Creating Spiritual Perception

Anthroposophy is not about repeating what others have said in the past without research, but about continually developing new perspectives from personal experience that can be shared and understood by others.

Anthroposophical research is based on the development of the soul and the organs of spiritual perception. These make it possible to broaden the horizon of experience to include the spirit and spiritual dimension of the world and thus to create the possibilities of a spiritual science.

Some misconceptions to overcome

When we talk about the organs of spiritual perception, it is important to clear up some misconceptions that naturally arise. We are so used to perceiving the sensory world that we imagine that spiritual perception is similar to sensory perception. We imagine that a new 'objective' world with properties equivalent to the sense world must appear before our spiritual eyes. Spiritual perception is much more subtle than the external world of things, because it is of a completely different nature. Spiritual perception, although objective, originates from the inner activity of the investigator and is the result of the creative activity of the subject. The subject consciously 'participates' in its creation.

In contrast, ordinary sensory perceptions produced by already formed organs appear objective from the outset, without requiring any special activity on the part of the subject. This difference means that even when a spiritual perception is already present, it is easily overlooked and often not recognized as a spiritual perception. This is because there is an expectation that spiritual perceptions arise spontaneously in the same way as sensory perceptions. However, these perceptions have a 'subject-object' nature that transcends the subject-object distinction of ordinary consciousness. Spiritual perceptions are the result of the subject's participation in the object of attention and integrate two normally separate aspects of reality.

Influenced by the way we experience ordinary sensory perceptions, we expect spiritual perceptions to be immediately reliable and accurate, but this is not the case. Perceptions produced by the organs of the soul and the spirit can be misleading, incomplete or distorted. The experience and maturity of the researcher plays an important role here, but no one is immune to errors and omissions. Moreover, spiritual perceptions provide only a certain perspective on a phenomenon, and the error may lie not in the perception itself, but in its interpretation. Therefore, all researchers should be aware that findings communicated by other researchers, even if they come from a very experienced researcher like Rudolf Steiner, need to be further examined to determine their context, perspective and scope of validity.

Moreover, spiritual perceptions need to be interpreted, conceptualized and formulated in an understandable way. It is quite possible to perceive a perception without conceptualizing or formulating it. Perceptions can be adequate even if the interpretation is incomplete. It can also be difficult to formulate. All this must be taken into consideration when dealing with the subject of the organ of spiritual perception. For spiritual perception is much more common than is generally thought, but it is not necessarily common among those who claim to have such a perception. Those who have such perceptions usually do not admit to them and formulate their experiences without assuming that they have any special gifts. Selflessness is a characteristic of true spiritual seekers.

Creating Spiritual Perception

LOUIS DEFÈCHE-NOVEMBER 30, 2023