Relationship between mineral and spiritual science

Please refer to the topic pages for an introductory description of mineral science and spiritual science as terms used on this site.

Positioning two paradigms: mineral and spiritual science

It is important to understand how and why mainstream contemporary 'mineral science' differs from spiritual science, because it forms the basis for a different worldview. And a worldview is the foundation for our functioning, the basis for how we act and decide.

Therefore this topic page expands the differences between two paradigms or knowledge representations.

Aspects

1. scope

The appropriate term choosen is 'mineral science' because focus is on the laws of the element 'earth'.
Spiritual science has as scope a spectrum of seven or eight elements and ethers, of which earth is one. The others being water, air, warmth, warmth ether, light ether, chemical ether and life ether. It is called spiritual science because the essential nature underlying these elements and ethers are spiritual beings all interwoven in a constant evolutionary dynamic of interaction. See also: spectrum of elements and ethers.

See 1921-06-24-GA205 and 1921-06-26-GA205 for a positioning how for each element really a different types of lawfullness or physics applies.

For research on the physical framework and laws that apply for the element 'water', refer to study of the etheric formative forces

2. state of consciousness

The scope and method of mineral science are linked to the state of consciousness (of the majority of the population), specifically contemporary 'mundane' or better sensory waking consciousness consisting of observation through the physical senses, and sensory thinking about this.
Spiritual science regards consciousness as a spectrum of which mundane sensory consciousness is a part, but extends it to other forms called imagination, inspiration and intuition - see stages of clairvoyance. These terms denote the ability to view soul (astral world) and (lower and higher) spirit world through various stages of clairvoyance (enabled through higher senses besides our current physical senses).

3. Scientific method

Mineral studies the mineral aspects of physical reality only, with a scientific method that puts the observer and human consciousness outside of what it takes in scope as subject of study. All the rest - non mineral aspects and human consciousness effects - do not exist for mineral science; not only by definition (as the true scientific method is open), but also by dogma from the mainstream scientific community. This is a natural consequence of the fact that waking consciousness is the dominant state of consciousness of the majority population.
For more on the scientific method, compare the difference between the views of Lord Francis Bacon (1561-1626) (re: 'trials and vexation of nature') versus the view of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) (see Goethean science). Rudolf Steiner covers this explicitly, ao in the Karmic relationship lectures when discussing KRI6 Lord Bacon, see Schema FMC00.241A)

4. Philosophical perspective

From a philosophical perspective, one can compare the views of

Immanual Kant (1724-1804) and his 'Critique of pure reason' (1787) to that of
Georg Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). For Hegel, the process and meaning of perceiving is fundamentally underlying for building our worldview

As a result of the above differences, and the intrinsic human nature that tries to find answers to explain reality, a long-standing debate between both paradigms and worldviews has been taken place. By means of illustration and to get started in your own research, see:

Emil du Bois-Raymond's (1818-1896) 'Ignoramus et Ignoramibus' famous speech (1880) and seven riddles
Rupert Sheldrake (1942-) 'The science delusion' (2012) where he discusses the 'ten dogmas of science (see also the Jan-2013 TED talk)

The author developed his own view with the 'Top five problems with current science' (2014).

More about the societal impact on the topic page on worldview wars.

5. Spiritual scientific perspective

Thoughts of spiritual scientific nature are inscribed into the akashic chronicle, whereas thoughts about mineral materialistic things (like technical, commercial, economical) are not retained but are discarded. (1913-05-01-GA152)

Concluding remark

In summary, one could also put it differently and state that:

mineral science talks from a Contemporary Body of Knowledge (BoK-C) resulting from five centuries of modern scientific research focusing on the mineral element and aspects of nature with contemporary waking consciousness and the new consciousness soul since the 15th century,
.. but there is also a Body of Universal Knowledge or wisdom (BoK-U). This BoK-U is a meta-representation or meta-paradigm that includes and encapsulates BoK-C. Meaning: spiritual science fully acknowledges all contemporary findings of mineral science and the technological advances that follow. It goes further however in that BoK-C tries to explain reality and cosmos from a more limited perspective, thereby giving rise to thought forms, hypotheses, mental and mathematical models that do not necessarily correspond to any reality any more.

