.

This is especially the case when we move from the etheric to the astral volume. With the former, we are at the border of thinking and feeling and can still sweep the volume with organic 'pure thinking', not necessarily involving mood of prayer or bodily will. With the astral, we come to the border of feeling and willing and therefore some concrete prayerful gestures may be needed. None of this is meant as hard and fast 'rules' of spiritual inquiry, which is again something that only applies to the sensory domain. They are only loose and flexible indications of the directions we can start moving our thinking-will in these domains.

So that is where I currently think the disagreement resides - the understanding of 'conceptual exploration' in relation to the soul-spiritual domain. This could be further clarified if you offer some indications on what sort of concepts about the spiritual meaning of water (or whatever) is necessary before it is 'safe' or 'non-arbitrary' to engage in such consecrating gestures. For ex., if we carefully read OMA's passage quoted above, do we now have the necessary concepts? Do we need more detailed knowledge of the archetypal and elemental beings who are involved? Do we need imaginative cognition of such beings? This could be important because the topic of whether certain things are too esoteric, occult, advanced, etc. for us to meaningfully relate to them has come up on the forum a few times before.

Federica wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 6:03 pm Ashvin,

You are making the same exact points as in your previous replies, only adding some smooth makeup on top. That was not necessary. In fact I could have spared the ink, and you could have spared the makeup. Moreover, your question seems to be above all oriented toward checking how easily I would contradict myself. Obviously there cant' be any "sort of concepts that are necessary before it's safe to engage in consecrating gestures". And, as I said, I don't see consecration in the OMA passage. So I think it's best that I pause here. By the way there might be some more interesting and relevant questions waiting to emerge from other sides. Thank you, anyway.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 7:56 pm

Federica wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 6:03 pm Ashvin,

You are making the same exact points as in your previous replies, only adding some smooth makeup on top. That was not necessary. In fact I could have spared the ink, and you could have spared the makeup. Moreover, your question seems to be above all oriented toward checking how easily I would contradict myself. Obviously there cant' be any "sort of concepts that are necessary before it's safe to engage in consecrating gestures". And, as I said, I don't see consecration in the OMA passage. So I think it's best that I pause here. By the way there might be some more interesting and relevant questions waiting to emerge from other sides. Thank you, anyway.

Well, as usual, Cleric's last post is probably more helpful and cut closer to the heart of the matter. Perhaps you will be contemplating and responding to that. Just take it as another way of expressing the same points I was clumsily trying to express. That is why I see no tension at all with the Steiner quote and no issue with using the various exercises discussed here to study-meditate the real-real experience of spiritual science.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 7:56 pm

Federica wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 6:03 pm Ashvin,

You are making the same exact points as in your previous replies, only adding some smooth makeup on top. That was not necessary. In fact I could have spared the ink, and you could have spared the makeup. Moreover, your question seems to be above all oriented toward checking how easily I would contradict myself. Obviously there cant' be any "sort of concepts that are necessary before it's safe to engage in consecrating gestures". And, as I said, I don't see consecration in the OMA passage. So I think it's best that I pause here. By the way there might be some more interesting and relevant questions waiting to emerge from other sides. Thank you, anyway.

Well, as usual, Cleric's last post is probably more helpful and cut closer to the heart of the matter. Perhaps you will be contemplating and responding to that. Just take it as another way of expressing the same points I was clumsily trying to express. That is why I see no tension at all with the Steiner quote and no issue with using the various exercises discussed here to study-meditate the real-real experience of spiritual science.

Steiner wrote:In the case of modern Spiritual Science, anyone who takes pains is able to make something of what it presents, because he can permeate it with the element of thought he acquires on the physical plane. For the same concepts are used to grasp what is in the spiritual world and what is in the physical world. Present-day Natural Science speaks of evolution; so does Spiritual Science. If you have grasped the concept of evolution you can understand what is set forth in Spiritual Science. You can create a concept of karma, because you can create a picture of it in thought. Of course if you simply say, as many theosophists do: “Every spiritual cause has a spiritual effect and this is karma”, you have then no conception of karma. You can see the law of cause and effect in a billiard ball, but that would be no right comparison for karma. But now take an iron ball and throw it into a vessel of water. If the ball is cold the water will remain as it is. But if you make the ball hot and then throw it in, the water will get warm as a result of what has been done to the ball. Here we have something which may be compared with karma; here we have a later event that is the result of an earlier. It must be quite clear to us that one who permeates the facts of the spiritual world with thought can also impart them in such a way that everyone who has thoughts acquired here on the physical plane can apply these same thoughts to what is imparted from the spiritual worlds. If he does this he can understand it. Everyone ought to keep this in mind.

