Intuition is spontaneous - in the sense that it emerges from our true self. And - if you word search this blog for such terms as Intuition, Primary Thinking or Final Participation - you will see that I regard nothing as more important (here and now) than the development (and thus takeover from childhood instinct and adolescent intellect) of spiritually grown-up, intuitive thinking.
Why doesn't intuition just happen - when we want it; why is it so difficult?
One difficulty is that intuitive thinking must be consciously chosen - it doesn't just happen. But given it is possible, why is it is so very difficult - when my assumption is that this evolutionary development of consciousness is our divine destiny?
Leftism is a big reason; because Leftism blocks our spiritual development (as well as blocking real Christian faith). And Leftism blocks our spiritual development by crushing intuitive thinking.
Consider what Leftism does? It takes a spontaneous, unconscious, and correct intuition - then labels it as evil. Differences in ability and personality between social classes; differences between men and women and the identity of man or woman; recognition and classification of racial distinctions; the ethic of favouring family over non-relatives - or favouring natives and neighbours over foreigners and strangers... all these are examples of intuitions which Leftism simultaneously denies and demonises.
Leftism is indeed a systematic denial of our intuitions, in one area of life after another: first by subversion (inducing uncertainty), then denial (i.e. destruction), ultimately by inversion (so that we are induced to believe and act-upon the opposite of whatever intuition tells us).
(Once Leftism has stabbed us with deep lies, it delights in twisting the knife by mandatory stark contradictions - asserting that there are no differences between the sexes or races; yet simultaneously different... for instance women and non-whites are are superior in desirable attributes. Yet when such superiorities are accepted, then denial of any differences -and the evilness or noticing them - is recommenced. And so on...)
This crushing of individual intuition is how Leftism enforces the Ahrimanic evil of bureaucracy - and (by intent) transhumanism.
How may it be overcome, and intuition validated? The answer is: by bringing all the processes to awareness.
Intuitions begin as spontaneous and unconscious. These are then 'unmasked' by Leftism, mocked and vilified.
The proper response is to thank Leftism for having helped make conscious, and therefore free, that which was previously unconscious and therefore unfree.
Once we are aware of the reality and nature of our intuitions - something assisted by Leftism's organised, sustained and focused attempts to crush them - then we are able to choose to adopt intuitive thinking from the full agency of our true selves.
Probably, this is the divinely-intended role of Leftist thinking - as a temporary clarification and conscious-making our previously unexamined (because unconscious) assumptions. Our culture has become stuck in what was intended to be a brief temporary phase.
For us to mature spiritually towards divinity, and to move towards Final Participation characteristic of Heavenly life, this development of intuitive consciousness is necessary. Yet so long as a person (or group) makes Leftism the primary ideology; such a vital development will be blocked.
The West is a case of arrested spiritual development - bereft of the deepest source of wisdom and courage; with potentially lethal consequences including nihilism, demotivation and suicidal despair.
Hence - in a world already and increasingly dominated by Leftism in all aspects of public/ institutional discourse and life - we have become individually and collectively crazy and evil. For us the realistic choice is intuition or hell.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query intuitive thinking. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query intuitive thinking. Sort by date Show all posts
Sunday, 3 November 2019
Friday, 11 November 2016
How to do Intuitive Thinking (True Imagination, or Necessary Thinking)
Thinking is potentially the way in which we overcome the alienation and division of modernity; it is the mode in which we are complete, integrated and in communication with the divine.
In other words, nothing is more important than Thinking - or than Thinking could be: Necessary Thinking (or what Coleridge called Imagination).
But Necessary Thinking is not the one we currently have in The West - neither is it how things used to be; it is something new.
However, although the necessary Thinking is new, it is not obscure, weird or unfamiliar in its form; it does not require a changed state of consciousness (like a trance); rather it is alert, purposive and simply a complete, inclusive form of the Thinking we already have.
*
What is wrong with current Thinking - as it is trained into us, made habit, and reinforced by public discourse - is that it is both horribly narrow and also fragmented.
Firstly, current Thinking excludes as invalid all thought that do not originate in sensory perceptions (including scientific and quantitative measurements).
What happens is that current Thinking labels each incoming thought as either valid or non-valid on the basis of its provenance (i.e. where it comes-from); and non-valid thoughts include 'the imaginary', memories, arts and literature, music, fantasies and anything of unknown (to the senses) origin.
I can illustrate how this works from my own experience. I was deeply influenced by the works of Tolkien from the age of 13; but my thoughts derived from Tolkien were pre-labelled as 'fiction' or 'fantasy' and kept apart from the Thinking concerned with public discourse - things I talked with others about, stuff for examination, aspects of my work etc.
The Tolkien-derived thoughts were relegated to a thread of 'fantasy' which I was allowed to visit for pleasurable distraction, but which was prevented from interacting with 'serious' matters.
As another example; when my Mother died I was intuitively convinced that she was not extinct but in some way remained; however, I still a few years from being a Christian; and therefore this knowledge was labelled something like 'wishful thinking' - best kept to myself; or at most 'symbolism' - meaning it was not literally true that my Mother remained alive, but this was an interpretation (maybe of genetics) that was useful in my leading a fulfilling life. However, there was no place for this knowledge in the serious and publicly-shared Thinking about my life, work, and the world.
*
This is what modern people do. They have all kinds of spontaneous thoughts on all kinds of subjects - but the great majority of these thoughts are pre-labelled non-valid (for one reason or another) and excluded from public discourse.
Public discourse is therefore made from the processing of a tiny 'assumed-valid' sub-sample of our spontaneous thoughts.
This is meagre basis for Thinking is bad enough - but matters are made worse by the way in which assumed-valid thoughts are treated as discrete.
Because each thought needs to be evaluated separately, our Thinking is broken-up into thoughts in order that we can pre-evaluate each thought; and most thoughts are rejected as non-valid.
We then find that we cannot recombine even that small proportio of our validated thoughts - cannot join them into a fluid and integrated stream of Thinking.
Our modern Thinking is therefore impaired - not just by expulsion of most thoughts, but also by the fact that each assumed-valid thought must retain its autonomy - such that we are trying (but failing) to build a fluid stream of Thinking from something like solid spheres...
Instead of an integrated stream of Think-ing; we simply have a sequence of thoughts; thoughts lined-up but each detached from each other; in an order which seems arbitrary, and having no meaning greater than each individual thought.
*
Modern Thinking is segmented and censored - and I think this is imposed and learned from early childhood (in my case, from about five years old onwards) until the point it becomes ingrained, habitual, taken-for-granted and invisible. We are it.
From this maimed Thinking modern Man cannot derive any meaning, neither can we derive any purpose or direction. Tis is the modern condition of alienation.
(And Religion makes little difference; because our Thinking about religion is simply a part of this maimed Thinking. We have individual thoughts about religion; but the religious mode of Thinking is modern, hence alienated; and we do not feel meaning or purpose - we merely have belifs-about meaning and purpose.)
We are absolutely stuck; unless we can change our mode of Thinking.
*
Necessary Thinking (or true Imagination) is a mode in which everything which comes to mind is included a part of the stream of thinking.
So that Necessary Thinking includes all those thoughts which modern Man regards as imaginary, fantasy, memories; it includes 'random' thoughts, 'errors', 'misunderstandings'... it is open to all sources and kinds of thoughts; and these are allowed to flow, combine, coalesce, extend - or rather they are never broken-up into discrete 'thought' in the first place, but Thinking is allowed to be a truly fluid stream of consciousness.
But Necessary Thinking is not passive - it is always alert, conscious, purposive.
Nor does True Imagination simply accept everything which comes out of it; rather everything is evaluated - but it is not individual 'thoughts' which are evaluated, but instead we evaluate the product of fluid, open, spontaneous, inclusive Think-ing.
And this True Imagination (or Necessary Thinking) is, ultimately, what we mortal incarnate Men Live-In - it is where our Selves are located.
And this is how grown-up men and women are meant to Be.
(Note: Imagination/ Necessary Thinking is also the state that Owen Barfield called Final Participation.)
In other words, nothing is more important than Thinking - or than Thinking could be: Necessary Thinking (or what Coleridge called Imagination).
But Necessary Thinking is not the one we currently have in The West - neither is it how things used to be; it is something new.
However, although the necessary Thinking is new, it is not obscure, weird or unfamiliar in its form; it does not require a changed state of consciousness (like a trance); rather it is alert, purposive and simply a complete, inclusive form of the Thinking we already have.
*
What is wrong with current Thinking - as it is trained into us, made habit, and reinforced by public discourse - is that it is both horribly narrow and also fragmented.
Firstly, current Thinking excludes as invalid all thought that do not originate in sensory perceptions (including scientific and quantitative measurements).
What happens is that current Thinking labels each incoming thought as either valid or non-valid on the basis of its provenance (i.e. where it comes-from); and non-valid thoughts include 'the imaginary', memories, arts and literature, music, fantasies and anything of unknown (to the senses) origin.
I can illustrate how this works from my own experience. I was deeply influenced by the works of Tolkien from the age of 13; but my thoughts derived from Tolkien were pre-labelled as 'fiction' or 'fantasy' and kept apart from the Thinking concerned with public discourse - things I talked with others about, stuff for examination, aspects of my work etc.
The Tolkien-derived thoughts were relegated to a thread of 'fantasy' which I was allowed to visit for pleasurable distraction, but which was prevented from interacting with 'serious' matters.
As another example; when my Mother died I was intuitively convinced that she was not extinct but in some way remained; however, I still a few years from being a Christian; and therefore this knowledge was labelled something like 'wishful thinking' - best kept to myself; or at most 'symbolism' - meaning it was not literally true that my Mother remained alive, but this was an interpretation (maybe of genetics) that was useful in my leading a fulfilling life. However, there was no place for this knowledge in the serious and publicly-shared Thinking about my life, work, and the world.
*
This is what modern people do. They have all kinds of spontaneous thoughts on all kinds of subjects - but the great majority of these thoughts are pre-labelled non-valid (for one reason or another) and excluded from public discourse.
Public discourse is therefore made from the processing of a tiny 'assumed-valid' sub-sample of our spontaneous thoughts.
This is meagre basis for Thinking is bad enough - but matters are made worse by the way in which assumed-valid thoughts are treated as discrete.
Because each thought needs to be evaluated separately, our Thinking is broken-up into thoughts in order that we can pre-evaluate each thought; and most thoughts are rejected as non-valid.
We then find that we cannot recombine even that small proportio of our validated thoughts - cannot join them into a fluid and integrated stream of Thinking.
Our modern Thinking is therefore impaired - not just by expulsion of most thoughts, but also by the fact that each assumed-valid thought must retain its autonomy - such that we are trying (but failing) to build a fluid stream of Thinking from something like solid spheres...
Instead of an integrated stream of Think-ing; we simply have a sequence of thoughts; thoughts lined-up but each detached from each other; in an order which seems arbitrary, and having no meaning greater than each individual thought.
*
Modern Thinking is segmented and censored - and I think this is imposed and learned from early childhood (in my case, from about five years old onwards) until the point it becomes ingrained, habitual, taken-for-granted and invisible. We are it.
From this maimed Thinking modern Man cannot derive any meaning, neither can we derive any purpose or direction. Tis is the modern condition of alienation.
(And Religion makes little difference; because our Thinking about religion is simply a part of this maimed Thinking. We have individual thoughts about religion; but the religious mode of Thinking is modern, hence alienated; and we do not feel meaning or purpose - we merely have belifs-about meaning and purpose.)
We are absolutely stuck; unless we can change our mode of Thinking.
*
Necessary Thinking (or true Imagination) is a mode in which everything which comes to mind is included a part of the stream of thinking.
