MAN MUST TEACH

Richard Feringer's Notes on Rosenstock-Huessy's Works

written about 1940
From: Vol.I Argo Press, Norwich, Vt. 1981
Feringer notes
Notes started: 8-13-91
Last edited: 3-3-99

Contents

Sociology of Teaching and Augustine

1.ERH describes the historical situation of 4th century Western culture; the scene is the transition from classical times to the rise of the Catholic church. Augustine finds himself defining his role as a teacher and priest on the one hand, and as a father on the other. Could he, and did he, have the right to attempt to educate his son?  And if so, what were to be the elements of creative teaching?  ERH uses the term “creative teaching” to mean the transmission of the spirit,  as in recreating the human spirit in students (engaging oneself in living, in participating in community life toward its regeneration)

.

2.ERH suggests that  with the break-up of the family today,  the question is relevant once again.  In the 4th century the family was the primary teaching link for society.  Still,  Augustine puts the question to himself, “Can parents teach their children, and if so, by what intellectual authority?”  Today, with institutionalized education, the family no longer has such a primary influence.  It was Augustine’s faith that he can be a rightful candidate.  Another title for the essay could be, “Who is your teacher when I, your father, seem to teach you?”  (p.2)  The thrust of the essay, then, is the method by which his teaching was accomplished.  THIS ESSAY IS NOT AN INTELLECTUAL MONOLOGUE, BUT A STRUGGLE BETWEEN TWO WILLING SOULS, FATHER AND SON.

3.ERH classifies this essay as neither fiction nor philosophy nor theology, nor even autobiography, but rather correspondence, “…a sociological phenomenon.” (p.3)  It is not “personal” in the sense of interest only for the two parties;  rather it has a wider scope, two hearts searching for a general truth. To understand social affairs, all forms of literature must be called upon:

We think for our personal salvation.  And all social forms result from this fight for salvation of persons.  Of this, the De Magistro, is a telling example. (p.3)

4.The essay says a great deal about education, but the treatment would be unheard-of in present-day institutional literature on the subject.  Augustine is not writing as a professional,  a scholar, or Bishop, but personally, with an interest in the state of society.  And ERH makes such a point of the setting and reasons for this dialogue because:

…it is possible that social science springs from personal bias and passion and belonging.  Then, it is true that we do not teach others to do good because we, like Augustine, are compelled to teach by our own life’s forces,  even with the odds as in this case, against our qualification to act the teacher. (p.3)

Teaching, in this sense, is an integral part of life, a necessity implying a new view of education, as the reader will discover below.

5.ERH contrasts his view with that of John Dewey, who, having written voluminously on education,  HAS NEVER STATED WHY HE WRITES. The teacher is taken for granted by Dewey, but not granted any articulated intention.  Is the only reward for the public school teacher his pay?  And if not, do we assume this teacher’s goal is the passing on of information?  Can this situation be the role of a good teacher?  Can there be an unarticulated personal “agenda” of the teacher, and if so, is this a healthy situation?

To raise such questions as who should teach and why, ERH asserts, puts education into the realm of social science and politics.

But as it is, education is a humanistic and even humanitarian specialty since it is mere giving to somebody, with the teacher receiving a salary, in reward. (p.4)

6.ERH’s point in raising all of these issues is to point out Augustine’s relevance for our time.  He developed the ideas of metalogic, which assigned the highest purpose for education,  and of metaphysics, freeing mankind to study nature objectively and thereby de-demonize it.  With metaphysics, the old myths of demonized nature could be overcome, and principles of modern science methodology could be articulated. Descartes later advocated separation of mind and body to articulate the method in greater detail, opening the way for modern science.

Augustine suggests a third method to enlighten us about the understanding of experience, because neither of these first two methods addressed society.   Augustine assumed that humans think, so that they can survive; that this knowledge would be a universal curriculum, and therefore everyone needed to teach. Why is he teaching, by what authority, with what conditions?  He saw that the relation of teacher and  student, and the orientation of both, are therefore of crucial importance in social science! Furthermore, Augustine asserts that a vital science of society must unite all three of these methodologies into a single study of human experience, i.e. the creative powers of the universe (religion), nature, and human society. In other words, human experience cannot be understood without such integration.