Güney27 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 8:13 pm

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 7:56 pm

Federica wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 6:03 pm Ashvin,

You are making the same exact points as in your previous replies, only adding some smooth makeup on top. That was not necessary. In fact I could have spared the ink, and you could have spared the makeup. Moreover, your question seems to be above all oriented toward checking how easily I would contradict myself. Obviously there cant' be any "sort of concepts that are necessary before it's safe to engage in consecrating gestures". And, as I said, I don't see consecration in the OMA passage. So I think it's best that I pause here. By the way there might be some more interesting and relevant questions waiting to emerge from other sides. Thank you, anyway.

Well, as usual, Cleric's last post is probably more helpful and cut closer to the heart of the matter. Perhaps you will be contemplating and responding to that. Just take it as another way of expressing the same points I was clumsily trying to express. That is why I see no tension at all with the Steiner quote and no issue with using the various exercises discussed here to study-meditate the real-real experience of spiritual science.

Do you experience the Atlantean consciousness, when you are meditate the lectures about that topic from steiner?

Or do you make mental pictures of the Atlantean C state ?

I find a lot of differences when I'm reading OMA for example or MotT and compare them to steiner.
Is it exclusive to Steiners work, that one can experience his descriptions( I never have experienced them in my case )?

Steiner wrote:Now it is of course true that one who hears of such things and is not himself clairvoyant cannot convince himself of the facts as such through his own immediate vision; it is quite true that he receives them and cannot prove them by clairvoyant evidence. That is true; but it would be quite wrong to imagine that the man who is not clairvoyant cannot in any way prove or have insight into the facts which are now being presented. And it would be wrong to assert that one must merely take in faith and on authority what is given out of clairvoyant consciousness. These communications would be in the highest degree imperfect, would lack something essential, if they appealed only to authority and faith. What is being given out in the right way — this has often been emphasised — can be discovered only by clairvoyant consciousness but when it has once been discovered — if only by one person — when it has once been seen and communicated, everyone can understand it by means of unprejudiced reason, that is to say by those faculties which are accessible to him on the physical plane. And it may well be said: Even if no one of those here present ever has the opportunity of proving everything immediately in the most comprehensive sense, everyone could at any rate make this possible if he had the time and the necessary mental faculties (I mean, faculties of the physical plane). Let us even consider such difficult matters as were treated of here in recent lectures, with regard to the incarnations of Zarathustra, such difficulties as, e.g. that Zarathustra's etheric body passed over into Moses 2 — let us even imagine that such difficult, far-reaching and significant subjects are being dealt with, even then let no one assert that he who knows these things as the result of spiritual research appeals for blind credulity! That is by no means the case. But suppose someone were to come and say: “I for my part am no clairvoyant. But here is someone asserting these things about Zarathustra and his incarnations. I will now lay hold of everything that is at my disposal on the physical plane, everything that history hands down to us, everything that is contained in the stone monuments, or in ancient religious documents, and I will test all these most carefully.” And suppose he were to say further: “Assuming that what is being said is correct, does it tally with the facts that can be externally corroborated?” — Such a person would then investigate thoroughly what can be confirmed by external means, and he would see that the more closely he investigated the more he would find corroboration for what the clairvoyant has set forth.
...
But now you will find that a testing of this kind requires great effort, it demands thought and work. It means that one must really set out to find confirmations in the physical world for what is stated out of clairvoyant research. And here we come to a matter of which we shall do well to speak, a matter that is closely connected with our main question. Is it not necessary, is it not even good, for the man of to-day, besides striving (as he certainly should strive) to penetrate into the spiritual world, also to occupy himself at the same time with an energetic cultivation of the ordinary means of knowledge and the ordinary methods of thought? In other words: Does the theosophist not do well to overcome the indolence that is certainly prevalent in the world to-day, and to develop his world of thought in all earnestness, to lay hold of the means by which man can be comprehended even only on the physical plane, and to turn these to his use? Is it not right that he should learn a great deal, and especially learn how to think?