So that Necessary Thinking includes all those thoughts which modern Man regards as imaginary, fantasy, memories; it includes 'random' thoughts, 'errors', 'misunderstandings'... it is open to all sources and kinds of thoughts; and these are allowed to flow, combine, coalesce, extend - or rather they are never broken-up into discrete 'thought' in the first place, but Thinking is allowed to be a truly fluid stream of consciousness.
But Necessary Thinking is not passive - it is always alert, conscious, purposive.
Nor does True Imagination simply accept everything which comes out of it; rather everything is evaluated - but it is not individual 'thoughts' which are evaluated, but instead we evaluate the product of fluid, open, spontaneous, inclusive Think-ing.
And this True Imagination (or Necessary Thinking) is, ultimately, what we mortal incarnate Men Live-In - it is where our Selves are located.
And this is how grown-up men and women are meant to Be.
(Note: Imagination/ Necessary Thinking is also the state that Owen Barfield called Final Participation.)
Friday, 28 June 2019
When a man really thinks; he is a spiritual being, in a world beyond life and death...
Thinking can be understood only when it is seen as a power in man which, in its own essential nature, does not belong to the external world at all.
On the contrary, in its own being and nature, thinking belongs in the spiritual world. We already experience the spiritual world, though not consciously, when we really think; i.e. when our thinking is not merely acting as a mirror reflecting external phenomena.
When we are engaged in real thinking, then we have the possibility of experiencing ourselves as thinkers.
If man becomes conscious of himself within thinking, he knows himself to be in a world that exists beyond life and death.
Nothing is more certain than when man thinks he is then active as a spiritual being.
I find the above passage to be striking and absolutely convincing. This is not a matter of evidence - indeed I can't imagine that any form of evidence could be adduced either for or against its truth. It is a metaphysical statement concerning our nature and the world - and as such we can/ must accept or reject it.
Either our real thinking is of this nature, or it is not - and the truth of the matter is only ascertained as a consequence of some kind of thinking.
For me, the above passage from Steiner resonates immediately with my own deepest intuitions - more than this, it describes my intuitions about intuitive thinking itself.
Much hinges on the distinction between real thinking and that which is merely a mirror of external phenomena - in its purest form this is a feature of early childhood. A young child is hardly conscious of himself thinking - experience flows into him, he is immersed-in phenomena, he is passive to experience; or else he acts, unthinkingly, from instinct.
As we develop, we separate our-selves from phenomena - eventually this separation is experienced as complete. Much (or all) of our thinking is still dictated by phenomena - especially in this days of mass and social media; and when not by phenomena, by memories of phenomena.
Perhaps very little thinking each day, perhaps none, is generated from our real-selves - uncaused thinking - thinking from that within us which is divine... but that is the real thinking to which Steiner refers. Only that thinking is 'in a world that exists beyond life and death'.
How do we know when it is happening? It is by an intuitive certainty of reflection: we think, we know we think, and we know that this thinking is real... That is what Steiner means when he says we 'know' ourselves in a world beyond life and death, and are 'certain' of this.
I understand this to mean that such a situation is as certain as anything can be to us - despite that modernity has trained us that such intuitions have zero intrinsic validity.
Steiner remarks elsewhere that when a man begins to doubt his own intuitions, he is in a terrible situation - he has in practice become a nihilist, doubting his own thinking he necessarily doubts everything - including the validity of that self which does the doubting...
And then He Is Lost - and passive to manipulation; which is the normal situation that has been engineered by The Establishment, and embraced by The Masses in this time and place.
But if you personally would instead prefer to experience living as a spiritual being in a world beyond life and death - the possibility is in your own hands: or thoughts. It is the primary act of the Romantic Christian.
On the contrary, in its own being and nature, thinking belongs in the spiritual world. We already experience the spiritual world, though not consciously, when we really think; i.e. when our thinking is not merely acting as a mirror reflecting external phenomena.
When we are engaged in real thinking, then we have the possibility of experiencing ourselves as thinkers.
If man becomes conscious of himself within thinking, he knows himself to be in a world that exists beyond life and death.
Nothing is more certain than when man thinks he is then active as a spiritual being.
Edited from Lecture 1 of Rudolf Steiner's The Karma of Materialism - lectures given in 1917
I find the above passage to be striking and absolutely convincing. This is not a matter of evidence - indeed I can't imagine that any form of evidence could be adduced either for or against its truth. It is a metaphysical statement concerning our nature and the world - and as such we can/ must accept or reject it.
Either our real thinking is of this nature, or it is not - and the truth of the matter is only ascertained as a consequence of some kind of thinking.
For me, the above passage from Steiner resonates immediately with my own deepest intuitions - more than this, it describes my intuitions about intuitive thinking itself.
Much hinges on the distinction between real thinking and that which is merely a mirror of external phenomena - in its purest form this is a feature of early childhood. A young child is hardly conscious of himself thinking - experience flows into him, he is immersed-in phenomena, he is passive to experience; or else he acts, unthinkingly, from instinct.
As we develop, we separate our-selves from phenomena - eventually this separation is experienced as complete. Much (or all) of our thinking is still dictated by phenomena - especially in this days of mass and social media; and when not by phenomena, by memories of phenomena.
Perhaps very little thinking each day, perhaps none, is generated from our real-selves - uncaused thinking - thinking from that within us which is divine... but that is the real thinking to which Steiner refers. Only that thinking is 'in a world that exists beyond life and death'.
How do we know when it is happening? It is by an intuitive certainty of reflection: we think, we know we think, and we know that this thinking is real... That is what Steiner means when he says we 'know' ourselves in a world beyond life and death, and are 'certain' of this.
I understand this to mean that such a situation is as certain as anything can be to us - despite that modernity has trained us that such intuitions have zero intrinsic validity.
Steiner remarks elsewhere that when a man begins to doubt his own intuitions, he is in a terrible situation - he has in practice become a nihilist, doubting his own thinking he necessarily doubts everything - including the validity of that self which does the doubting...
And then He Is Lost - and passive to manipulation; which is the normal situation that has been engineered by The Establishment, and embraced by The Masses in this time and place.
But if you personally would instead prefer to experience living as a spiritual being in a world beyond life and death - the possibility is in your own hands: or thoughts. It is the primary act of the Romantic Christian.
Thursday, 9 June 2016
My understanding of Rudolf Steiner's Philosophy of Freedom
What is the relation between total reality and the ideas of the human mind? Steiner asserts (and I think proves, given his assumptions) that the ideas of the human mind are the same thing as total reality (albeit a tiny and biased sample from that total reality).
By 'same thing' - he means identical with.
The modern positivist/ relativist skeptic asks why (on earth!) this should be?
Steiner's answer is that the creator deity made things so.
(This I infer based on assumptions that are not given clearly and explicitly in PoF - and this makes it harder to understand this book, and Steiner's whole system, than it was 100 plus years ago).
*
Total relativity is sampled by thoughts as they occur in the process of thinking. This reality is generated, as it were, automatically: it is what thinking does.
Steiner regards thinking as not just automatic but necessarily valid. This arises from the fact that the units of 'thoughts' are identical with the units of total reality (insofar as any 'unit' detached from an inter-related-whole, can be valid).
More specifically, reality comes to us cloven in twain - split between percepts (coming through the senses - external and internal) and concepts which we derive from the totality of reality.
Thinking matches the percept to its complementary concept - that is what thinking does - and then weaves these thoughts into understanding.
And this understanding is a microcosm of total reality.
(All this is given us - by the basic set-up of creation.)
*
But Men are variably conscious of this thinking - because consciousness has different strength and different focus.
Hunter-gatherers and youngish children unconsciously accept the validity of thinking.
Modern Man (older children and adolescents) became aware of the separate (and radically incomplete) realities of percepts and concepts; and becomes aware of the metaphysical assumptions of deity, creation, Man's make-up and thus doubts the validity of thought - notices that these assumptions are not compelled (and therefore denies them).
Future Man (mature adults, of whom there are apparently very few) will become conscious of thinking as valid - as reality itself.
*
So thinking actually is in itself a microcosm of reality. But what of the incompleteness and bias of thinking? How can each person discover these inaccuracies, and correct and improve their thinking - to make a more complete and representative sample of reality? And why should Man do this?
Further assumptions - that Man is made by God to-do-this, because Man's destiny is to become more divine. God has knowledge of the totality of reality: Man's destiny is to approach ever closer to this condition.
So Man is set-up with innate and spontaneous impulses to seek knowledge; to correct, make more consistent and complete knowledge. Furthermore, deity purposively assists this process, by many and various means.
*
The message of Philosophy of Freedom is therefore to restore confidence in the truth of thinking. Thoughts are real and true, they are indeed identical with ultimate reality. We should not waste time on doubting thoughts and thinking - but we should strive to be aware of them.
We should instead consciously seek to increase experience by exposure to the most helpful percepts. Don't waste time on doubting deity - accept that you dwell in a created universe, you were put into that creation and the whole fits together - communicated directly and reliably. Work towards the fullness of knowledge and increase of deity.
(If a Man was - after vast aeons of experience perhaps - to attain total knowledge: what then? Would he merge with deity? If so, then what would be the point of the whole protracted exercise? The answer is that Man would become a different deity - different on the basis of having a unique set-up, and different in the linearity of experience.)
The common distinctions between subjective and objective, spiritual and material, imagination and common sense are collapsed - all these are obliterated in thinking: if some-thing can be thought (really thought) then it is real and true.
*
But consciousness is what enables us to be aware of thinking, and consciousness may abstract from thinking, may create abstractions from thoughts, may create models from these abstractions.
Modern consciousness has fallen into many bad habits of abstraction; bad habits of abstracting artificial concepts from thoughts, and manufacturing abstract model systems from these abstractions.
These are not real - most of what is in modern consciousness is not real. Our automatic, unthinking consciousness, automatically misreads thinking.
To repeat: Modern Man automatically and habitually fails to observe thinking and instead focuses on abstracted, detached, modelled (hence unreal) phenomena. What consciousness is telling us are our thoughts and thinking, are not our thoughts and thinking but instead abstractions and models.
*
The test of un-reality is that we cannot think it!
Contrariwise - anything and everything we can and do think is real - including anything we can imagine and think.
So - The problem for modern Man is not Thinking but Consciousness.
What Modern Man needs to do (must do, if he is to fulfil his destiny) is to redirect consciousness away from percepts and concepts and onto thinking. To do this we need to be aware of what we are doing wrong with consciousness.
We think in truths: our task is to stop ignoring the fact.
*
In 1894 Rudolf Steiner published a book Die Philosophie der Freiheit variously Englished as The Philosophy of Freedom (PoP), The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path.
The book can be read online at:
http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA004
Or listened to at:
http://www.rudolfsteineraudio.com/POSA/posa.html
By 'same thing' - he means identical with.
The modern positivist/ relativist skeptic asks why (on earth!) this should be?
Steiner's answer is that the creator deity made things so.
(This I infer based on assumptions that are not given clearly and explicitly in PoF - and this makes it harder to understand this book, and Steiner's whole system, than it was 100 plus years ago).
*
Total relativity is sampled by thoughts as they occur in the process of thinking. This reality is generated, as it were, automatically: it is what thinking does.
Steiner regards thinking as not just automatic but necessarily valid. This arises from the fact that the units of 'thoughts' are identical with the units of total reality (insofar as any 'unit' detached from an inter-related-whole, can be valid).
More specifically, reality comes to us cloven in twain - split between percepts (coming through the senses - external and internal) and concepts which we derive from the totality of reality.
Thinking matches the percept to its complementary concept - that is what thinking does - and then weaves these thoughts into understanding.
And this understanding is a microcosm of total reality.
(All this is given us - by the basic set-up of creation.)
*
But Men are variably conscious of this thinking - because consciousness has different strength and different focus.
Hunter-gatherers and youngish children unconsciously accept the validity of thinking.