The Distemporanity of Education

1.To summarize, Augustine recognized that there needed to be three different methods for understanding experience: 1) meta-ethics for the understanding of the creative powers of the universe, describing  the goals of mankind, 2) metaphysics to study nature so that man could understand the concrete world around him in a de-demonized way, and 3) a science of society in order to understand human behavior. Each of these methods would have to be different, because each phenomenon was intrinsically different. Finally, he recognized that at the core of these methodologies would be different concepts of the phenomenon of time, which he saw  as intrinsically different from space. The concentration on space is the orientation of natural scientists, who define time as the fourth dimension of space.

Since thought requires time, one cannot observe it, although one can know it exists.

If we are products of our time, we shall never know this same time as we may know a fact outside nature. (p.6)

Thought and education both take time.  Modern thinkers have dissected time into “atoms” of before and after, the concept of “present” being a split-second, a fiction.  While this seems satisfactory for physics, it doesn’t work for society.  For if time units are disconnected, unrelated to each other, then education is not possible.  Planning, for instance, can be for hours or even years,  whereby,  psychologically, time appears to stand still. (p.6)

2.The notion that time flows, but also appears to stand still, is paradoxical.  But undeniably all action, including thinking and teaching  takes time.  The teaching act is central to a philosophy of time, because there is an “older'” and  “younger,”  and when interacting they both exist in a conscious “present.”  Another way of stating this is that the teacher has a prior knowledge of the subject, the student a later exposure.  THIS CONCEPT ALSO DESCRIBES THE BASIS FOR ALL SOCIAL RELATIONS. (p.9)   People with different points of view (experience of times) are linked together in the present.

3.The concept of different “times” of people means each has different ideas, different interests, etc. Differences are a prescription for acrimony,  of course, but when persons can function in a group, in harmony in the “present,”  they share the same “times.”

In learning, in teaching, in education, the miracle is achieved of bringing both together in a third time.  This bridge is called the present. (p.7)

ERH goes on the point out that if this harmony were not created, people would be unable to communicate. He  confesses that in all his searches he has found no other thinker before Augustine who has articulated social problems according to this time perspective.

In the “present,” ERH tells us,  “Here, the darkest division of man stares us in the face.” The abyss of time is ahead of and behind the group. The teacher’s preparation is based on knowledge from the past, and the student’s anticipation looks to the future. But ERH wonders why, in all the treatises on education, the teacher is not mentioned. He/she is considered an “objective” observer, without a particular time perspective,  rather than a crucial participant in the act of transforming. IT IS THIS TRANSFORMATION THAT SPELLS OUT THE EDUCATIONAL TASK. Without the transforming role of the teacher, we lack of ability to communicate adequately, to achieve cooperation, and thereby are primed to destroy our communities. To understand, one must have a sense of time and timing. (p.8)

4.Throughout history, movements die, people and ideas pass on, epochs pass on, generations fade. “And yet the spirit’s bloodstream survives every one age.” (p.8)  Where cultures survived, it is precisely this that was their accomplishment and revitalizing engine.  As Augustine and ERH assert, it is this spirit that must lie at the heart of all teaching, because it is the only way that the times, from age to age, can be united and integrated. It is the only way the student can understand his own experience in context.

5.Unless we reach back into history, then forward in anticipation, and strive to build a better future,  we will not rise above animal cultures, which are imprisoned in relearning all of reality each generation.  This concept is the difference between Christian and secular sociology.

When curriculum is based on subject matter only, it becomes hopelessly departmentalized into specialized “disciplines.”  When it is based on mandates from the “state,” it degenerates inexorably into propaganda and lies. The only avoidance of these pitfalls is to put the transformation of the spirit at the center of teaching and learning.

We need an answer to the simple question: How can people who are not contemporaries live together successfully? And Augustine’s answer is: They succeed if they admit that they form a succession, if they affirm their quality of belonging to different times.  If the time difference is admitted, they may build a bridge across the times, in corresponding acts.  By these acts, that which is called “the present” is produced.  The present is not a given data of nature but a fruit of social efforts. (pp.8,9)

Analysis of the Text

1.There are 14 chapters in the “De Magistro” text.  In the first seven,  Augustine and son Adeodatus engage in a dialogue about semantics, which Adeotatus sums up:

All speech is teaching.  Words are signs.  Signs need not be words.  Acts may be shown without a sign.  (p.10)

2.Chapter 8 seems to be a play of ideas back and forth about the reality of words and signs, as differentiated from actions.

3.Chapter  9:  “A sign may be equally or more valuable than the reality signified.  But our cognition of the sign is less precious than our cognition of the reality signified.” (p.10)

4.Chapter 10: There must be a connection between signs and real objects or acts.

