In ANTHROPOSOPHICAL SPIRITUAL SCIENCE as a PATH of TRUE COGNITION
it is explained that our ability to gain knowledge about the world we live
in is dependent upon three factors:
- on our capacity of perception by means of the various
sense organs that mediate to us percepts (impressions of something
perceived);
- on our capacity of thinking by means of which we evolve
concepts
(mental images, thoughts, ideas) about what we perceive;
- on our basic soul mood that permeates all our striving for the
attainment of true knowledge. [1] This includes also
our feelings of sympathy or antipathy towards various ideas and world
conceptions.
The effect of food on the first factor is addressed in the nutritional
principle NUTRITION AND CAPACITY OF PERCEPTION. The effect
of food on the third factor is dealt with in the chapter
NUTRITION & SOUL
LIFE. Now we will focus our gaze on the impact of food on our capacity of
thinking.
The Key Role of Thinking in the Attainment of Knowledge
We are not born into this world as finished beings, accompanied by instincts
which regulate our whole way of life, as it is the case with animals. Although
in part our development and behaviour is influenced by instincts, we are to a
great extent subjected to the influences which are the result of the continuous
process of learning. This doesn't include only learning in educational
institutions, or our own study, but also continuous learning with the help of
diverse life circumstances and experiences. In this way we acquire specific
understanding of the world which is directing our activity. In spite of the fact
that many experiences in the course of our life are archetypical – for example,
birth, growing up, schooling, relationships, job, etc. – we gain, as we know,
a specific worldview which can tally with those of other people or not.
If we want to grasp the causes which enable development of these
differences in the worldviews we need to start with the fact that "as
children we have first to be taught to develop the faculties for acquiring
knowledge of the physical plane of existence and then we need to work on and
on. The acquisition of knowledge of reality presupposes spiritual effort.
Nature – that is to say, external reality – does not of itself pass on to us
the wisdom and the laws inherent in it; we have to acquire knowledge of this
wisdom and these laws for ourselves. All human striving after knowledge
consists, after all, in actively acquiring, from experiences passively
received, the wisdom and the law inherent in things." [2]
In ANTHROPOSOPHICAL SPIRITUAL SCIENCE as a PATH of TRUE COGNITION
is explained the indispensable role of thinking in any act of the acquisition of knowledge
about the things, beings, and phenomena of the world. "Thinking is
the act which mediates knowledge. It is only when thinking arranges
the world-picture by means of its own activity that knowledge can come
about. Thinking has to approach something given and transform its chaotic
relationships with the world-picture into a systematic one. This means that
thinking approaches the given world-content as an organizing principle."
[3]
In spite of this we can observe nowadays that the main "characteristic of
mental life is its chaotic nature. Today, when you see something that has
been thought out, the first thing that is bound to strike is its chaotic
nature, its inner lack of order. This is the case in almost every sphere.
Only the spheres that still possess good old traditions have something of
the old order left. All our sciences take an external fact of the world and
stir up a mass of thoughts about it with no inner order, because man has
gone astray in a kind of mental abyss. He has no guiding principles of
thought today, no inner thought rhythm, and humanity would become completely
decadent were they not acquire their inner rhythm again." [4]
What is the reason for the chaotic life of thoughts in modern humanity?
One of the foremost reasons is that "the thoughts are generally clouded by
instincts, desires and passions. There is usually only one area where people
have pure thoughts, that is in mathematics. When people calculate, their
passions are usually very little involved. Because the majority of people
everywhere wish to exercise their feeling and critical faculty they have no
love for mathematics. Here one cannot vote in parliamentary fashion.
Mathematical truth is recognised by man through truth itself;
a problem can only have one solution. Whether one or a million people hold
their own view about it, the problem must find the same solution. Nowhere
should we need majority decisions, if it were possible in all spheres to
make decisions in a way as free from emotion, as objectively, as in
mathematics. Thinkers would not disagree so violently if they would take all
the factors into consideration completely objectively, for truth cannot
approach man in different ways. People hold different opinions because they
are involved in their ideas with their instincts and passions in different
ways." [5]
For that reason the acquisition of knowledge about the world around us
must be seen as an integral part of our spiritual development. When we set out on the path to
understand the hidden realities behind the physical world, either by
acquisition of new
concepts and ideas describing these supersensible
realities, or by striving to open the doors of perception of the spiritual
world, then "the preparatory training in logical thinking is essential,
for otherwise our feelings would quite certainly lead us into error. In
logical thinking we experience above all a kind of conscience, and by
developing that conscience we establish in the soul a certain sense of
responsibility towards truth and untruth, without which nothing can be
achieved in the higher worlds." [6]
Although in the process of learning the capacities of perception and
feeling are very important, it is nevertheless true that the basis for the
comprehension of the world is shaped by our capability of objective
thinking. In spite of this fact people are too little aware that they need
to learn how to think, just as they need to learn a craft or artistic
activity or any other ability. Consequently "far too little trouble is taken
over learning to handle with precision the activities of thinking. In
practical life, in regard to thinking, it is not agreed that one must get
one's conceptions of the world from quarters where thinking has been
learnt," [7] or from those who have become the masters of logical thinking. [8]
Mineral Salts as the Material for the Activity of Our Thinking
As we have seen above the main activity of our thinking is the striving
for the attainment of objective knowledge. The truth about anything cannot
be reached without overcoming our limitation in the form of prejudices,
sympathies, antipathies, passions, and similar. However, this is not the
only moral aspect in regard to our thinking, for we are also responsible for
how we nourish our brain, the organ of our thinking. In the
EARTHLY NUTRITIONAL STREAM it is explained that our food provides earthly substances
for the functions of our nerve-sense system. Therefore "we take salt with
our food not only for the pleasant stimulating taste but really in order
that we may be able to think. The salts in food must find their way up to
the brain if we are to be capable of thinking." [9] The expression
minerals
can substitute the expression salts, for this refers to the stage of
COSMIC EVOLUTION OF SUBSTANCES when all solid substances have condensed out of the
previous fluid condition of matter.