As humanity and Man's consciousness is in continuous evolution, so will the worldview evolve again as natural clairvoyance arises in the centuries and millenia to come (see ao Christ in the etheric, Man's new organ, Development of the chakras)

At this time, spiritual science is still small relative to the mineral scientific worldview that is mainstream and dominant for a humanity that is still asleep to the higher consciousness that is lurking and waiting to be developed.

Various

about proof, see 1886-GA002 Ch 16

Lecture references

1886-GA002 Ch 16

As the type in organic nature replaces natural law (the primal phenomenon) in the inorganic, so intuition (perceptive power of thought) replaces the power of judgment through proof (reflective judgment). As it has been supposed that the same laws may be applied to organic nature which are determinative at a lower stage of knowledge, so it has been supposed that the same methods hold good here as there. Both suppositions are fallacious.
Intuition has often been treated with scant respect in science. It has been considered a defect in Goethe's mind that he expected to reach scientific truths by means of intuition. What is attained by way of intuition is considered by many persons as very important, to be sure, when this has to do with a scientific discovery. There, it is said, a chance idea often carries one farther than trained, methodical thought. For it is generally said to be an intuition when one has hit by chance upon something which is true but whose truth is discovered by investigators only in a roundabout way. It is always denied, however, that intuition itself can be a principle of science. Whatever intuition chances upon must afterward be proved—so it is thought—if it is to have scientific value.
So Goethe's scientific achievements have also been looked upon as brilliant chance ideas which only later have attained to confirmation by the rigid methods of science.
For organic science, however, intuition is the right method. It becomes quite clear, we believe, from our exposition that Goethe's mind, just because it was fundamentally intuitive, found the right way in organics. The method proper to organics harmonized with the constitution of his mind. For this reason it became all the clearer to him how far organics differs from inorganic science. The one became clear to him in connection with the other. For this reason he sketched with sharp lines the essential nature also of the inorganic.
The slight value attached to intuition is due in no small measure to the fact that its achievements are not supposed to be deserving of that degree of confidence which is reposed in the achievement of knowledge through proof.
Often only that which has been proved is called knowledge; all else is called belief.
It must be borne in mind that intuition possesses a significance for the scientific attitude represented by the present writer (based upon the conviction that in thought we grasp in its very essence the central core of the world) altogether different from the significance it possesses according to the point of view which places this core of the world in a Beyond not accessible to our research. Whoever sees in this world lying before us, so far as we either experience it or penetrate it through thought, nothing more than a reflection, a copy of a Beyond, an unknown, an activating, which remains hidden behind this shell, not only at first glance but also in spite of all scientific research,—such a person can see only in the method of proof a substitute for our lack of insight into the real nature of things.
Since he does not penetrate to the opinion that a thought-combination comes about through the essential content given in the thoughts themselves, and therefore through the thing itself, he necessarily thinks that he can support such combinations only on the ground that they harmonize with certain basic convictions (axioms) which are so simple as to be neither susceptible of proof nor in need thereof.
If, then, a scientific postulate is offered him without proof—even one which in its whole nature excludes the method of proof—this seems to him to have been thrust upon him from without; a truth appears before him without his recognizing what are the grounds of its validity. He does not think he has an item of knowledge, an insight into the thing, but thinks he can only yield himself to a belief that some sort of reasons for this validity exists beyond the reach of his thought.
Our view of the world is not exposed to the danger that it must look upon the limits of the method of proof as coinciding with the limits of scientific certitude. It has led us to the point of view that the central essence of the world flows into our thinking; that we do not merely think concerning the nature of the world but that thinking is an entrance into connection with the nature of reality. Intuition does not thrust a truth upon us from without, for from one point of view there is no such thing as an outer and an inner in the manner in which these are presupposed by the scientific attitude we have described, which is the opposite of our own. For us, intuition is the actual being-within, an entrance into the truth which gives to us all that comes in any way under consideration in regarding truth. It merges completely with what is given to us in our intuitive judgment. The characteristic which is significant in belief—that only existent truth is given us and not the reasons therefore, and that we lack a penetrating insight into the thing concerned—is here wholly wanting. Insight gained by way of intuition is just as scientific as that won by proof.

