memorize, say, a telephone directory. Accordingly, memorization drops off whenever things are interconnected by meaningful relationships. This is exactly what sophiology does to the greatest extent. Not only is it unnecessary to remember, but more than that, it is impossible to forget. For I understand the world by means of what takes place here and now and always within my own soul. Understanding replaces memory. One can learn mathematics by memorizing lots of formulae. But a good mathematician does not need memory at all. He remembers no formula, but he can derive it any time he needs. He can deduce it from a kind of inner necessity that is inside him and cannot be forgotten. Imagine that we would be able to understand history or natural science in the same way. When giving lectures, I find that the audience remembers virtually nothing from their school history, chemistry or biology lessons. In as much as they perceive the issues as a disconnected list of information that means nothing to them personally. In literature and music appreciation, a pupil may learn that there were great poets and composers around the year 1800; in art education he may see some landscape painting from the same era; in history he may hear about the lives of some national revivalists who rebelled at that time because of something; in psychology he learns about the psychological lability of teenagers; in zoology, that animals signal their readiness to mate by coloration and thus propagate their genes; and finally in chemistry, he troubles himself with the fact that copper is a metal belonging to the first group in the periodic table, having the atomic number 29. Or in physics that Fraunhofer invented the spectroscope at that time. So much stuff to learn! He may have no idea that he is learning something eight times in eight subjects that is overlapping in content and can be subsumed under a single idea. Neither can he see why this should be of interest to him. Until he comes to realize that the soul of that era was fuelled by the same ideals, desires and visions from which he is right then experiencing his own personal conflict with his parents and surrounding society. He understands from within of his own soul why they rebelled, what they felt, what motives stirred them. He understands what their poems and songs were about. Through the mirror of history he can get to know his own soul more objectively and learn about other people struggling for the same goals long before him and how it turned out. Without memorization, he can recognize the then style of painting by knowing that strong feelings transpose themselves into deep colors in arts, along with an increased interest in the color spectrum and discoveries in the physics of light. Animals in love also adorn themselves with colors and all the while copper is activated within their physiology. By combining external facts with inner realities, three things take place. Firstly, facts rearrange themselves and interrelate in away that can be easily remembered. Secondly, the student is motivated by relating more intimately to facts that cease to be boring. And thirdly, knowledge gains a vertical, moral dimension and becomes a vocation. The student can see Spirituality Studies 1 (1) Spring 2015 71 (35)
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