Bruce Charlton's Notions

It seems that God wants us to strive, while mortals on earth; for higher spiritual states - for greater awareness of God, Jesus Christ, spiritual beings such as angels - and indeed for a greater sense of the aliveness and purpose of God's creation.

This; despite that we cannot (and should not) expect that our efforts will be more than partially and intermittently successful - nonetheless, by them we can know from experience the realities of Heaven. 

Strive - yes - but how? At this point, people come forward with Spiritual Methods - such as rituals, symbols, meditation, channeling, drugs - or whatever. 

The thing about such methods is that they are usually initially somewhat successful. As a person practices the method, he at first gets better results. But then all methods always fail - they lose their power to evoke spiritual states; or else the end-up by being spiritually misleading. 

Three examples. 

Rudolf Steiner prescribed detailed spiritual exercises for his followers, and vast programmes of reading and study; which were methods for learning to discipline and direct thinking into more spiritual channels, within Steiner's revealed metaphysical system. 

A century of experience has clearly demonstrated that these practices/ methods clearly don't work at 'making people more spiritual'. Anthroposophists aren't spiritual in-themselves - they just talk/write about Steiner's spiritual ideas (and meanwhile get passionate about advocating mainstream leftist causes!). 

But the Steiner methods do (unfortunately) seem to have the effect of locking-people into a permanent fixation upon Steiner the man, and every-thing he said and wrote - with a strikingly-obvious conviction of the man's literal infallibility: both as a man, and in all that he said and wrote.

One of Steiner's recent followers was Stanley Messenger; and he described a method by which one would form intense closed-groups who would communally engage in conversations with spiritual beings (e.g. Archangel Michael, the prophet Melchizedek, and Rudolf Steiner himself): not in a trance-medium way, but with a group member imagining the words of the being, and other members engaging in conversation with that member. 

This was devised as a conscious, active and creative type of channeling - as an intended development from the unconscious channeling of traditional 'mediums'. 

But the results were (to my mind) very mundane and un-spiritual - mostly the kind of psychodrama/ group dynamics/ inter-personal stuff, such as usually happens in New Age circles; from what I can tell, the participants did not show any external evidence of being more spiritual. 

Much like the earlier ideas of mediumistic channeling; the 'material' obtained was quasi-objective instruction about the world and predictions about its future, most of which was soon proved to be wrong. 

In a nutshell, much as with Steiner's practices, there were some psychological effects which created what looked like dependence on the group, as well as pleasurable interactions; but nothing to suggests that this was a method for becoming more spiritual. 

A third example is the book Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch. In the first of what became a series of such books, the author describes his 'method' for writing to God then listening for a reply which came to him by written dictation. 

Reading through the first volume is an example of what happens with methods in general. At first, the I was surprised to be somewhat impressed; the answers from seem striking and valid; and seemed plausibly divine communications. (You can read this on the free sample from Kindle books.) And for a short while this impression solidified. But only for a short while!

As soon as I got the sense of the author 'trusting the method'; there was a sense of 'God' telling the author just what the author wanted to hear! 

From trusting the method, the author transitioned to 'using' the method. All the later part of this book struck me as boilerplate New Age, progressive, lifestyle, self-realization, self-serving stuff - of exactly the kind one would expect from an aspiring professional 'guru' (rather than from our Heavenly Father, the creator of reality). 

(I note that the first book led to a series of best sellers, with all the usual business of supplementary material, interviews, lectures etc; and that the author seemingly received divine endorsement for 'open' marriage; and has himself had four - some say five - marriages.) 

My point is that there are many methods advocated for spiritual enhancement - and new variations are continually being devised. These usually work at first, but never work for long; and usually end by doing more harm than good as the practitioner learns to trust the method and believe whatever it produces. 

This may suggest that the solution is continually to be changing methods - rather like the 'spiritual seekers' who taste and try every religion, spirituality and technique in an endless series; but decades of experience has shown that this does not work either - and indeed carries exactly the same kind of hazards as trusting in method. 

So what are the implications? That we should be guided by aims, not methods. 

We should pursue our spiritual aims, from our best motivations (of love); and we should never trust the methods by which these aims are pursued; but always retain discernment concerning the effects that 'what we are doing' is actually having upon us. 

We should never let the method itself dictate what counts as true, virtuous or beautiful - but need to retain a direct apprehension of these values. 

There is an almost inevitable transition between learning to trust the method; to unconsciously using the method to generate what we desire. And these unconscious desires are nearly always self-gratifying and hedonic - which is why manipulative power-games and exploitative sexuality are so often a feature of New Age groups and techniques. 

Because methods are false Gods; what may begin well, will end badly. 

The work of Rudolf Steiner contains great (perhaps indispensable, at least for some people) wisdom and insight; but also over-confidence, folly and error - and the reason was, I believe, that he failed to take seriously that his method of Spiritual Science was (by his own account) a Scientific discipline and therefore, as such, as difficult as any other science.

Science is not some kind of standard, algorithmic technique which may be generally-applied, neither is it a machine for generating truth from data, neither does it reliably yield valid answers for any question (however ill-formed) you care to ask of it.

On the contrary; making a genuine breakthrough in science typically requires prolonged effort ('brooding') - intense and repeated attempts over a considerable timescale.

Unfortunately, especially later in his career, Steiner seems to have assumed that answers were to be had for the asking; and he got into a habit of using his 'method' of meditation to answer questions about anything which came to mind, or questions that were put to him by almost anybody - and he came to expect, and generated, rapid and copious answers to these questions.

