Bruce Charlton's Notions

To recap: I believe that Rudolf Steiner was correct a century ago when he said that the characteristic spiritual phenomenon of this age was that the power of thinking has been enhanced, to the point that Men tend to become after death what Men think-they-are during life. 

Primary Thinking is the term I have devised for what Owen Barfield called Final Participation and Rudolf Steiner the Imaginative Soul - as a state it would also include some examples of Jung's active imagination, Gurdjieff's self-remembering, Maslow's peak experience, and alert types of shamanic, poetic and creative trances.

I regard the attainment of primary thinking to be the main task of modern Man - but clearly, since the state has been so widely noticed, and is experienced by so many people - merely experiencing primary thinking is ineffectual.

This is because primary thinking is firstly nearly-always brief and very intermittent, and secondly the experience of primary thinking nearly-always misunderstood by normal every day consciousness when that state resumes.

Primary thinking ought to be understood as an experience of the divine way of thinking, intrinsically Good and valid - and superior to other and lower types of normal existence. In primary thinking we know - and we know directly - truth, beauty and virtue; and in this state we are intrinsically creative; because primary thinking is that which is divine in us, active within the realm of universal knowledge.

However, most people who experience primary thinking most of the time will misinterpret the experience; or will try to use it for their own worldly expediency. Jung and Maslow, for example, regard it as therapeutic - in effect a branch of medicine, aiming at making people feel and function better. While mainstream New Agers tend to regard primary thinking as a source of pleasure and gratification - part of a satisfying lifestyle.

And of course most of us are substantially evil; so despite that the primary thinking state is intrinsically Good; once they 'snap out of it', people will try to use the knowledge attained during primary thinking for selfish and short-termist reasons, or else for actively-evil purposes - using their knowledge of Good to try and destroy Good.

(This is presumably what devils and demons do: i.e. a kind of inverted black magic.)

Mainstream secular leftist people usually regard primary thinking as a pleasant but foolish delusion - and make fun of, or scorn, those who take it seriously.

So the challenge of primary thinking is not so much to do it, but - when we are not doing it - to 1. understand it correctly, 2. learn from it, and 3. put those lessons into practice as best we can. 

I have belatedly realised (such things always take me a t-herribly long time) that the modern world is being duped - wholesale - by the fake assertion that process is the ultimate source of validity; whereas in fact provenance is the basis of truth...

Allow me to explain... The (modern, fake...) idea is that 'understanding' of something is a matter of being able to describe it in terms of process; and that correct understanding has happened when process leads to predictable outcomes.

So - the modern activity of professional bureaucratic research that calls-itself 'science' claims that valid results are what come-out-of this process of research, and what comes out of this process is intrinsically valid. Science is regarded as The Process.

But, it would be truer to say (although still an abstraction) that science is what comes-out-of scien-tists; that is, out-of individual human creative-beings whose motivation is scientific. Science is what-(real) scientists-do.

Other examples would be my current obsessions of Primary Thinking and Polarity. I have been having difficulties explaining these, including to myself (especially polarity...). And these difficulties are related to my trying to do this explaining in terms of process - which is an abstraction.  I should instead have been trying to understand them in terms of their provenance.

Yet my explicit metaphysical foundation is that ultimate reality is personal, not abstract - my bottom line is that reality is made up of beings (variously alive and conscious beings). Abstractions are therefore merely models - therefore (being models) always simplified and always incomplete and always not-true... no matter how expedient or useful in limited circumstances.

So, trying to explain Primary Thinking in terms of process is always and necessarily wrong - in reality primary thinking is the thinking of that-which-is-primary: i.e. the thinking of our real self, which is a divine self (a son or daughter of God): a self that is in part existent from eternity.

The thinking of this real self is primary thinking - and the validity of the 'products' of divine thinking comes from that provenance: that is from thinking's origin in the real self. Thought that originates-from the real self is valid, and that provenance is what makes thought valid...

And polarity... I have (following Coleridge and Barfield) tried to explain it abstractly, that is as a model... but polarity so-considered is a process; a process consisting of opposed by inextricable centrifugal (feminine) and centripetal (masculine) elements... and so on. And all processes are abstractions, hence wrong.

So, in the end, polarity has not really been understood. And nobody can make a machine or any other model that 'does polarity'... Only beings do it.

Polarity is an abstract model of creativity, and creativity is done by beings.

The ultimate creativity is to create creators - that is, to pro-create, to have offspring. Thus the ultimate reality, of which polarity is merely an abstraction, is the fertile dyad of man and woman; of two complementary beings.

Other types of creativity (literary, scientific artistic etc) are inextricable from the inclusion of beings - a poem without a person to read/ a symphony without someone to hear it... is not a creative product but merely ink marks on paper.

All creativity entails beings. (And beings entail life and consciousness - of some type and degree.)

That is, creativity is also (like polarity, like primary thinking) a matter of provenance, of source and origin...

So, to return to Primary Thinking - we cannot explain it as a process, indeed that is its nature to be inexplicable as a process - else it would not be primary (and instead 'the process' would be primary).

We know primary thinking by knowing that we do it - more exactly, that we have been-doing it: that our real self has-been-thinking. We cannot look-within the process of primary thinking - because primary thinking is what eventuates-from our real self. We know primary thinking by recognising that it has-eventuated - we recognise primary thinking as a product-of our real self, thinking...

Therefore, the deepest understanding is not of (inevitably incomplete and biased) abstract models of processes; but knowledge of the nature of the beings that constitute reality.


Aside: All this is why and how Christians can correctly regard love as primary in God's creation - which would not make sense if ultimate understanding of creation was of the nature of physics or mathematics. Love is primary because beings are primary - thus ultimate reality is alive, conscious, purposive.  

We are stuck in habits of materialist, reductionist, abstract thinking that have been inculcated from all directions of our culture; and which are sustained by all public discourse. 

