There is an extraordinary amount of wrong thinking in our day. One can suffer the pains of martyrdom from the terribly illogical life of the world. Anyone who has acquired a certain clairvoyance does not simply feel that one thing is correct and another incorrect, but he suffers actual pain when confronted by illogical thinking, and a sense of well-being in connection with clear, transparent thinking. ~ Rudolf Steiner

I think many people experience that pain without understanding the cause. That is why they get so angry when they are confronted with illogical ideas, or even threatening logical ideas.

Main points

The world is intelligible. That is believed without reason by the scientist, but known by the metaphysician.

It takes effort to engage in logical thinking despite all the resources available.

The human being is defined as the “rational animal”. The human has the features of corporeal things, living things, animals, but adds rationality. The failure to act intelligibility is the failure to actualize all one’s possibilities as a human.

God desires to be known.

The purpose of intelligence is to know the Good; only the good is worthy of love.

Space and time are not neutral containers in which events occur.

Space and time are fundamental and cannot be explained by a simpler concept

Just as space is “lumpy”, i.e., warped by massive objects, so also is time. Events can only happen at fortuitous times and places.

Consciousness is likewise fundamental and nothing exists without a being able to be conscious of it.

Human consciousness changes over time. That is why it is difficult to understand the mindset of previous ages.

The modern consciousness is stuck in subject-object thinking. It only thinks in terms of hypothesis formation, which cannot lead to certain knowledge.

The scientist presumes he is experiencing the world out there, right now. However, the soul is creating a representation of the world in its imagination.

Common sense is the faculty that combines sense data – which William James called a “blooming, buzzing, confusion” – into a coherent representation of the external world.

The modern mind has also neglected the Self, assuming that science denies consciousness, the self, free will, etc. despite its obvious absurdity.

The Self is transcendent to the human being. The Self is unchanging. The human Ego, despite its fickleness, is mistakenly assumed to be the Self.

The Self manifests in different states, of which the human state is one of them.

The human state includes sheaths including the living soul, the animal soul, and the intellectual soul. They interpenetrate each other. In other words, the living soul has limited feelings and intelligence. The intellectual soul has emotional content, etc. This is known in esoteric schools which offer training in self-observation. This is not taught in universities.

There are states higher than the human. Few have experienced and written about them. Dante is one, but hardly the only one.

The formless causal state of deep sleep; was known to the Medievals of the West, although nearly completely forgotten today.