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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 4481 through 4490 of 6456

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273. The Problem of Faust: The Vision of Reality in the Greek Myths 18 Jan 1919, Dornach
Translated by George Adams

Rudolf Steiner
But Goethe sees clearly that ordinary knowledge, dependent on the senses and conditioned by the understanding, cannot lead to this self-knowledge. For this reason he introduces into the Classical Walpurgis-Night Homunculus, the product that was supposed to be, for mediaeval research, the copy of a human being that, within external nature, the physical understanding was able to put together out of natural forces and natural laws.
All it is possible to grasp with out physical understanding, must be fertilised by knowledge gained outside the physical body. Half the riddle on man is hidden from the mere physical power of understanding.
For on this path we come to a one-sided development, raising the human critical understanding to a demonic height that not only runs to dull criticism but to actual prophetic criticism holding in mind the good side of human criticism.
273. The Problem of Faust: Goetheanism In Place of Homunculism and Mephistophelianism 19 Jan 1919, Dornach
Translated by George Adams

Rudolf Steiner
When in the eighties of the last century I wrote my first introduction to Goethe's scientific works, I tried to reconstruct his archetypal plant, tried to bring into a picture this expansion, contraction, expansion, contraction—on and on right up to the blossom. No one can really understand life who does not picture it in rhythm, as a progressive rhythmic process. It must be repeatedly emphasised that to imagine evolution as proceeding in a straight line does not help us to a true understanding of life.
In short, my dear friends, abstract mysticism, the ‘easy understanding of the divine within’, from which nothing results but a terrible egotistical abstraction—this abstract mysticism is just as bad as materialism.
We must find the balance between what belongs to Homunculus and what belongs to Mephistopheles, between not being able to reach ourselves in Homunculus, and grasping the self only to lose it in Mephistopheles. The understanding of this equilibrium is what modern man must gain. And Goethe, foreseeing this in feeling, lived himself into this understanding when with absolute honesty he tried in his Faust to speak as he did of the riddle of humanity.
275. Art as Seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom: Technology and Art 28 Dec 1914, Dornach
Translated by Pauline Wehrle, Johanna Collis

Rudolf Steiner
If we want to understand what these indications actually mean we must recall to memory a spiritual scientific truth which you no doubt know, namely, that whilst we are asleep our ego and astral body are outside our physical and etheric body.
Mankind was torn away from the genius of language. Nobody can understand the actual jolt mankind was given in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, unless he studies the special character of this damping down of undertones in the experiencing of speech.
If you once envisage history with these subtle language undertones in mind, you will understand why, at the point of time I have indicated, the various European nationalities grouped themselves together, those nationalities who before that time had quite different relationships with one another; who were governed by quite different impulses in their relationships to one another.
275. Art as Seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom: Impulses of Transformation for Man's Artistic Evolution I 29 Dec 1914, Dornach
Translated by Pauline Wehrle, Johanna Collis

Rudolf Steiner
Therefore the first step towards initiation is to gain an understanding of how these forces act upon the human being. I have tried to show here what is involved even in a movement as simple as resting the head in the hand.
When we thus explore the connection that exists between man and the whole cosmos, which we can do to a certain extent under the guidance of art, we can bring a certain measure of life into what otherwise remains a mere skeleton of ideas.
Those who make this comparison will see that, unless there is an understanding of the human organisation, it is impossible to reach a real comprehension of what lives around us and gives us joy.
275. Art as Seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom: Impulses of Transformation for Man's Artistic Evolution II 30 Dec 1914, Dornach
Translated by Pauline Wehrle, Johanna Collis

Rudolf Steiner
If you try to enter a little into what is described in Occult Science as the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions, you will discover that an architectural mood underlies the description of the Saturn evolution, a sculptural mood underlies the description of the Sun evolution, and a pictorial mood underlies the description of the Moon evolution; an attempt was made to express these moods by choosing suitable words.
Of course this is only possible up to a certain point, and you will understand why this is so when you perceive all the implications of what has been said about the technical environment.
I shall not elaborate on these concluding remarks or go into more detail because I believe that there are a good many among you who will perhaps understand much of what is meant by them, who will understand that they were intended as an indication of a number of things that are satisfactory and a number that are disappointing.
275. Art as Seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom: Cosmic New Year: the Dream Song of Olaf Asteson 31 Dec 1914, Dornach
Translated by Pauline Wehrle, Johanna Collis