Breaking free and developing better, truer, stronger ways of thinking - thinking with the innate cosmic and unconstrained scope consequent upon the divine part of our human natures - is difficult. 

Furthermore, we cannot really use conscious 'will power' in this task, because conscious will is rooted in the same world of habit which we are trying to escape. With conscious will power; we are in the paradoxical situation of deploying exactly that which we are simultaneously trying to change!

To break the evil habits of our mainstream, mundane thinking; we need to be able to think actively, and from our real (divine) selves. We cannot just let our thoughts happen; but we cannot use will power. 

And I believe we cannot achieve that active thinking by increments, we cannot attain metaphysical transformation by generalizing from earlier and specific successes. 

(This is why Rudolf Steiner's meditation exercises seem to be useless at generating active primary thinking - since they rely upon the mistaken assumption that the general can be built-up stepwise from the specific.)

How then might we 'strengthen' (as Owen Barfield terms it) our primary thinking, and develop the capability of using it more often and more fully? 

The answer is by what Coleridge called "imagination" - if that term is properly understood; which is also what Tolkien called "subcreation". And this is by the act of creating in thinking - i.e. in primary thinking - which is creating in the non-material, spiritual, realm.

All material is spiritual - because matter comes-from spirit; so creation in the material realm - i.e. creating stuff like poetry, music, painting, scientific or philosophical theorizing - is potentially valid. 

Such activities are potentially good for developing 'imagination' so long as they are active and innerly-driven. But these are minority activities - and such material manifestations of creativity are secondary. 

The Real Thing about creating goes on in thinking: thinking is primary, when it comes to the kind of imagination/ subcreation we need. 

Unconscious creativity (e.g. that of a child, or someone who creates something valued by accident, or without trying) is Not what we want and need - if we are to break the materialist mind-set.

No - to develop the imagination; requires that creation be conscious, active, chosen. 

And such creation happens first in thinking. 

Whether or not thinking later results in a poem, song, new theory or whatever - is secondary and inessential. 

The value in creating comes from the thinking - even if that thinking is unspoken, unexpressed. 

Indeed, the expression of creativity is always secondary; and - necessarily - incomplete, distorted and inferior to the original and primary thinking that led to it. 

Thus; whether inner creativity of thinking is recognized by 'other people', or is accorded praise and status - is inessential. "Great" poets or painters may in fact be less primarily creative than one who has never even spoken about his inner states of primary thinking. 

So, imagination, creation, in the realm of primary thinking; is what is needed to develop the desired true and good alternative to the false and evil thinking-habits of this time and place. 

And such creation can only come from the thinker being aligned with God and divine creation; and can only happen when the thinker is motivated by love. 

This is another reason why it cannot be achieved by conscious will power - when the Good-alignment is absent, and/or motives are selfish or manipulative - then primary thinking just does not happen; and a kind of pseudo-creativity is the result.

It might be said that plenty of people are 'already doing this kind of inner-creating without realizing they are doing it'. But that does not suffice. 

We need to be clear that anyone who does not realize he is doing it, is actually not doing it! 

This is clear from the fact that such unconsciously creating people remain trapped in the habit-prison of mundane materialist thinking - often barely aware of the fact. 

Our core task here-and-now is to become conscious about many things which used to be unconscious. 

We need to become conscious that we are indeed in a socially-imposed thought-prison of mundane materialist thinking; conscious that we want to escape this prison; and consciously decide to develop our primary thinking - our inner and spiritual creativity.  

 

I have been writing about Primary Thinking for several years, as the mode of Final Participation. But, via an episode of Primary Thinking, some things became clear to me yesterday. 

Hardly anybody is interested by these metaphysical posts; so for those who are I will give it more or less straight: as it came to me: 

This mortal and material world is a closed system, dominated by entropy; it is an energy-consuming world where the tendency is towards destruction, decay and death. 

By contrast the spiritual world is the opposite, being eternal and immaterial. It is the world of divine creation, where 'energy' is renewed. Creation adds; and is 'negentropic' - entropy-reducing. 

Where there is creation, there is an open system; overall increasing in value.  

Thinking can be entropic, or else creative. These are qualitatively different. 

Mundane, everyday thinking is brain-based, therefore entropic; uses energy (including electricity), is causally-determined (each step caused by a preceding step) - and therefore mundane thinking tends towards degeneration and collapse.

But Primary Thinking is immaterial, spiritual; does not depend on the physical nervous system. It is generative (not caused by preceding factors, not a consequence of what went before); contributing something extra (something for nothing!) to created-reality.

We could picture spiritual thinking breaking-in upon physical thinking, transforming it, inserting-into it; because the material is a sub-set of the spiritual (the spiritual is the whole; the physical merely part of that whole). 

Primary Thinking is a divine attribute, the divine form of creation. We can do it only because we are children of God, and share in God's divinity. 

And we can only do it somewhat, sometimes - because we dwell in mortal bodies in this material, entropic world.  

Thus, Primary Thinking changes created-reality; changes the world! - and for the better: changes it permanently, eternally. 

Primary Thinking is always a positive good and "for the better", because Primary Thinking only happens when we our-selves are in harmony with, pursuing the same creative goals as, God. 

Primary Thinking is always 'about' something, always goal-directed: it is purposive thinking, and the purposes are in-line with divine creation. 

There is no formula for 'doing' Primary Thinking; except that we need to acknowledge its importance and be aware when it happens. The occurrence is a by-product of serious and sincere effort to understand, to know; in context of love of God and chosen-affiliation to the creative work of God. 

When all such factors are lined-up; we will (temporarily) be able to overcome the entropic nature of this mortal life; take-up our divine heritage as children of God, partake of the divine way of thinking, and participate in on-going creation. 

And if we do so, we can be (and will be) confident that - by our thinking, directly and eternally - we shall have changed the world for the better.   

