Bruce Charlton's Notions

The major psychological concept of thinking is the 'cognitive model', which states that thinking is a kind of information processing done by the brain: let us call this model Brain-Thinking.

Brain-Thinking is an automatic, computer-like processing that has either been learnt, or else is instinctive (i.e. built-in by natural selection, on the basis of evolutionary history).

But reflection informs us that Brain-Thinking is a model; and being a model it necessarily leaves-out a great deal, consequently is partial and distorted. Furthermore, if Brain-Thinking has validity, the theory cannot itself be merely a consequence of Brain-Thinking - because Brain-Thinking is merely a consequence of learning experience or selection for whatever is reproductively-expedient.

If thinking is to be potentially valid (as I am assuming) then thinking needs to be true; and to be true the thinking process must be directly tied-to reality - without any steps in between where there may be errors or misunderstandings of communication.

In other words, thinking needs to be reality.

In other words, thinking cannot - ultimately - be regarded as merely 'thinking-about, nor 'a-picture-of reality', nor any kind of secondary 'representation' of reality - because any picturing/ representing process is uncertain.

For instance, if thinking is supposed to be derived from perceptions, then there are errors and distortions of the perceptual apparatus and of the stages of processing of raw perceptions into comprehensible representations - all of which detach thinking from reality. Or if thinking is derived from memories, then there are all the problems of making a representation from sensory perception, plus all the processes by which memories are made, stored, located and read...

No - for thinking to be valid, thinking needs to be actually real in-and-of-itself, unmediated, directly.

In sum, thinking must itself be reality - at least potentially. But clearly this cannot be the base for Brain-Thinking, as it is understood by Psychology - brain thinking is not regarded as itself-reality, but at most about-reality.

If Brain-Thinking is an automatic process - causally-determined and therefore without possibility of 'freedom' or 'agency' or genuine creativity; then Mind-Thinking is (by contrast) conscious, willed or purposive, creative and free.

A Mind-Thinking capable of being understood as actual reality therefore needs to be conceptualised as qualitatively different from Brain-Thinking. If Mind-Thinking is reality it cannot be a material process - therefore it must be immaterial; it cannot be 'in' the brain - because reality cannot be subjective/ unique to one person - therefore must be objective/ accessible to many persons, simultaneously.

Indeed, Mind-Thinking needs to be reality itself which is not merely 'accessible' but itself the world of reality in which our own personal thinking participates. Thus, as we think, we are actually engaged-with and participating-in reality as it unfolds.

In other words, with Mind-Thinking, any single person thinking is actively engaged in making reality - objective, permanent, universal reality - as well as knowing reality.

This is only apparent if we become aware of the nature, constraints and limitations of the mainstream psychological model of thinking; and take accounts of the pre-requisites of valid thinking.

Of course, we might try to contend that thinking is not valid, but is arbitrary and unlinked with reality; but then this would undermine the thinking which contends it, since it rules-out any possibility of validity in the thinking which led to the contention that thinking is invalid.

If thinking is indeed non-valid, and has no necessary relation to reality; then there is nothing to be said - nothing to be said about anything...

Yesterday I made a conceptual breakthrough in understanding the concept which is at the heart of that alternative metaphysics which seems to have emerged in the Romantic era - in the life of Goethe and the philosophy of Coleridge, but to have been rejected by the Zeitgeist and to have since led an underground and marginal or unarticulated existence in the likes of Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield (from whom I mostly got it).

Barfield focuses on the term polarity, derived from Coleridge - but I have found that this term - with its inner picture of a solid, rectangular bar magnet - is making it harder for me to grasp and use. The essence of the concept is not its having poles but that it is a dynamic process, an active thing: an -ing, as in think-ing, reason-ing, understand-ing, and imagin-ing.For me this philosophy only makes sense if I regard reality as happen-ing.

So I have decided to replace polarity with '-ing' which is the name and sound of a rune - more often called Ingwaz (and of a Norse god, also called Freyr - not the same as Freya). So the rune Ingwaz can serve me as a symbol of 'polarity', in my notetaking.

Like most good metaphysics, Ingwaz comes from the solid, primary, necessary intuition that we are thinking. From this comes the inference that whatever we think, do, know or whatever - thinking is involved. There is no way of getting-at any objective reality that does not involve thinking - it is nonsense (makes no sense) to be thinking there is an objective realm of 'facts' that are autonomous from thinking.

However, this is NOT the 'idealism' of stating that there is only mind, and 'reality' is an illusion; what is being stated is that thinking is involved in everything - therefore, everything includes thinking. The thinking cannot be detached from anything, thinking is always involved in everything.

So the division of inner mind and outer reality/ nature is nonsense; we are always and inevitably involved in everything we ever consider by thinking.

However, this thinking can be (usually is) something of which we are unaware. We therefore tend (unthinkingly) to regard the 'outside' world as if it was independent of our thinking. We tend to suppose that the outside world is real and solid, while our thinking (which is reality is involved in everything we know or imagine about that outside world) is merely ephemeral and pointless.

This is because if we divide thinking from the outside world, thinking dies - it becomes static, inert, it stops '-ing' and is a mere dead specimen ('thought'). What is really happening is that we have started thinking about a situation where there is no thinking, and are unaware that in thinking this we have not actually imagined a situation where there is no thinking - we are merely unaware of the thinking that is engaged in imagining it!

This is the modern condition. Modern analysis is unaware of - and denies - the pervasiveness of thinking at all times and in all situations. This state of unthinking doubt about thinking can be called cynicism.

So, the first move is to become aware of our own thinking in any and every situation - to recognize that everything involves thinking - we are therefore always engaged with everything, involved with everything: there is no objective alienation.

But is thinking valid? That is the fear that haunts cynical, nihilistic modern man. The fear is that - even though it makes no sense and cannot be done to use thinking to doubt the validity of thinking; maybe thinking is not valid anyway - maybe we just live in an un-avoidable delusion? The idea accepts that it makes no sense to be thinking about thinking being 'unreliable' - but maybe that is true anyway!

This cynicism, I believe, is the modern condition; it is a fear rather than a philosophy, it is a cynical suspicion that there is really no purpose, meaning or reality - and this state was facilitated by Natural Selection which seems to have 'discovered' that that is how nature works. This is untrue, and makes no sense; but the effect is rather to implant a fear, a suspicion that it might all be a delusion than to make any kind of logical point.