5.Chapter 11:  Understanding results from connecting words and signs to concrete things and acts. While words alone can challenge us to “seek reality,”  we must then seek understanding by making the connection between the words and concrete events.

6.Chapter 12:  “Sensations and mental perceptions are two classes of our perceptions.  Sensations never are replaceable through words of others, except on faith.”

This is to say, hearing speech from others is either doubted, or received skeptically, or taken on faith. In no case does this represent proper learning, however. Obviously, with “proper learning,” words must be connected with experience.

7.Chapter 13:  The listener is always the judge of the speaker, that is,  judging speech. The problem, of course, is to determine if the speaker is speaking his mind, or is lying.  Just as often, we may fail to speak our true thoughts, and quarrels or misunderstandings result.

8.Chapter 14:  “Nobody sends his children to school to let them think the teacher’s ideas.  They ought to get the objective knowledge.  This they only learn by spontaneous consideration inside themselves.”  During the teaching act, or dialogue, no time seems to pass (consciously).

Words from outside us should be taken as admonitions; one learns (understands, as contrasted with mere recall of information) only by thinking about the words, and thus, in the final analysis, one must teach oneself.

Repentance for a Social Situation

1.ERH points out that in “De Magistro,” Augustine has laid foundations; foundations are necessary so that regeneration can take place. These foundations are the assumptions to which one can return  as a new starting point.

He also asserts that the essay is not laid out along the lines of a Platonic dialogue. The descriptive part in the beginning does not assume to judge the “traditional” way of seeing teaching at that time, but rather to describe what is being jettisoned in the next part of “De Magistro.”  The dialogue is political, dealing with the relations between father and son, and with little theory per se.

It establishes the difference between Greek and Christian thought, whereby the Greek mind can revel in pure ideas  and the Christian believes in meaning, in terms of the intended consequences of action.  In Greek thought, a dualism  separates theory from practice.  In Christian separation doesn’t exist, but another dualism does,  between seriousness and play.  “…the only dualism admitted by a Christian community.” (p13)  

The first half of “De Magistro” is a prelude to an exercise for more serious topics.

2.ERH goes into a long discussion about the interrelation between work (struggle) and play, which, summarized, turns out to mean both are natural and necessary. To find the truth among us, we must both work and play together. Thus, it was appropriate for Augustine and Adeotatus to play with ideas as a prelude to the   struggle to follow.

If they would analyze the impact of this one little fact, they would face the real educational mystery, which is that man meets his fellow man only when he meets him on different levels. This is not a logical proposition; and it is not a psychological proposition.  It is a social and historical phenomenon…The student plays, the teacher struggles with the truth. (p15)

3.He goes on to explain that the natural attitude of the student, even in the best circumstances, is to come to the classroom with an anticipation to learn.  But, by its very nature, the experience inside the classroom is vicarious reality.  Even though the teacher comes to the same scene with seriousness and conviction, he must allow the student to play with the ideas.  “We need a transformer, to bring the truth from the form of conviction to the form of play.”

Other transformations must take place.  The student must realize that one day the knowledge will have serious meaning in his life, and so his attitude must eventually change from play to seriousness.  “Good teaching begins with a joke and ends with a challenge.”

4.Two dangers degrade teaching into puerility (childishness), or sublimating it into crusading.  When the aforementioned transformations take place, on the other hand, “…all that which education can do, has been done.”

There is, of course, always risk involved; the teacher can be, and often is, misunderstood.  Methods of teaching for rote memory can easily be done, sans risk. Being misunderstood naturally arises when each party believes he/she is a master of the language, and leaves the situation believing he has been understood. This is seldom the case.  Nothing of importance transpires between student and teacher with rote learning.

Both teacher and student must struggle, both must change levels of attitude, and most importantly, the result of this mutual struggle and play must progress beyond how the two conceive of it.

5.That “beyond” lies in use of the knowledge.  At some point in the conversation, the logic, pragmatism, science, and scholarship transform into reality.

6.The “struggle” of the teacher signifies that he has put his heart and soul into the act, and good teaching requires this. Modern educational psychology ignores this fact. Augustine’s meta-ethics requires that the teacher be satisfied with his ethical role.

To teach as defined above portrays the struggle of the teacher to balance duties to the truth with love of the student. These oppose each other.

The conflict which the teacher takes upon himself lies between his thought in his own time and the survival of this thought beyond his own time. (p.17)

To survive these opposing forces, one must have a “soul,” which is the power one needs to rise above these conflicting forces.