Note: The above insight was - somehow - triggered by listening to a November 15th 1917 lecture by Rudolf Steiner in an audio version read by Dale Brunsvold. A text version is at https://rsarchive.org/Lectures/19171115p01.html. 

'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. 

On the one hand I regard Primary Thinking as the single most vital attribute towards which modern Western Man must strive; on the other hand, this is very difficult and there is no recipe for it - because the essence of Primary Thinking includes that it is free, conscious and chosen.

In previous stages of human development, before the modern era (and in the childhood of modern persons), there was an instinctual way of doing things - to a greater or lesser extent. Development was a thing that 'just happened' to people - it came-upon people and overwhelmed them and imposed-itself; whether they liked or wanted it. Development was passive, it did not need to be understood, and it was not free.

But the next stage of human development - that which we here-and-now must seek - is the mode of divine; and it has characteristics which we can infer to be characteristic of the thinking of our God. So Primary Thinking must be consciously self-aware - knowing itself, subject to our will, free and agent, voluntary... In sum Primary Thinking must be thinking of-and-from our real and divine selves, in the divine mode.

(Our real self is divine by virtue of being in its essence eternal and uncreated; it is also divine by virtue of us having become sons and daughters of God; it is therefore divine because it is God-within-us - recognising that God is both universal and also unique to ourselves. We are each a part of God, and each also our unique and divine selves.)

So - the Primary Thinking we need to seek is something that each individual Man must discover and develop for himself. This must happen if he or she is to become more fully divine - adult, agent, autonomous. The alternative is to remain eternally a spiritual adolescent (because we have by now left-behind childhood - and adolescence is meant to be only a transitional state - not a permanent mode of being).

Thus, modern Man is not compelled to take the step to Primary Thinking (you personally are not compelled) - but if we do not make this step, we will remain eternal adolescents; neither children nor mature.

However, Primary Thinking cannot, therefore will not, just happen-to-us. It cannot come-upon us, cannot overwhelm us, cannot compel us... Will not creep-up on us, will not happen in sleep or unconsciously - it cannot be indoctrinated. In sum we cannot be manipulated into Primary Thinking by any means whatsoever.

Primary Thinking is something we Must Do; and also we must do it for ourselves in full awareness of what we are doing.

Primary Thinking must therefore be grasped and known by each person, in full consciousness of its implications; and embraced deliberately and from a free act of the soul.

This is not easy, and we should neither expect nor want it to be easy; and each of us (as an unique embryonic god) must ultimately do it for ourselves - must find our own path to Primary Thinking. 

Final Participation is primary thinking - and can only be attained by one who is thinking from his divine self and in harmony with divine creation. 

I have found Rudolf Steiner's instructions and exercises concerning 'how to do' primary thinking (or, what he terms pure thinking, or his type of meditation) to be misleading and indeed counterproductive; since they concentrate on concentrating - on attaining a thought and holding it, expanding it etc...

In the first place, this method splits the mind into that part which is doing the concentrating, and the results of that concentrating. Secondly it is insufficient - from personal experience, I could concentrate in the prescribed manner (e.g. when I was doing theoretical science) long before I could do primary thinking. Thirdly, and consequently, the results of this concentration style of meditation are misleading (because it is easy by concentration to 'force' thinking towards pre-determined conclusions, and thereby create false content).

Fourthly and most tellingly, it doesn't seem to work. After all, this was not how Steiner himself learned to meditate, so there is little reason to suppose that other people could get to where Steiner was by using a different method. Also, the capacity of his exercises to induce 'clairvoyance' in the many members of the Anthroposophical Society who have followed then, seems (to the observer) to be a near-total failure.

If not, then what?

We need an 'external' technique of holding attention - of stopping it being distracted, or sliding around. For me this can be taking notes, reading short passages, drawing 'doodles' - essentially with a pen in the hand. Others would need to find what worked for them.

What to think about? That depends on your motivation, here-and-now. Motivation is one of the keys: it needs to be some-thing that you really want to know, to think-about.

Steiner, by contrast, prescribes arbitrary subject matter for his thinking exercises (this plant, this stone...). This seems like seriously bad advice: ineffective, because the motivation for arbitrary thinking will surely be feeble; and also (in a sense) arbitrary motivation is immoral, because this is trying to use primary thinking for frivolous or expedient purposes (and primary thinking, being in the realm of reality/ truth/ beauty/ virtue, will not - indeed cannot - be so used).  

Once the attention has being controlled by some such external means, the whole of the mind can fill the activity of thinking from the deep and true self. It wells-up. And leads to further notes/ doodles etc. just as a way of holding the line; while allowing it to develop by internal logic.

The key, though, is metaphysical - it is to acknowledge the validity of thinking; the validity of the process, content, findings... We need to internalise the fact that primary thinking is not constrained by what we term 'evidence'; because primary thinking happens in the domain of universal reality, hence it is necessarily true. 

(This is a delight to observe - in full consciousness: the emergence of truth, quite naturally, spontaneously, fluently, and without boundaries. This is also why the kind of wound-up state of concentration is hostile to the process.)

The content of primary thinking is intrinsically valid in and of itself - so we want to be attentive but relaxed, as it comes-forth.

Of course, summarising, recording, transmitting this primary truth makes the resulting communications prone to all sorts of possibilities of error, distortion and misunderstanding - if we try to use this knowledge.

But the direct knowledge of primary thinking is itself is pure, real, and true.

If the magic of Original Participation was Sympathetic Magic; and that of the modern Consciousness Soul era was Ritual Magic - then the magic of the future could be Magical Thinking.

Magical Thinking is Primary Thinking - considered as a form of magic. 

In Magical Thinking, the real self - that is the divine self, that which we inherited from God as being Sons and Daughters of God - knows, predicts and creates.

