User:Lucy Skywalker

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Arrived - New Year's day 2007

Much of my life I've been in a sort of wilderness like Moses... like Einstein, Newton, and so many from Silicon Valley I suffered Asperger Syndrome, but it was borderline and I didn't know it. But now, thanks to a strict gluten-free-casein-free diet, I'm free of the root condition - though I cannot undo, nor would I wish to undo a lifetime of valuable experiences and lessons I would never have otherwise faced. I'm both artist and scientist by study and recreation, I inherit excellent editing skills, and I am trained in spiritual counselling and life coaching. I care about the planet and humankind. I'm widely read, specializing in holistic material. And I'm a strong supporter of Jesus though I have my reservations about the Churches (but still care about them).

I stand firmly on both sides of the Creationist/Evolutionist fence. I passionately believe we each need to find our own inner "story" that speaks to the trusting child in each of us, yet also satisfies the adult sceptical scientist in each of us. I am saddened by the current low level of debate where people take "sides" and cannot entertain a "win-win" vision, a "both-and" version that is better than either side alone, that recognizes elements of both intellectual truth and emotional needs on both sides and I mean both sides.

[edit] Visions for my work here and elsewhere

I believe strongly that we need to develop foundations for an acceptable Spiritual-Science-Beyond-Rudolf-Steiner. I believe that we can do it, and that we need it to develop the holistic vision with the excellence it needs, and develop the holistic part of the Wiki vision. This needs high standards of truth, courtesy, openness, self-awareness, awareness of problem issues, and willingness to work with "both/and" in preference to "either/or". There is at present a separation between Steiner's vital work and methods, and the rest of the "New Age" developments. For instance, Ken Wilber does not even mention Steiner in his classic "Spectrum of Consciousness" and Steiner is missing from the well-respected William Bloom's "New Age Reader". There is also a separation between Steiner's Spiritual Science and the scientific community, and between Steiner's contributions to Christianity and the Christian Churches, especially the fundamentalist ones (who despite dogmatic intolerance, also know the power of prayer and miracles of healing). Three great schisms. This needs working on. A key element requires developing / rewriting Steiner's "Philosophy of Freedom" - to read for a modern audience, to understand good psychology, practice courtesy and NPOV as here on Wikipedia, know the best as well as the worst of fundamentalisms, and have an informed view of both the strengths and the weaknesses of the holistic movement.

My website is for "Helping People Helping the Planet" but right now it's being revised. I plan to set aside space in its Forum to enable a team to come together. For years I have a worked to develop foundations for a methodology-proven, discernment-seeking, context-sensitive Spiritual Science, rooted in Steiner's methodology but reaching further and aware of the best of transpersonal psychological work. I want to enable such a "Spiritual Scientific" methodology to become transparent to development and reform through running its own wiki website. I see the need for a "X-NPOV" (Extra-sensitive NPOV) protocol for this, to enable transparent research and developments that can help the planet, that start off from being straightforward, courteous, bold and open, like Wikipedia. At present there is a prevalent sceptical attitude which dismisses, often in a polemical and unscientific way, supernatural phenomena that do not fit current "Bright" metaphysical-naturalist scientific paradigms. Yet scepticism is important - so long as it is practised fairly with NPOV. It seems a contradiction in terms to ignore the reality of emotional responses, or to "believe" in a Scientific Method which can only be applicable to physical realities. Scientific Method itself, by its very nature, should be testable and developable, open to explore the methods appropriate to exploring inner realities with the exactitude of scientific method. But this requires a close examination of the history of Scientific Method, and the process of thinking whereby we each understand and accept Scientific Method as a methodology for testing "the true nature of Reality".

[edit] Spiritual Science beyond Steiner (25/01/07)...

There is a poor global relationship between religious, scientific, and esoteric perspectives. And in each group there are fundamentalists who exacerbate this poor relationship into active guerrilla warfare. Yet there are key qualities I respect in all three POV groups. The global need is, surely, to enable people to fulfil their highest potential. Life suggests that both cooperation and competition are needed for this, but that for upbuilding rather than destroying, cooperation needs to have a slight edge over competition. Wikipedia seems to show this creatively balanced imbalance at work in a powerful way. All this encourages me to go deep into the basic energies that sustain each, to explore, listen, empathise.