7.If this struggle of the teacher can be recognized by the student, the student may be transported into a serious and beneficial fellowship of learning.

8.There are two forces that must be present for good teaching and learning; faith and love underpin the power of the soul. For the student of good will, faith in the teacher and love of truth.  For the teacher, faith in the truth and love for the student.  Without such good will, significant teaching and learning cannot occur.

The Correspondence of Human Beings

1.The power of teaching, of instilling creativity,  is beyond both student and teacher. God is the source of both love and truth.  In modern educational psychology, the teacher is mere facilitator to the student’s intellect.  In antiquity it was the teacher who was the fountainhead of truth.

2.Augustine’s view of these formulations was that they were both deficient.  Dualisms usually turn into exploitation by the half of the duality  that obtains and maintains power over the other. Capitalist exploits labor, husband exploits wife and family, although that power is always limited in practice.

IT IS INSTINCTIVE AMONG HUMANS THAT THEY WISH TO BE CONSIDERED HUMAN BEINGS.  They wish to be loved by someone. ERH points out that we have many names – teacher, doctor, boss, husband, wife, American, Christian – and could abandon any or all of these and survive, with one exception.  We insist on recognition as “being” and as a “human being” (p.19),  without which we could NOT survive.

3.     All specific social functions are mere surface roles compared to this underlying lasting role.  This role consists of a correspondence between my names for myself and society’s names for me. This correspondence binds us.  Without it, we lose our being and our humanity.  Most moderns take this correspondence so much for granted…(p.19)

THE IMPLICATION OF THIS NOTION COULD NOT BE MORE FUNDAMENTAL; THAT A GOAL OF MERE GROWTH IN INTELLIGENCE AND WISDOM AND EVEN SURVIVAL IS NOT ENOUGH. “Foxes are intelligent and weeds grow tall.”  Our fundamental goal for all education must be for individuals to acquire the status of being recognized, addressed, and thought of as a human being.  We risk life and limb and would submit to abuse and endless suffering every day to maintain our need for personal dignity.  The truth of this may be seen in the struggles all around us.

This need for being addressed as human,  the listening for our name to be called, derives of course from our language, which exists only in correspondence with others.

4.No one, then, is self-taught. Neither teacher nor student can claim supremacy. Their humanity arises from a common spirit, a correspondence of spirits.  “Hence the two Egos must be made to perceive this common basis, background, condition of one spirit.” (p.21)

For one’s ego to be sacrificed in an atmosphere of love and faith also means that the creative power from teaching and learning and the willingness to sacrifice for the welfare of the group comes from outside both parties. This outside power is what ERH identifies as God.

The Biographical Place of “De Magistro”

1.What does dialogue achieve in the personal life of the two involved?

There is always the danger that the student can become a follower of the teacher, tied to his ideas and unable to become an independent thinker in his own right! So Augustine makes very clear that he is not the teacher, or leader; he strives in the end to provide (spiritual) emancipation to his son/student.

[RF – This seems to me another paradox in life, where one must have teachers who are not teachers.  Obviously Augustine’s message is that no good teacher attempts to tie the student permanently to his (teacher’s) thinking.  Therefore, teaching and role models can only be temporary.  The student borrows the ideas and behavior until, and only until he rises to the capability to think for himself, and hopefully in time go beyond his teacher.]

Augustine, as a cleric,  states that only God can be our ultimate teacher and leader.

2.This appears to be the logic behind ERH’s view of history – it must be biographical and autobiographical (the professional term is “narrative history”). Otherwise, one reading about Socrates or Plato or any other great figure of the past is very likely to catch too tight a hold on one’s thinking, rendering it narrow and incapable of change.  It would be precisely the teacher’s function to insure that the student then becomes emancipated and free, transformed into  an independent thinker. (see pp.21-23).

As Augustine exclaims in the tenth book of the Confessions: “People must be connected by the bond of charity before they can listen and speak to each other with profit. (p.23)  [emphasis mine – RF]

3.He goes on to explain that teaching is charity, not “thought.”  He asserts that one cannot teach science scientifically, because trust and respect cannot be established by formulae.  In elaboration he explains that love and will are not the same, and modern psychology (especially educational psychology) mistakes them for being the same.  One can force students to do exercises because of the power of  position. One cannot will the student to believe (respect) by this method. The teacher, he reminds us, has no spiritual (lasting) authority outside the classroom.