You have probably experienced this - for example during 'enchanted' times when you knew that the world was an unfolding delight, and that you could depend on 'synchronicity' to make good things happen. Those times and moods when you know that around that corner, over that hill, in that cafe there will be something important and delightful: and there always is.

As long as we stay in the enchanted mode of thinking, then life is good, we are involved-with the world and other people, and all will go well. This is Magical Thinking.

It is Enchant-ment but is Not Enchant-ed - this state of being is not 'imposed' by the surroundings, nor is it 'imagined' by our-selves - instead Magical Thinking is precisely that there is participation going-on between both self and world.

In Primary Thinking, our knowledge of the world is based on our participation-in the unfolding reality of the world; and therefore is bound up with the creativity of our real selves.

Creativity is intrinsic to the Final Participation situation, because Primary Thinking is the thinking of our real, divine and free selves: free in the sense of agent, and agent meaning that the divine mind is an origin of thinking (having 'free will' should be understood in this sense of being an uncaused cause: specifically, an uncaused-cause in the realm of Primary Thinking).

In different words: The real self is divine, hence generates thinking not merely caused, but itself causal - hence the real self knows reality, and is original and creative. The real self knows reality directly, unmediated; and this is also a consequence of Participation - the real self knows reality because in its Primary Thinking, it is identical-with reality.

(In the Original Participation of childhood or early tribal man, the individual also knows reality directly; because he lacks full consciousness, his self is passively immersed in reality. The purpose of the developmental evolution of consciousness is exactly that we become able to participate in reality again; but actively-participate; with freedom and creativity: the fully-divine mode of being.)

Thus in Primary Thinking the thinking is original and generative - it is intrinsically creative. The thinking participates-in the world and brings something new to this world.

Thus Magical Thinking is something by which you change the world, but not by 'manipulating' reality. Instead, the world inevitable changes as a consequence of the unity of the self with reality; and the fact that the self brings something new, original, self-generated to reality.

Magical Thinking is therefore our individual contribution to the God's ongoing creation. It is a real magic, because we personally can know reality including some ability to predict reality; and we personally make-a-difference to reality.

But by Magical Thinking we cannot and will not shape reality to our own personal ends - but only to divine ends.

Thus there cannot be a 'black magic' of Magical Thinking. Magical Thinking is (as we experience it) intrinsically good because it is the divine in us (God immanent) really participating-in the reality of continuing divine creation.

I have been so concerned to acknowledge that primary thinking of our real and divine self is real - in the sense of having an objective (knowable by others) effect on the world - that I neglected to clarify in what way it is real. And how the reality of thinking differs from that of 'action'. 

When we take an action - do something with our bodies, or by speaking/ writing; the effects are on 'this earthly mortal world'. 

These effects of actions are therefore of the nature of this-world; being evanescent - subject to entropy. And the effects of action are known by other people via perception, from 'outside' them - via their senses and perhaps unconsciously and involuntarily. 

The effect of primary thinking is different; because it does not exist in this earthly and mortal world; but instead in a divine and eternal reality - our thoughts are therefore, in some way, permanent.

But since primary thinking is not 'located' in this earthly world; its actions are not via the sensory perceptions, and do not happen-to people unconsciously or involuntarily. 

For primary thinking to affect other people (other beings) in this earthly mortal world - these persons must consciously choose to access the divine and eternal reality. And they know this divine reality not by perceptions, but by their own primary thinking.  

Therefore, the reality of primary thinking is on the one hand more eternally real and significant than our actions; but on the other hand primary thinking does not effect the perceptible things of this world; it does not move things, or make things happen, or influence other people unconsciously or against their will. 

Instead, primary thinking happens in a potentially shared world; and affects those who participate in this shared world. 

Primary thinking is a form of divine creation - as we think, we participate in divine creation and contribute to it; but that participated creation is not happening here on earth but in 'another dimension'.

That world is the same 'dimension' to which Christians go after resurrection - it is Heaven. 

In sum, our primary thinking while we are mortals on earth has its effects in Heaven. 

 

What follows is a recent exchange of e-mails between myself and A Correspondent - in which he makes some excellent and clarifying points on the nature of Primary Thinking. I hope this may help others who are working-through this vital theme...

**

My Correspondent: If primary thinking is certainly true (not just hypothesis), and if it is free, then it seems to follow that it is literally creative. If it is free, it need not conform itself to the world; but if it is true, then there is nevertheless a correspondence between what is thought and what actually exists. There can be no necessary correspondence without some sort of causal relationship, and if primary thinking is not caused by external facts, then the inescapable conclusion (if, given what I have just said about the freedom of thought, I may be permitted the phrase) is that the causation runs the other way: external facts conform themselves to thoughts. Primary thinking creates the world.

My first thought was to call that a reductio ad absurdum and reject the whole "primary thinking" model, but on second thought I think it has to be accepted. After all, theism requires some such concept in order to make sense of God's role as creator. We can hardly imagine that God created the world by physically moving matter around with some kind of construction equipment; rather, he created everything by his "word" or logos. And what is possible for God is possible in a general sense -- and, if we are his children, possible for us.

[In Mormon doctrine, it is said] that Adam helped create the earth, but that when he entered mortality he forgot that fact. And when Adam fell, the earth fell with him. Did God deliberately wreck his own creation as a way of punishing Adam -- or was the world in some way directly dependent on Adam's thoughts, Adam's state of mind? The knowledge of evil came first, and the existence of evil followed. And of course Adam, the prototypical man whose name simply means "Man," represents all of us.

(Is "faith" primary thinking? It, too, is supposed to be both free and true. In the New Testament, faith can make you whole, enable you to walk on water, and cast mountains into the sea -- in other words, the external world changes to conform itself to true faith.)