That has been the point at which Western thought has been stuck for more than 200 years - the fear that everything we think we know about everything comes from thinking, and that thinking - the very basis of knowing itself - might be a circular system of unavoidable but nonetheless false assumptions.

This places Man into an existential state where he does not know where to start in escaping. Once he has come to doubt thinking, then he cannot get out. All he can do is try to manipulate his emotions so as to feel better, here and now.

In fact this sense of existential nakedness is the perfect basis and understanding and clarity for feeling the necessity and reality of religious faith - which is trust - and only a loving God can be trusted... So the modern condition points to Christianity in a clearer way than anything ever has done.

(Kierkegaard probably said this too - but I can't read enough of him to be sure, and if he did say it, then he has usually been misunderstood or at least ignored.)

But the actual modern condition is an incomplete state of doubt - therefore it does not compel Christianity. The modern condition is a combination of doubt and arbitrary faith - which is so perfectly engineered to create despair, so perfectly being constantly adjusted to maintain this sense of hope-less-ness, that it implies the modern situation is a product of purposive evil (i.e. of demonic influence).

Because modern Man is not cynical enough. Or, rather, the cynic is flawed by its lack of questioning - his questioninsg of superficialities and his unthinking acceptance of deep assumptions. The modern cynic (i.e. pretty much everybody) uses thinking to deny the necessary validity of thinking on some topics (sex, esepcially), but leaves intact enough unthinking to prevent him seeing the situation as it really is.

He is obsessed by some illusions of thinking - but not others, and cynical about all positive faith - but unthinking and credulous about so much else.

Modern Man will go so far as to deny even the reality of thinking-about-thinking (i.e. metaphysics) - he will state that there is no such thing as metaphysics - simply because he does not DO metaphysics (or stops himself if he happens to start thinking about his own thinking).  He arbitrarily decides that thinking about thinking is meaningless nonsense - and is therefore trapped by his own despair-inducing assumptions - which would dissolve if ever recognized as involving thinking.

It is the residual unthinking 'faith' in thinking about some subjects (for example, faith in the idea that cynicism implies that hedonism is rational) which is destroying modern Man.

From here we can go back into unthinking acceptance of thinking - or forward into thinking about thinking: becoming aware that Everything necessarily involves thinking.

Thinking is process: Everything therefore includes process, and the world can only validly be analyzed into processes - analyzed into -ings and not into things.

This is, in fact, the metaphysical solution to the modern condition: the solution to alienation, purposelessness, meaninglessness, relativism and so on. Once grasped, the problem for each of us as individuals is then to make it our normal, indeed habitual, way of thinking.

Back in the 1890s (but almost ignored) Rudolf Steiner made clear that freedom (such as free will') is actually the domain of thinking - in other words, it is not 'will' that is free, so much as thinking. 

But not all thinking is free - nor even most thinking: but only that thinking which is free!

In other words, there is a kind of thinking in which we are free, and we know that we are free. And it is only there and then that we really are free. 

One value of Steiner's philosophical writing, and that of Owen Barfield afterwards, was therefore to inform us of this fact of freedom in (a kind of) thinking; explain why it was the case that thinking was potentially the domain of freedom - and therefore assist us in the recognition, acknowledgment, and pursuit of freedom in thinking. 

(At least, for those people who desire freedom - which is, apparently, far from everybody.) 

Active thinking of any kind is indeed rare - mostly thinking is almost automatic... Almost, but never quite... because always there is some degree of choice and will that directs thinking down one path from the possibility of others. 

This is why our thinking is always our responsibility - because we have chosen its path. 

No matter how relatively-restricted the 'input' provided by our surrounding world, and no matter how deeply inculcated are our habits of interpretation; there never a single path of thinking, but instead are always many possibilities that must be chosen-between...

From deciding what (from all of reality) to attend to, and keep attending to; through how to interpret the data that comes-in, and what (if anything) to do about our conclusions - from a positive or negative evaluation, through to what physical action to take.  

Therefore, because it is always a consequence of choice and will; thinking is never neutral, but always value-laden. 

Thinking (even when almost automatic) is never free from responsibility; but always moral, aesthetic and concerned with the truth (even when, as often, the choice of thinking is to reject virtue, beauty, honesty - or maybe to choose their opposites). 

We are always and necessarily choosing our thinking, and that thinking goes on all the time that we have any comprehension of the world. 

Because; when thinking stops, as in deep sleep, the world loses meaning. 

What actually happens is that - for most people, most of the time - chosen thinking is as automatic as possible. The choice is to align thinking with what is dominant in the external world, as it impinges upon us: official, media, and social.

In other words, people choose to direct their attention to... whatever people and powers at-this-moment are 'telling' them is important; and they think in ways (e.g. using values and methods) that they have absorbed from this same external world. 

And, although alternative paths of attending and interpreting will always be presenting themselves from the vast external world and also from impulses and intuitions arising from within our-selves; and although these alternatives will challenge the ongoing schemes of attention and interpretation we have absorbed from externally -- nonetheless, habit and expediency mean that it requires only only a little will and choice to stick-to the mainstream-approved form of thinking.

Such 'mundane' thinking is unfree - and this unfreedom has been, and continually is-being, chosen. 

We are - all of us - responsible for the mental enslavement of our own thinking.   

So... the fact that it does require even this little will and choice means, on the one hand, that we are responsible, and to-blame-for, our habitual mainstream opinions and convictions. 

Yet, because there always must be this irreducible element of will and choice; on the other hand, externally-controlled, unfree thinking can be changed: and freedom of thinking with a cosmic scope and creative power can instead emerge and be enjoyed - by those who desire it. 

The method is simply one of willing a redirection of attention, and making different choices. 

But for this freedom to be Good and not to be merely-arbitrary; and to motivate and energize the new thinking to overcome the old; entails that such redirection be motivated from that within us which is its real, true, virtuous and beautiful - because divine, and in contact with God. 

We need to discover within us (because it is typically lost or even hidden, suppressed, rejected...) that true 'self' which stands beyond all external influence, and is the origin of freedom in thinking. 

...And how do we do that? 

Well, we start by wanting it; and wanting it is the basis for changing our will, our choices, and overcoming those massively-inculcated habits that currently prevent us from attaining freedom.

If we do not want freedom then we will not have it; because we will choose to be unfree, because that is easiest, most expedient: the default. 