It is indeed very difficult to make clear to the consciousness of the present day what is meant by this. It once happened that someone who wanted to make progress in theosophical knowledge and at the same time to learn how to think the thoughts with greater exactitude, came and asked me to recommend him what to read. I recommended him to study Spinoza's Ethics, so that he would be able to formulate in clear-cut outlines the thoughts that were being given him. Not many weeks afterwards he wrote to me that he could not see why he should study this book; it was rather voluminous and the whole object was simply to prove the existence of God, which he had never doubted; therefore he saw no need to wade through long trains of thought in order to prove the existence of God!

Federica wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 8:55 pm I'm not sure what makes you smile. However, perhaps the best comment is one that does not come from me. Just take it as another way of expressing the same points I was clumsily trying to express:

Steiner wrote:In the case of modern Spiritual Science, anyone who takes pains is able to make something of what it presents, because he can permeate it with the element of thought he acquires on the physical plane. For the same concepts are used to grasp what is in the spiritual world and what is in the physical world. Present-day Natural Science speaks of evolution; so does Spiritual Science. If you have grasped the concept of evolution you can understand what is set forth in Spiritual Science. You can create a concept of karma, because you can create a picture of it in thought. Of course if you simply say, as many theosophists do: “Every spiritual cause has a spiritual effect and this is karma”, you have then no conception of karma. You can see the law of cause and effect in a billiard ball, but that would be no right comparison for karma. But now take an iron ball and throw it into a vessel of water. If the ball is cold the water will remain as it is. But if you make the ball hot and then throw it in, the water will get warm as a result of what has been done to the ball. Here we have something which may be compared with karma; here we have a later event that is the result of an earlier. It must be quite clear to us that one who permeates the facts of the spiritual world with thought can also impart them in such a way that everyone who has thoughts acquired here on the physical plane can apply these same thoughts to what is imparted from the spiritual worlds. If he does this he can understand it. Everyone ought to keep this in mind.

Steiner wrote:Everything around us even if material, is a revelation of spirit. Matter has to be thought of in regard to spirit as ice is to water; matter is formed out of spirit. If you like you may call it consolidated spirit. Therefore if we come in contact with any substance, we contact the spirit in that substance. Any contact we make with substance, in so far as this is material, is Maya (illusion). In reality it is the spirit we encounter.

The way we come in touch with the spirit in water, when we wash our hands for instance, is seen — when life is observed with sharpened senses — to have a great influence on our whole disposition, however often we wash them. There are natures that have a certain preference for washing their hands, they must wash at once if they touch anything dirty. These natures are related in a quite special way to their surroundings. They are not restricted merely to what is material, for it is as if a fine force within the material substance begins to affect them, and that they have established the connection I mentioned between their hands and the element of water. Such people are even seen to possess, in an entirely healthy sense, more sensitive natures, finer powers of observation than others. They know at once, for instance, if they encounter anyone of a brutal or of a kindly nature. Whereas those others who endure dirt on their hands are actually of a coarser nature, and show by such ways that they have raised a wall between themselves and the more intimate relationships with the surrounding world. This is a fact and, if you like, it can be proved ethnographically. Pass through and observe the various countries of the world. You are then able to say: — “Here or there people wash their hands more.” Observe the relationship between such people, observe how different the relationship is between friend and friend, between acquaintance and acquaintance, in regions where hands are more frequently washed than in regions where walls have been raised between them owing to this being done less frequently.

Such things have the value of natural laws, Other connections can cancel them. If we throw a stone through the air, the line of its flight describes a parabole. But if the stone is caught by the wind the parabole is not there. This shows that we have to know the conditions before certain relationships can be observed correctly!

