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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 1811 through 1820 of 6456

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34. Essays on Anthroposoph from Lucifer and Lucifer-Gnosis 1903-1908: Can Theosophy be Popular

Rudolf Steiner
It will find ways and means to speak to every level of education. For it can find a form that is understandable to the simple, naive person, as well as one that satisfies the strictest demands of the scientific thinker. But one thing must not be overlooked. Often, when the difficulty of understanding theosophical teachings is mentioned, it is not because they are intrinsically difficult to understand, but because the present-day world of ideas feels alienated by what the theosophists put forward.
One should not only demand that spiritual teachings be adapted to the understanding that one has at the time, but one should feel the obligation to adapt oneself to these teachings.
34. Essays on Anthroposoph from Lucifer and Lucifer-Gnosis 1903-1908: Health and Illness

Rudolf Steiner
The following question is posed: “How should health and illness be understood in terms of the ‘law of karma’?” Since a more detailed explanation of this question will appear soon, the answer can be given briefly for now.
For example, according to the occult research available, the following can be said for individual cases: a thoughtless life leads to a light-hearted disposition in the next existence, which manifests itself in particular in forgetfulness, amnesia; in a further life, forgetfulness appears as a pathological disposition, which is currently often referred to as “nervousness”. The law of karma will only be properly understood when it is not understood in the sense of ordinary human justice, but in a much higher sense.
34. Essays on Anthroposoph from Lucifer and Lucifer-Gnosis 1903-1908: The Creativity of the Imagination

Rudolf Steiner
Only such an approach can truly be fruitful in the sense of an understanding of the spiritual laws of the world. — Whoever has something to contribute to such an approach will always have access to this part of our journal.
For the person who sees through the true facts of the matter, it cannot be a matter of a so-called logical refutation, but solely and exclusively a matter of understanding how someone, from his point of view, comes to his judgments; and to show how he should rise from this point of view to a higher one.
34. Essays on Anthroposoph from Lucifer and Lucifer-Gnosis 1903-1908: Revelations of the Juniper Tree

Rudolf Steiner
This kind of science is a tyrant! It looks bleak and dull under her sceptre. I want to turn my back on her – my heart is with the Cinderella of poetry – I long for my childlike faith, the lost paradise.”
— Inspired by such ideas, our all-seeing person learns to understand the language of the juniper tree; it reveals an inner life to him, just as human language reveals an inner life to him.
34. Essays on Anthroposoph from Lucifer and Lucifer-Gnosis 1903-1908: Bruno Wille and Leadbeater

Rudolf Steiner
For this, higher soul powers must be awakened, which slumber in man under ordinary circumstances, and which must then be applied to supersensible facts just as surely and consistently as the natural scientist applies his to the sensory facts.
Well, today such uncomfortable “obscurants” have to console themselves with Voltaire's beautiful words: “Every new truth is like the ambassadors of civilized states at the courts of barbarians; they only find the recognition they deserve after many obstacles and insults.” — However, we should not be under any illusion: works such as Leadbeater's “Astral Plane” are difficult to understand at all within the currently prevailing modes of thought.
Leadbeater expresses this (page 4) clearly enough: “... it is easy to understand that an inexperienced visitor to this new world has great difficulty understanding what he sees in reality, and an even greater difficulty in expressing what he has seen in the very inadequate language of the ordinary world.” — Even greater obstacles stand in the way of proper understanding here, of course, if one wants to judge such things without having any inclination to engage at all with what is actually meant.
34. Essays on Anthroposoph from Lucifer and Lucifer-Gnosis 1903-1908: Theosophy and Socialism

Rudolf Steiner
It should not be denied that the forms under which we live would change if such personalities achieved their goals. Only the intellectually immature could claim that the nature of human society would be different.
As a result, they can only approach their social work in the same way that a simple village locksmith who has never learned anything about electricity would have to behave if he wanted to make an electric motor. No one can understand the external actions of human beings without learning the spiritual laws that underlie them. The personalities who want to heal today's social effects should first of all learn about the causes of these effects.
Only in the light of an idealistic, spiritual way of thinking can social questions flourish. Under the influence of materialistic thinking, the character traits of the leading personalities of our time have developed in such a way that no one wants to understand the higher laws of human nature anymore, that no one really wants to learn anything that goes beyond mere sensual reality.
34. Essays on Anthroposoph from Lucifer and Lucifer-Gnosis 1903-1908: Herder and Theosophy

Rudolf Steiner
It was through this belief that he came to a true understanding of Shakespeare. And it was through this belief that Herder influenced Goethe, whom he met in Strasbourg.
In his work “The Oldest Document of the Human Race,” Herder already understands the Old Testament from the point of view that Theosophy also adopts. For his concept of the “primal revelation” by the spirit is entirely Theosophical.
For in The Ideas, Herder has transformed a comprehensive scientific insight into genuine gold of wisdom in the truest sense of the word, leading the human soul to where its home is, where it first understands the profound words of Goethe: “The spirit world is not closed; your mind is closed, your heart is dead.”
34. Essays on Anthroposoph from Lucifer and Lucifer-Gnosis 1903-1908: Theosophy and Modern Science

Rudolf Steiner
In this sense-perceptible reality lie the effects of life; but the causes are to be found in the spiritual. And just as little as someone understands a machine by looking only at the iron parts, so little does one know life by looking only at its sensual exterior.
Through Theosophy, it will come to know the goals and driving forces of life. It is quite understandable that Theosophy is currently met with the greatest misunderstandings. And no one understands this better than the Theosophist himself. He finds it so natural that he currently finds so little understanding. What is said against it has about the same significance as when the laborer says to the engineer: What do I need you for?
34. Essays on Anthroposoph from Lucifer and Lucifer-Gnosis 1903-1908: Theosophy and Modern Life

Rudolf Steiner
If we look at the present-day cultural life with an understanding of this point of view, it cannot be doubted that many things in it are opposed to the development of such an attitude.
It would not be fitting for the Theosophist to play the role of accuser in the face of such phenomena. His task is to understand, not to judge. And he who sees an eternal necessity in the course of things must also do so in regard to the phenomena of modern cultural life.
34. Essays on Anthroposoph from Lucifer and Lucifer-Gnosis 1903-1908: Materialism Overcome in Science

Rudolf Steiner
The representatives of this latter world-view are only advanced posts, which already see which is the course of development of spiritual life. That they still find so little understanding stems solely from the fact that our contemporaries are hypnotized by the thought habits of the age that has just passed, and therefore cannot yet reconcile the old thoughts with the new facts.
There he finds nothing but abstract ideas, rather empty concepts, formed under the influence of a self-overestimating and also overturning “science”. He finds nothing for mind and heart.

Results 1811 through 1820 of 6456

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