1904-GA011

has a section titled 'Prejudices arising from alleged science (1904)', and mineral science is meant, also when 'natural science' is written. Only a short extract:

It cannot be emphasized too strongly that spiritual research is nowhere in contradiction with the facts of natural science.
Where its adversaries see such a contradiction, this does not relate to facts, but to the opinions which these adversaries have formed, and which they believe necessarily result from the facts. But in truth there is not the slightest connection between the opinion of Forel quoted above, for instance, and the facts of the stars of the nebulas, the nature of the cells, the liquefaction of the air, and so forth. This opinion represents nothing but a belief which many have formed out of a need for believing, which clings to the sensory-real, and which they place beside the facts. This belief is very dazzling for present-day man. It entices him to an inner intolerance of a quite special kind. Its adherents are blinded to the point where they consider their own opinion to be the only “scientific” one, and ascribe the views of others merely to prejudice and superstition.
...
[spiritual science] has its own methods, finds truths independently of all documents and then recognizes them in the latter. This way is necessary for many present-day seekers after truth. For they demand a spiritual research which bears within itself the same character as natural science. And only where the nature of this science of the spirit is not recognized does one become perplexed when it is a matter of protecting the facts of the supersensible world from opinions which appear to be founded on natural science.
...
.. today there exists a possibility of coming to know the supersensible world in just as “scientific” a manner as the interrelationships of sensory facts. The one who familiarizes himself with the science of the spirit in the way this is possible at present, will be preserved from many superstitions by it, and will become able to take the supersensible facts into his conceptual store, thereby divesting himself of the superstition that fear and need have created this supersensible world.
The one who is able to struggle through to this view will no longer be held back by the idea that he might be estranged from reality and practical life by occupying himself with the science of the spirit. He will then realize how the true science of the spirit does not make life poorer, but richer. It will certainly not mislead him into underestimating telephones, railroad technology, and aerial navigation; but in addition he will see many other practical things which remain neglected today, when one believes only in the world of the senses and therefore recognizes only a part of the truth rather than all of it.

1910-GA013

in the beginning of Outline for Esoteric Science, a section is dedicated to the positioning of spiritual science to mineral science

Occult science desires to free the natural-scientific method and its principle of research from their special application that limits them, in their own sphere, to the relationship and process of sensory facts, but, at the same time, it wants to retain their way of thinking and other characteristics. It desires to speak about the non-sensory in the same way natural science speaks about the sensory. While natural science remains within the sense world with this method of research and way of thinking, occult science wishes to consider the employment of mental activity upon nature as a kind of self-education of the soul and to apply what it has thus acquired to the realms of the non-sensory. Its method does not speak about the sense phenomena as such, but speaks about the non-sensory world-content in the way the scientist talks about the content of the sensory world. It retains the mental attitude of the natural-scientific method; that is to say, it holds fast to just the thing that makes natural research a science. For that reason it may call itself a science.
...
Unprejudiced thinking must hold to the premise that a person should speak only of what he knows and should not make statements about something he does not know. Such thinking can only speak of the right that a person has to communicate what he himself has experienced, but it cannot speak of the right that somebody declare impossible what he does not know or does not wish to know. We cannot deny anyone the right to ignore the supersensible, but there can never be any good reason for him to declare himself an authority, not only on what he himself can know, but also on all that a Man can not know.