But if we do want freedom in thinking, then nothing on earth or elsewhere can stop us from attaining freedom; because that is precisely the nature of freedom!

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?

Thinking is potentially the way in which we overcome the alienation and division of modernity; it is the mode in which we are complete, integrated and in communication with the divine.

In other words, nothing is more important than Thinking - or than Thinking could be: Necessary Thinking (or what Coleridge called Imagination).

But Necessary Thinking is not the one we currently have in The West - neither is it how things used to be; it is something new.

However, although the necessary Thinking is new, it is not obscure, weird or unfamiliar in its form; it does not require a changed state of consciousness (like a trance); rather it is alert, purposive and simply a complete, inclusive form of the Thinking we already have.

*

What is wrong with current Thinking - as it is trained into us, made habit, and reinforced by public discourse - is that it is both horribly narrow and also fragmented.

Firstly, current Thinking excludes as invalid all thought that do not originate in sensory perceptions (including scientific and quantitative measurements).

What happens is that current Thinking labels each incoming thought as either valid or non-valid on the basis of its provenance (i.e. where it comes-from); and non-valid thoughts include 'the imaginary', memories, arts and literature, music, fantasies and anything of unknown (to the senses) origin.

I can illustrate how this works from my own experience. I was deeply influenced by the works of Tolkien from the age of 13; but my thoughts derived from Tolkien were pre-labelled as 'fiction' or 'fantasy' and kept apart from the Thinking concerned with public discourse - things I talked with others about, stuff for examination, aspects of my work etc.

The Tolkien-derived thoughts were relegated to a thread of 'fantasy' which I was allowed to visit for pleasurable distraction, but which was prevented from interacting with 'serious' matters.

As another example; when my Mother died I was intuitively convinced that she was not extinct but in some way remained; however, I still a few years from being a Christian; and therefore this knowledge was labelled something like 'wishful thinking' - best kept to myself; or at most 'symbolism' - meaning it was not literally true that my Mother remained alive, but this was an interpretation (maybe of genetics) that was useful in my leading a fulfilling life. However, there was no place for this knowledge in the serious and publicly-shared Thinking about my life, work, and the world.

*

This is what modern people do. They have all kinds of spontaneous thoughts on all kinds of subjects - but the great majority of these thoughts are pre-labelled non-valid (for one reason or another) and excluded from public discourse.

Public discourse is therefore made from the processing of a tiny 'assumed-valid' sub-sample of our spontaneous thoughts.

This is meagre basis for Thinking is bad enough - but matters are made worse by the way in which assumed-valid thoughts are treated as discrete.

Because each thought needs to be evaluated separately, our Thinking is broken-up into thoughts in order that we can pre-evaluate each thought; and most thoughts are rejected as non-valid.

We then find that we cannot recombine even that small proportio of our validated thoughts - cannot join them into a fluid and integrated stream of Thinking.

Our modern Thinking is therefore impaired - not just by expulsion of most thoughts, but also by the fact that each assumed-valid thought must retain its autonomy - such that we are trying (but failing) to build a fluid stream of Thinking from something like solid spheres...

Instead of an integrated stream of Think-ing; we simply have a sequence of thoughts; thoughts lined-up but each detached from each other; in an order which seems arbitrary, and having no meaning greater than each individual thought.

*

Modern Thinking is segmented and censored - and I think this is imposed and learned from early childhood (in my case, from about five years old onwards) until the point it becomes ingrained, habitual, taken-for-granted and invisible. We are it. 

From this maimed Thinking modern Man cannot derive any meaning, neither can we derive any purpose or direction. Tis is the modern condition of alienation.

(And Religion makes little difference; because our Thinking about religion is simply a part of this maimed Thinking. We have individual thoughts about religion; but the religious mode of Thinking is modern, hence alienated; and we do not feel meaning or purpose - we merely have belifs-about meaning and purpose.)

We are absolutely stuck; unless we can change our mode of Thinking.

*

Necessary Thinking (or true Imagination) is a mode in which everything which comes to mind is included a part of the stream of thinking.

So that Necessary Thinking includes all those thoughts which modern Man regards as imaginary, fantasy, memories; it includes 'random' thoughts, 'errors', 'misunderstandings'... it is open to all sources and kinds of thoughts; and these are allowed to flow, combine, coalesce, extend - or rather they are never broken-up into discrete 'thought' in the first place, but Thinking is allowed to be a truly fluid stream of consciousness.

But Necessary Thinking is not passive - it is always alert, conscious, purposive.

Nor does True Imagination simply accept everything which comes out of it; rather everything is evaluated - but it is not individual 'thoughts' which are evaluated, but instead we evaluate the product of fluid, open, spontaneous, inclusive Think-ing.

And this True Imagination (or Necessary Thinking) is, ultimately, what we mortal incarnate Men Live-In - it is where our Selves are located.

And this is how grown-up men and women are meant to Be. 

(Note: Imagination/ Necessary Thinking is also the state that Owen Barfield called Final Participation.)

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. 

In the third chapter of his Philosophy of Freedom, Steiner argues his core point that thinking ought to be the basis of understanding the world.

To read this chapter slowly and carefully, understanding at each step, may provide a breakthrough for some people.

**

I believe I have given sufficient reasons for making thinking the starting point for my study of the world. When Archimedes had discovered the lever, he thought he could lift the whole cosmos from its hinges, if only he could find a point of support for his instrument. He needed something that was supported by itself and by nothing else. 

In thinking we have a principle which subsists through itself. Let us try, therefore, to understand the world starting from this basis. We can grasp thinking by means of itself; the question is, whether we can also grasp anything else through it.

I have so far spoken of thinking without taking account of its vehicle, human consciousness. Most present-day philosophers would object that before there can be thinking, there must be consciousness. Hence we ought to start, not from thinking, but from consciousness. There is no thinking, they say, without consciousness... 

To this I must reply that in order to clear up the relation between thinking and consciousness, I must think about it. Hence I presuppose thinking. 

Nevertheless one could still argue that although, when the philosopher tries to understand consciousness he makes use of thinking and to that extent presupposes it, yet in the ordinary course of life thinking does arise within consciousness, and therefore presupposes consciousness...

Now if this answer were given to the world creator when he was about to create thinking, it would doubtless be to the point. Naturally it is not possible to create thinking before consciousness. The philosopher, however, is not concerned with creating the world but with understanding it. 

