Brentano's Tennis Match or a Modern Spiritual Scientific Rhythmic Practice of Giving and Receiving

 

In 'Riddles of the Soul', Rudolf Steiner carefully investigates the essential character of Franz Brentano's descriptive psychology. The fundamental thesis that developed out of Brentano's half-conscious experience was that what is of an inner, soul, or psychological nature was always characterized by consciousness or awareness of something. I am worried about my mother, I am listening to the music, etc. This basic discovery led Husserl to develop modern phenomenology. But Rudolf Steiner, wanting to subtly and carefully provide an extension into the realm of objectivity or reality, adds an extra feature to such a descriptive psychology. He notes that what is 'physical' always arises through its relation to something else: for example, the copper changes color after being exposed to oxygen, the mushroom when cut changes color, the windchimes changed their tune when blown by this particular breeze, the color of my wife's face changes according to the sun exposure, etc. If we wish to develop this into a fully modern spiritual scientific practice, we can follow through this whole process of inward and outward sensing from pole to pole, like a fun game of playing tennis in your awareness. We first start with an element of what arises from and is transformed by something else, like balls of oil moving in a lava lamp, or wind moving leaves on a tree, or colors cast by a prism on a wall in the flux of cloud cover. Then we move from the 'physical' phenomena to the attentiveness on the inner fact that I am aware of this fluctuating element which arises from something else. Now the problem is that you may well be caught in a Kantian illusion that all phenomena, whether psychical or physical are still subjective. Both Brentano and Steiner provide different escape routes from this illusion, for example, through following the will impulse that is related to the judgement that this color exists, that the lamp exists, that the tree exists. For Brentano and Steiner, a judgment of the existence, or the truth inherent in the essence of something lies outside the subjective bubble. But can you experience it? Yeshayahu Ben-Aharon has shown us the value of pursuing new forms of dialectical or cognitive yogic practices, which are part of the modern path of consciousness-soul development under the Michaelic influence of our time. 

Mantra: 

Consciousness becomes aware of what is transformed from outside itself. What is transformed by what is beyond itself, becomes conscious of itself. Follow the transition from one to the other. Create a new middle transition zone. I AM. 

via GIPHY