4.Teaching is the model for establishing efficacious relationships, because it is the model for creating time (gaining time, in other words).  [RF – Armed with knowledge, one is relieved from the necessity of re-inventing it.]

Our life experience is full of stimuli, which pushes us to change, redirecting our attention and dedication too quickly. What is important in life is that which is lasting; behavior, formulations that work, basic principles – truth.  The protection against these fragmenting forces is therefore the teaching situation, which acts to encapsulate teacher and student, literally taking them out of the time of demands from outside the classroom. (Using the term classroom in the broadest sense; it may be inside a building, or beside a shade tree.)

5.Teacher and student give each other time. By the mutual willingness to speak and listen to each other, by the opportunity for each to express their (always different) experiences in reality, by taking time to think and time to understand and grow (a period of incubation), they create an environment of peace. Peace can be defined as the process by which people give each other time.

This requires faith on the part of the student that truth is worth seeking, and love (desire) on the part of the teacher for the student to grow.  This body of time incorporates three times – past, present, and future. The teacher  already has had time with the subject matter, the student  will have time in the future, and both meet in the present to communicate.

6.These then are the principles for establishing transformation.  None of this is incorporated in the modern psychologists’ theories of cognition, or conditioning, or humanistic interaction.

Former Evaluations

1.ERH  evaluates what three other scholars have said ” De Magistro”  was about. Each of these took from the text according to their biases. Leckie, a modern scholar,  was looking for educational method, and  wrote about cognition, the humanities, and Rhetoric.

In 1527, Erasmus of Rotterdam commented on the text.  Being a humanist, he was looking for the basic philosophy; his question was, “What is the fundamental system of ideas he is representing?”  Put another way, Erasmus  assumes religion is one of several philosophies. In the middle ages Bonaventura was looking for God.

2.Each of these scholars put aside parts of the text that were not relevant, according to their biases.  Rosenstock-Huessy does the same, by his own admission, but asks the reader to consider that he left out nothing in his analysis.

Bonaventura separates Heaven and earth as different entities. Erasmus assumes that thought is the principle creative force of the world. And Leckie, the modern scientist,  looks for the scientific method of teaching.

3.Rosenstock-Huessy’s bias is that all of these are part of the same reality, and that the goal of society is to create peace (cooperation).  To do this is no small effort;  teaching is not scientific, but educational and political in essence. The power to speak the truth, to speak and listen,  is a miracle, and its accomplishment represents the creative spirit within us.  This source is not within us, but has been passed down to us,  and of course its carrier is true speech. This ERH calls the Holy Spirit.  Rosenstock-Huessy asserts that St. Augustine was the first great scholar to understand and articulate these concepts.

4.Teaching and learning, by this concept, only truly occurs when a “present” is created between teacher and student.  This present represents a living cell, a time capsule in which the spirit of the discipline and its place in creating community is established.  The living cell creates time and space in which the living spirit can be realized, a social and psychological phenomenon.

Contrarily, modern so-called “sciences” of learning are inadequate descriptions of this more vital educational process. Memorization and logic do not describe the creative act, they are merely mental manipulations,   characteristic of dead cells.  No viable society can be made up from dead cells!

The Creation of a Body of Time

1.Dialogue at the time of Augustine was not new; however, there was a difference between Christian dialogue as articulated by Augustine, and pre-Christine (Platonic) dialogue. In the Platonic dialogues, students were “taught” by the “master.”  The interlocutors were either proven wrong, or all participants were  proven inadequate to the task.  There was play at the beginning, then serious discussion.

2.Augustine introduced a third element, in which each participant would trade roles as speaker and listener, as teacher and student. In this third part there was a free examination of ideas, especially questioning of old ideas. An atmosphere of equality was created, which was to lead to a formalizing agreement about the future.  Formalizing meant articulating a new situation from the past, what should be carried forward, what should end, what possible new or revised methods of examination might be needed. All this indicated  a vitalizing break between past and future.

3.In this new situation, the past can accept change because the teacher (representing past experience) participates.  Future, then,  is in part a continuation, and in part a portent of new directions.

Each generation is made up  partly of the past and partly unique newness.   The goal  is to unify time (correspondence) in the present,  of past, and future. Eugen says:

…my knowledge of this break produces in me the forwardizing energy called teaching by which part of my experience can be regenerated in somebody else. (p.30)

4.Man possesses an innate desire to pass something on, to connect with the future.  He knows death is inevitable.  Consciousness of our own mortality leads us to disregard any importance of the automatic flow of time,  in favor of  influencing life past our own death.  What is important to us personally is the continuation of our spirit, our ideas, our influence.  For example, we desire  less crime, or the welfare of our family, a cleaner environment, more justice, less greed – whatever we fought for in life.