However, when we come to the use of salts (minerals) as material for the
activity of our thinking we need to realise that "man cannot use salt as he
finds it in nature. If you were to make a tiny perforation into the brain
and let salt trickle in, it would be quite useless. The salt must pass into
the stomach and intestines and be brought into an ever finer and finer state
of solution. As a result of what the human organism does with the salt, it
is already in a spiritualised condition when it reaches the brain."
[10]
The process of gradual dematerialisation of salts (minerals) that are in
food is described in TRANSUBSTANTIATION OF MINERALS. In the first stage
solid salts (minerals) dissolve in our intestinal juices (if they are not
already dissolved in the food fluids). For that reason we can call all solid
earthly substances which enters into our organism mineral salts, because
they must all change, as the salt does, into the fluid condition with the
aim to serve the needs of our body. [11]
Then the mineral salts in the fluid condition transform into the gaseous
condition in our rhythmic system – we could say that they must 'evaporate'
before they reach the nervous system. And when mineral salts in the gaseous
condition reach the brain the final stage of dematerialisation occurs; salts
transform into the condition of warmth ether – that is, into the first
spiritual condition among the
Seven Conditions of Matter.
Why is this process of gradual destruction of matter in our inner being
necessary for our activity of thinking? "When we raise ourselves to real
intuitive knowledge, we first obtain a true insight into what is in fact our
own thinking, our ideation, that we employ in ordinary life, with which we
mix our sense-perceptions. One understands then how man is organised
materially as man; one learns to know to what extent this material
organisation is in control (in relation to other members of human constitution); but one perceives
also that this control only extends so far as to serve as a support, at most
a ground out of which thinking can unfold itself, but that the material
process itself must be broken down where true thinking appears. To the same
degree in which the material events can be reduced can that gain ground in
us which now occupies the place where matter is destroyed, that is,
thinking, ideation. First matter must withdraw itself from the organism and
make room for the thoughts, the ideas; then these thoughts and ideas
can develop within man. Thus, in that place where we perceive thinking in
its reality, we see the destruction of material existence. In the
nerve-sense being physical substance is annihilated. By this means the
nerve-sense system can be the basis for thinking, for ideation."
[12]
Therefore "precisely in the domain of heat a change is taking place in man
which results in matter being destroyed and a purely picture-existence
arising out of the matter." [13]
How exactly does this emergence of pictures comes out of annihilated
matter? We can imagine this extremely subtle process if we look at an
artistic work of a painter. "For the painting to exist in this world, it is
necessary for it to have physical substance. Imagine that the physical
substance falls to dust, but a fine etheric tissue remains. So now the
painting has turned into dust, but everything that was painted by using
physical paints, including the nuances of colour, continues to exist in
etheric form and someone with etheric perception would be able to
perceive the etheric form that remains.
That is what the thinking process is like, the process of thinking ideas.
When we become conscious of a thought or an idea, this is due to the fact
that the etheric aspect of our heads lifts out of it in the process (of
destruction of matter) and consequently thoughts evolve. Matter turns to
dust and falls away, as it were, and the etheric remains and that is how
people become aware of their ideas." [14]
Thus we can summarize: "If we look at the human head in the right way we
have to say it is the focus of a process in which matter as such is reduced
to nothing and it is this which makes it the bearer of a distinct inner
life. Thanks to the head being part of the organism, human beings have a
life of thoughts and ideas. This becomes possible because the material life
is reduced to dust in a strange process" [15] of the annihilation of mineral
salts which we get from the food we consume. [16]
For a complementary perspective see:
♦ NUTRITION AND CAPACITY OF PERCEPTION