One problem with this idea is that it threatens to destroy the re-ality ("thingishness") of the world by making it wholly dependent on thought -- a hallucination, essentially. Without something that exists independently of our own thoughts there is, it seems, no world. Another problem is the question of how the thoughts of potentially billions of different primary-thinkers interact to create the one world we presumably share -- and what it is about God's thoughts that make them uniquely powerful, making him "the" creator. But I suppose the second problem offers a solution to the first. The reality of the world comes from its being the production of many minds, and not of mine alone.


Myself: That is my understanding too. We seem to have reached the same place, more or less.

I have found Steiner vital for this, mostly the early three books on Goethe's conception, the PhD thesis, and the Philosophie der Freiheit (variously translated) - but I only came across a dense and inspiring summary of his early philosophical work yesterday - in the following introduction to a book from 1900:

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA007/English/GA007_Intro.html

"One problem with this idea is that it threatens to destroy the re-ality ("thingishness") of the world by making it wholly dependent on thought -- a hallucination, essentially. Without something that exists independently of our own thoughts there is, it seems, no world. "

Not quite. There is a world - a world of raw phenomena, without meaning. There really are things, and we really sense them - but without 'concepts' (which we provide, in thinking) nothing means anything, then nothing could or would add up to anything (our experience would be of a blooming, buzzing confusion, to quote William James).

"Another problem is the question of how the thoughts of potentially billions of different primary-thinkers interact to create the one world we presumably share -- and what it is about God's thoughts that make them uniquely powerful, making him "the" creator."

My understanding is that this makes sense only if it is real/ true thoughts and creations that affect this 'one world' (the world of universal reality). I can't see that it could be reality if it was affected by wrong/ false/ evil thoughts from billions of people - so I assume it is only affected by true/ correct/ good thoughts of people engaged in primary thinking. Perhaps most people, most of the time have zero connection with this real world, and never influence it in any way - while others have interacted significantly.

Another factor is perspective. It seems that part of this view is that in primary thinking we only grasp, but we DO grasp, a corner of reality. This would seem to imply why it is 'a good thing' to have many, many people going on-and-on thinking, and creating, reality - multiple perspectives, so that universal reality becomes more rich and dense, without any end.

That's about as far as I have reached, so far.


My Correspondent: I think we have to go quite a bit further than just saying that thinking gives meaning to existing phenomena. Of course we are free to conceptualize given phenomena in this way or that -- James somewhere uses the example of a hexagram, which can be conceptualized either as two interlocking triangles or as six triangles touching at their corners -- but this is not the true creativity required by thinking which is both free and true. Above and beyond investing phenomena with meaning, primary thinking must be capable of altering the phenomena themselves. Simon actually acquired, by thought alone, the physical ability to walk on water, not merely to interpret his sinking as meaningful. And God is the creator, not the mere interpreter, of the world.

I lean toward thinking of the world of raw, meaningless phenomena as being an effect, rather than a precondition, of primary thinking. The "raw" world may be meaningless in the same sense that a hundred different voices speaking simultaneously produce a meaningless cacophony. The unintended interaction of various meaningful primary thoughts may yield a meaningless hodgepodge. Forging this into a harmony (not a unison!) is the work of creation.

I agree with you that it must be only thoughts that are in some sense "true" that affect the world. The question is what "true" means in this context. It can't have the ordinary meaning of correspondence with pre-existing facts; that would make it impossible for true thoughts to change anything, since their truth would consist in merely reflecting what already existed. It seems we must work out an alternative answer to Pilate's question.

A post of yours that I keep returning to in my thoughts is the one about Hobbes and whether or not he is "really" alive. If we could understand how and in what sense Hobbes is invested with real life (and I certainly accept that he is so invested), I think we would be one step closer to understanding primary or creative thought.


Myself: Corrections accepted, you're right.

My first thought about what is true, is that which conforms with, is compatible with, God's (already in existence) plan of creation.

Maybe this truth could be defined by motivation... by Love?

Over the past years I must have written hundreds of blog posts that are focused on "thinking"... but thinking of a particular kind, and in a particular context. 

It really is extraordinarily difficult to get across the centrality of this! - and I have rather floundered around with various nomenclatures - primary thinking, heart-thinking, direct knowing... these are some of them. 

The basic idea came from Rudolf Steiner, and I found it very difficult to grasp. The best source is his Philosophy of Freedom - written when Steiner was in his thirties, and before he became a Theosophist and 'cult leader'. 

But for me the penny didn't drop, until I after I had read (or rather listened-to, as an audiobook by Dale Brunsvold) Steiner's PhD thesis published as Truth and Knowledge, and also Otto Palmer's book of excerpts of Steiner's own comments on Philosophy of Freedom. I hoped that I would be able to provide readers of this blog with an easier and more direct route to understanding what Steiner meant - and free of the obscuring accretions that Theosophy brought. 

(As I have often said, my greatest strength as a 'philosopher' is that I know when I have not 'got' something; and therefore when I want to 'get' something, I know to keep on returning, and keep "banging away" at the problem - until either I do get it, or know that I can't. This was the case with Steiner's Philosophy of Freedom.)

Anyway; I have described what this thinking is like, as an experience; so that it can be recognized when/if it happens - how it can be distinguished from 'mundane' thinking (i.e. from the ordinary, everyday activity that most people think is all of thinking).

 Yet actually doing 'primary thinking' is only half of what is needed; and somebody might experience this frequently and yet get none of the positively transformative benefits it potentially contains. 

This is because we need to know the significance of primary thinking, know its importance in Man's destiny (especially "Western Man", and even more even-more especially those whose racial and cultural backgrounds are from the British Isles, Western and Central Europe, Scandinavia...).

And, for this, we need to know what is happening in primary thinking, where it comes-from (it's provenance) in terms of our-self (our real, divine, primary self - as-contrasted-with the externally-constructed, mortal, surface personality or persona).  

We need to know why primary thinking is valid (i.e. valid within the constraints of our mortal incarnation into this 'entropic' world). 