Accordingly the philosopher (who is not the creator) has to seek the starting point, not for the creation of the world, but for the understanding of it. 

It seems to me very strange that the philosopher should be reproached for troubling himself first and foremost about the correctness of his principles instead of turning straight to the objects which he seeks to understand! The world creator had above all to know how to find a vehicle for thinking, but the philosopher has to seek a secure foundation for his attempts to understand what already exists. 

How, then, does it help us to start with consciousness and subject it to the scrutiny of thinking, if we do not first know whether thinking is in fact able to give us insight into things at all?

We must first consider thinking quite impartially, without reference to a thinking subject or a thought object. For both subject and object are concepts formed by thinking. 

There is no denying that before anything else can be understood, thinking must be understood. Whoever denies this fails to realize that man is not the first link in the chain of creation but the last. Hence, in order to explain the world by means of concepts, we cannot start from the elements of existence which came first in time, but we must begin with that element which is given to us as the nearest and most intimate. 

We cannot at one bound transport ourselves back to the beginning of the world in order to begin our studies from there, but we must start from the present moment, and then see whether we can ascend from the later to the earlier... 

Only if the philosopher recognizes that which is last in time as his first point of attack, can he reach his goal. This last thing at which world evolution has arrived is, in fact, thinking.

*

There are people who say it is impossible to ascertain with certainty whether our thinking is right or wrong, and thus our starting point is in any case a doubtful one. 

It would be just as sensible to doubt whether a tree is in itself right or wrong! Thinking is a fact, and it is meaningless to speak of the truth or falsity of a fact. 

I can, at most, be in doubt as to whether thinking is correctly applied, just as I can doubt whether a certain tree supplies wood adapted to the making of this or that useful object. I can understand anyone doubting whether, by means of thinking, we can gain knowledge of the world; but it is incomprehensible to me how anyone can doubt the rightness of thinking in-itself.

To show how far the application of thinking to the world is right or wrong, is precisely the task of this book.


Edited from Chapter 3 of The Philosophy of Freedom, by Rudolf Steiner (1896) translated by Michael Wilson.

Most recorded visionary experiences are expansions of perception – seeing or hearing things that other people cannot. For example William Blake saw angels and conversed with his deceased brother. Often these visions occur in altered states of consciousness – trances, lucid dreams, delirium or intoxication.

These are aspects of what Rudolf Steiner termed Atavistic Clairvoyance implying a throw-back or regression to an early type of consciousness more typical of childhood and tribal societies; and Owen Barfield classified as Original Participation. And in the scheme of evolution of human consciousness the aim is not to go back, but forward to a new state of consciousness that Steiner called the Spiritual Soul and Barfield termed Final Participation.

A visionary of Final Participation would not experience ‘visions’ in the sense of hallucination-like, quasi-sensory, perceptual experiences; but would instead experience imaginative thinking, or direct knowing. To put it simply: the visionary of Original Participation would experience things appearing in one or more of his senses; while the visionary of Final Participation would experience things appearing in his stream of thoughts.

It might be asked why this counts as an evolutionary development in consciousness? The answer would be that the imagination is a direct and unmediated form of knowing truth and reality; whereas perceptual experiences are prone to sensory distortions and require to be interpreted. Furthermore, the visionary experiences of Original Participation often occur in states of altered consciousness when attention, concentration, purposive thinking and memory may all be distorted or impaired; whereas in Final Participation the state of consciousness can be alert, clear and focused.

Finally, thinking is intrinsically capable of complete integration of any and all phenomena. Anything which can be thought about is included in the stream of thoughts, and can be subject to any or all of the analyses and manipulations of thinking.

This is straightforward enough; but of course very few people are aware of, or would endorse, the idea of thinking as a primary way of knowing truth and reality. And one reason for this is that typically thinking is much less powerful and compelling than perception. For example, people say things like ‘seeing is believing’ or ‘I’ll believe that when I see it’ – indicating that perceptual experience seems to overwhelm and impose itself in a way that thinking apparently does not. For instance, most people would be more likely to believe in the reality of ghosts or angels if they saw one than if they thought one (even though they are aware of the distortions and hallucinations to which perception is prone – and they would not necessarily believe in them even if they did see one).

Alternatively, people may only believe things for which they have what they regard as ‘evidence’ – and they will believe such things even when they think or perceive differently, and even when they cannot think it or have never had any confirmatory sensory experience; even when experience and common sense refute it.

In practice, ‘evidence’ is so vaguely defined as to be impossible to define or pin down – for some evidence comes from some trusted or authoritative source; but often enough people don’t know from where they got the ‘evidence’, and it could have been from sources which they do not trust or in fact disbelieve (such as the mass media, novels or fictional movies) but despite not knowing the provenance of their beliefs they nonetheless find themselves compelled to believe. Indeed, it is typical that a great deal of modern mainstream beliefs are false or have zero evidence, but are almost universally and indeed fanatically enforced on a global scale - for example the officially imposed assertions that people can change sex by means of drugs and surgery, or that political policies can control the earth’s climate.

Either way, it is clear that thinking is, in practice, low-rated as a human activity. People regard thinking as less important than action, or doing; less important than perceiving (feeling, seeing or hearing, especially); and less important than whatever is culturally-defined and propagandised. Consequently, people do not think very often, very diligently, very sustainedly about things; and they do not take much notice of the consequences of their own thinking.

It is perhaps regarded as little more than a waste of time, a joke or an excuse for idleness when someone claims to have been thinking. This applies even or especially, in academia; where to be caught thinking ‘in office hours’ would be even more shameful than to be caught reading a book! Thinking does not count as ‘work’.

It could therefore justly be said that – in the mainstream modern world - thinking is a low status activity.

Yet, for those who are – like me – convinced by the philosophical arguments of Owen Barfield (and of his acknowledged master Rudolf Steiner); thinking is the most important human activity and a necessity for the future evolutionary-development of our consciousness. Thinking ought to be our number one priority in life (number one, that is, within the prior, essential frame and context of Christianity).

What seems to be needed is that thinking, including imaginative thinking, become at least as powerful - indeed as overwhelming, as potentially motivating and life-changing - as actions, perceptions, and official/ media propaganda. We need both to know, and to feel, that thinking is real and true knowing.