1912-11-27-GA069A

We have all possible worldviews or viewpoints in the usual world. There one has materialism, positivism, individualism, spiritualism and so on. Try only once to listen objectively to another person who feels pressured into alleging all logical and other reasons for materialism or spiritualism and so on by his whole education, by his whole life. Then you will convince yourself that it is never quite entitled, actually, to feel as an opponent of materialism or spiritualism and so on. You will realise that for all these viewpoints numerous reasonable arguments can be brought forward. You may mostly completely agree—if you are unbiased—with a representative of the concerning viewpoint.
Even if you do not stand at all on the materialist viewpoint, you may say if you listen to a reasonable materialist: yes, nevertheless, it is well founded what he brings forward for his viewpoint.
The uncomfortable begins where people are committed to any viewpoint unilaterally and attack and reject another viewpoint to the point of intolerability sometimes. It would be very well conceivable that somebody says who has experiences in this area: yes, I can be a materialist rather well, where materialism is entitled, and a spiritualist where spiritualism is entitled and so on. This possibility absolutely exists.
...
If anybody is not committed only to materialism, but has saved so much freedom for himself to refrain from his approach and to exert some self-knowledge, then he can ask himself, how has my present life proceeded, actually? How have my habitual ways of thinking developed, what has induced me, for example, to follow more the material coherences? Thus, a follower of materialism may ask. The follower of a more spiritual view can also do that. There you already find in the usual life that one creates a subjective viewpoint.
Thereby one gets to know the logical value of a viewpoint that one knows how one has got it how a certain life direction has induced one to think just in such a way.
Not because one looks for truth in the middle between the different viewpoints, but because one recognises how this viewpoint has originated and why one judges in such a way, one becomes fair towards the other, and one gets around to acknowledging the value of the other viewpoint.
The different viewpoints compensate each other if the followers of these different viewpoints practise self-knowledge.
Imagine once that some people of contrary viewpoints meet like in a board and quarrel about their different viewpoints. Somebody who has taken part in such a thing knows that, besides, normally nothing results. If people rise after hours-long discussion, everybody is normally still convinced fanatically of his viewpoint as before. If the attempt were done that such a board were quiet one hour and everybody checked during one hour only how he has got to his viewpoint, and if they started talking only then again, they would not start quarrelling. This possibility is imaginable. Since one would find understanding for the other viewpoint by self-knowledge, by investigation of the way which one has done to get to his viewpoint. Already in the usual life, it is obvious that self-knowledge is the way to approach truth gradually, and that then the truth positions itself in the middle that one, however, must not put his opinion between the contrary viewpoints.
This self-knowledge must take place to a much greater extent with that who wants to avoid the sources of error in the supersensible area. Here I have to say that the spiritual researcher can approach truth only if he begins to practise self-knowledge in the area of the supersensible in the extreme. He has enough opportunity if he does not surrender to that which appears as pictures in his soul at first, but if he can say to himself, you yourself are the pictures in your soul; even if they are maybe wonderful—this is no supersensible world; you yourself are all that, projected onto space.
...
Because self-knowledge is difficult, the risk of a substantial error arises that the spiritual researcher does not reach the point where he can place himself, so to speak, beside himself. However, you cannot say, here is truth, here is error, but only that you can wend your way to truth. The more you are able to consider yourself as an objective being, the more you approach truth. While the consciousness of a medium has to be diminished, it has to be strengthened with the spiritual researcher just in such a way that he is not mistaken about himself and about what he has in himself. While entering the spiritual world you have to target the fact as sharply as possible that you face your concentrated own self. Thus, you eliminate everything personal from the supersensible percipience.
...
Now here we can get to a kind of definition of error in the supersensible world. This error consists of the fact that one has insufficiently cast off the own subjectivity, and, therefore, always the own individuality intermingles in the pictures of objective reality. It is quite natural on one side if one often says that everybody portrays that somewhat different which the seer perceives, and, hence, one can count on nothing at all. One can concede such a fact, but stressing this is trivial, it is just a self-evident fact. It is natural that the ideal of the spiritual researcher can hardly completely attained and that, hence, everywhere in that which the spiritual researcher describes a subjective, individual element intermingles. He, who can compare, however, will find that if one does not only look at the pictures, but at the experiences they are more or less similar.
...
Thus, the determinative of truth or error in spiritual research is not anything that you acquire to yourself as a seer only, but something that you have already acquired before in intellectual and moral respects. In particular, moral things are strongly involved in how one interprets the supersensible phenomena. Someone who is prejudiced in a certain belief who has sympathies and prejudices for the fact that something certain should be true, brings this disposition, this prejudice into the supersensible world; he interprets the phenomena after it. Everything that he fathomed and announced of the spiritual world can be an error because it is coloured with his subjective belief.