In other words, half of primary thinking is our explicit, conscious, and chosen knowledge of what it is; and the other half is actually doing it! 

Unless we are conscious of the situation; unless both understanding and practice are in-place, unless we are doing all this by choice and taking responsibility for the business... Then primary thinking is of not much help, or no help at all, to our situation in the world. 

It sounds hopelessly complicated! But the complications seem to arise from the problem of getting past established (mostly unconscious) assumptions and recognizing something very simple and clear which was "there all the time" but needed to become explicitly-known and chosen - at least that was my case. 

It's one of those things that is hard to "get", but when it is "got" then that is that. It is clear and obvious; and everything is changed by it. 

I may be a bit strange this way; but there are few subjects that excite me as much as thinking! 

I have come to regard thinking as an-end-in-itself; indeed probably the highest activity of which we are capable. 

Of course, I am immediately compelled to clarify that I certainly do Not mean all kinds of thinking have thus supreme value; nor even most kinds of thinking... 

Indeed, I would go so far as to say that it is possible that many people may never experience the kind of thinking that I am talking about - not least because to experience this highest kind of thinking one must simultaneously recognize its supreme value. One must regard this thinking as intrinsically valid and intrinsically valuable. 

And that recognition is very far from the case!

Indeed, for most people, thinking is just a means to an end - and that end is 'action'. 

Most people would say that thinking but not doing is just a waste of time; and empty activity. Good thinking is that which leads to good outcomes in the perceptible world...

Most people nowadays would say that unless something is changed in the material, objective, external world - then thinking is a free-spinning-cog: futile, just wasteful of energy and effort. 

This seems like simple common sense to the modern, mainstream mind - its ideology and assumptions. To suppose that thinking had intrinsic value or validity is for such Men a kind of delusion; sheer insanity. 

For other people; thinking is a kind of illusion; and indeed a wicked illusion. 

Thinking is regarded as an aspect of maya: in other words, thinking is one of those snares or nets that keep us trapped in a world of appearance and suffering instead of the blissful reality that lies behind maya. 

Many of the influential 'gurus' of Eastern and New Age spirituality emphasize that we should aim to eliminate thinking, instead our striving should be towards not-thinking-being. 

We should strive for non-thinking awareness; because (they understand) thinking is what leads to our (false) sense of separation from the world; and the illusion of separateness leads to suffering. If thinking can be eliminated, so can suffering. 

For those who regard reality as One, and assume we began as unconscious spirit aspects of that One; our task as going beyond the body and back to pure spirit - and also going beyond thinking to pure being-awareness.  

Yet I have the solid conviction that thinking is of primary importance; and that our destiny lies in the direction of 'more and better thinking' - rather than no-thinking, or material-action. 

For many years this was an un-conscious and inarticulate conviction - and it only began to reach awareness and clarity by reading the work of Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield. I found both of these authors very difficult to 'get' and spent years tackling them before the penny dropped. 

But the penny  dropped when reading Steiner's Truth and Knowledge followed immediately by re-reading the later part of Philosophy of Freedom. I then returned to Barfield and was immediately clear what I had been missing. 

The excitement of this perspective is now latent - and can be awakened or re-awakened by coming across the same view in these or other authors. For instance, yesterday I was listening (on Rudolf Steiner Audio) to a lecture from early 1914; the opening words of which triggered that joyful lifting of the heart (emphasis added).  

Man experiences within himself what we may call thought, and in thought he can feel himself directly active, able to exercise his activity. 

When we observe anything external, e.g. a rose or a stone, and picture it to ourselves, someone may rightly say: “You can never know how much of the stone or the rose you have really got hold of when you imagine it. You see the rose, its external red colour, its form, and how it is divided into single petals; you see the stone with its colour, with its several corners, but you must always say to yourself that hidden within it there may be something else which does not appear to you externally. You do not know how much of the rose or of the stone your mental picture of it embraces.” 

But when someone has a thought, then it is he himself who makes the thought. One might say that he is within every fiber of his thought, a complete participator in its activity. 

He knows: “Everything that is in the thought I have thought into it, and what I have not thought into it cannot be within it. I survey the thought. Nobody can say, when I set a thought before my mind, that there may still be something more in the thought, as there may be in the rose and in the stone, for I have myself engendered the thought and am present in it, and so I know what is in it.” 

In truth, thought is most completely our possession. 

If we can find the relation of thought to the Cosmos, to the Universe, we shall find the relation to the Cosmos of what is most completely ours. This can assure us that we have here a fruitful standpoint from which to observe the relation of man to the universe.

For me, this expresses in a nutshell a deep and vital truth. Thinking is potentially our most complete and valid form of knowing. Therefore, the big question becomes: How this knowing is related to 'reality' - to divine creation? 

If thinking turns-out to be in a direct relationship with reality - and not merely having some kind of indirect, 'translated', representational or linguistic 'communication' with reality - then this is of the greatest possible significance. 

We begin to see (as Steiner goes on to articulate later in this lecture) that the distinction between this 'primary' thinking, and the kind of 'secondary' thinking which most people do most of the time (and some people do all of the time) - is related to language.

Most thinking is in words, it is language - therefore secondary; therefore either a means to an end, or perhaps illusion. 

(This is the level of all public discourse and most private conversation: language responding to language - and nothing more. Our secondary thinking is no better than this.) 

But some thinking may be primary, and not in words or any other symbolism; but thinking 'in' the primary creative essence of reality. 

This kind of primary thinking is indeed itself reality. 

Thus we can come to know reality.

You see why I regard thinking (of the right sort - primary thinking) an end in itself?

If primary thinking is our unbounded scope, the opposite applies to the thought-world we inhabit in modern society.