Barfield therefore referred to the need for ‘strengthening’ thinking, and regarded Steiner as the most successful and advanced exponent of the necessary type of strengthened thinking. But how to do this? Steiner left behind various suggestions, instructions and exercises in how to strengthen thinking. For example to focus attention on some-thing, such as a plant, and try to experience its life as a dynamic historical and unfolding reality. However, my impression is that these exercises seem either not to work very well, perhaps only partially and very slowly; at any rate, extremely few people have apparently got anywhere near Steiner in terms of their ability to think in that visionary fashion which is destined for Final Participation.

So, something stronger and faster than Steiner’s exercises seem to be required. The weakness of Steiner’s exercises is, I think, a consequence of people lacking genuine, internal motivation to do them; which is itself a consequence of the subject matter being arbitrary. While Steiner himself, or Goethe before him, would be passionately interested in a plant, and in understanding a plant – this does not apply to most people. Genuinely motivated interest of the kind that will generate and sustain someone’s best efforts is something that cannot be manufactured to order; it is not arbitrary but is idiosyncratic. Indeed, such motivated interest may be unique and specific to each person; furthermore, many people do not even know what it is that most interests and motivates them in this way – since they have neither reflected nor developed their spontaneous, intrinsic nature (for example; they are instead dominated by the pressures of the social environment, expediency, the wish for immediate distractions and proximate pleasures, status, wealth; and things like envy, revenge, spite etc.).

Yet nothing else is likely to suffice in developing the intensity of thinking than that each person be pursuing his or her own deepest, most naturally arising fascination or perplexity.

So – we need to think in such a way as to strengthen and intensify the act of thinking – to increase its power to change us. But for this to happen we also need to take a step back – indeed the ultimate step back into the most fundamental of all considerations: metaphysics – our most basic assumptions concerning the ultimate nature of reality.

For thinking to be strengthened, our metaphysical framework needs to be one in which thinking (of the right kind) is real and true, and universally valid. If our metaphysical assumptions tell us that thinking is primary then our experience of thinking will be one of greater importance, seriousness and attention. It is the fact that the normal mainstream metaphysics of the modern West regards thinking as secondary, indeed trivial, that we find thinking so feebly impactful, so weakly effective in motivating us, as compared with other phenomena such as perceptions, actions and social conventions.

That thinking is indeed primary to human experience is the core argument of Rudolf Steiner’s early work culminating in the Philosophy of Freedom (1894); and Barfield’s Saving the Appearances (1957) – I refer readers to these books for a careful and compelling justification. However, in the end, metaphysics must be endorsed by our direct intuitions – which requires first that we acknowledge we indeed have primary metaphysical assumptions, then to make these explicit to ourselves. Only then can we evaluate whether or not we really endorse and believe our own assumptions – and if not, we may (indeed should) seek to replace them.

For thinking to take its proper place at the heart of Life; it must be of the greatest possible power, intensity and strength. Thinking should be experience – it should be experienced as much, in fact more-than ‘things that happen to us’. We need to know why and how that thinking which we make happen from our freedom and agency, from our real self (our soul) is not arbitrary nor wish-fulfilment, but on the contrary it is intrinsically and necessarily real, true and universal.

Thus prepared and equipped we can each commence work on the Life Task of intensification and strengthening of our own thinking! What does this entail? If you are already engaged in some spontaneously-arising creative endeavour then this may be straightforward – if you are a real scientist, artist or writer; then what you think about is already-decided – and the main difference is to take seriously, attend to, the actual process of thinking.

For me, a good example is what I have termed The Golden Thread. When I think back through my life, and what is important, there are relatively few things among the mass of dullness and duties – and these things seem to link-up to make a golden thread connecting childhood past with the present. It was taking this seriously, as a reality and truth rather than regarding it as some arbitrary fantasy; which helped me to become a Christian and of the mystical type. It also caused me to revise my subjective autobiography, to reshape my understanding of how my life had developed – including wrong turns, blind alleys, and descents into the pit.

Whatever it is that is your deepest motivation then forms the basis of strengthening your thinking. You will need to recognise (at a fundamental level) that you are dealing with something true, real - and in principle universally so, its truths and realities accessible to anyone competent; not merely a private delusion or day dream.

You may then learn from your experiences of thinking how best to intensify it. For instance you may learn that certain times of day are better for thinking; you may identify supportive attitudes, places or positions; helpful activities (such as reading, writing, doodling, walking, music…).

You will need to develop a habit of seriousness about thinking – so that you talk about thinking respectfully, lay stress on its primacy, refrain from casual denigration and invidious comparisons. It may be helpful to take notes, and to rehearse memories of thinking. A strategic devotion to thinking is the requisite.

You will find that creativity is nothing more or other than a consequence of primary thinking; it is a natural consequence of thinking from your unique and real self. While your true thoughts are in a universal realm, nobody thinks them quite like you do; and you will make discoveries in this realm (probably small discoveries, but personally valuable nonetheless).

You will quite spontaneously think about things beyond your past experience, beyond your senses, outside of this world and your times. This is the ‘visionary’ aspect; because the future visionary is a thinker, nor a see-er.

And with endeavour, and rapidly; your thinking will incrementally become strengthened; increased in power, motivating; rooting-you in the world and enhancing your awareness of everything true; curing the typical modern malaise of feeling cut-off, alienated because everything real and valid will come together and be related and integrated in your thoughts.

Continued from: http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/modernity-is-do-not-try-to-join-dots-in.html

Final Participation is simple to summarise in its essence - it is Freedom in Thinking.

This is why Rudolf Steiner's most important book was entitled The Philosophy of Freedom - but of course Freedom here is of an ultimate and existential nature: it is, indeed, the Freedom in Thinking with agency, from the Self.

Freedom, by this account, was in general not possible to Men at any time in the past - such freedom is the destiny of the future; but as yet Man has not embraced but rather denied and rejected this freedom (from wickedness, ignorance and wrong ideas).

Freedom of thinking is possible because Man is a child of God, hence has the divine creative capacity to originate - to be an uncaused cause.

In early Men, and in childhood; the self was not autonomous - and thinking was a consequence of immersion in other causes.

With the evolution of consciousness, Man's thinking became incrementally cut-off from the environment (for example, in very different ways; the abstract philosophy of the Ancient Greeks, the detachment from immersion in God and nature and forbidding of representations of God and nature of the Ancient Hebrews).