Modern Man (older children and adolescents) became aware of the separate (and radically incomplete) realities of percepts and concepts; and becomes aware of the metaphysical assumptions of deity, creation, Man's make-up and thus doubts the validity of thought - notices that these assumptions are not compelled (and therefore denies them).
Future Man (mature adults, of whom there are apparently very few) will become conscious of thinking as valid - as reality itself.
*
So thinking actually is in itself a microcosm of reality. But what of the incompleteness and bias of thinking? How can each person discover these inaccuracies, and correct and improve their thinking - to make a more complete and representative sample of reality? And why should Man do this?
Further assumptions - that Man is made by God to-do-this, because Man's destiny is to become more divine. God has knowledge of the totality of reality: Man's destiny is to approach ever closer to this condition.
So Man is set-up with innate and spontaneous impulses to seek knowledge; to correct, make more consistent and complete knowledge. Furthermore, deity purposively assists this process, by many and various means.
*
The message of Philosophy of Freedom is therefore to restore confidence in the truth of thinking. Thoughts are real and true, they are indeed identical with ultimate reality. We should not waste time on doubting thoughts and thinking - but we should strive to be aware of them.
We should instead consciously seek to increase experience by exposure to the most helpful percepts. Don't waste time on doubting deity - accept that you dwell in a created universe, you were put into that creation and the whole fits together - communicated directly and reliably. Work towards the fullness of knowledge and increase of deity.
(If a Man was - after vast aeons of experience perhaps - to attain total knowledge: what then? Would he merge with deity? If so, then what would be the point of the whole protracted exercise? The answer is that Man would become a different deity - different on the basis of having a unique set-up, and different in the linearity of experience.)
The common distinctions between subjective and objective, spiritual and material, imagination and common sense are collapsed - all these are obliterated in thinking: if some-thing can be thought (really thought) then it is real and true.
*
But consciousness is what enables us to be aware of thinking, and consciousness may abstract from thinking, may create abstractions from thoughts, may create models from these abstractions.
Modern consciousness has fallen into many bad habits of abstraction; bad habits of abstracting artificial concepts from thoughts, and manufacturing abstract model systems from these abstractions.
These are not real - most of what is in modern consciousness is not real. Our automatic, unthinking consciousness, automatically misreads thinking.
To repeat: Modern Man automatically and habitually fails to observe thinking and instead focuses on abstracted, detached, modelled (hence unreal) phenomena. What consciousness is telling us are our thoughts and thinking, are not our thoughts and thinking but instead abstractions and models.
*
The test of un-reality is that we cannot think it!
Contrariwise - anything and everything we can and do think is real - including anything we can imagine and think.
So - The problem for modern Man is not Thinking but Consciousness.
What Modern Man needs to do (must do, if he is to fulfil his destiny) is to redirect consciousness away from percepts and concepts and onto thinking. To do this we need to be aware of what we are doing wrong with consciousness.
We think in truths: our task is to stop ignoring the fact.
*
In 1894 Rudolf Steiner published a book Die Philosophie der Freiheit variously Englished as The Philosophy of Freedom (PoP), The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity and Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path.
The book can be read online at:
http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA004
Or listened to at:
http://www.rudolfsteineraudio.com/POSA/posa.html
Sunday, 4 November 2018
My metaphysics (brief, uncompromising)
Because thinking is primary (from Rudolf Steiner) we immediately need to distinguish thinking - because thinking knows itself to be self-contradicting. We need (at least) a thinking that can withstand the scrutiny of thinking.
We need, that is, a coherent Primary thinking - i.e. which satisfies all other kinds of thinking - which explains all other kinds of thinking - which explains itself.
...Although the conviction that this explanation is true must be intuitive.
In short, we need a thinking that rests solidly upon intuition, and which is never contradicted by itself.
A thinking that is both coherent and validly experienced.
To move to metaphysics; why should intuitive validity be true? (Rather than a delusion.) Only if it is built into Men by a personal creator god... This requires, minimally, a god that has equipped Man with the ability to know reality (including god itself).
However, this ability to know reality is Not the same as Man's original essence of being; Not the same as Man's agency.
Thinking is primary, agency is primary...
Therefore, there is an intrinsic potential conflict between agency and intuitive thinking.
In other words, Man can know - by Primary thinking; but Man's agency must choose to know.
We need, that is, a coherent Primary thinking - i.e. which satisfies all other kinds of thinking - which explains all other kinds of thinking - which explains itself.
...Although the conviction that this explanation is true must be intuitive.
In short, we need a thinking that rests solidly upon intuition, and which is never contradicted by itself.
A thinking that is both coherent and validly experienced.
To move to metaphysics; why should intuitive validity be true? (Rather than a delusion.) Only if it is built into Men by a personal creator god... This requires, minimally, a god that has equipped Man with the ability to know reality (including god itself).
However, this ability to know reality is Not the same as Man's original essence of being; Not the same as Man's agency.
Thinking is primary, agency is primary...
Therefore, there is an intrinsic potential conflict between agency and intuitive thinking.
In other words, Man can know - by Primary thinking; but Man's agency must choose to know.
Wednesday, 24 March 2021
Heart thinking or entropic thinking: How and why we are (literally) destroying reality
The great lesson I got from Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield, is that reality is co-created by consciousness - that is, by thinking. We make the world by our thinking - and the kind of world we make - or unmake, depends on the kind of thinking.
The only thing out-there and independent of us is formless chaos - all that can be known has been created; and creation formed by consciousness, and all consciousness has this property of creative formation.
The primary creation that we inhabit was formed by God's consciousness (God is the prime creator); but our own consciousness affects divine creation - either positively or negatively.
As our consciousness has become detached from God - we must now choose whether again to affiliate with the living reality of primary creation through love and heart thinking; or to remain alienated, to regard reality as consisting of dead things affected by material processes - and thereby to affiliate with the entropic, parasitic, destructive cognitive processing of mainstream modern life.
It has become very obvious that humanity is splitting into Christians and anti-Christians; into those who affiliate with God, The Good and Divine Creation - and those who oppose these.
This split can also be seen as between heart thinking and entropic thinking. We are being compelled to choose between these.
It is the choice between loving creation; or the subversion, deconstruction and destruction of creation.
Entropic thinking is normal, abstract, mainstream, 'materialist' thinking - it is 'brain thinking', which is increasingly conformed to machine or computer thinking.
Entropic describes how you are (almost certainly) thinking now; and how nearly everybody (or everybody) around you is thinking - it is how everybody in societal authority and institutional leadership are thinking. It is the processing embodied in public discourse, bureaucracy, computers, management, media, laws, regulations, procedures...
This entropic thinking assumes the world is made of dead things, and these dead things are subject to life-less processes, energies and forces. Built-into this is the assumption that entropy rules the world - rules reality - entropy in one place can only be reversed or delayed by increasing entropy elsewhere - thus 'creation' is actually the predatory consumption of one source of order by another - and (because entropy is relentless) this predation (or parasitism) must continue until all order is consumed and formless chaos remains.
Thus, entropic thinking is the world view of the self-damned, the demonic; those who believe in Satan's conceptualization of reality: the sin-motivated war of each against all (only expediently delayed by transient mutually-exploitative demonic alliances directed against God and creation).
Heart thinking is in complete contrast and opposition to the entropic in its nature, origin and motivation.
Heart thinking is based in love and life; it assumes a living universe of beings - and God's creation gets its origin, form, order and coherence from love.
Thus, love and creation are polarities of the same essence - loving-creation and creative-love.
This love - which made creation, and holds-together creation - and which is self-sustaining - is between beings. Beings are living and conscious entities - all beings are alive and conscious, but there are different degrees of aliveness and forms of consciousness.
Heart thinking is of those beings who have first become modern and alienated; who have first assimilated into entropic thinking - where the reality of God is not entailed. Those who from that position of detached freedom have consciously chosen to recognize, embrace and align-with the reality of God and of a 'universe' consisting of beings living in a divine creation.
Those who choose heart thinking will find that they need to recognize the greater authority, depth and truth of a thinking based in love, and operating with love - in order to reject the otherwise overwhelming powers and persuasion of entropic thinking.
It is the terrible choice of modern Man to choose - and his choice lies between the divine work of co-creating the world, or else the demonic project of destroying creation.
Those who think entropically will do entropy.
By the way they conceptualize the world, they project deadness onto the living world, they project abstract forces and energies onto a creation that is actually sustained by love; and by these projections these remake their world in the image they have chosen.
Despite the opposition (implicit and explicit) of The World; heart thinking will need to be accorded primacy again and again, as it conflicts in method and motivation with the dominant, prevalent this-worldly entropic thinking - which asserts its monopoly of objectivity and that heart thinking is childish, foolish or insane.
Entropic thinking labels heart thinking as wishful thinking; yet the truth is both heart and entropic are wishful - and the wishes become reality.
The entropic thinker wishes entropy onto divine creation - converting that which is alive and conscious through love into a meaningless, purposeless dead universe.
It is entropic thinking that is destroying our civilization, our humanity - and beyond that it destroys the possibility of eternal resurrected life in Heaven. Because the entropic thinker (and he is apparently most people in the world, including most self-identified Christians) is co-engaged in the progressive killing of beings, the elimination of love, the reduction of life and consciousness into 'people' who self-identify as Dead Things.
The heart thinker instead works from the love in his heart, from actual interpersonal and inter-being love (not abstract love); he recognizes and affirms that love, and makes it the motivation for knowing reality. He regards reality as that which known by this loving thinking.
The heart thinker regards the world from his heart - it is his love of particular beings which connects him with reality; it is his love that motivates the connection-with and knowledge-of reality.
That which is outwith his love is not truly known - but merely hypothesized, modelled from simplified and incomplete variables, and therefore certainly false.
Thus the primacy of the two great commandments: love of God and neighbour. In heart thinking; modern Man chooses to participate in co-creating his own reality (and potentially the reality of other heart thinkers) by rooting his knowledge in love of God. And the scope of this knowledge is defined by the scope of those other beings ('neighbours') whom he also loves. And if he wishes this active joining-with loving creation to be an eternal state - this is attained by loving and following Jesus Christ to resurrected life in Heaven.
Note: The above analysis is indebted to a section of a lecture on Crop Circles from Stanley Messenger to the Wessex Research Group, delivered in the middle 1990s. Stanley Messenger was an expert on Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy, having been a Waldorf teacher. He was also involved in, and approving of (in what I regard as an uncritical and credulous way) pretty much all of the New Age crazes of his era; and was also a proponent of the sexual revolution. He was highly intelligent and knowledgeable, and a gifted improvisatory lecturer (having been a professional actor). My eveluation is that Stanley Messenger was (much like his Master, Steiner) someone who sporadically generated some superb and vitally-important insights, which are scattered among a great deal else that I must set aside as mistaken and wrongly-motivated. Anyway; my above post was inspired by re-listening to a genuinely-intuitive, superbly truth-full section of the linked lecture which runs from about 23 minutes to 42 minutes. This section strikes me as more vivid, comprehensible, exciting and motivating than anything Steiner ever expressed (that I have come across) - while being deeply and explicitly indebted to Steiner.
Wednesday, 2 December 2020
Some implications of Heart Thinking - higher modes of consciousness
If we succeed in attaining a higher mode of consciousness, i.e. what I have variously termed primary thinking, direct-knowing, intuition or Final Participation - here I will call it Heart Thinking - that we strive- and hope-for; then what would be the implications?
What might we expect?
Nothing that could 'happen to us in the world' can be of any help to our alienated condition. What happens must happen in us; and furthermore what happens must be a qualitative transformation - quantitative change in consciousness does not suffice.
What needs to happen is a change in our basic relationship with The World (including other people).
