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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 Helena Saga and the Riddle of Freedom 04 Nov 1917, Dornach
Translated by George Adams

Rudolf Steiner
Now something new makes it appearance—something created directly out of Maya or Illusion. Yet this Illusion we must also understand; we must only understand it rightly. It goes without saying, Maya was always there. As I explained in the essay which you will shortly be able to read in the Reich, in relation to the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz, all consciousness originates out of Illusion.
Whatever has to happen among men must also be undertaken by men. If we have made ourselves ready to take our stand where the ray falls, the ray will come in good time; of that you may be certain.
It will be for the individual human beings, in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, only so far as the ideas are concerned; but it will depend on the understanding with which communities will receive these ideas. Hold to this thought, my dear friends.
273. The Problem of Faust: Some Spiritual-Scientific Observations in Connection with the “Classical Walpurgis-Night” 27 Sep 1918, Dornach
Translated by George Adams

Rudolf Steiner
Then, in the further development of his poem, he undertakes to show what sort of experience a man can have whereby his knowledge of man is widened, so that out of Homunculus there may grow something at least approaching Homo.
That is why it is so difficult to come to an understanding. Down there in that sphere the words which we have formed for use in the sense-world cannot be properly applied to what takes place down there.
And from a higher point of view, most modern ideas are confused. They can only be understood—however strange this may sound, my dear friends, it is true—these ideas, these theories can often only be understood if they are translated.
273. The Problem of Faust: Spiritual Science Considered with the Classical Walpurgis-Night 28 Sep 1918, Dornach
Translated by George Adams

Rudolf Steiner
What has already arisen, we cannot understand”. And in another place: “Reason as applied to what is becoming, understanding to what has become”.
It shows most distinctly how, in Anaxagoras, Goethe was wishing to portray a personality standing within the spiritual world but only with his understanding, the understanding that only studying the present can never reach the spiritual at all, but, in Anaxagoras, still preserves the spiritual out of the old Mysteries.
When you consider the deep truth I have just shown in connection with the meeting of Mephistopheles with the Phorkyads—a truth that has been preserved in many occult schools of the present day—then you have the opportunity of understanding, together with much else that enables you to realise it, the intense seriousness of our striving after Spiritual Science, the seriousness that must underlie our endeavours.
273. The Problem of Faust: Goethe's Life of the Soul from the Standpoint of Spiritual Science 29 Sep 1918, Dornach
Translated by George Adams

Rudolf Steiner
But it cannot be claimed that so far there has really been a very wide understanding of the matter. Perhaps we can get the best view of what Goethe understood by the primal phenomenon in inanimate nature when we consider how he came to build up his special Theory of Colors.
This then was the basis of Goethe's whole understanding of inanimate nature—never to seek for theories or hypotheses. According to him these can be set up as scaffolding.
Here in childish fashion is already pictured forth all that afterwards worked in his most mature conceptions. We understand Goethe only when we are in a position to grasp him rightly in this way, out of his being as a whole.
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.

Results 4481 through 4490 of 6456

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