It began with Law - which sampled from infinite reality just a few aspects for attention, and dealt with them according to standard procedures. When one is operating within Law, within the legal 'system' - and if one is competent - one is alienated from reality and from the processes of Life.

Law deals with a biased and ultra-simplified model of life - thinking as a lawyer is to think within this simple model and using only this simple model.

The same applies to all other professional discourses - medicine, the military, science (and all the sub-sciences); but the major alienating system nowadays is bureaucracy.

All bureaucracies - by their operational definitions and standard procedures - are and impose simplified and biased models of reality.  And bureaucracies have extended into ever-more of life - and the different bureaucracies have linked-up via a huge increase in laws, regulations, subsidies, taxes, grants, monitoring, auditing etc. etc.

So the modern condition is to inhabit, and to think within and by the rules of, an almost-total bureaucracy - which has specialised sub-branches (such as law, medicine, science, the police, the branches of government, the mass media) - but which is incrementally converging into a single system, with a single set of master-priorities.

In a formal sense this convergence on master-priorities is not a bad thing - indeed it is a good thing: after all, the ideal is that all social systems be permeated and controlled by the master priority of Christianity (leaving-aside what specifically that would entail).

What is bad is that is two-fold:

Firstly and most obviously, the master priorities are evil. they are negative, destructive and ultimately inverting of Good.

But secondly they are simplified models of reality - and thus necessarily false and inadequate.

My focus on Primary Thinking is to emphasise that with primary thinking is a way of knowing the world that is unbounded and works by spontaneous, satisfying and intrinsically-valid processes.

Primary thinking ought to be the master priority - an un-alienated, participating way of thinking; not limited by professional or expedient boundaries - but inclusive of everything that is relevant and true; and - although limited in scope and precision - and in expression; intrinsically-valid within those bounds.

In sum: Bureaucracy is alienation; increase in bureaucracy is increase in alienation - consequently modernity is (from this reason alone - although there are others) already highly-alienated and becoming ever-more-so.

Was is more, the alienation is inescapable. The linked-unified bureaucracy is becoming ever harder to escape, as it absorbs ever-more of life - but even when it is escaped, the alternative thought worlds are almost-always narrow, partial, tightly defined, standardised in procedure and process...

Thus social media is not an escape from alienation, it is merely a different species of alienation. And that is the best we can manage - in modernity we take a break from one type of alienation by engaging in a different type of alienation - but the fact of alienation is constant. 

Only if we practise an unalienated way of being - that is participation - can we escape alienation even for a moment. The first escape is into unconsciousness (sleep, trance, intoxication...) - but that is to cease to be fully-human (and anyway when we are truly unconscious, we do not know we have escaped alienation).

The importance of primary thinking is that in-it we escape alienation, and we enter and participate-in a world of unbounded scope and reality; we do not think within definitions nor according to procedures, but whatever is thought is spontaneous and true.

(Expressing the insights of primary thinking is, however, neither spontaneous nor true! On the contrary, it must be another model.)

Primary thinking is therefore intrinsically-gratifying, and self-reinforcing. It is also intrinsically self-validating - if we allow it to be.

The question each of us ought to examine is whether (and, related, why) such thinking is indeed to be considered as real.

This may seem to be a paradox; but it seems possible to pursue Primary Thinking/ Final Participation in a deliberate and purposeful fashion - and without falling into the trap of trying (and inevitably failing) to coerce the higher consciousness to a lower agenda.

Primary Thinking must come from the real self - so we need to attend to the real self and strengthen its influence. The real self has its own agenda; and that agenda is intrinsically aligned with Creation - because to think with the real self is to participate in divine creation.


The direction, or subject matter, of primary thinking cannot be imposed; but needs to be recognised - having recognised it, we need to harness our will to that matter. This may be resisted by our lower, contingent selves - since the creation agenda does not pursue this-worldly-expedience or advantage; and may not make much sense to us.

But if we can recognise a spontaneous, inner impulse from the Real Self, then by following that, we may experience more Primary Thinking: more explicit, more frequent, more intense...


This has (apparently, so far as I can judge) happened to me over recent months through my reading of the Fourth Gospel (aka. the Gospel of John). I felt a sustained, inner-derived urge to understand this gospel, above all other scriptures; to understand Jesus in light of this gospel; and I have followed this urge.

And I have reported some of the outcomes in this blog; although the primary outcome was actual direct and wordless experience - the blogging is merely a selective summary, expressed in language.

And this activity has been associated with a considerable increase in Primary Thinking, with a considerable increase in intuitive knowledge. I am now better able to recognise Primary Thinking when it happens, and am able to practise attending to it, taking it seriously, and according it authority.


I now, retrospectively, perceive that this wish to read and re-read the Fourth Gospel, to brood over it, was an impulse coming from my Real Self.

This may be a general lesson. If or when we do feel such an impulse - we should evaluate whether it is from the Real Self; is, perhaps, the Real Self trying to break out from the mass of distractions, false personalities, and evil impulses that make up the everyday mind.

This is something that could only be discovered, not imposed; and perhaps that is a quest that many people could benefit-from? The quest - that is - to discover the subject matter, activity, situation, person or whatever it may be - that their Real Self most deeply and sustainedly wishes to be the medium for its own growth and strengthening.

And having discovered it; do it: pursue this as the medium for theosis, by means of an explicit recognition and prioritising of Primary Thinking.

See my previous posts on Primary Thinking...


Primary Thinking is creation - and this applies to God's creation.

Without thinking is chaos. There are phenomena, but these are meaningless, incoherent, lacking any relationship or purpose.

Phenomena are incomplete - they are completed by thinking.

Reality was chaos until it was thought by God - it was God's thinking which made creation from chaos.

*

Creation is ongoing, as God continues thinking eternally. 

When we Men think from our divine-selves (i.e. Primary Thinking) we participate in this creation.

Our thinking (from that little corner of reality that we grasp) changes creation; changes it universally, for everybody who knows and participates-in creation by their thinking (including God).