This new and distinct way of being-in-the-world is heart-thinking
If an apprehension of new-ness is driven by heart modes of thinking; then new phenomenon (which we observe in The World) are Not perceived by those who do Not share this new heart-based mode of thinking. So, when higher consciousness does happen, it is scary - as well as exciting, because - being qualitatively distinct - it sets us apart.
Nothing that is perceived by 'everyone' can be a part of the higher thinking. Objective and putatively 'paranormal' phenomena (such as UFOs or Crop Circles) cannot be a part of the new heart consciousness, precisely because they are observable by everyone.
Anything which can be observed by everyone is Not what is needed.
This means that heart-thinking, qualitatively higher modes of consciousness - must and will appear psychotic (delusional, hallucinatory) to those who do not share that new mode of thinking.
In sum: qualitative heart-thinking implies that we will experience qualitatively distinct, non-'objective' phenomena - insights, clarifications, knowings; perceived only by those who are heart-thinkers (therefore perhaps only ourselves, so far as we know).
Furthermore, it is the nature of this mortal life on earth that we can attain higher modes of thinking only relatively briefly and intermittently.
Therefore, the heart-thinking phenomena (resulting from higher consciousness) are going to be imperceptible for most of the time. Imperceptible, even to those who are able to live in the higher mode of consciousness.
In other words, when I am living in a lower mode of consciousness - when I am Not heart-thinking, which is going to be most of the time - then I cannot at that time know-by-experience what I know-by-experience at times when I Am heart-thinking.
And this, in turn, implies that I must choose to be guided by that which I have-known in my highest mode of consciousness - those times of intuitive heart-thinking.
Therefore, I think this is the way that we need to proceed in tackling what may be the primary task of this era for Christians; which is to become heart-thinkers. In the first place, heart-thinking is done actively and by conscious choice; and it must be discerned from the other - more obvious and distracting - types of thinking.
And then there is a further decision to regard heart-thinking as primary - despite that it isn't forced upon us (nor yielded-to passively, often unconsciously); as happens with the dominant modes of 'objective'/ universal sensory perceptions, the compelling and pervasive ideologies of public discourse, or our biological instincts.
(When we are passive, unconscious, automatic, yielding, accepting, surrendering, submitting - when we are thinking in terms of expedience, pragmatism, being-sensible - then we are not the mode of heart-thinking.)
Following which, we need to be prepared to live-by the direct-knowing attained during heart-thinking (our insights, clarifications, knowings) - even through those times (which is most of the time) when we are unable to live in the mode of heart-thinking.
Thursday, 7 November 2019
We cannot perceive the thinking of our true (divine) self
One error I see among those who interpret Rudolf Steiner - and perhaps it is in Steiner himself, although I am not sure - is that we need to become conscious of, aware of, the content of our own thinking - and by thinking is meant essential deep intuitive thinking.
It is sometimes asserted that we should turn our attention around (from outside to inside) to perceive our own thoughts forming. The idea being that until we are aware of 'how' our thinking is constructed, we cannot be free - because freedom requires such knowledge.
I have come to regard this as wrong - and impossible.
Our deepest, true-est, divine thinking emerges-from the real self - and how it is formed is intrinsically unknowable.
Thinking is part of what Beings do. Beings think (yes, all beings, including what we suppose to be the dead 'mineral' world). Thinking - this primary, un-analysable thinking - is an attribute of Being.
What varies is consciousness.
Consciousness is also a universal attribute of being, but its magnitude varies very widely - degrees of consciousness are the main measure of evolutionary-development.
So everything thinks, and everything is to some (perhaps very minimal extent) also aware of its thinking; but the direction of evolution is towards greater and greater consciousness of this thinking.
Our consciousness is always, necessarily, outside that which thinks. What we should be seeking to do in turning awareness inward - is to observe thinking as-it-emerges-from the real self.
Thius is to make intuition conscious - and that is perhaps our main goal, here-and-now.
But we cannot, and nothing ever can, 'see inside' the self, to analyse or understand the actual process of primary thinking.
It is sometimes asserted that we should turn our attention around (from outside to inside) to perceive our own thoughts forming. The idea being that until we are aware of 'how' our thinking is constructed, we cannot be free - because freedom requires such knowledge.
I have come to regard this as wrong - and impossible.
Our deepest, true-est, divine thinking emerges-from the real self - and how it is formed is intrinsically unknowable.
Thinking is part of what Beings do. Beings think (yes, all beings, including what we suppose to be the dead 'mineral' world). Thinking - this primary, un-analysable thinking - is an attribute of Being.
What varies is consciousness.
Consciousness is also a universal attribute of being, but its magnitude varies very widely - degrees of consciousness are the main measure of evolutionary-development.
So everything thinks, and everything is to some (perhaps very minimal extent) also aware of its thinking; but the direction of evolution is towards greater and greater consciousness of this thinking.
Our consciousness is always, necessarily, outside that which thinks. What we should be seeking to do in turning awareness inward - is to observe thinking as-it-emerges-from the real self.
Thius is to make intuition conscious - and that is perhaps our main goal, here-and-now.
But we cannot, and nothing ever can, 'see inside' the self, to analyse or understand the actual process of primary thinking.
Tuesday, 16 April 2019
Intuitive Knowing seems a better term than Primary Thinking
I have written a fair but about Primary Thinking in an attempt to clarify what Owen Barfield meant by Final Participation.
The difficulty with the 'thinking' aspect of the term, is that most of thinking is not primary - and I have felt a misleading temptation to strive to attain a new and different 'method' of thinking - perhaps a meditation technique. I know this is an error, and method/ technique is not a path to wisdom - but the call to change the mode of thinking seems to lead in that direction...
I am currently finding it more helpful to think of what I am aiming at in terms of Intuitive Knowing, with a metal emphasis on the 'ing' aspect of knowing - that intuitively know-ing something is not a thing static and categorical, but an active process; the attribute of a conscious Being.
And, for me, Intuitive Knowing is a proper goal however is may be achieved, by whatever method or technique or by none at all. I need to know intuitively - that is the goal; and how this best happens may vary widely or open-endedly according to the unique situation.
My understanding is that - in life - there is a lot which we 'know' in a shallow, contingent, secondhand fashion; but that the aim is to base all knowledge, thought, action on only that which we know directly and intuitively - know for our-selves, from that of us which is divine.
In this mortal life, intuitive knowing only happens sometimes and temporarily - it cannot be attained as a permanent state. That is sad but not tragic; because this mortal life (for those of us who have it, the minority of Men who survive the womb and early childhood) is a time of experiencing and learning - a vital yet transitional phase.
This mortal life is a time of change - the one thing impossible is any fixed state of Being. Fixity is not an option. This situation intrinsically maximises our experience; we must keep learning, because we always keep experiencing change.
Since I am still alive, I have more that I ought-to learn; more situations in which I need to discern and rely-upon direct and intuitive knowing. Beyond death - if I actively wish it - I could live eternally in a state where intuitive knowing is the norm.
But clearly, for me, there is value in continuing to live here, now, in my situation; because there are things that I can learn best in mortality.
My conclusion is that I should seek intuitive knowing; but should not despair that it is an exceptional state that cannot be held-onto. Not holding-onto is one of the things I must learn.
The difficulty with the 'thinking' aspect of the term, is that most of thinking is not primary - and I have felt a misleading temptation to strive to attain a new and different 'method' of thinking - perhaps a meditation technique. I know this is an error, and method/ technique is not a path to wisdom - but the call to change the mode of thinking seems to lead in that direction...
I am currently finding it more helpful to think of what I am aiming at in terms of Intuitive Knowing, with a metal emphasis on the 'ing' aspect of knowing - that intuitively know-ing something is not a thing static and categorical, but an active process; the attribute of a conscious Being.
And, for me, Intuitive Knowing is a proper goal however is may be achieved, by whatever method or technique or by none at all. I need to know intuitively - that is the goal; and how this best happens may vary widely or open-endedly according to the unique situation.
My understanding is that - in life - there is a lot which we 'know' in a shallow, contingent, secondhand fashion; but that the aim is to base all knowledge, thought, action on only that which we know directly and intuitively - know for our-selves, from that of us which is divine.
In this mortal life, intuitive knowing only happens sometimes and temporarily - it cannot be attained as a permanent state. That is sad but not tragic; because this mortal life (for those of us who have it, the minority of Men who survive the womb and early childhood) is a time of experiencing and learning - a vital yet transitional phase.
This mortal life is a time of change - the one thing impossible is any fixed state of Being. Fixity is not an option. This situation intrinsically maximises our experience; we must keep learning, because we always keep experiencing change.
Since I am still alive, I have more that I ought-to learn; more situations in which I need to discern and rely-upon direct and intuitive knowing. Beyond death - if I actively wish it - I could live eternally in a state where intuitive knowing is the norm.
But clearly, for me, there is value in continuing to live here, now, in my situation; because there are things that I can learn best in mortality.
My conclusion is that I should seek intuitive knowing; but should not despair that it is an exceptional state that cannot be held-onto. Not holding-onto is one of the things I must learn.
Saturday, 21 August 2021
This spiritual war is to be fought by thinking, primarily
The primacy of primary thinking! - To argue and clarify this counter-intuitive yet vital fact of reality was surely the great achievement of Rudolf Steiner.
There is nothing more important than our thinking - so long as that thinking is of the most important kind...
The obvious difficulties are first that almost-everything in our culture and habits tells us that thinking is trivial, is merely an epiphenomenon to the 'real' stuff which is all about action, material things - the perceived and measured world.
And yet... Why is it that 'thought crime' became a phenomenon in the evil totalitarian dictatorships? And why is it that this crime has returned to dominate 21st century life. After all, what is a 'hate crime' (which can get you sacked, mobbed and imprisoned) except a crime of thinking.
Even if you don't believe that your thinking matters in the modern world, even if you believe that thinking is just something that goes on inside your head - the Establishment, the Authorities disagree. They believe that thinking what they regard as the 'wrong' thing is a serious crime, and the legal system (and employment law) has been reshaped to accommodate this.
So - officially - thinking affects reality; and it is assumed that specific kinds of thinking can be inferred or imputed.
But a Christian will recognize that the Establishment/ Authorities/ Officialdom/ Media are evil; and are imposing a system of increasingly inverted values - where lies are truth and truth is 'fake news', where vile ugliness and mutilation is beauty and beauty is oppressive, where purposive evil rewrites morality so that marriage, family and Christianity are presented as breeding grounds for racism and terrorism.
What They say is good is always evil (in implemented practice, if not theoretically), and what they excoriate most systematically and over the long-term is the genuine good.
So, when They create (or reintroduce) the concept of thought crime; they are acknowledging the primacy of spiritual warfare; but taking the side of evil.
Christians, on the other hand, all-too-often ignore or deny that we live in a state of spiritual war - and especially that the side of evil in this war rules the world, including all the major social institutions, including the major Christian churches.
Such are the End Times, and Christians cannot claim we were not warned. Although the prophecies turned-out very differently than expected - they have turned-out exactly as claimed in the sense that almost all the world has taken the side of Satan, including most (almost all) self-identified-Christians!
The inverted-fake-Christians (who follow the ideology of The World) persecute the few remaining real followers of Christ, in the name of Jesus!
But how to fight our side in the spiritual war? Primarily by thinking. By primary thinking.
Most of thinking is passive and shallow and Of The World; either being mere habits of association - drilled by socialization and propaganda, or externally imposed concepts and 'facts'. Small wonder that so many people regard thinking as unimportant and actions as the only 'real' activity.
That is exactly what They want you to believe!
While They regarding Your thinking as of ultimate importance, They want You to regard Your thinking as merely trivial, subjective, internal.
It is a strange aspect of these ultra-materialistic, globally-bureaucratic, corporate-dominated times - that real, primary thinking is probably the single most valuable force for good in the world, now.