Whence does this knowledge come? It comes from clairvoyance, for it is revealed to this consciousness how finely the hands are permeated by soul and spirit qualities. This is so much the case that a special relationship of the hands to water is apparent, greater than in the case of the human countenance, and greater still than in respect of the surface of other parts of the human body. This must not be understood as an objection in any way to bathing and washing, but rather as throwing light on certain relationships. It is only to show how very differently man's soul and spirit-nature is related to his various members, and how differently this is impressed on them.

You will find it hard to believe, for instance, that anyone could suffer injury in his astral body through washing his hands too frequently. But this must be considered in its widest aspect. It depends on the maintenance of a healthy relationship between man and the surrounding world — that is, between the astral body of man and the surrounding world — through the relation-ship of his hands to water. For this reason excess in this is hardly possible.

If people think only in a materialistic way, clinging with their thoughts to what is material they say: — “What is good for the hands is good for the rest of the body.” Showing that they do not note the fine differences between them and the other members.

Cleric K wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 4:15 pm It needs to be reminded that ‘study’ of spiritual science has to be understood in a different way than what can usually be imagined. Studying here shouldn’t be taken in the sense that we first have to encompass SS abstractly in our mind and only then start meditating. To study SS means to meditate on the ideas, to try to experience their first-person reality.

Steiner wrote: It is very easy to imagine that it is better to have clairvoyance in the very smallest degree than to understand through the reasoning mind ever so many of the facts of the higher worlds (...) Such a feeling would, however, be wrong from every point of view.

Steiner wrote:to-day it is only those people who in their earlier incarnations have worked through the medium of thought, of logic, of discrimination, who can remember those incarnations. Thus however advanced a man is in clairvoyance, if he has not in former incarnations worked through the power of discrimination, of logical thinking, he cannot remember a former incarnation. For he had not at that time set up the signpost as it were, to which his recollection has to go back. So you will see that when one understands Spiritual Science, one cannot too quickly set to work to acquire just these very faculties of genuine thought.

Steiner wrote:There are at the present time very clear thinkers who can understand the theosophical view of the world in an intellectual way. How is it that it is sometimes just these people who have such difficulty in reaching clairvoyance? (...) The question is really as follows: How is it that for many a thinker — as experience teaches us — it is so exceedingly difficult to come to the point of being clairvoyant? This is connected with an important fact. What we call power of discrimination, power of judgment in man, in other words the logical thinking of the thinker, brings about a definite change in the whole structure of the human brain. Clear thinking causes a change in the physical instrument of the brain. Thinking actually expresses itself in the simplification of the convolutions of the brain. Present-day research knows nothing of this. Clear thinking is thinking that can survey wide vistas, not the thinking that occupies itself with analysis. Hence the greater simplicity of the brain-convolutions of a clear thinker. Now the fact is that our etheric body, which for clairvoyant consciousness must be loosened from the physical brain, becomes more closely bound to the brain through the activity of thought. Thinking chains the etheric body firmly to the brain. If through his karma anyone has not yet the forces necessary to loosen it again at the right time, it may be that he cannot get far in clairvoyance in this incarnation;

Steiner wrote:Is it not necessary, is it not even good, for the man of to-day, besides striving (as he certainly should strive) to penetrate into the spiritual world, also to occupy himself at the same time with an energetic cultivation of the ordinary means of knowledge and the ordinary methods of thought? (...) It is indeed very difficult to make clear to the consciousness of the present day what is meant by this. It once happened that someone who wanted to make progress in theosophical knowledge and at the same time to learn how to think the thoughts with greater exactitude, came and asked me to recommend to him what to read. I recommended him to study Spinoza's Ethics, so that he would be able to formulate in clear-cut outlines the thoughts that were being given him.

Steiner wrote:Let us suppose, e.g., that we were to begin by giving each person certain instructions as to how he can develop those inner faculties which at present are dormant within his soul, so that by means of these instructions it would be possible for him gradually to penetrate into the spiritual worlds himself, without having first been given any of the facts of the higher worlds, as is done to-day. (...) Why is this path not taken today? Why are the results of spiritual investigation communicated to men? (...) it would be quite wrong to imagine that the man who is not clairvoyant cannot in any way prove or have insight into the facts which are now being presented. What is being given out in the right way — this has often been emphasized — can be discovered only by clairvoyant consciousness but when it has once been discovered — if only by one person — when it has once been seen and communicated, everyone can understand it by means of unprejudiced reason, that is to say by those faculties which are accessible to him on the physical plane.