I've experienced supernatural miracles, as well as read about them, and talked to others who have experienced supernatural life-changing miracles of healing. At times of profound difficulties, I have asked Great Spirit for help, and I have received help that defies all statistical probabilities. But I'm also a scientist by nature. I want to have space to answer whatever sceptical questions arise for me, and whatever sceptical questions other people want to pose - so long as they do so in courtesy and from genuine interest in Truth. I want space to keep on answering questions, if one question simply opens up more, or opens up emotional issues to explore.

Rudolf Steiner's "Philosophy of Freedom" was the key which in my youth gave me my freedom to stand in my own truth and feel comfortable about doing this, even though everyone around me might disbelieve me and try to persuade me otherwise. It did not turn me in on myself or feed me to some cult group. On the contrary, my new peace of mind made it far easier for me to pay attention to others' points of view and assess their validity more fairly. It was of CRUCIAL importance to me to be able to prove to my satisfaction that the act of thinking, as I think, is an objective experience, and that I do not have to accept someone else's insistence that it is subjective. It was of CRUCIAL importance to see myself applying the essence and spirit of Scientific Method to the inner realities in my life, and to recognize this as valid scientifically for myself, even if I could not prove it to anyone else.

Now the "Philosophy of Freedom" does not look like Steiner's later work any more than sleeping looks like waking. Yet my life, subsequent to discovering Steiner and grasping the core of his "Philosophy of Freedom", cannot function without this key, any more than my waking could function without my sleeping. The core concepts of the "Philosophy of Freedom" are now fundamental tools in my life, and thus I have no problem in recognizing Steiner talking about the same bedrock in his own life and work.

I took up studying Steiner because of supernatural experiences I had, which only Steiner could satisfactorily explain and help me live with. Steiner showed me how mathematics is the expression of a reality that is basically supersensible, and is thus a very good starting-point to grasp the essential nature of supersensible realities with clarity of thinking. Steiner encouraged his students to rewrite the "Philosophy of Freedom" out of their own experiences, and this is what I've always tried to do. I sometimes think that the threefold schism with fundamentalists has opened up because this rewriting of the "POF" has not happened - and its vital concept gets clogged with time.

I've lived 40 years since discovering Steiner. I do not regard myself as an anthroposophist in the "descriptive" sense of Anthroposophy as it stands, but I do regard myself as a scientist of the spirit who has a very wide range of knowledge and experience, despite the "desert" existence of much of my life. Yet I have almost never found a genius to equal him. The problem with Wikipedia (and I don't want to change its setup because usually it works) is that it would not be NPOV as normally understood to gather together character references to Steiner from credible people like Canon Shepherd. Or would it, or could it be, somehow?

Some people say that Anthroposophy does not apply scientific methodology. This is an important issue to answer properly. It absolutely depends on grasping Steiner's core concepts in the "Philosophy of Freedom", not because Steiner said them, but because one can see their objective truth for oneself. By going back to these core concepts, we could build a far more robust and verifiable basis for a publicly acceptable Spiritual Science. There is an overdue need to bring up the sticking-points. Fundamentalists use dirty tactics sometimes, but not everything they say is wrong or inappropriate. Steiner's spiritual-scientific method needs humanizing and rewriting to incorporate the tremendous twentieth century advances in psychology and a lot more. Steiner is not at odds with Christ and has a vital contribution to make to understanding Evolution in a much deeper way that allows for, indeed reveals, spiritual realities at work behind the evolutionary appearances. However, there is increasing evidence that Steiner is not always correct in his details, and to us today, certain things he said look very odd - especially when taken out of context.

We need to face the widespread perceptions that a) Steiner is impossible to understand unless you are a follower; b) he is not in the least degree scientifically rigorous; c) he is not Christian; d) Scientific Method is adequately practised by scientists; and e) the anthroposophical point of view that believes, implicitly if not explicitly, that Steiner is always right, or at least cannot say where Steiner has ever been wrong. Thus we can clear the way to develop a holistic Scientific Method.