Because such thinking is not 'in the head' or cut-off-from reality; but actual participation in the ultimate reality of divine creation and create-ing.
It turns-out to be a good deal more difficult to think properly, primarily, intuitively, from our true (and divine) selves, from the heart (rather than intellect or instinct) - yet that is what we most need to do to fight the hourly and daily spiritual battles in the war of good and evil, now and tomorrow.
Tuesday, 11 August 2020
Experiencing the animated world - what, specifically, do we need to Do?
It is one thing to understand that this is a living, purposive and conscious ("animated") world we inhabit; but another and more difficult matter to experience it as such.
At least that has been my experience, and apparently the experience of many others: we find ourselves stuck, thinking in the materialistic fashion that innately imposes the usual alienated life in which everything is experienced as a 'thing' - and we find ourselves unable to relate the our environment.
Of course I have tried to experience the world as alive and conscious - but it seldom works. Indeed, the very act of trying is what seems to block the process. It is as if my willing forms a skin around my-self.
As so often - it seems I had things the wrong way around; I was trying to do the opposite of what was actually required. The clue came from reflecting upon a passage about Heart Thinking in a talk by Stanley Messenger that I have posted before.
I regard it as a primary insight that we need to make a conscious choice in order to move forward to the next and destined development of consciousness. It won't just happen-to us: we must actively choose to make it happen: meet our destiny half-way...
I also regard it as necessary that we recognise the primacy of intuitive thinking - thinking which is based-upon direct contact between beings (not merely indirect communications, such as language)...
So that, in effect, we think each others thoughts, without perception or mediation; without need for language or any other symbolism.
At one point in that above-linked lecture entitled "Crop Circles: gateways to new worlds"; Stanley M comments that Beings (such as angels, or the so-called dead - or, implicitly, the manyfold Beings that surround us in our environment (sun, moon, stars, wind, mountains, trees, animals...) - cannot talk to us unless we first our-selves produce a language, more exactly a channel of contact, in which we can talk to them.
Now; SM actually meant 'talk', as the mode of contact - and he deployed 'channeled' conversations as his medium. However, I would regard such perceptual and 'hallucinatory' experiences as being pretty-much inaccessible-to, as well as mostly inappropriate-for, modern Men. But if I modified 'talking' to the kind of direct and intuitive knowing that I regard as primary and necessary; I found that my question was partly answered...
It became clear that what was needed was for me - consciously and by choice - to initiate direct intuitive contact with Beings, thereby to dicover from experience that they were alive.
And this was different from what I had been trying to do - which was to be receptive to the 'communications' from things around me. I had been trying to experience the world as I did when a young child - but this time consciously. I had been looking, listening and feeling; when what was actually required was for me to make an active approach...
That is what I tried to do. The problem was that It Never Worked. What never? Well, hardly-ever.
My conclusion was that this is not sufficient, it was not specific enough, thus it didn't work.
The questions arose: what (from all the infinite environment) should I approach, and how should I make this approach for it to be effective?
One clue is that this must involve 'heart thinking'; a term which means the same as intuition - and thinking with the heart is distinguished from head-thinking/ reason/ logic on the one hand; and gut-thinking/ instinct/ spontaneous impulse on the other hand. In practice, heart thinking is happening when knowledge 'appears' in conscious thinking, knowledge that we know to be from another Being (not our-selves) inserts-itself into our stream-of-thought.
So, that tells me how to know when it has-happened (and it is characteristic of heart thinking that it is retrospective. We know that an intuition has-happened - but do Not know when it is-happening.
A further characteristic of heart-thinking is that it is self-validating; while it is happening, I am sure of it, I don't doubt it. It brings with it that faith which is the natural consequence of trust. And trust is the consequence of love.
So, we begin to see how all the necessary elements are fitting together... Still, the problem remains - how exactly to initiate this process of heart thinking, how to make contact, and with-what to make contact?
(Because there are plenty of ineffective recommendations knocking-around; notably the 'exercises' prescribed by Rudolf Steiner - despite that most of these ideas come (whether directly or indirectly) from Rudolf Steiner. Steiner suggested an essentially arbitrary method, by which some-arbitrary-thing is picked-out (e.g. a plant) and then a mental-concentration form of meditation is practiced; whereby (through practise) thoughts are compelled to remain focused on the object, and to follow certain prescribed themes. I mention this only as an example of something well-meaning that has proven itself solidly-ineffective over the course of a century, during which Anthroposphy has become ever-more Ahrimanic, passive and politicised - and nearly all Anthroposophists (who practice these exercises) have become psychologically-indistinguishable from the mass of mainstream, bureaucratized, totalitarian-minded leftists.)
I got the clue for this next and final step from another comment Stanley Messenger made in the 'crop circles' talk, from about 1h 22mins before the end; which was (in my slightly edited transcription):
The huge evolutionary step that has been taken over thousands of years in Man's history is that a conscious being now exists in the universe which can arrogate to its own consciousness the freedom to decide what is true - to create universes.
And this is a perilous and devilish capacity; and is at the same time a capacity that can raise mankind to the level of the gods.
What is the difference between those two possibilities? The difference is whether, in this growth of self-awareness, mankind will come to the realisation that the perceptions of the heart are more fundamental than the perceptions of the brain. The realisation that our capacity to know through the heart reaches a more profound and truth-filled level than can be reached by perception, hypothesis and analysis.
The difference between this new freedom on the one hand to deny and destroy the reality of the cosmos; and the opposite capacity that it can create new universes of its own; depends, in the end, entirely on whether there is love in the heart - or not.
If there is no love in the heart, then this advance to a freedom of knowledge is the most Satanic thing that could possibly have happened to Mankind.
In the first place, this distinction is a stunning clarification of the catastrophes of 2020. We are ruled by those who have-not love in the heart, and the masses have allowed/ chosen that love should leach from their hearts in all world-relations excepting some of the human. Hence we have embarked upon the perilous, demonic, Satanic pathway - which is the terrible consequence of Man's choice to misuse his new freedom to create new universes.
The 'reality' that that is being created - before our eyes - is literally a Satanic hell; in which people's capacity to choose what they believe, is being used to believe the inversion of those true values that derive from God and creation.
We have created, and are developing, a 'universe' where lies are truth, the ugly and disgusting is celebrated as beautiful, evil plans are celebrated as idealistic visions; and where all representations of God, the Good and Creation are being subverted, mocked, destroyed, vilified and punished. Then all this is being locked-in by a global totalitarianism based on fear, resentment and despair.
But most vitally this 'love in the heart' requirement is the final clue to how to experience our living in an animated world; a world of Beings. How do we come to know these Beings, how do we begin to have a relationship with these Beings?
Firstly, we focus on those Beings we love.
Only by love can there be heart thinking. So anything and every-thing we love - but nothing else - is suitable for us to address. As well as people alive and around us we may love someone we have never met, perhaps one who has died; or an author, composer or artist from the past. We may love a pet, or other animal. And we may love any environmental 'thing' - a particular plant or tree in our garden, a landscape or hill, the crescent moon or the constellation of Orion.
We may love something 'made' like a house, a church building, a picture, an old car, a much-used tool...
But love is not arbitrary. The point is that we must truly, spontaneously, already love the Being we address.
Love is not an aspiration, but a necessity: an absolute requirement.
Start with what we actually love: that is vital.
Secondly, we ourselves actively, by conscious choice, express our love: and so we open the channel of communication.
A mistake is to try and manipulate, or get-something-from, that which we address. Animistic thinking is magical - but it is not magic. (Magic is an attempt at manipulating reality.)
What is needed is analogous to the difference between telephoning your mother, and making a sales call; the difference between patting a dog, and using a carrier pigeon to send a message; between a real fan-letter expressing gratitude and delight, and asking for an autograph.
Love is - in the proper sense - disinterested.
Being based in Love; we might rightly express such emotions as gratitude, appreciation, respect, admiration, even adoration.
Putting all this together:
If we want to experience the whole of reality as living and conscious - experience the animated universe - be in relation-with the world; then we begin by knowing this is true, selecting that which we actually love; and then opening the channel for direct contact by expressing that love in positive, generous, affirmative and appreciating ways.
After which we may expect to become aware of our heart thinking - so that the responses to our consciously-chosen initiation of contact becomes consciously known by us, as having appeared in our own consciousness.
We will know that we have-been in direct communication; and will intrinsically (at the time it happens) know the validity of this process.
At least that has been my experience, and apparently the experience of many others: we find ourselves stuck, thinking in the materialistic fashion that innately imposes the usual alienated life in which everything is experienced as a 'thing' - and we find ourselves unable to relate the our environment.
Of course I have tried to experience the world as alive and conscious - but it seldom works. Indeed, the very act of trying is what seems to block the process. It is as if my willing forms a skin around my-self.
As so often - it seems I had things the wrong way around; I was trying to do the opposite of what was actually required. The clue came from reflecting upon a passage about Heart Thinking in a talk by Stanley Messenger that I have posted before.
I regard it as a primary insight that we need to make a conscious choice in order to move forward to the next and destined development of consciousness. It won't just happen-to us: we must actively choose to make it happen: meet our destiny half-way...
I also regard it as necessary that we recognise the primacy of intuitive thinking - thinking which is based-upon direct contact between beings (not merely indirect communications, such as language)...
So that, in effect, we think each others thoughts, without perception or mediation; without need for language or any other symbolism.
At one point in that above-linked lecture entitled "Crop Circles: gateways to new worlds"; Stanley M comments that Beings (such as angels, or the so-called dead - or, implicitly, the manyfold Beings that surround us in our environment (sun, moon, stars, wind, mountains, trees, animals...) - cannot talk to us unless we first our-selves produce a language, more exactly a channel of contact, in which we can talk to them.
Now; SM actually meant 'talk', as the mode of contact - and he deployed 'channeled' conversations as his medium. However, I would regard such perceptual and 'hallucinatory' experiences as being pretty-much inaccessible-to, as well as mostly inappropriate-for, modern Men. But if I modified 'talking' to the kind of direct and intuitive knowing that I regard as primary and necessary; I found that my question was partly answered...
It became clear that what was needed was for me - consciously and by choice - to initiate direct intuitive contact with Beings, thereby to dicover from experience that they were alive.
And this was different from what I had been trying to do - which was to be receptive to the 'communications' from things around me. I had been trying to experience the world as I did when a young child - but this time consciously. I had been looking, listening and feeling; when what was actually required was for me to make an active approach...
That is what I tried to do. The problem was that It Never Worked. What never? Well, hardly-ever.
My conclusion was that this is not sufficient, it was not specific enough, thus it didn't work.
The questions arose: what (from all the infinite environment) should I approach, and how should I make this approach for it to be effective?
One clue is that this must involve 'heart thinking'; a term which means the same as intuition - and thinking with the heart is distinguished from head-thinking/ reason/ logic on the one hand; and gut-thinking/ instinct/ spontaneous impulse on the other hand. In practice, heart thinking is happening when knowledge 'appears' in conscious thinking, knowledge that we know to be from another Being (not our-selves) inserts-itself into our stream-of-thought.
So, that tells me how to know when it has-happened (and it is characteristic of heart thinking that it is retrospective. We know that an intuition has-happened - but do Not know when it is-happening.
A further characteristic of heart-thinking is that it is self-validating; while it is happening, I am sure of it, I don't doubt it. It brings with it that faith which is the natural consequence of trust. And trust is the consequence of love.
So, we begin to see how all the necessary elements are fitting together... Still, the problem remains - how exactly to initiate this process of heart thinking, how to make contact, and with-what to make contact?