*

The primal event that made creation possible was the love of Heavenly parents (their celestial marriage) - this was God.

Together our Heavenly Father and Mother thought, and this thinking was creation; and their shared thought could independently be known by each.

This is why the ultimate reality is Love - because love underpins and permeates all of creation (and outside of love is chaos, no meaning, no cohesion, no relation, no purpose).

Only that which conforms with primal love can participate in creation. All Primary Thinking is within-love and conforms with creation - else it is not Primary Thinking, and does not create.


(And what of ourselves - children of God? Yes, we too were thought from chaos; but there was more than this - because we were more to begin with, being also gods - and there was more done than simply to think us into creation, because we are God children, not only God's creation. But this matter is not clear to me...)

Freedom exists only in the realm of thinking; and only in the realm of universal eternal thinking - and freedom is Final Participation.

That is, freedom is consciousness of the thinking of the real self. It is the affirmation and assent and choice of the thinking that comes 'from' the real self.

Yet why is this free? It sounds like it is just a conscious acceptance of a situation that goes on unconsciously. After all, every-thing is alive and conscious to some degree - and every-thing passively participates in ongoing divine creation; simply by being...

Thus, reality is made of beings (alive, and to some degree conscious) but nearly all of these beings participate in creation without their own awareness of the fact. A young child, simply by being, is woven-into divine create-ing by virtue of that being's uniqueness.

Yet that young child is not free - or hardly so, because he is not conscious.

Freedom comes in when a being becomes conscious of his own thinking, that that thinking is a part of creation - and that the thinking is woven-into the on-going creation in a way that is permanent and universally accessible in the realm of primary thinking. 

It is by that consciousness that we become free, hence divine; and we become divine because we then knowingly participate in God's work of creation.

It is, in other words, the 'feedback loop' that makes us free - being conscious of our own primary thinking, to positively want for that primary thinking to weave into creation; and conscious also that our primary thinking has from that point onward changed the nature of created reality, which then comes back to us in our own primary thinking.

By freedom we become 'insiders' to God's divine work of creation, to some extent partners in it - and irrevocably. And, when this happens, we know (consciously) that it has happened or is happening.

Now, not everybody wants this and presumably most things (such as minerals) cannot have it. Most of creation is passive because unconscious. This is lower in the scale of divinity, but everything that is part of loving creation is that. It all makes a difference, it is all necessary to the whole.

And because consciousness has degrees, every-thing can know that to some extent that it is a part of creation, and can rejoice in that fact. Pleasure and happiness are not closely associated with freedom; indeed freedom probably diminishes happiness for some or most (just as many people are happier as children than as adolescents or grown-ups).

So among the unique beings of reality, there are all manner of stages and phases and choices - and only some can and want to become divine in the same quality as God the prime creator. But that at least some beings (such as you and me) should wish this, and achieve this, is the hope of God; and indeed the prime purpose of creation.

Our freedom is good because it is what God hopes from us and why God made this creation; but freedom is only good - indeed it is only possible - if freedom is also what we want.

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.  

Clearly, there is something wrong withthe thinking of modern Man: I think we can agree about that - but what should be done about it?

Many mystical/ spiritual people are set against thinking, as such - they regard thinking as the basis of illusion (maya) and alienation, and therefore they try to stop thinking.  

Stop thinking and just be is the kind of advice.

The most usual method recoemmended is practicing some method of meditation.

But (unfortunately) for modern people the most easy and direct method of stopping thinking is intoxication; which is probably why the Eastern spiritualities of the Beatnicks and Hippies swiftly became drugs-orientated.

So; if stopping thinking is the ideal, then methods such as intoxication, deep sleep (or anaesthesia) are the most reliable methods; and death (i.e. suicide) is the most permanent. Suicide (or attempts at suicide) is not all that unusual among those who seek not to think - and suicide is made much more likely by most types of psychoactive drug usage.

The great breakthrough of Rudolf Steiner, in his first four books culminating in The Philosophy of Freedom, was that our proper goal should be almost the opposite: he argues that we need to trust our thinking much more fully than we do at present - and to strengthen and expand thinking.

One point is that if we mistrust our own thinking, we deal a deadly blow to ourselves - consciousness becomes alienated from our selves (our true and divine selves), as well as from the world. If we cannot trust thinking, we cannot trust anything - since everything we know comes through thinking.

The task is therefore ultimately to ensure that our thinking is trust-worthy - and in the meanwhile to learn to distinguish trust-worthy thinking from the kind of thinking that is not trustworthy (which is - for most people, most of the time - our ordinary everyday thinking, which we know from experience has something wrong with it).

I have termed this trust-worthy thinking Primary Thinking - and regard it as our consciousness of the real self; our awareness of God-within-us; an experience of the divine way of Being, in which a god knows explicitly, and is therefore able to be free.

(Since un-conscious knowing is not free.)

This idea of Steiner's was - I think - something new under the sun!

Instead of regarding the thinking Ego as The Problem which ought to be deleted; we regard thinking as The Answer.

We should try (as it were) to go through the Ego and out the other side. By which I mean that we ought to regard Primary Thinking as potentially a higher form of consciousness than either divine Ego-less hence unconscious Being on the one hand; or the mainstream modern state of alienated, solipsistic, relativistic and despairing consciousness.

The intent is that by strengthened and expanded thinking we should become aware of the divine that was previous unconscious to us; and therefore become able to join with the divine work of creation - rather than being unconsciously immersed-in and swept-along-by the divine. 

And one consequence is that our persepctive becomes pro-life. Fantasies of disovering the truth by not being fully human - by deletion of thinking through meditation, intoxication, or death - are replaced with an imagied future in which our thinking is as powerful as our instincts and emotions; and expanded to includes all that is deepest and best: the spiritual as well as the material.