5.There is a reciprocity between teacher and student in this three-part dialogue. The student is relieved of the burden of re-inventing all of reality, while at the same time being given freedom to renew old practices, invent new ones, and in turn leave his own mark on the future. He is free to re-experience the past, without having to be manacled to it.  THIS EMANCIPATION FROM OLD THINKING IS A CRUCIAL GOAL OF AUGUSTINE’S CONCEPT.

The teacher, in his turn, is listened to, receiving validation by having been unburdened of his heart-felt concerns for the future of society.

Man does not live in the present alone but, by merit of the forwardizing energy he reaches a beyond-himself time. The teacher is forced to enter a relation to human beings whom he can teach because he must make this connection with a beyond-himself time.  Once he has determined this beyond-himself time, he is relieved. …Man is he who can inherit faculties acquired by other members of the race. (p.31)

6.The student, by “backwardizing,”  re-enters the ranks of those who determined the past.  He no longer feels a need to be determined by it, rather he determines it by looking at the past from the perspective of questions from the present.  IN THIS WAY, THIS THREE-PART DIALOGUE HOLDS POWERFUL PAYOFFS FOR BOTH STUDENT AND TEACHER. The reciprocity creates a forceful binding process, of cooperation between student and teacher, of past, present, and future, and explains the necessary quality of creative thinking required by everyone who wishes to grow.

[RF – This section of the monograph might have been titled, “The psychology of true teaching.”  In my own experience and reading, this seems far more insightful than any other books by famous modern scholars.]

7.By contrast, Humanism asserts lasting divisions between past, present, and future.  ERH’s binding of all times then unifies all of humankind.  Its basic accomplishment lies in the creation of a “super-time,” a fusion of past and future, and creation of an expanded present (as compared to a momentary present).

Another accomplishment of super-time is that it fends off loneliness, connecting one with all times of history and of the future. It extends one’s relationships beyond personal life restricted to the present.

8.IN SUM, THE CREATION AND ARTICULATION OF A SUPER-TIME IS THE SECRET TO A VITAL SOCIETY.  It is the product of a social cooperation and a method by which one becomes capable of rising above one’s mere animal nature, to be transformed into a maturing human being. It is how human beings conquer death!

9.Antiquity didn’t know how to do this. It lived a life of endless cycles.  Modern views of Humanism, as reflected in all social science today,  accept these fragmenting, Platonic beliefs as well.

Super-time is a conscious creation of energy to transform society, derived from faith, love, and hope.  The  student has faith that the teacher is telling the truth, and a love for the truth.  The teacher has love (and respect) for the student, and faith in the truth.  They both have hope for fulfillment.

The academic world which is Greek in origin still cultivates a disdain for super-time, and for the energies which alone are able to produce it.  Faith, Love, and Hope, are not considered worthy of scientific investigation.  They are called irrational, unproven, non-existent, cobwebs of mystics. ( p.34)

10.         The church in teaching the secrets of the creative life and the standstill present, teaches them in a non-creative and pre-Christian manner.  And she does so to this day, either in the Aristotelian forms of the middle ages or in the Platonic manner of the Liberal Arts college. (p.38)

11.THIS EDUCATIONAL PROCESS BETWEEN STUDENT AND TEACHER IS THE SMALLEST ATOM OF SUPER-TIME.  IT VISIBLY CONNECTS TWO GENERATIONS, AND EXPERIENCES FOUR DIMENSIONS OF TIME: past, future, the fleeting moment, and the timeless present. In our personal lives we experience a tiny speck of reality.  Only through a truly consciously creative educational process can we hope to expand that speck into our human potential.

No teaching of this nature can be based on traditional scientific methods.  Contrary to popular and professional assertions,  teaching is not and cannot be scientific.  The creation of super-time is based on speech.

This power of speech is not an appeal to man’s rational or intellectual faculties only, although it appeals to them too.  But it appeals to the whole man.  Speech is four times as rich as thought.  And without this wealth of appeals it could not move man into super-space and super-time.  Society is built by the energies which enable us to get outside our own short living time and living space and which make us to desire to melt into the world, be born into the future, enter the graves of the past, and reach our own innermost centre. (p.40)