(Because there are plenty of ineffective recommendations knocking-around; notably the 'exercises' prescribed by Rudolf Steiner - despite that most of these ideas come (whether directly or indirectly) from Rudolf Steiner. Steiner suggested an essentially arbitrary method, by which some-arbitrary-thing is picked-out (e.g. a plant) and then a mental-concentration form of meditation is practiced; whereby (through practise) thoughts are compelled to remain focused on the object, and to follow certain prescribed themes. I mention this only as an example of something well-meaning that has proven itself solidly-ineffective over the course of a century, during which Anthroposphy has become ever-more Ahrimanic, passive and politicised - and nearly all Anthroposophists (who practice these exercises) have become psychologically-indistinguishable from the mass of mainstream, bureaucratized, totalitarian-minded leftists.)
I got the clue for this next and final step from another comment Stanley Messenger made in the 'crop circles' talk, from about 1h 22mins before the end; which was (in my slightly edited transcription):
The huge evolutionary step that has been taken over thousands of years in Man's history is that a conscious being now exists in the universe which can arrogate to its own consciousness the freedom to decide what is true - to create universes.
And this is a perilous and devilish capacity; and is at the same time a capacity that can raise mankind to the level of the gods.
What is the difference between those two possibilities? The difference is whether, in this growth of self-awareness, mankind will come to the realisation that the perceptions of the heart are more fundamental than the perceptions of the brain. The realisation that our capacity to know through the heart reaches a more profound and truth-filled level than can be reached by perception, hypothesis and analysis.
The difference between this new freedom on the one hand to deny and destroy the reality of the cosmos; and the opposite capacity that it can create new universes of its own; depends, in the end, entirely on whether there is love in the heart - or not.
If there is no love in the heart, then this advance to a freedom of knowledge is the most Satanic thing that could possibly have happened to Mankind.
In the first place, this distinction is a stunning clarification of the catastrophes of 2020. We are ruled by those who have-not love in the heart, and the masses have allowed/ chosen that love should leach from their hearts in all world-relations excepting some of the human. Hence we have embarked upon the perilous, demonic, Satanic pathway - which is the terrible consequence of Man's choice to misuse his new freedom to create new universes.
The 'reality' that that is being created - before our eyes - is literally a Satanic hell; in which people's capacity to choose what they believe, is being used to believe the inversion of those true values that derive from God and creation.
We have created, and are developing, a 'universe' where lies are truth, the ugly and disgusting is celebrated as beautiful, evil plans are celebrated as idealistic visions; and where all representations of God, the Good and Creation are being subverted, mocked, destroyed, vilified and punished. Then all this is being locked-in by a global totalitarianism based on fear, resentment and despair.
But most vitally this 'love in the heart' requirement is the final clue to how to experience our living in an animated world; a world of Beings. How do we come to know these Beings, how do we begin to have a relationship with these Beings?
Firstly, we focus on those Beings we love.
Only by love can there be heart thinking. So anything and every-thing we love - but nothing else - is suitable for us to address. As well as people alive and around us we may love someone we have never met, perhaps one who has died; or an author, composer or artist from the past. We may love a pet, or other animal. And we may love any environmental 'thing' - a particular plant or tree in our garden, a landscape or hill, the crescent moon or the constellation of Orion.
We may love something 'made' like a house, a church building, a picture, an old car, a much-used tool...
But love is not arbitrary. The point is that we must truly, spontaneously, already love the Being we address.
Love is not an aspiration, but a necessity: an absolute requirement.
Start with what we actually love: that is vital.
Secondly, we ourselves actively, by conscious choice, express our love: and so we open the channel of communication.
A mistake is to try and manipulate, or get-something-from, that which we address. Animistic thinking is magical - but it is not magic. (Magic is an attempt at manipulating reality.)
What is needed is analogous to the difference between telephoning your mother, and making a sales call; the difference between patting a dog, and using a carrier pigeon to send a message; between a real fan-letter expressing gratitude and delight, and asking for an autograph.
Love is - in the proper sense - disinterested.
Being based in Love; we might rightly express such emotions as gratitude, appreciation, respect, admiration, even adoration.
Putting all this together:
If we want to experience the whole of reality as living and conscious - experience the animated universe - be in relation-with the world; then we begin by knowing this is true, selecting that which we actually love; and then opening the channel for direct contact by expressing that love in positive, generous, affirmative and appreciating ways.
After which we may expect to become aware of our heart thinking - so that the responses to our consciously-chosen initiation of contact becomes consciously known by us, as having appeared in our own consciousness.
We will know that we have-been in direct communication; and will intrinsically (at the time it happens) know the validity of this process.
Sunday, 11 April 2021
Notes on mysticism of thinking
I would describe myself as 'a mystic'; despite that I probably strike other people as mundane in the sense that I don't do anything very noticeably mystical - like meditating in the lotus position, using magical technologies (tarot, astrology etc) - and I don't claim to have had anything that would strike other people as spectacular spiritual or religious experiences (like overwhelming visions, near death experiences or striking paranormal events).
This is because I take mysticism is be synonymous with regarding intuitive experience as the bottom line, and a conviction that mystical experiences are intended for the person who experiences them - and not for general public consumption.
I have, like everybody, experienced many everyday miracles, and synchronicities - inspirations and the like. But it is immensely liberating Not to feel I need to convince anybody else that they were spectacular or of general relevance.
One big difference between the mysticism I practice versus that which has become enshrined in the mainstream - is that I strive-for and value conscious experiences in thinking. I neither seek nor much value the usual (so-called) 'mystical' state of non-thinking, death-of-the-ego; of being blissed-out/ unaware of time/ convinced of being literally transported elsewhere...
I do not want to be overwhelmed-by something that seems objective and external; nor to have visions that I believe to be real; nor to hear voices speaking to me - telling me things or conversing...
Yet some (most?) definitions of mysticism insist that these are what mysticism is.
For example, that a mystic is unaware of time - more exactly that the mystic perceives that in reality there is no time ('all time is present'). In total contrast, the mysticism I seek is more like a 'process', it is a situation of things happening, a flow of life.
In a nutshell, it is a kind of thinking that I regard as a higher state - I have called it primary thinking, heart thinking, and direct knowing - the state of Final Participation; and it simply amounts to a conscious and chosen thinking in the divine way; with and from that which is divine in me; and aligned-with/ in-harmony-with God's divine motivations and purposes.
It is me, my-self, joining-with God in God's work. It is therefore a creative state, and not merely a contemplative state. In it I add-to divine creation (I do not merely become aware of it, nor do I immerse in it.)
For me, creativity is what we are meant to do, we are meant to active participants in God's creation - that' for me, is what the mission of Jesus was all about.
Now, it is often said (and by writers I respect) that we ought to be striving to engage in this kind of thinking all the time - and any lapse from it is a failure. The idea is that we are supposed to be primary thinking at every moment, whatever we are doing; and that when we aren't, it is a lapse and a failure.
But this assumption makes every human life a failure, and a tragedy - since nobody ever has achieved this unbroken continuity of mystical thinking (except for Jesus, in the last three years of his life).
I cannot believe (I mean this literally - I mean the idea is incoherent) that our loving-parents God (who I know, in this state of mystical thinking) created his mortal children on earth to fail.
Indeed, for mortal life to make any sense, for it to have a necessary reason for happening, we cannot regard it as being set-up to attain any kind of perfect, continuous state --- since here in mortal earthly life we are ruled by entropy, subject to change/ disease/ degeneration and death.
Jesus's ministry described by an eye-witness in (only) the Fourth Gospel, is a joyous, not tragic, message - 'Good News' indeed. So we ought to realize that Jesus brought a positive gift - and not merely the negation of a negative situation. (As with the doctrine that Jesus came to save us from original sin: i.e. Jesus came to negate a negative deficit.)
And indeed Jesus did bring a positive gift - as repeatedly described in that Gospel: the positive gift of resurrected life eternal in Heaven.
That is the essence of Christianity. Clear and simple.
Therefore I am not supposed to be a full-time and permanent Mystic in this life on earth - the evidence for which is that it is impossible. But I am supposed to value mystical thinking above all else, because that is what is on-offer in Heaven.
More exactly (since each person has an individual destiny) anyone like me who knows and values mystical states, is meant to strive for them on the permanent and continuous basis offered only by resurrection into life everlasting.
So - since mystical thinking cannot be done all the time on earth, then we are not meant to do all the time it on earth. But our valuing of mystical thinking is what provides the correct framework for that learning from personal experience that is the main point of continued-living in this mortal life.
We can see immediately that there is a potential problem here; in that we are essentially intended to learn from personal experience - whereas the mainstream modern world supplies us with a merely secondhand and abstract experience.
Indeed, as of 2021; The System does not provide genuine experience, but a form of non-experience.
The System intends that we live abstractly, vicariously, and as guided by The System. This is the opposite and inversion of learning from personal experience.
One thing I used to worry about (and many others worry about - to the point of paralysis) is the matter of self-deception concerning mysticism.
The question of 'how can I tell?' when I really am 'doing' mystical thinking - or when instead I might be pretending to myself, or engaging in wishful thinking (merely relabeling ordinary mundane and manipulated thinking as 'mystical').
But most of this is dealt with when one regards the significance of mystical thinking as being personal rather than public.
Self-deception becomes a problem among actual or would-be spiritual leaders, people trying to get power, make money, gain status, influence people, make-a-better-world, heal people, create or administer a movement/ cult/ institution/ religions (etc) from their own spirituality.
All such objectification seems to create self-deception. Even great mystical thinkers such as Rudolf Steiner fell (deeply) into this trap of self-deception by striving for objectification, abstraction, generalization...
But intrinsically, it is not difficult to know when one is, or is not, engaged in mystical thinking.
The state is self-validating - as must be intuition in general. That is what intuition must be - if it is to serve as the bottom line.
We need to assume that there is a divine self in us.
And we must further assume that when our consciousness, our awareness, is motivated by Love; then conscious awareness can know the divine self.
It is Love that distinguishes divine-thinking from any other kind of thinking. We can therefore consciously know when we are (here and now) thinking mystically, from our divine self; and when we are not.
That's all there is to it. That is direct knowing.
The fact that it is based in the motivation of love is exactly why mysticism fails when made objective, when the attempt is to harness mystical thinking for 'use' in this mortal world.
We do not love The World; love is not abstract - indeed we love only some, specific beings - sometimes a person loves only one being.
That defines the scope of mystical thinking. One can think mystically only about that which is loved.
Love must come first. So we cannot 'use' mystical thinking by a forced application of love to that which we merely wish to know!
(Lack of real love is where public mystics go badly wrong. The give-away is that they always claim to have a lot of love, for a lot of people. The engage in a lot of promiscuous love-talk... They try to operationalize love, by equating it with some kind of 'altruistic' or sacrificial action. Doing so, they are trying to control love; which manipulation is intrinsically putting second that which must be first. Abstract, generalized loving is a snare - and a lie.)
Thursday, 11 August 2022
Why we must do it for our-selves: Clairvoyance versus Intuition (i.e. Primary Thinking)
'Clairvoyance' implies clear-seeing - and usually means perceiving that which is normally unseen; and it can include being a 'seer' - who can more clearly perceive the future. (I am using the term clairvoyance to include all kinds of perceived experiences - seeing visions, hearing voices, performing divination etc.).
'Seeing' more generally implies perception, and this reflects that clairvoyant-type experiences are necessarily at several removes from reality, indirect.
In this respect 'clairvoyance' - perhaps surprisingly - can be seen as typical of all the normal, everyday, indirect - including 'official' - forms of knowing.
Intuition, by contrast, is direct-knowing of the primary level of reality.
Therefore, intuition (in its pure form) must not include anything that renders experience indirect or mediated; e.g. no language or symbolism, nor translation, nor interpretation.
In this respect intuition (in its essential, original, private form*) can be regarded as categorically different from any other kind of knowing.
I believe that intuition can best be understood as Primary Thinking; when Thinking is itself the 'primary' (ultimate) reality: such that God and creation are to be understood as (primarily) Thinking.
