Post a Comment On: Bruce Charlton's Notions

This is a very dense video describing that thinking for which I believe we ought to be aiming; here termed Pure Thinking. 
It is also described as the true meaning of "Anthroposophy" - which is not content; but a method or path or state-of-being, "leading from the spiritual in Man, to the spiritual in creation" (This being my translation of Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts Number 1) . I have also called Pure Thinking primary thinking and heart-thinking. It produces the experience that Owen Barfield called Final Participation - that is, a thinking that contains awareness of its own participation in the creation of reality. What it is, and what it does; the above 10 minute video from Joel Wendt will tell you.
"How to do it" is something that depends on motivation, and a proper motivation cannot be conjured to order... I would say that Pure Thinking can only happen in consequence of a motivation from love and to Good, which could be analyzed further as a motivation towards the transcendentals of truth, beauty and virtue. Thus I have experienced Pure Thinking when doing science or philosophy, when creating some artistic artefact or performance, and when genuinely trying to discern the right choice or path in life. 
But I cannot long sustain it, and the attempt ends it; nor can I have it for wanting or trying...Probably because such motivation is usually a mask for the desire for a pleasurable experience, to achieve some-thing for egotistical or expedient reasons, or from wanting to escape the mundane boredom of everyday living.Good motivation therefore comes before Pure Thinking - yet Pure Thinking is the best possible way to discern the evaluations of our divine self - potentially forming a virtuous circle (if only we can refrain from trying to use its understandings for unworthy goals!).  
Note: In fact I do not believe that even Rudolf Steiner himself could engage in Pure Thinking at will, sustainedly, frequently, or reliably. Instead I am pretty sure that from the time he joined the Theosophical Society (some years after publishing the philosophical books, mentioned in the video) Steiner usually deployed partial mediumistic trance states of 'altered consciousness' in order to generate much of the content of the vast volume of published Spiritual Science... Which is why most of the content is wrong.