Steiner wrote:One could easily imagine that visionary sight would be a better preparation for death than merely to hear of the facts of the spiritual world. And yet the truth is that after death, what a man has simply seen in a visionary way is of very little use to him, while on the other hand an actual reality is immediately present, as soon as he becomes conscious of what he has received in spiritual communications, if he has grasped these with his understanding. It is what has been understood that is of value after death, whether it has been seen or not.

Cleric K wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 4:15 pm And maybe part of the problem comes from the idea which ‘breakthrough’ carries today, as if suddenly we’ll see everything.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 11:47 pm

Federica wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 8:55 pm I'm not sure what makes you smile. However, perhaps the best comment is one that does not come from me. Just take it as another way of expressing the same points I was clumsily trying to express:

Steiner wrote:In the case of modern Spiritual Science, anyone who takes pains is able to make something of what it presents, because he can permeate it with the element of thought he acquires on the physical plane. For the same concepts are used to grasp what is in the spiritual world and what is in the physical world. Present-day Natural Science speaks of evolution; so does Spiritual Science. If you have grasped the concept of evolution you can understand what is set forth in Spiritual Science. You can create a concept of karma, because you can create a picture of it in thought. Of course if you simply say, as many theosophists do: “Every spiritual cause has a spiritual effect and this is karma”, you have then no conception of karma. You can see the law of cause and effect in a billiard ball, but that would be no right comparison for karma. But now take an iron ball and throw it into a vessel of water. If the ball is cold the water will remain as it is. But if you make the ball hot and then throw it in, the water will get warm as a result of what has been done to the ball. Here we have something which may be compared with karma; here we have a later event that is the result of an earlier. It must be quite clear to us that one who permeates the facts of the spiritual world with thought can also impart them in such a way that everyone who has thoughts acquired here on the physical plane can apply these same thoughts to what is imparted from the spiritual worlds. If he does this he can understand it. Everyone ought to keep this in mind.

Sure, Federica, this is all well and good. Perhaps because I have been speaking of things so abstractly, it seems what I am writing is at odds with what Steiner is conveying in the quotes you are sharing. So let's take another quote from Steiner.

AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2024 9:47 pm Again, I think the confusion comes in because we feel 'conceptual understanding' in the spiritual domain is attained similarly to the sensory domain.

Federica wrote: ↑Sat Jan 20, 2024 2:44 pm

AshvinP wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 11:47 pm

Federica wrote: ↑Fri Jan 19, 2024 8:55 pm I'm not sure what makes you smile. However, perhaps the best comment is one that does not come from me. Just take it as another way of expressing the same points I was clumsily trying to express:

Sure, Federica, this is all well and good. Perhaps because I have been speaking of things so abstractly, it seems what I am writing is at odds with what Steiner is conveying in the quotes you are sharing. So let's take another quote from Steiner.

Ashvin - Before we take another quote from Steiner, I think this one is still in need of consideration, since you wrote:

AshvinP wrote: ↑Thu Jan 18, 2024 9:47 pm Again, I think the confusion comes in because we feel 'conceptual understanding' in the spiritual domain is attained similarly to the sensory domain.

I am pretty sure your "Again" here referred to a preceding passage you wrote, where you had expressed even more clearly the exact contrary to what Steiner says in this quote. I'm not finding it now, however, the Steiner quote is from a public lecture to a diverse audience, so by necessity just as "abstract" as you claim your statements about my problem with concepts are. Therefore, I think it would still be useful if you could explain how - in the realm of "abstract" explanations - you and Steiner end up saying, respectively, that conceptual understanding in the spiritual domain shouldn't be attained similarly to the sensory domain, and that concepts of the spiritual and physical domains are the same.

In my case, not at all (x3). I don’t fantasize what ‘vision’ may look like. I don't have to put effort in that, it's simply that prefiguring such unknown panoramas is immediately orthogonal to my constitution.