When Healing Becomes Educating, Vol. 1 - Waldorf Research Institute

Modern science here makes an error from the viewpoint of spiritual
science. The new hypothesis given to a thinker is but the tip of the iceberg
of constellated ideas. To immediately attach the insight gained by the
hypothesis to an experimental method forces the mind to enter into a
speaking mode. The experience of the numinous character of mathematics
becomes muddied in the computational “speaking” mode of the experiment.
The results from such experiments are simply dim reflections of the sublime
mysteries of the higher realm of cognition. The mind, like a vortex, becomes
clogged with the factual flotsam produced by the experiment and is thereafter
encumbered in its ability to rise into higher realms of Inspiration. The mind
becomes enmeshed in the facts swirling around the phenomenon, and the
actual phenomenon itself becomes obscured by the hypothetical construct
formed as an abstract model for the experiment. The essential sacredness of
number is abstracted into fixed mathematical laws that appeal to the intellect
but leave the heart in hunger. The hypothesis then becomes a prison and
actually works to obscure the mind from its source of inspiration. To be
more exact, the forming of the hypothesis acts in this obscurative way, the
experience of the hypothesis still remains numinous.
The formed hypothesis creates an artificial system of logical relationships
—atoms, molecules, etc.—that reflect higher laws. The intellect can easily
grasp such metaphysical systems and use its innate ordering power to
juggle symbols into new hypothetical configurations. These metaphysical
abstractions may be capable of predicting the behavior of chemical
compounds, the velocity of a moving object and other physical phenomena,
but they impoverish the soul by denying the soul any relationship to the
outer world other than through intellectual abstractions. This alienation
feeds the self-directed impulses of the lower soul, and seeds for a technical
arrogance are sown in the thought life. Most of modern science stands at the
brink of this chilling wasteland.
The soul-warming Inspirational force of the initial hypothesis is
experienced as a proof that God exists and is communicative. When
this intimate, warm connection to the creative Godhead is traded for
a mechanical, abstract chain of technical events, the vortex of selfhood
separates further from the creative streaming currents that are the source of
its continued existence.
This is not meant to imply that all hypothesis and experiment be done
away with. On the contrary, experiment can be a supremely enriching
and empowering activity. The danger lies not in the experimentation but
in the drawing of intellectual, logical conclusions from the experiments.
A more wholesome technique is to regard the first hypothetical insight as
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