This means that when we engage in Primary Thinking, we are directly participating-in ultimate reality.
There is no 'mediation' - such that in Primary Thinking (and only in PT) we are part-of the ultimate reality of things.
This means that clairvoyance - because it includes perceptions - is at several removes from reality.
For instance:
1. If Primary Thinking is ultimate reality...
2. Reality needs to be translated into symbolism, such as language...
3. This symbolism needs to be communicated, transmitted...
4. The received communication needs to be interpreted and understood.
This same, multi-layered indirectness (selectivity, summary, hence distortion) implies to all external sources that are received by the senses - even when it is assumed that the external source is working honestly on the basis of valid knowledge of reality.
This constraint applies to external personal and institutional authority, to all written (and spoken, and visual) inputs, to all socialization, training, education...
In sum - the above explains why we must ultimately, at the deepest and foundational level of knowledge of reality level know for ourselves.
No form of external and indirect knowledge can substitute:
We must do Primary Thinking for ourselves - or it will not be done; and we cannot be grounded in knowledge of reality.
**
We must do Primary Thinking for ourselves if we want a direct relationship with the world; yet there is no 'method' for doing it; and many or most people probably assume that they cannot do it - and have no idea how to start...
There is no 'method' for Primary Thinking - but there is a 'framework' of sorts; various 'assumptions' which enable Primary Thinking to happen.
For example: to know that Primary Thinking is both real and possible, both necessary and a Good Thing. To knowing that this is a creation we inhabit; that God is the creator; and that God loves us each as his child and desires our salvation - and will therefore ensure that anything we need in this mortal life will be possible.
And then by wanting to do it: by wanting to know the truth of things, wanting to experience reality - and wanting to participate in reality by Primary Thinking.
If, then, we experience what seems (on reflection and examination) be be Primary Thinking, then we would be wise to regard it as true (unless or until further intuition modifies it) - because there is no comparably valid source.
Yet (again I emphasize) we cannot communicate the results of intuition to others, nor should we expect others to be bound by our own Primary Thinking; and in general this 'trying to convince others' ought not to be attempted because public discourse can only use public language/ symbolism/ imagery etc.
On the other hand, intuitive knowing can and should affect public discourse indirectly; as the most important influence for an individual on evaluating public knowledge claims, and discerning between rival claims.
And - insofar as a intuitions is a valid participation in reality; then another-person's intuition of the same part-of-reality (if indeed, it is the identical part-of-reality that is being considered) will be the same insight - albeit within constraints of ability, time, effort etc.
But this is only true when mortal Men are living as-if already in Heaven.
*Note: The commonest criticisms of intuition come from those who focus on secondary and indirect communications of the (alleged) experience of intuition - in other words, the criticisms are directed against those who are regarded as arguing that 'other people' should accept as valid, linguistic interpretations and summaries of experiences that were originally wordless and private.
Wednesday, 31 August 2022
Intuitive Magic: the 'magic' of Final Participation (post 'ritual magic')
The only good magic is Christian magic - i.e. rooted in Christianity and arising from it; but I have often said that traditional 'ritual' or 'ceremonial' magic is inappropriate and ineffective for these times; because it depended on a passive, immersive Original Participation type of consciousness, that has (all-but) disappeared (at least in The West, among adults).
We are now in an era when Final Participation is the proper way for us to engage creatively with the world - and Final Participation is a consciously chosen, individual activity - done in the realm of 'primary thinking' (a.k.a. heart-thinking).
Yet thinking may be aided by particular activities, and this is where the 'magic' (broadly conceived) comes-in.
Ritual magic was done using formal ceremonies, words and artifacts; usually by groups; after training; and according to pre-arranged timetables.
But now, magic ought to have a different form (I would say is destined to have a different form): a very different form, that I propose to call Intuitive Magic.
Intuitive magic depends on intuition, which is individual (not groupish); and cannot be ordered nor elicited on-demand; therefore it must occur spontaneously, in response to the arrangements of divine providence.
It is a matter of the individual being aware of possible situations emerging (such as synchronicities and unexpectedly striking stimuli), alert to such clues and implications; and being correctly orientated, from a basis in Christianity.
To amplify; I personally am not able to attain intuitions of the form "What should I do?", but will only receive answers to questions of a dichotomous form, such as: "Is this right (or wrong)?" or "Should I do this (or not)?" or "Should I proceed with my plan (or not?)".
Therefore, when an intuition arises, it must be cast into a Yes/No form; and the second test or check, is to seek guidance on the validity of this specific formulation.
When a clear and self-validating answer comes, the process is complete; although it may be repeated as often as seems necessary to generate sureness.
When an answer to this intuitive check is not clear despite genuine commitment to seeking it - or is not forthcoming at all - this is because the question has been incorrectly formulated; being insufficiently precise or rooted in false assumptions. More 'work' is needed.
Thus, if intuitive Christian magic is regarded as things we might do - material things such as words, actions, meditation, or anything else - to attain goals compatible with the divine will; then a major pre-requisite is patience.
Ritual magic is done to a timetable; but intuitive magic takes as long as it takes for the individual to be in the right frame of values and mind, awaiting correct intuition, and for providence to arrange circumstances to make it possible.
Patience, in turn, requires trust; trust in God's personal loving concern for us our-selves, eternally; and trust in God's creative power - that in a world of beings with free agency and whatever the operations of evil: sooner or later the situation will be made to arise in which intuitive magic can be done.
What then, is this 'intuitive magic'?
Subjectively and temporarily, it is experienced as a positive change in consciousness.
But objectively and eternally; it is the operation of our personal creativity in this mortal life, adding to God's creativity: it adds our own creative contribution to the ongoing divine: is an instance of co-creation.
Saturday, 27 February 2021
Why attaining Final Participation (intuitive heart-thinking) is So difficult
Final Participation (thinking from the real self: from that which is divine in us - God Immanent) is inhibited or blocked by many habits, assumptions and convictions that are nearly-universal among modern adults.
To an atheist-materialist; real self thinking is childish, psychotic, demented or merely wishful fantasy.
To an orthodox- (i.e. Not Romantic) Christian; real self thinking is pagan, demonic; contradicts church tradition, church authority, The Bible and mainstream theology.
To almost everyone; it is contradicted by mainstream institutions, officialdom and the law, economics, science, medicine and the mass media.
That is to say: in this mortal life of today; the thinking of our real self is socially maladaptive (and very probably biologically maladaptive).
For all these reasons; thinking from the real self tends to be incomplete, unintegrated or brief in duration. Soon we will cease to attend to our real self in face of one or several of these other factors.
Consequently, the tendency is to ignore it altogether - especially when intuitive heart-thinking contradicts whatever other factors to which we give primary authority and to which we accord validity.
But we can choose consciously to attend to the thinking of our real self; and give it primacy over other sources of thinking. We can choose to allow it to dominate.
And, in a world of loving creation - such as Heaven - thinking from the real self (Final Participation) is wholly (indeed necessarily) adaptive; it both fits-into and contributes-to that world.
Friday, 5 September 2014
Analeptic and proleptic (intuitive) thinking - clues for truth, validation of truth
*
Continuing from
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/analeptic-trance.html
*
There is a direct, feeling-based, non-rational way of thinking which Robert Graves termed analeptic and proleptic thinking- analeptic thinking is a vision of the past while proleptic refers to the future.
http://nevalalee.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/intuition-and-the-white-goddess/
This happens in what could be termed a trance state, a state of altered consciousness, somewhat detached from immediacy and distraction - in which some other time or place (or person) or even an idea (a concept, an image, a belief) is perceived and felt as real.
What does this mean?
I think when something is analeptic/ proleptic it means that there is a certain validity and coherence to an idea. It does not mean that it is true - but it means that it is... well, that it is worth considering, worth thinking-about at least.
So, when something appears through analeptic thinking it then needs to be validated in whatever ways appropriate - by logical analysis, experience, new observations and so on.
*
But there is more to it than this; I think intuition is necessary to truth - for it to be meaningful, purposive truth.
Truth is contained-within intuition.
If you don't have an intuition, a personal sense of the reality of a time, place, person, idea, vision, notion... then it cannot be really real.
So, to evaluate an idea that is just an idea - then there must be a process of seeking intuitive confirmation; and unless or until the idea is confirmed by intuition (analeptic or proleptic thought) then it is not rally real and not much use could or should be made of it.
*
Continuing from
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/analeptic-trance.html
*
There is a direct, feeling-based, non-rational way of thinking which Robert Graves termed analeptic and proleptic thinking- analeptic thinking is a vision of the past while proleptic refers to the future.
http://nevalalee.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/intuition-and-the-white-goddess/
This happens in what could be termed a trance state, a state of altered consciousness, somewhat detached from immediacy and distraction - in which some other time or place (or person) or even an idea (a concept, an image, a belief) is perceived and felt as real.
What does this mean?
I think when something is analeptic/ proleptic it means that there is a certain validity and coherence to an idea. It does not mean that it is true - but it means that it is... well, that it is worth considering, worth thinking-about at least.
So, when something appears through analeptic thinking it then needs to be validated in whatever ways appropriate - by logical analysis, experience, new observations and so on.
*
But there is more to it than this; I think intuition is necessary to truth - for it to be meaningful, purposive truth.
Truth is contained-within intuition.
If you don't have an intuition, a personal sense of the reality of a time, place, person, idea, vision, notion... then it cannot be really real.
So, to evaluate an idea that is just an idea - then there must be a process of seeking intuitive confirmation; and unless or until the idea is confirmed by intuition (analeptic or proleptic thought) then it is not rally real and not much use could or should be made of it.
*
Sunday, 31 December 2017
Thinking inside a remote-controlled robot suit: a thought experiment
Yet pretty much all social and legal interpretation is against this; and Christians are also very much at fault in regarding a persons actions as of first importance, even when it comes to spiritual matters - ignoring thinking.
Thinking comes first in reality, because thinking is potentially free; whereas action is always, and often heavily, constrained. We can think, from our real-divine selves - in absolute freedom; but this can never be the case for our acting.
Thinking may be free: but acting is always constrained.
As a thought experiment, consider life in a remote-controlled robot suit: an 'exoskeleton' or 'mech suit' - so we dwell inside a metal shell that is being compelled to do things by a remote-control mechanism.
Imagine being inside this shell - thinking freely about the world, understanding in some ways, and wanting to act in some ways - yet our actions, our limb movements - what we do - is being compelled by the robot suit (and whoever controls it).
So, we are constantly observing our bodies doing things we do not want to do, under compulsion of the robot suit.
Inside this shell we can think freely - but our limbs are (mostly) being forced, by the superior strength of the robot suit, into doing things that are not chosen by us - but are compelled on us.
However, to be more accurate, we should regard the power of the robot suit to be greater than our own muscular strength - but only quantitatively greater - because it is sometimes possible for us to resist and even overcome the robot suit for some period of time - by exerting all our muscular strength against it. However, this overcoming the suit is exhausting, and therefore sooner or later we will tire and the robot suit will again take-over...
Thus our situation is that on the one hand we are compelled to act in specific ways by the external control of the suit; yet on the other hand we can sometimes force the suit to act in ways that our free-thinking desires.
This combination of freedom and constraint may then be used-against-us; if our thoughts are judged by our actions - from the correct fact that actions are visible while thoughts are not; plus the false assertion that, because we can sometimes act as we think, then we could (in principle) always act as we think...
So people whose thoughts are detached from their actions, but not wholly detached, are treated as if their actions are of first importance, and their 'real' thoughts can be inferred from their observed actions.
This is deadly: because instead of thought being free and knowingly-experienced as free - thought becomes regarded as constrained by action.