Man became in a sense more free - less influenced by externals; but at the cost of this freedom being cut-off from participation in reality. The end point was modern alienation, meaninglessness, purposelessness. The self cut-off even from its own thinking...

The future is for Man to be free in thinking: thinking that is primary and uncaused, thinking from the real self (not any social construct), thinking of unbounded scope - thinking which encompasses and integrates all. This is Final Participation - in Owen Barfield's term - 'final' because it is the divine mode of thinking.

Naturally, Man's divine thinking would be partial and distorted compared with God's thinking (which is whole and true); nonetheless it is the next and necessary step.

So, when confronted with a modern world of isolated, meaningless, purposeless, incoherent 'dots'; and experiencing the need to 'join' these dots and attain wholeness and understanding - this is Not a matter of actually taking these dots as they currently-are and joining them. These existing dots are partial, distorted, dishonest... the task is near infinite in scope - overwhelming in complexity...

Rather, the task is much simpler. It is first to attain real, true, thinking and then confront all of reality (sensations, perceptions, feelings, memories, intuitions... everything) - on the basis that everything is significant - and to think them.

Suppose yourself to be looking at the night sky. With Final Participation what we do Not do is to think about the stars as a scientist might; we do not and cannot be un-self-consciously immersed in the experience as our ancestors might; neither do we think concepts of the meaning of stars as a philosopher or theologian might...

With Final Participation we think the stars, we think with the stars. The stars are real, objective and universally-accessible things that are included-in the stream of thinking along with... whatever might be other foci of attention such as the garden, the trees, our memories, our intuitions and imaginations... All are part of thinking, and this thinking is free because it originates in the self, and the self is agent and uncaused.

Such thinking is primary, all-encompassing; and we are not detached from anything that may be thought-about, because we think with it; but we rather participate-in anything, in this thinking.

This is what we need to do, we need to practise doing it until it is voluntary and habitual. This is metaphysics - first philosophy - and we should not be distracted from it, at least not initially, by second-order and 'epistemological' questions about the validity of the various bits and pieces of thinking.

(Naturally, even if our thinking is pure and uncontaminated by external causes, or by wrong motivations - and much thinking will, sooner or later, be so contaminated; our personal thinking will be partial and incomplete as compared with God's thinking. But to demand to know exactly how our own thinking matches up to God's - exactly where it is true and where it is not - is in fact to demand to know as much as God! Epistemology is therefore a fool's errand, a snare and a pitfall. Leave it alone!)

Insofar as we attain to this concept of Freedom in Thinking we are doing what is most important for us to do - that is for us to do, here and now. It is the essential next step in the primary purpose of the saved Christian - which is theosis, to become more divine, to become more like to Jesus Christ.

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.

By the very process of thinking, of 'cognition', we create alienation: we create a reality in which there are 'things out there' and 'me in here'.

We then make the mistake of believing that what we have actually created by our thinking is true reality.

We then then alienated - either we assume that the things out-there are real and our inner life a subjective illusion (i.e. mainstream modern 'scientist' materialism); or, sometimes, that the inner me is real and the outside world an illusion, a creation of the mind (i.e. idealism or solipsism).

Alienation is an intolerable situation - so we seek escape in trying to stop our awareness of the consequences of thinking - by various means: we can try and stop thinking, perhaps by intoxication or ultimately by death; stop ourselves being aware of the alienated consequences of thinking, by distraction (compulsive socialising, mass media, novelty etc).

Sometimes, occasionally, someone confronts alienation - and tries to solve it.

And it can be solved, indeed it is solved - if we allow it. Because what thinking takes-away, thinking can also restore...

Thinking breaks the world into out-there and in-here; and then recombines the two into more thinking. That is, indeed, what most of our thinking is.

If we stop supposing that the splitting caused by thinking represents reality; and instead suppose that the recombined outer-inner world of our actual thoughts is actually a restoration of the wholeness of the world - then the problem of alienation is solved.

What this entails is that primary reality is in thinking.

Primary reality is not 'out there' - it is in thinking. Thinking is what re-combines reality into unity - it is both objective (out-there) and subjective (in-here) - thinking is the whole-thing.

Thinking is therefore the real world - and as such it is not merely-subjective but thinking is instead objective and universal.

Ultimately, it implies that human thinking is part of the divine plan- that our actual thinking (yours and mine) is potentially a co-creation of reality...

(Potentially because our minds are typically clogged with false thinking, pseudo-thinking, self-contradicting-thinking, automatic 'mental processes' into which we are trained and duped... the purpose is to think properly, do by aiming-at-it deliberately what we were intended to do spontaneously but have self-sabotaged.)

At any rate - the answer to alienation is in our own hand - or rather in our own minds; and at some level and however imperfectly we already do it. It is a matter of recognising, becoming more aware of, clarifying, strengthening making habitual what we already spontaneously are doing.

(Note - the above is a re-explanation of Rudolf Steiner's primary insight found in his early philosophical books - leading-up-to The Philosophy of Freedom - 1894.)

The great lesson I got from Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield, is that reality is co-created by consciousness - that is, by thinking. We make the world by our thinking - and the kind of world we make - or unmake, depends on the kind of thinking. 

The only thing out-there and independent of us is formless chaos - all that can be known has been created; and creation formed by consciousness, and all consciousness has this property of creative formation. 

The primary creation that we inhabit was formed by God's consciousness (God is the prime creator); but our own consciousness affects divine creation - either positively or negatively. 

As our consciousness has become detached from God - we must now choose whether again to affiliate with the living reality of primary creation through love and heart thinking; or to remain alienated, to regard reality as consisting of dead things affected by material processes - and thereby to affiliate with the entropic, parasitic, destructive cognitive processing of mainstream modern life. 

It has become very obvious that humanity is splitting into Christians and anti-Christians; into those who affiliate with God, The Good and Divine Creation - and those who oppose these. 

This split can also be seen as between heart thinking and entropic thinking. We are being compelled to choose between these. 

It is the choice between loving creation; or the subversion, deconstruction and destruction of creation. 

Entropic thinking is normal, abstract, mainstream, 'materialist' thinking - it is 'brain thinking', which is increasingly conformed to machine or computer thinking. 

Entropic describes how you are (almost certainly) thinking now; and how nearly everybody (or everybody) around you is thinking - it is how everybody in societal authority and institutional leadership are thinking. It is the processing embodied in public discourse, bureaucracy, computers, management, media, laws, regulations, procedures...  