Scientific Method relies on a) consistently careful observation; b) drawing reasonable hypotheses from the observations; and c) being open to all further evidence that might challenge the hypotheses. Not all scientists today practice Scientific Method without bias, and because the inner world has been so sidelined by Science, for many scientists it has stayed "infantile" and intrudes all the more violently through emotion and prejudice, on occasions. So for instance look not only at James Randi's challenges but also at Doris Stokes' Australian broadcast where she caught him live on the air telling lies as part of his attack on her (Doris Stokes More Voices In My Ear). Look at CSICOP but also at the [Alternative Science] website.

Now Anthroposophists sometimes take on Steiner's pronouncements as implicitly believable, to put into practice, though Steiner himself asked people NOT to believe what he said, but to live with his pronouncements as hypotheses, and test them for themselves. It seems to me that nowadays this needs to be seen to be done much more transparently, if the objections of critics are to be answered fairly. Steiner did not say that the only people who could evaluate him were Anthroposophists; he said that he spoke of what he had himself experienced and that if another did not experience the same thing, this was no proof in itself that what he had said was untrue. I have had experiences that others have not believed actually happened, where I have even been doubtful myself. In such cases I have examined my experiences carefully to check their veracity, reality and significance, realizing that the disbelief of others does not disprove my experience - but sometimes it makes life easier simply not to mention them to audiences likely to be hostile - or at least, to choose my words carefully. This is a delicate and essential matter to grasp: the scientific validity of both positive proof and negative absence of proof. One analogy of this is that I cannot claim that Australia does not exist because I have not been there. I have examined the matter, and have found it reasonable to take the evidence of others as a working hypothesis. I have done this with Steiner, and I have sometimes arrived at different conclusions.

Steiner, in the "Philosophy of Freedom", taught me the method. This was, in essence: 1) - to observe what was going on "within" with the same very great care as one would apply to conventional scientific observations, and, indeed, as the whole of modern psychology has taught us to begin to do with our inner realities; and 2) - to find within the observation and experience, one's personal working proof of the objectivity of one's act of Thinking itself (see above), an objectivity of greater reality than anything to which Thinking pays attention, either in one's senses, or in one's feelings, or in one's object-directed thoughts, or in one's actions, or in the so-called "Real World". This is not to deny the vital importance of our physical world and existence, but to establish a scientifically valid and accurate understanding of the relationship between Thinking and the rest of Reality. This greatly empowers what Thinking can contribute.

Now of course, this concept turns the tables on the conventional understanding of Subjective and Objective, and is more than most people want to - yes - think about clearly. But this "turning the tables" is the key, the one thing truly provable in the whole of Steiner's work, on which is built everything else that he did. But it is only provable by each individual, personally, individually. It does not prove Steiner as infallible, it merely opens a long-locked gateway to a valid Science of the Spirit. What can be found there is another matter.

Most people cannot bear the Thought - yes, look at it, see how it is a Thought - that Thinking has Objectivity and that thus within personal experience can be found scientifically objective proof. It is much easier to think "If one's own experience cannot be guaranteed to be reproduced, that means that it is not objective" - without NOTICING that one must THINK to reach this conclusion!... "You are avoiding thinking about Thinking, you are not observing yourself Thinking, yet you are using Thinking to decide that what you think is subjective, says the Philosophy of Freedom's key concept, in this case. "If you insist that Thinking is subjective, you must then also observe that it would be unscientific, contradictory, to think you can use thinking, which you consider to be a subjective function, to define objectivity".

Now, when one has grasped this key concept, the next thing that matters is to throw it away... forget about it... for it will come back when it is needed, if it has been properly grasped. For this key of Steiner is not the end of Life in itself, it is only a tool, a tool to give us freedom. True, it is a tool that has the potential to develop a whole new dimension of Science, a tiny key that has great and as yet scarcely realized potential except among a few Anthroposophists, a tiny key that is more powerful than all that Ken Wilber collected in his Spectrum of Consciousness, with regard to developing a science of the spirit for the future... yet also, a tiny key that has been isolated where it should be used to underpin, relate, and above all, Clear The Way...