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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 1801 through 1810 of 6552

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225. Cultural Phenomena — Three Perspectives of Anthroposophy: Three Perspectives of Anthroposophy: The Spiritual 22 Jul 1923, Dornach

Your memory life is the microcosmic counter-image of that macrocosmic, gigantic, majestic weaving and billowing of images that our dream power undergoes when the astral body has submerged, instead into the physical and etheric bodies, into the things and processes of the outer cosmos.
To grasp this with the right soul nuance means to grasp what it means that man carries the spirit in his soul. And anyone who does not understand this threefold inner spiritualization of the soul does not understand how the soul of man harbors the spirit.
For we can become intimate with anthroposophy. And we will become intimate with it if we understand how to take it in its reality. Today, in some external way, it has been suggested that one should develop a picture or something similar of anthroposophy.
225. Cultural Phenomena — Three Perspectives of Anthroposophy: The World of Dreams as a Transitional Current between the Physical-Natural World and the World of Moral Concepts 22 Sep 1923, Dornach

The dream, which in a certain sense is a reflection of this human inner being in its composition, is a testimony to this. And for those who understand this, it is simply the case that they have to say that it is actually absurd to believe that the same laws prevail within the heart and liver as externally in nature.
Therefore, people should realize that when they look out at the Orion Nebula, they should actually not think physically, using the experimental method, to understand the Orion Nebula, but rather begin to dream, because the Orion Nebula shows its lawfulness according to dreams.
And here we are at the point where we can understand what the Greeks meant when they used the term “Chaos”. I have read all kinds of explanations of Chaos, but I have always found them far from the truth.
225. Cultural Phenomena — Three Perspectives of Anthroposophy: Jakob Böhme, Paracelsus, Swedenborg 23 Sep 1923, Dornach

Anyone who reads Jakob Böhme's writings with even a little understanding will notice that the man saw salt and sulfur differently than a normal chemist of the time, of course.
So he saw the most ordinary objects when he tuned into them, especially the characteristic objects he speaks of, salt, sulfur, mercury and so on, not as one sees them when looking at them under ordinary circumstances, but he saw their essence, that which underlies them spiritually, mirrored in the darkness. This was the special way in which he saw: He saw what underlies things spiritually, mirrored in the darkness. He saw them in the glow of the sun's effects, but excluding the physical effects of light and heat.
225. Gnostic Doctrines and Supersensible Influences in Europe 15 Jul 1923, Dornach
Translated by Harry Collison

Those men in Greece who meditated upon the earliest stages of world-evolution spoke of a primordial Being for the understanding of whose nature a much more highly spiritual mode of knowledge is required than for an understanding of the events described in the Old Testament.
And that is why even to-day it is possible for the thought of men who understand the essence of Scholasticism to be far more profound, far more consistent than the thought emanating from the world of science.
This is not a symbolic but a true picture of Europe as it was in the Middle Ages. Under the influences of a Giordano Bruno, a Copernicus, a Galileo, men felt the call to set about understanding the Earth beneath their feet.
225. The World of Dreams as a Bridge between the Physical World and the World of Moral Ideas 22 Sep 1923, Dornach
Translated by Violet E. Watkin

The dream, which in its composition is an image of what is within man, is evidence of this. Anyone who understands this is bound to call it nonsensical to believe that within the heart, within the liver, the same laws hold sway as those in nature outside.
Hence we should be clear that, looking out at Orion with its nebula and in order to understand it, we must not think in accordance with the experimental method of physics, but begin to dream – for Orion shows its conformity with dream-law.
He could at any time really concentrate, and lived absolutely in what he undertook. By being able to live thus entirely in what he was doing, a man may sometimes discover a great deal, though – as I will show you – in certain respects this may have its disadvantages.
226. Man's Being, His Destiny and World-Evolution: On the Nature and Destiny of Man and World 16 May 1923, Oslo
Translated by Erna McArthur

This description conveys to you what man's spirit and soul element undergoes, unconsciously, during every night; that is, during one third of our earth-life (if spent in a normal way).
Actually we go back thrice as fast, because the time is balanced through the experiences undergone by us every night. Thus we return anew to the starting-point; but enriched by all that we experienced as physical beings.
Here man sees himself surrounded by human souls who, having died or not yet having been born, undergo no earthly experiences, but those of the divine world. Moreover, he perceives the higher Hierarchies, such as the Angels, the Archangels, the Exusiai, and others still higher.
226. Man's Being, His Destiny and World-Evolution: Life between Death and a New Incarnation 17 May 1923, Oslo
Translated by Erna McArthur

Yesterday I tried to give you a picture of the states undergone by the human being after he passes through the portal of death and arrives in the spiritual world.
If you consider these things in the right way, you will understand the following: The human being, who has undergone after death all the states described by me previously, now becomes manifest to the vision of man himself.
Hence, by pointing to every single being as a revelation of the divine, we learn to understand the world as a revelation of the divine.
226. Man's Being, His Destiny and World-Evolution: Our Experiences at Night, Life after Death 18 May 1923, Oslo
Translated by Erna McArthur

At this point of our discourse, it becomes necessary to let pass before our soul in greater detail what the human being undergoes while asleep; undergoes unconsciously, but, nonetheless, most vividly. The duration of our sleep does not really matter.
Utterly different time-conditions prevail for that which is undergone by our ego and astral body. Hence the things that I shall presently explain to you are valid for either a long or a short sleep.
This is the wholly divergent form of the experiences undergone by the human being between falling asleep and awaking, and leading his soul every night into the image of the cosmos.
226. Man's Being, His Destiny and World-Evolution: Man's Being, His Destiny and World Evolution, Part I 19 May 1923, Oslo
Translated by Erna McArthur

It is important, nevertheless, that we are capable of looking at the first years of childhood in the right way. People, once they have understood these things, will attain a sounder judgment on something that is mentioned today again and again, but not understood in the least: the question of inherited qualities.
It would be utterly foolish to combine the letters.” He cannot understand that we are not only able to spell but also to read. This fact makes our position very difficult. The anthroposophist could easily reach an understanding with the others; he does not have to refute them. Neither is he entangled into polemics against external science.
226. Man's Being, His Destiny and World-Evolution: Man's Being, His Destiny and World Evolution, Part II 20 May 1923, Oslo
Translated by Erna McArthur

This will become evident when considering the facts described by me during recent days. Our souls undergo repeated earth-lives that are always separated from one another by the life between death and a new birth.
Mankind's evolution, however, was not in the least as people now imagine it. In order to understand the changes it has undergone, let us envisage the relatively great dependency, existing in the present age during the human being's first years of life, of the spirit and soul organism on the physical-bodily one.
They have studied these Gospels in a way commensurate with their understanding of these ancient books. We have certainly no intention of speaking against the validity of the Gospels.

Results 1801 through 1810 of 6552

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