Here is the area where I have to point—after we have discussed the sources of error of spiritual research—to the sources of error by the dissemination of spiritual science.
Spiritual research touches the most intimate of our hearts, the big questions of life. As the researcher carries his prejudices, his belief, his sympathies and antipathies into the spiritual world and thereby distorts the things and beholds wrong, the audience, the confessors—let me use the term—meet the spiritual researcher with certain beliefs, certain sympathies, or antipathies.
Something develops that does not lead to an objective judgement, but that is associated with all possible things which take effect from human being to human being. As strongly as the soul longs for experiencing something about these things, as the human soul is careless now and again to apply the unbiased reason to judge what the spiritual researcher brings forward, although it could be judged completely. Then belief often replaces an unbiased judgement because one likes that which the one or the other says maybe only because he brings it forward emphatically or because one finds him pleasant. The belief replaces the objective, conscientious verification; one accepts the things trusting in authority. The worst is if authority mania interposes itself between the spiritual researcher and his audience. Therefore, as with all things about which we have heard today that the spiritual researcher should follow them he keeps guard as it were beside his own self. The confessor, who listens to the spiritual researcher, should pay attention to his common sense and repeatedly carry out a kind of self-inspection to realise how much belief, prejudice, and sympathy intermingles in the facts that he accepts with the messages of the spiritual researcher.
Since in double respect accepting at mere belief causes big damage is a source of error just with the dissemination of spiritual science. The one is that the confessor does not develop healthy judgement what is the most necessary. Because common sense can be practised best of all if the results of spiritual research are thought through; you deprive yourself of the best opportunity if you accept these results at mere belief.
The second one is: because the things are important which the spiritual researcher has to say, he may exercise an incorrect influence over his supporters—if the listener does not constantly keep his common sense in readiness—because one believes him because one takes up that prejudiced what one should check, actually. Thereby the spiritual researcher tries—instead of exercising an entitled influence, while he is convincing and the listeners realise what he says—, to persuade while he overpowers their common sense. Even if this ideal condition cannot yet be reached today, one has to say that if truth should prevail the confessors should make it to the spiritual researcher as difficult as possible to spread his truths and should impose the highest requirements on him if he expresses his knowledge in concepts and ideas of common sense.
Then one counteracts what, unfortunately, is a fact and a forever returning source of error with the dissemination of spiritual truths that charlatanism and all possible similar mingles so easily with spiritual research. Unless just common sense is applied permanently, one does no longer know where conscientious spiritual research and where charlatanism and humbug is, and everything is thrown together.
...
Thus, it will be necessary above all, so that truth and not error can prevail with the dissemination of spiritual research, that in particular with the confessors of spiritual research critical reason, critical judgement, and common sense and not belief in authority develop.
This belief in authority will already wither away if a knowledge spreads among those who like and need spiritual research, a knowledge that is not common, unfortunately, among the confessors of spiritual science that a seer is no higher animal because he can behold in the supersensible world.
He does not differ from other human beings, just as little as a chemist, a botanist, a machinist, or a tailor. The possession of spiritual knowledge does not really determine the value of the human being but only that he can investigate this area and bring the acquired knowledge to his fellow men.
Only his common sense determines the value of the human being, his power of judgement and his moral qualities. Just spiritual research could prove that intellectual and moral qualities of the human being already determine his value, before he enters into the spiritual world, and that if he is inferior there the results of his research will be inferior. It is exceptionally necessary to realise this. Even more than the opponents of spiritual science, its supporters should take stock of themselves in this field.
Thus, I tried today to describe not only the possibilities of error finding spiritual truth, but also the possibility of error with the dissemination of spiritual truths. I tried to evoke a sensation that conscientious spiritual research acknowledges that its opponents can often argue this or that rightly and that conscientious spiritual research can and has to argue in the same way because it is just important in this area to face the error to recognise the truth.
For the confessors of spiritual science has that who wants to be conscientious, as a rule, only one consolation: truth has a strong power, and, even if error slips in because of the belief in authority, by the self-correction of truth those are cured who were supporters of this or that for a while at mere belief in authority. In most cases, such a cure takes place because one has to pay the price as it were to have had such a blind belief in authority. Often it just happened that because one did not observe the details sharply, but took one's word for it that then with a radical case it appears how little conscientiously one has gone forward. If then pain and disappointment are the more significant, the cure is just successful.