This entropic thinking assumes the world is made of dead things, and these dead things are subject to life-less processes, energies and forces. Built-into this is the assumption that entropy rules the world - rules reality - entropy in one place can only be reversed or delayed by increasing entropy elsewhere - thus 'creation' is actually the predatory consumption of one source of order by another - and (because entropy is relentless) this predation (or parasitism) must continue until all order is consumed and formless chaos remains.

Thus, entropic thinking is the world view of the self-damned, the demonic; those who believe in Satan's conceptualization of reality: the sin-motivated war of each against all (only expediently delayed by transient mutually-exploitative demonic alliances directed against God and creation).

Heart thinking is in complete contrast and opposition to the entropic in its nature, origin and motivation. 

Heart thinking is based in love and life; it assumes a living universe of beings - and God's creation gets its origin, form, order and coherence from love. 

Thus, love and creation are polarities of the same essence - loving-creation and creative-love.  

This love - which made creation, and holds-together creation - and which is self-sustaining - is between beings. Beings are living and conscious entities - all beings are alive and conscious, but there are different degrees of aliveness and forms of consciousness.  

Heart thinking is of those beings who have first become modern and alienated; who have first assimilated into entropic thinking - where the reality of God is not entailed. Those who from that position of detached freedom have consciously chosen to recognize, embrace and align-with the reality of God and of a 'universe' consisting of beings living in a divine creation. 

Those who choose heart thinking will find that they need to recognize the greater authority, depth and truth of a thinking based in love, and operating with love - in order to reject the otherwise overwhelming powers and persuasion of entropic thinking. 

It is the terrible choice of modern Man to choose - and his choice lies between the divine work of co-creating the world, or else the demonic project of destroying creation. 

Those who think entropically will do entropy. 

By the way they conceptualize the world, they project deadness onto the living world, they project abstract forces and energies onto a creation that is actually sustained by love; and by these projections these remake their world in the image they have chosen. 

Despite the opposition (implicit and explicit) of The World; heart thinking will need to be accorded primacy again and again, as it conflicts in method and motivation with the dominant, prevalent this-worldly entropic thinking - which asserts its monopoly of objectivity and that heart thinking is childish, foolish or insane.

Entropic thinking labels heart thinking as wishful thinking; yet the truth is both heart and entropic are wishful - and the wishes become reality.  

The entropic thinker wishes entropy onto divine creation - converting that which is alive and conscious through love into a meaningless, purposeless dead universe. 

It is entropic thinking that is destroying our civilization, our humanity - and beyond that it destroys the possibility of eternal resurrected life in Heaven. Because the entropic thinker (and he is apparently most people in the world, including most self-identified Christians) is co-engaged in the progressive killing of beings, the elimination of love, the reduction of life and consciousness into 'people' who self-identify as Dead Things. 

The heart thinker instead works from the love in his heart, from actual interpersonal and inter-being love (not abstract love); he recognizes and affirms that love, and makes it the motivation for knowing reality. He regards reality as that which known by this loving thinking. 

The heart thinker regards the world from his heart - it is his love of particular beings which connects him with reality; it is his love that motivates the connection-with and knowledge-of reality. 

That which is outwith his love is not truly known - but merely hypothesized, modelled from simplified and incomplete variables, and therefore certainly false. 

Thus the primacy of the two great commandments: love of God and neighbour. In heart thinking; modern Man chooses to participate in co-creating his own reality (and potentially the reality of other heart thinkers) by rooting his knowledge in love of God. And the scope of this knowledge is defined by the scope of those other beings ('neighbours') whom he also loves. And if he wishes this active joining-with loving creation to be an eternal state - this is attained by loving and following Jesus Christ to resurrected life in Heaven. 

Note: The above analysis is indebted to a section of a lecture on Crop Circles from Stanley Messenger to the Wessex Research Group, delivered in the middle 1990s. Stanley Messenger was an expert on Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy, having been a Waldorf teacher. He was also involved in, and approving of (in what I regard as an uncritical and credulous way) pretty much all of the New Age crazes of his era; and was also a proponent of the sexual revolution. He was highly intelligent and knowledgeable, and a gifted improvisatory lecturer (having been a professional actor). My eveluation is that Stanley Messenger was (much like his Master, Steiner) someone who sporadically generated some superb and vitally-important insights, which are scattered among a great deal else that I must set aside as mistaken and wrongly-motivated. Anyway; my above post was inspired by re-listening to a genuinely-intuitive, superbly truth-full section of the linked lecture which runs from about 23 minutes to 42 minutes. This section strikes me as more vivid, comprehensible, exciting and motivating than anything Steiner ever expressed (that I have come across) - while being deeply and explicitly indebted to Steiner. 

Diagnosing the problems of modern Western life is not so difficult - the alienating mental prison of deadness, purposelessness, meaninglessness that we inhabit; knowing what ought to be done to improve the situation is much more difficult but still reasonably widespread; but actually escaping from that prison to inhabit a better place is extremely rare.

The reason is that habits of thinking which have become ingrained through our childhood and development, and which are sustained because they are the basis of public life and discourse - so that innumerable hourly interactions keep us in the bad-old-ways of thinking.

The way out from prison therefore involves more than just knowing we are in prison, and more than knowing where we want to escape-to - because the escape destination is intrinsically our-own-selves, we actually need to create our own destination by transforming our-own-selves, in the face of opposition from our current selves backed-up by almost all the forces of culture.

Since we live-in our own thinking, the new destination can be conceptualised as a new way of thinking - that is a thinking based on a new set of metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of the world (its origin, purpose, meaning etc).

So, each of us needs to practice thinking; specifically to practice thinking based on the desired metaphysics.

Meditation is the general name given to the activity of practicing thinking - so meditation is the first and major activity which is needed.

Thinking-practice = a type of meditation.

This is where people begin to differ - because the nature of meditation must have the proper aim - must be aiming at the desired destination; this effects the actual nature of the meditation (and the nature of meditation - i.e. the type of thinking that is being practised - is extremely varied); and having chosen a possible method of meditation, then comes the absolutely vital 'subjective' element - that topic or content of meditation which must be practised.    

But how best, how effectively to 'practice' the desired thinking is not immediately obvious - and is indeed a matter of some dispute. But one aspect I would like to highlight is that personally effective meditation cannot be a matter of forcing ourselves through routine practice.

