Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
ing mind as an idea”. One has the intuitive perception of the thing as a presence
within
oneself
, and not as an object
outside
one's own being. This sense of deep relatedness to
the object transforms consciousness into a means for holistic perception through which
we are able to apprehend the intrinsic qualities of things. The methodology develops
what can be called 'non-informational perception', in contrast to the conventional ap-
proach, which stresses perception in the service of information gathering. Non-informa-
tional perception is a subtle mode of perception that brings a sense of wholeness, whilst
informational perception, although coarser, gives access to the quantitative dimension
of reality that makes measurement possible.
Goethe paid careful attention to how intuitive insights dawned on him in the very
midst of careful observation, and was very interested in how Galileo used his own intu-
itive perceptions of swinging pendulums to develop an understanding of the behaviour
of falling bodies in general. For Goethian scientist Margaret Colquhoun, the process of
doing Goethian science involves four steps. First is
intuitive perception
, which occurs
spontaneously when one encounters a phenomenon without preconceptions through act-
ive looking. Next comes
exact sensing
, which involves a careful and precise examina-
tion of the parts of the phenomenon, such as, in a plant, the shapes and colours of leaves,
the pattern of their arrangement on the stem, where there are buds and hairs, and so on,
in great detail, to the extent that one almost deliberately allows oneself to lose sight of
the whole. Conventional science also does this extremely well, but moves on to make
reasoned, testable hypotheses and theories about the underlying mechanisms that could
have brought the plant into being. Goethe asks us to suspend the urge to theorise, and to
enter as fully as we can into the experience of sensing the phenomenon before our gaze.
This intention bears fruit in the next stage,
exact sensorial fantasy
, in which we close
our eyes and allow the details we so carefully observed in the previous stage to flow to-
gether in our imagination as a coherent unfolding of life and form. As we visualise the
plant sprouting from seed, growing, flowering, seeding and dying we may be fortunate
enough to enter into the next stage,
seeing in beholding
, where we are given a revela-
tion of the inner being of the plant and glimpse its holistic sacred quality. The final stage
has been called
being at one with
, in which we have returned to a state of what Mar-
garet Colquhoun calls 'intuitive precognition', in which we commune with the unbroken
wholeness of the phenomenon, realising that each worldly thing is a manifestation of a
single immanent loving creative energy.
This approach is best practised communally, so that it becomes possible to discrim-
inate between what is common to the perceptions of a group of investigators and what
could be merely idiosyncratic fantasy and projection. A similar approach, although not
based on the Goethian methodology outlined above, has been used with great success by
the animal welfare scientist Françoise Wemelsfelder, who has found that people's sub-
