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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 4541 through 4550 of 6552

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168. Relationships Between the Living and the Dead 16 Feb 1916, Hamburg
Translator Unknown

What the smallest parts of our bodies finally become, under all circumstances, regardless of the way in which we, as bodies, are united with the earth, is warmth.
It is an experience, if you have some new sensation, or feeling which you have never had before, and you learn to understand this. You have added something to your soul which you did not possess before a new concept, a new perception.
If it were possible to arouse even a little understanding, it would be seen that, for a right understanding, it is precisely an honest natural science that points to a justification of Spiritual Science, even in all its separate details.
168. The Ego-consciousness of the So-called Dead 22 Feb 1916, Leipzig
Translator Unknown

They should not be taken up in such a way that we remain indifferent, dry and cool; but they should, instead, give us a soul-impression of the loftiness and greatness of the divine spiritual world. We can say: If anybody would undertake to present spiritual science in such a dry way that it does not take hold of our WHOLE being, and so that we do not gain an impression of the loftiness and greatness of the divine-spiritual that pulses and weaves through the world—if, after all these descriptions, we would live on indifferently and dryly, then we would be born without heads, in accordance with the present conditions of the world and in spite of everything we know!
Thus a time will come, when these forces that constitute these etheric bodies, can be used for the spiritual progress of humanity; but this time will only come, if here on earth there will be human souls who are able to understand this. When the terrible events of the present shall have passed over the earth and there will be peace once more, then the souls of those who are still living on the earth in human bodies, will have the possibility of grasping something of the fact that all those who have gone into the spiritual world before their time have their etheric bodies in that world and that they can ray their forces into the earth.
168. How Can the Destitution of Soul in Modern Times Be Overcome? 10 Oct 1916, Zurich
Translator Unknown

This is a necessity for social understanding if it is, to some extent, to create the opposite pole to the difficulty of understanding one another.
The complications of modern life make this understandable. But under the pressure of authority we shall become more and more helpless. And systematically to build up this force of authority, this habit of authority, is actually the principle of Jesuitism.
We have need of it, we must know about it, and unite ourselves with it through conscious understanding. This is the third thing which must come to pass in the fifth post-Atlantean period. RECIPROCAL UNDERSTANDING IN SOCIAL LIFE.
168. The Problem of Destiny 24 Oct 1916, Zurich
Translator Unknown

This is the 5th of 8 lectures given by Rudolf Steiner at various cities, from February through December of 1916. The title these lectures were published under is: The Relation between the Living and the Dead. What spiritual science has to say about life and the configuration of the spiritual worlds, is gained through knowledge, through a knowledge of the objective facts to which we are led through faculties enabling us to have an insight into these things.
This is quite wrong. The more intimate side of soul-life has undergone a change, its character and attitude have changed completely. What spiritual science must again bring to the surface from certain sources for the sake of a better understanding of life, as already explained, shows us that not so very long ago the souls of men possessed a more atavistic and clairvoyant character.
In Eduard Suess's excellent book, The Countenance of the Earth, you can read that once upon a time the earth presented a different aspect: its physical surface was different. The earth has undergone, as it were, a slow death-process as far as its surface is concerned, for this surface of the earth, the ordinary, physical surface of the earth, no longer contains the same forces as in ages long past.
168. On the Connection of the Living and the Dead 09 Nov 1916, Bern
Translator Unknown

Hence we may also call it the ‘imaginative world.’ In ordinary human life, under ordinary conditions, man cannot lift into consciousness his imaginative perceptions—his perceptions of the elemental world.
Our views and ideas, originating as they do in our ego, are under constant influences from those long dead. In our views and conceptions of life, those who are long dead are living.
On the contrary, he will do all he can to avoid imposing his own opinions directly. For the opinions, the outlook he acquires under the influence of his own personal tendency of feeling, should not begin to work until thirty or forty years after his death.
168. The Influence of the Dead on the Life of Man on Earth 03 Dec 1916, Zurich
Translator Unknown

A very great deal will yet be necessary towards an understanding of these things. I said, people only imagine that they are Christians. For such a passage as this one by St.
He who has passed through the gate of death is of course subject to the conditions under which man must live in the world of soul and Spirit; he must submit to them. I need only mention one main point, and you will understand what I mean in this connection.
Indeed, for these things, there are no words which you can understand. Our language after all is created for the physical; hence it is always difficult to describe these things correctly, and one can easily be misunderstood.
169. Toward Imagination: The Immortality of the I 06 Jun 1916, Berlin
Translated by Sabine H. Seiler

Now I have here the book of a man who has taken great pains in the last few years to understand Goethe—as far as he found it possible—and who has gone to great lengths to understand our spiritual science.
Working his way through Goethe's writings, he comes to understand him—though rather late in his life. Bahr's book is written with wonderful freshness and bears witness to the joy he experienced in understanding Goethe.
Thus, he searches in the sciences, first studying botany under Wiessner, the famous Viennese botanist, then chemistry under Ostwald, then political economy and so on.
169. Toward Imagination: Blood and Nerves 13 Jun 1916, Berlin
Translated by Sabine H. Seiler

Only when we take warmly to the truths contained in anthroposophy do we really understand it. As long as we approach it abstractly and study it as we study the multiplication tables, an arithmetic book, instruction manuals, or a cookbook, we do not understand it at all! We cannot understand anthroposophy if we study it in the same way as chemistry or botany. Only when it generates warmth in us, replenishes us with its own vibrant life, do we begin to really understand it.
The findings of conventional science are an abundance of facts and material just waiting to be permeated with spiritual understanding. Spiritual understanding can penetrate them so deeply that even the most material science of all can be connected with Christology.
169. Toward Imagination: The Twelve Human Senses 20 Jun 1916, Berlin
Translated by Sabine H. Seiler

And that is what people find so difficult to understand. They always seek one side only, extremes rather than equilibrium. Therefore two pillars are erected for our times also, and we must pass between them if we understand our times rightly.
One of our friends showed Tolstoy a transcript of that lecture. He understood the first two-thirds of it, but not the last third because reincarnation and karma were mentioned there, which he did not understand.
Now what the canon finds in Goethe's scientific writings is characteristic, on the one hand, of what is actually contained there and can be understood by the canon and, on the other hand, of what the canon can understand by virtue of being a Catholic canon.
169. Toward Imagination: The Human Organism Through the Incarnations 27 Jun 1916, Berlin
Translated by Sabine H. Seiler

When we consider that the I continues from incarnation to incarnation, we have to differentiate between the forces underlying the head and those underlying the rest of the organism. Remember, as I said, the form and shape of our head are essentially the result of our previous incarnation.
But we have to know and acknowledge the inner understanding of sculpture the ancient Greeks still had and we no longer have. We have to understand that when a Greek artist sculpted a person in movement, he knew out of inner knowledge, and not from looking at a model, how he had to position the legs, the toes, and the fingers.
The things discussed here are not meant as those people understand them who take the absurdities in the book Apostel Dodenscheidt seriously. It is precisely this connecting of our cause with one or another striving that does it the most damage, and it is important that this truth stirs our souls; for those who find any resemblance here to the Apostel Dodenscheidt do not really understand what we are saying here.

Results 4541 through 4550 of 6552

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