Steiner became somewhat like a machine - speak or write a question, he would go-through the 'spiritual science' process, and he unfailingly gave forth a detailed answer.

Unsurprisingly, most of what he produced in this fashion comes across as artificially manufactured, arbitrary, and often clearly invalid. This, at any rate, is my explanation for Steiner's vast and hyper-precise schemata of multiple thousands of years of world spiritual and physical history and future inevitabilities, details about many specific human reincarnations, and schemes for the practise of pretty much all the major human political and societal activities...

(This mechanical productivity also comes across in Steiner's spiritual 'exercises' for meditation which are often on arbitrary topics without any personal significance for the trainee. This is to assume than anybody can do science on any topic, is motivated to do science on any topic; when almost the opposite is the case - each individual can only do good science on problems in which he has a genuine, deep and spontaneous interest.)

In real science (whether natural or spiritual) there has to be a genuine, strong inner-motivation to know the answer - to know the truth about some-thing. Only some people have this motivation - and of these, only some of them have the ability (and 'luck') to reach the answer.

Also, a large part of science is learning the correct question to ask (and the exact nature of the answer being sought - typically this is unclear in the early stages) - since most questions are badly-constructed because containing false assumptions; hence they are un-answerable. The process of trying to find an answer usually takes a long time - because the necessary pieces of evidence must be assembled, and often re-interpreted.

Quite often, after prolonged brooding, the properly-formed question and its valid answer arrive in the mind together, simultaneously.

My conclusion is that for Steiner's Spiritual Science to achieve its great potential - and to take its part as part of Man's individual and social destiny (but only if he chooses to embrace it) - requires a greater awareness of the requirements of Science; especially that each must find his own problem which most deeply concerns him.

This specific problem then becomes the basis for learning, developing, applying the general method of Spiritual Science - which especially includes a particular kind of Thinking*

(*Note: See the blog post below for more on this 'Thinking'.)

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.

The Romantic will always come-up against the fact that for most of the time he is mundane. Of course, life and (especially) surrounding people are often a real drag upon any aspirations to Higher Consciousness. 

After all, our world is built upon assumptions of anti-God, anti-spirit materialism - and when we are engaged with the world, our minds are entrained to this pervasive mundanity. 

Yet, even with as near a perfect 'environment' as this mortal world offers; the Higher Consciousness of intuition/ heart-thinking- mysticism that is desired sought by Romanticism; is always an intermittent state - and often disappointingly infrequent.

Indeed, some Romantics have ended-up being more distressed by the evanescence of Higher Consciousness, than encouraged by the occurrence of such states. 

Especially; if one is aiming at Final Participation as the goal of consciousness - the destined and necessary stage in human evolutionary development - then there are neither methods nor training to achieve it. 

It is tempting, indeed usual, for serious Romantics to try and escape this - apparently - unsatisfactory situation of endemic failure, by some or another method of 'training the mind'. 

This is what lies behind the grades of initiation beloved by some esoteric societies, the prolonged and daily practice of meditation; and external aids such as ritual, script, music, architecture.  

There seems little doubt that these are at least somewhat effective in training the mind; the question is: what is the effect of such training? 

My distinct impression is that all methods of training the mind that are aimed at Higher Consciousness will fail. 

Either they will just 'not work', will fail to achieve anything sufficiently powerful and lasting to make a significant different to the problem of mortal life; or else (more insidiously) they will succeed in imposing a System upon thinking. 

And this System will either become unconscious and habitual, thereby subjecting thinking to uncontrolled lower consciousness (while terming this state 'higher'). This would apply to Jungian-derived methods; based on lucid dreamlike trances; and also to meditation practices that aims to eradicate 'the self' or 'ego' or discard 'thinking' itself. 

Or else, it will subject thinking to the conscious will, yet this conscious will is merely ordinary mundane consciousness - and subject to the external influences of mundane consciousness. This would apply to the types of meditation that focus on training concentration, imagination and 'visualization' - such as those of ritual magic societies and Steiner's Anthroposophical 'exercises'. 

The apparent 'success' of training may generate increased gratification in life (make people 'feel better' in some way) - but do not achieve the objective of Final Participation.

Both the System and the training in 'concentration' may be effective in producing change - but they are not effective in encouraging Final Participation. And, in failing, they lead to that contamination of genuine insight and achievement with confident error and vast delusion which has been so characteristic of those who aim at Higher Consciousness. 

The limitation is a consequence of Final Participation being a participation in divine creation; which can (for obvious reasons) only happen when a Man is fully aligned with divine purposes of creation. 

This alignment with God happens seldom and briefly, is easily blocked or reversed; which limits the frequency of this state of consciousness. 

But when a Man is fully aligned with God's creation - what a man is following his destiny and that of providence; then Final Participation will happen - spontaneously, without effort or intent. 

Our main job is to recognize when this is-happening and recall when it has-happened. 

And for the Romantic Christian these are the key moments of our mortal life - vital life lessons from which we ought to learn. 

So; these Final Participation experiences will not happen often, and we cannot 'make' them happen by training.

Attempts at training and beliefs that training is efficacious are, indeed, counter-productive. 

But we can notice Final Participation states, value them, learn from them.

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.

Daily inner life for the majority of westerners is nowadays little more than a lonely restless chat-show. 

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.