1913-05-01-GA152

(SWCC) is about the different nature of different types of knowledge with regards to the akashic records.

1917-06-26-GA176

Spiritual science cannot hand people something which, once assimilated, is enough for the rest of life.
I have often pointed out that there exists no short summary of a world view which can be kept at hand in one's pocket.
In place of ready formulas, science of the spirit provides something with which the human soul must repeatedly unite itself, which must be repeatedly inwardly assimilated and digested.
External truths such as those provided by natural science we can, if we have a good memory, take in and then possess them once and for all.
That is not possible with spiritual-scientific truths, the reason being that the truths of natural science are lifeless concepts.

The laws of nature are dead once they have been formulated into concepts, whereas spiritual-scientific truths are living concepts; if we condemn them to lifelessness because we accept them as if they were external truths, then they provide no nourishment; then they are stones the soul cannot digest.

1917-10-26-GA177

Two streams have arisen in modern science; one of these I have called Goetheanism, the other Darwinism. If you study everything I have written, from the very beginning, you will see that I have never failed to recognize the profound significance of Darwinism. Some people were foolish enough to think I had fallen under the spell of materialism, and so on, when I wrote anything in favour of Darwin. We know that this was not from conviction, but had quite different reasons; and the people who say such things only need to think about it and they will know better than anyone else that they are not true. But if you really study everything I have written you will see that I have always done justice to Darwinism, but have done so by contrasting it with Goetheanism, the view of the evolution of life. I have always sought to see such things as the theory of descent in the Darwinian sense on the one hand and the Goethean on the other, and I have done so because Goetheanism presents the ascending line, with organic evolution raised above mere physical existence.
I have often referred to the conversation between Goethe and Schiller:
Goethe drew a diagram of his archetypal plant and Schiller said, ‘That is not empiricism — learning from experience — it is an idea.’
Goethe's reply was: ‘In that case I have my idea in front of my eyes!’
For he saw the spiritual element in everything. Goethe thus initiated a theory of evolution which holds the potential for elevation to the highest spheres, for being applied to soul and spirit. Goethe may only have made a start with organic evolution in his theory of metamorphosis, but we have the evolution of the spirit to which humanity must attain from this fifth cultural age onwards — for human beings are becoming more inward, as I have shown. Goetheanism can have a great future, for the whole of anthroposophy is on those lines.
Darwinism considers physical evolution from the physical side: external impulses, struggle for survival, selection, and so on, and in this way outlines an evolution which is dying down — everything you can discover about organic life if you give yourself up to impulses which came up in earlier times. To understand Darwin, one merely has to make a synthesis of all the laws discovered in the past. To understand Goethe, one has to rise above this to laws which are ever new in earth existence.

Both are necessary. It is not Darwinism which is the problem, nor Goetheanism, but the fact that people want to follow one or the other rather than one and the other. This is what really matters.

Hermann Poppelbaum

essay 'Can Supersensible Facts Be Proven?'

published in Journal for Anthroposophy, Spring, 1970, No. 11.

Only a small minority venture to speak of an extension of knowledge beyond its traditional limits. They regard this possibility as having been opened up by Rudolf Steiner in the development of Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy and they are therefore necessarily interested in finding what justification there is for the claim of anthroposophy to be a legitimate and safe extension of knowledge into the realm of supersensible facts. They realize, of course, that any description of alleged supersensible facts must meet the rigorous standards for knowledge that have been set up for our age. This leads at once to the problem of proof.
The mere claim that anyone has “experienced” supersensible facts cannot satisfy a conscientious seeker. Are not, he will say, hallucinations experienced, too? What guarantee is there that the so-called spiritual investigator is not under a constant illusion that has grown in him into an elaborate and coherent system? Nor can the intensity with which a supersensible impression “comes” be called upon as a support. It speaks against rather than in favor of its validity, since everybody knows that the danger with all illusions is that they are so obviously “there” — for those who have them.
Can, then, supersensible facts be proven? For the sake of fairness to the seeker this question must find a straightforward answer.

Discussion

Note 1 - An entry point for study and bridging from mineral to spiritual science

introduction

There's a crack in everything
Worldview, oa Schema FMC00.275
- and see also worldview spiritual science.
Top five problems with current science
spiritual scientific worldview (as metarepresentation or physics part of mineral science)
- start with reading Four kinds of lawfullness in 1921-06-24-GA205 and 1921-06-24-GA205
  - relate these to the four elements and Planes or Worlds of Consciousness
- study Overview Golden Chain
- to come to Cosmic fractal

various

Mineral science#Note 1 - Reflections on modern physics
Evolution Module 3 - Integrating traditions, eg Schema FMC00.293 (big history)

fundamental

The nature of atoms

Related pages

References and further reading

Paul Eugen Schiller: 'Naturwissenschaft und Geisteswissenschaft' (1957)