Rudolf Steiner
It was a profound necessity that these words were heard at a certain time in modern civilisation. People will only really understand these words when the threefold membering of the human being is understood, because until then they will not realise the significance these words can have with regard to man's real being.
The divine-spiritual universal order implanted them into the human soul at a time when we did not understand them, in order that key words of this kind might lead us on to true universal understanding. We can notice the wise guidance in world evolution even in things like this.
The time arrived when all our spiritual forces were applied to understanding and grasping material life. Insights, understanding and visions of the spiritual world existing in ancient knowledge were forgotten more and more, as we have seen.
275. Art as Seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom: Moral Experience of the Worlds of Colour and Tone 01 Jan 1915, Dornach
Translated by Pauline Wehrle, Johanna Collis

Rudolf Steiner
Yesterday it was my task to point out to you that through a feeling understanding of our spiritual-scientific world outlook, the human soul should acquire reverence and devotion for the spiritual worlds.
We can also experience the form red takes on when it enters space. We can then understand how we can experience a being that radiates goodness and is full of divine kindness and mercy, a being that we want to feel in the realm of space.
We shall learn to experience something of the creative activity of the Spirits of Form who are the Elohim, and we shall then understand how colour can create forms, as indicated in our first Mystery Play. We shall also understand something of how the surface nature of the colour becomes something that has to be overcome, as it were, because we accompany colour into the cosmos.
275. Art as Seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom: Working with Sculptural Architecture I 02 Jan 1915, Dornach
Translated by Pauline Wehrle, Johanna Collis

Rudolf Steiner
It will be relatively easy—I am saying relatively, of course—for a person to take up more or less theoretically what we understand by the spiritual-scientific world outlook, or anthroposophy. But it will not be easy to fill our whole being and life itself with the impulses coming from spiritual science.
But when the building is really finished, no one will be able to understand what he sees when he goes inside if he has not developed a love for spiritual science; otherwise what he sees there will probably remain something that can cause a bit of a sensation, but will not be anything that particularly appeals to his heart.
In reality something invisible in the teacher educates something invisible in the pupil. We shall only understand this properly if we focus our attention on what is gradually unfolding in the growing child, as the outcome of previous incarnations.
275. Art as Seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom: Future Jupiter and Its Beings 03 Jan 1915, Dornach
Translated by Pauline Wehrle, Johanna Collis

Rudolf Steiner
If we turn to the Bible with such knowledge in mind, and read the opening words, we can tell ourselves, ‘Now we begin to understand what is meant when it says that the Elohim formed earthly man by breathing into him.’ I will confess that I would never have understood the part about the Elohim breathing the living being of man into his mouth and nose, if I had not known beforehand that the breath of earthly human beings also contains the first germinal beginnings of the beings who will become human on Jupiter.
But this only increases the hordes of luciferic beings, for they come under their power. As they cannot progress in a regular way they have to become parasites. This is what happens to all the beings that reject their normal path; they have to attach themselves to others in order to move on. These beings that arise through immoral actions have the particular inclination to be parasites in human evolution on earth under Lucifer's leadership, and to seize hold of the evolution of the human being before he makes his physical entry into the world.
275. Art as Seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom: Working with Sculptural Architecture II 04 Jan 1915, Dornach
Translated by Pauline Wehrle, Johanna Collis

Rudolf Steiner
You will know that I have been trying for decades to arouse some understanding in the world for the significant discoveries Goethe made in the field of anatomy and physiology, which I should like to call his second major achievement in this realm.
A vital part of the present-day impulses for change is that we acquire more and more understanding for the way the human soul rises into the realms that open up to imaginative, inspirational and intuitive observation.
Then if we come across them somewhere, we shall know them for what they are, and not imagine that if someone thinks he has a particularly deep grasp of anthroposophy, that we cannot understand that faults which occur in the outside world appear much more strongly in him. We shall understand it, but we shall also know that we have to combat them.

Results 4481 through 4490 of 6456

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