Effective thought practice means practicing the kind of thinking which we want to become habitual - and that kind of thinking must be alive, engaged; a thinking deriving from the new metaphysics; a thinking which is about purpose appreciated in the world as well as itself purposive; a thinking which is filled with hope, as well as hopeful in its intention.

In sum, when meditation is understood as thinking-practice, we recognize that meditating itself must be an activity of the desired kind: self-aware, alert, purposive, positive, hope-full, energizing - we must meditate-about the kind of things we have as our ideal.

Therefore each person will need, by trial and error and taking into account his own disposition and preferences, to devise some themes of meditation and methods for maintaining his own stream of thinking along the lines of such themes.

It is a question of 'what works for you' as a means to that end - for me, it is mainly a practice of thinking by writing... note-taking to hold my thinking onto the purpose, record that thinking, responding to my notes. In general, the act of writing is used to control my thinking, to keep it on-topic, to keep it along the right lines.

(The actual notes are merely a means to that end, and need never be looked at again.)

But I discovered this type of meditation for myself, by trial and error, and I am sure it would not suit everybody. So if you have not yet discovered what works for you - that that should be your first goal.

The second goal is, for each session of meditation, to choose a topic which is something both desirable as a themes for practise, and also effective for you personally; some thing which involves thinking in the way you want to become habitual (thinkig that is assuming a living, conscious, purposive universe of meaning, love and inter-relationship...); and also is a theme that is positive and enjoyable to yourself.

(For instance, today my theme - one which delighted and spontaneously engaged me - was reading and making notes on parts of a particular lecture by Owen Barfield.) 

Then you can start practicing-thinking.

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.  

 

Most of our thinking is not Pure Conceptual Thinking - indeed, it is possible and perhaps likely that most people will never engage in Pure Conceptual Thinking at any time.

Most people may, indeed almost certainly will, at times think in the realm of universal concepts - for example, this is the spontaneous thinking of childhood.

After all, at first we only have real true universal concepts to think-with - because they are 'built-in' in the sense that we are born able to access them (albeit very partially at first). However the spontaneous thought of childhood (or of, apparently, some hunter gatherer and tribal societies) is a passive thinking - by which I mean that the thinking is a product of prior causes.

By 'passive' I mean not-creative; we think what we do, because of what - in our environment, experience, memories etc - has triggered thoughts: this type of thinking is an effect not a cause. Childhood thinking is not free; but a constrained and channeled product.

If the passive thinking is using real true universal concepts, then it is true; but it is not free. It is not 'our' thinking, it does not change the web of causes and effects in the world. Such a thinker is in the (real true) world, participating in the world; but does not change the world - rather is changed by it.

However, most modern people, most of the time, do not in their thinking participate in the real, true and universal world of concepts; instead they think by using what might be termed communicated-concepts.


Communicated concepts are not a part of the realm of real, true universal concepts - they come from communications - from the people around us, from schools and colleges, from government propaganda and (mostly, nowadays) from the mass media.

Communicated concpets may also be devised by ourselves - in what appears (superficially) to be an act of creativity, but it is actually merely 'novelty'; is actually merely a selection, combination or extrapolation of other communicated concepts.

Communicated concepts are therefore percepts, inputs - and they are only possible because of the already-existing world of real true concepts that serve as an interpretative background and provide that which makes communicated concepts 'work'.

However, the communicated concepts may (usually do) make-up a surface world of thinking, a 'fake personality', which may come to occupy all attention and block our ability to think with real true concepts - indeed, that has been precisely the history of modern thought as it developed over the past several centuries.

Because communicated concepts are an artificial thought world, they can be shaped to serve immediate human wishes, to achieve human will - sometimes useful, sometime harmfully - but never in a way which engages with with the real true world.

So communicated concepts are the cause of the modern malaise of alienation - the sense (and reality) of our thinking being cut-off from reality, from each other - and from our-selves.

In thinking with communicated concepts, modern grown-up man has detached himself from the web of cause and effect, he is no longer a passive responder only - and is in that sense Modern Man is free.

Modern Man is Free but he is disengaged from reality; free but only among artificialities and pragmatic notions.

Free; but cut-off from the truth of universal concepts. 



Pure Conceptual Thinking is therefore a thinking with real, true and universal concepts - but it is a free, active and purposive thinking in this realm of universal concepts - and in that vital respect differs from the thinking of childhood.

The difference can be summarised by the concept of creativity. A young child thinks with real true concepts (albeit in a partial, selective and therefore distorted fashion) and therefore spontaneously lives in the realm of reality - but passively because immersed in the web of cause and effect. The typical modern adult thinks with artificial, arbitrary and merely-expedient (although often very 'useful') communicated concepts - but is free, because detached from the web of causation.

Pure Conceptual Thinking is like spontaneous childhood thinking, in that it is in the realm of universal concepts - therefore intrinsically dealing with truth and reality, and naturally engaged with the primary stuff of reality - overcoming of alienation.

But Pure Conceptual Thinking is free - in the sense that the thinking is not passively caused; the self is detached from the web of causes and effects, stands apart and both observes the flow of concepts in the thinking of universal reality and also (from its status as free, as an agent, as capable of uncaused thoughts) may contribute one or more new concepts to Mankind's sock of universal concepts.

This is primary creativity: which is to contribute to the universally-available stock of real true concepts with which Man may think.


Primary creativity happens (or may happen) during Pure Conceptual Thinking - and it happens in full and purposive awareness of what is happening - in awareness of the web of existing universal concepts, and in awareness of our own originating of a new concept added to that stock.

Such new universal concepts are available to all Men (capable of thinking them) without any need for communication; although those who subsequently use these new concepts do not necessarily realise that they are new, now do users of the new thought typically know anything of its origin.

Unless a primary creative thought has been communicated 'by the normal channel's (e.g. by speaking, reading and other media) - and all such channels use merely communicated concepts, hence are prone to falsehood, distortion and even inversion - the user the user of a new universal concept does not know who first thought it; does not know who created it; nor where or when this happened.

Typically only the one who first made this new universal concept, when engaged in Pure Conceptual Thinking and acting freely as an agent among the web of universal concepts, will know for sure what has been done.

But to contribute to Mankind's stock of universal concepts is, surely, the primary act of purposive creativity in this mortal life.

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.