And if/ when a society can (mostly) compel action (like a robot suit compels action), then society can claim to control thoughts - because thoughts are (in practice) being assumed by inference from actions; thoughts are being regarded as secondary, to the point of irrelevance...
Society puts us in a robot suit, which externally-forces us to do this-and-that - then society tells us that we chose to do this-and-that! That we wanted to do this-and-that. That what we did and continue to do is the real us...
The analogy in this thought experiment is that living in human society is like being encased in a robot suit - our actions are mostly compelled; but by exerting maximum effort and concentration we can sometimes briefly overcome this compulsion; and either refuse to act or - even more rarely and for lesser periods of time - overcome the suit and act against the compulsion.
Different people find themselves in different types of robot suit, with different compulsions at work - these correspond to our different bodies and personalities and the different social and political circumstances in which we find ourselves.
So our exoskeletal robot suit has different strength, robustness, intelligence, different ways of understanding and behaving, and is externally operated by very different compulsions - according to time and place.
This is our situation. We may have the intuitive insight that our thinking is of first relevance and our actions are being compelled - but 'other people' and the rules and assumptions of social institutions are judging us by our actions.
And this even applies to many Christian churches for much of the time. We may repent in our thought world... But our repentance is judged by changes in the behaviour of the robot suit - and that suit does not reflect our own Primary Thinking.
Indeed we mostly have a very imperfect degree of control of the suit, and the suit frequently forces us to do things we do not want to do... We try to resist it, but we get tired and distracted, and sooner or later, the suit takes-over again...
While we focus our efforts on forcing the suit to perform one particular action, we find that another part of the suit is being remotely-controlled to do something against our wishes. So while we effortfully-compel the suit-hand to stroke a dog, we realise the suit-foot is meanwhile kicking that dog...
The purpose of this thought experiment is to remind us that in an ultimate sense the most important things that happen in our lives are happening in thought, not action; and that the understandable tendency to focus on actions as 'evidence' of thinking can be deeply malign - especially if we ourselves come to believe it.
When that happens; we may come to believe that repentance means nothing unless it is revealed in action, in a change of life. And then to believe that that repentance in thought - as an act of thinking - is, of itself, worthless...
If, then, the robot suit cannot be compelled in practice fully to act-out our thought-repentance, then we may be convinced that the repentance was unreal merely because consistent reform of our actions was not possible...
In sum, societal control of actions has been metaphysically (i.e. by assumption) represented as societal control of thought. In truth; the robot suit of our our charecter, bodies and society cannot ever fully-control thinking. But if we allow ourselves to be convinced by this action-over-thinking metaphysics, we will find that we cannot repent unless society wills it! - and our society does not will it...
By granting primacy to action over thought, Christian repentance is lost to us; the robot suit (and its remote-controllers) take charge; and our damnation is assured.
Note: Imagine the situation of the above-illustrated soldier. The 'exoskeleton' might serve as a strength enhancement for much of the time; but that soldier's movements and actions could in principle, to greater or lesser degrees, be influenced or taken-over by a remote operator. Such a soldier could not be judged by his actions - but only by his thoughts.
Another Note: The above was prompted by what I regard as a major method of corruption in the modern West; which is, by one means or another - often sexual but there are many possibilities - to induce a young person to some sinful act or another under the understanding that having performed this action defines them. Repentance is ruled-out since anything less than 100 percent perfection of behaviour (i.e. of action) is regarded as insincere and hypocritical. Yet perfection is unattainable - for everyone, but especially so for adolescents. In such a society it is vital to regard the autonomous divine thinking self (our thinking self at its best and highest and purest) as the real and defining self.
Tuesday, 17 August 2021
Consciousness raising? Communications and direct knowing
It is interesting to reflect on how many proposed 'methods' there are for 'raising consciousness'.
In the mainstream, this refers to use of the mass media, education and propaganda to manipulate public opinion. It means, roughly, getting people to think about some-thing - in either a positive or negative way.
For example, to become aware of some rare type of disease, so that they might contribute money to organizations purporting to 'do something' for sufferers or carers. Or to turn public opinion against to actual or virtual group of people by linking a name with alleged acts of meanness, crime, terrorism.
This stuff is the staple of daily public discourse in all modern institutions (including most Christian churches).
A small version of the mechanism can be seen in this blog, or any communication medium including speaking.
I used to think of my writings as potentially able to spread to almost anywhere, on the basis that such things have happened: a few words written in a specific place have propagated and been reproduced to reach vast numbers of people (who maybe 'needed' them, or alternatively were vulnerable to them) - and these communications (words, images, music etc.) have an apparent effect on them.
Another version of the idea is that God works through us - and God can and will amplify our works to reach many people - when this is helpful for God's purposes. The creator need not worry or concern himself about 'spreading the word', or 'reaching an audience', but only about creating some good communication - and God will do the rest.
In New Age type spirituality circles, raising consciousness often refers to a proposed mechanism whereby the spiritual level of large numbers of people (or all people) is lifted by some kind of external effect. A divine being or tendency may increase the frequency or vibrational level acting-upon human - which is presumed to awaken or spiritualize their thinking and living.
Or an individual who meditates (in the proper fashion) is assumed to have a very general and beneficial effect on everybody in the world; implicitly perhaps by some (probably very small) enhancement of an sort of 'spiritual ether' that is 'bathing' all our consciousnesses...
So when that medium of consciousness is enhanced by the mental efforts of one or many spiritual persons, it is suggested that we all experience this enhancement (or could do, if we became attuned to it).
I think of these are 'physicsy' ways of thinking; which regarded spirituality rather like the radiations of the sun, incident upon the earth - perhaps some kind of cosmic ray that passes through the earth but potentially interacts with welcoming or susceptible minds en route.
The way in which I tend to suppose consciousness can be raised posits a 'world of thought'. Or, more exactly, not all thoughts (which are mostly trivial, passive, 'automatic') but a world of 'real' thought, primary thoughts, thoughts that originate from our true and divine selves when we are living as free agents.
This world of thoughts is contributed-to by many thinking Beings (living and 'dead', incarnated and spiritual, human and otherwise). This world of thinking may be accessed by anybody (any Being) who actively chooses to communicate with it.
Such a concept privileges thoughts and their direct sharing or interaction, mind to mind; above the indirect and multistep processes of public communications and media. This I call 'direct knowing' and I regard it as the basis of genuine intuition.
By this account, if I have an idea or an insight; then it is the having of it that matters more than the physical expression. For instance, it is implied that having the idea for this blog post was more important than writing and publishing that idea.
Did I then really need to write and publish this post? Would it not have been just as good - maybe better (because more direct) to think but not publish it?
Yet there is a middle ground; which is that (for me, anyway) writing is thinking - at least to a significant extent; and further that writing-thinking is (for me) improved by the intent to publish, or share, it.
In a sense, often (but not always) I do not really know my idea until I am writing it, or have written it. The process of writing seems to accelerate the evaluation and clarification of ideas.
So consciousness is raised primarily by thinking, and this may secondarily amplified by communication.
And at the other end - the way in which we may each directly attune to the 'world of thinking' is (for most of us) difficult, intermittent - and only able to cope with simple concepts.
For instance, by direct thinking and knowing it is much more likely that we can discover a 'Yes or No' answer to a simple and precise question like 'should I quit my job?; than we could discern a plan of action in response to a question like 'what should I be doing with my life?'
Thus, given two Beings, both aligned with God and in sympathy, a physical communication like a blog post might be able to make a bridge to the world of thinking and direct knowing. So we might read (or listen, or view) a communication; and then (immediately upon comprehension) we may experience an intuitive confirmation of its validity.
The communication is therefore affirmed by direct knowing.
In this way, by accelerating our intuitive grasping of things, communications may help us discover and evaluate our primary assumptions concerning the world - establishing a metaphysical basis upon-which all other kinds of knowledge depend.
Note added: It is probably significant that I forgot to include what may have been the most prevalent or important form of consciousness raising at times and places in the past - which is by supernatural/ paranormal communications - such as dreams, visions (visual and auditory), visitations (by spiritual beings) and mediumship generally.
In sum - by perceptual contact with the spiritual world: e.g. an angel speaks, a vision is shown. And any communicated perception is subject to distortion at many stages.
I forgot to mention these, because such methods have become progressively less common, impossible for many people - and usually only attainable by deliberate practice or deliberate consciousness alteration. And all of these make any communications more liable to be misperceived or misunderstood; and which tend to impair discernment concerning the source and value of communications, and impair memory.
I believe that direct knowing is both superior - because it is direct and cuts-out the problems of distorted perception, misunderstanding etc - and also that direct knowing is the destined way that modern Men in modern conditions are intended (by God) to have consciousness raised. A way that cannot be interfered-with by evil external powers.
Tuesday, 13 July 2021
A life of self-'exclusion', or Living outside the System? Is it possible? How?
WmJas Tychonievich clarifies that the invented 'ethical' imperative against 'ex-clusion' masks the fact of coercive and mandatory in-clusion of all individuals within the global totalitarian System ('the Matrix'); also that, increasingly, self-exclusion (that is, anybody choosing to live outside of the System and its tightly-controlled ideology) is forbidden.
But does forbidden mean impossible? Well... not exactly. Because the System is - by design - a machine of damnation - Therefore They want everybody to want to live inside it. This is why They invited the fake positive morality of inclusion, and manufactured abhorrence of exclusion. The built-in covert assumption behind-which is that everybody, necessarily and always, wants to be on the inside.
Because the crucially damning (i.e. salvation-rejecting) effect of the System is when people embrace and endorse the System - think by it. To regard the System as Good is a demonic value-inversion; which entails regarding Heaven as bad.
However, the System ceases to be an effective instrument of evil when someone knows the nature of evil (i.e. opposition to God, divine creation, The Good), has recognized the System as being evil, and has rejected the System for that reason.
The global totalitarian System is a material one, which excludes the spiritual (denies the reality of the spiritual) - because only the material realm is controllable. The System now includes all of public discourse, and all major institutions (including the churches); and its grip increases daily.
Of course, those demonic Beings who control the System are not themselves material - and They know perfectly well the reality of God, creation and The Good (which they oppose). It is this larger perspective of the demons that enables them to control the System and to make it served the goals of damnation - while their human servants and dupes are mostly oblivious.
The strategy of totalitarian evil is to induce an habitual, passive, unconscious materialism among all humans; thus to confine them completely within the System - hence to be able fully to monitor and control them.
So, it is not - after all - difficult to escape the System; because the spiritual realm lies beyond. But escape is not in the physical realm - not in the realm of society or culture - not in any institution (including not in a church - when church is functioning in the public realm) - since all of these are by-now net-absorbed-into the System (corrupted, converged); and the System is evil.
The spiritual real is explicitly known only in the realm of thinking; and within thinking in that kind of thinking that could be called direct knowing, conscious intuition or heart-thinking: in other words the spiritual is to be found in thinking that comes from our real (and divine) self.
Such thinking is undetectable and uncontrollable by the System.
And such thinking participates in a realm of primary thinking that is shared by, contributed-to, accessed-by - all other Beings who are engaged in intuitive direct knowing. So, we are not alone.
Yet, heart-thinking and direct knowing are only temporary and partial states in this mortal life - which is instituted for our experience and learning - for our 'education'. We who live in this era of global totalitarianism have each, personally, much to learn from the experiences (which is indeed why we are alive, now).
And we may - if we have made the right choices and have the right values - also have a life outside of the System in addition to the spiritual realm of primary thinking; I mean the realm of love: love of family, spouse, children, real-friends - and including (for some people) love that crosses the portal and encompasses some of the 'so-called-dead'.
So there is life outside the System; life which always and necessarily escapes the System and is free! Yet, as the System increases its scope and grip, this free and loving life is a more-and-more completely a spiritual life, which we may consciously know almost wholly in the realm of (primary) thinking.
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