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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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28. The Story of My Life: Chapter XXXVII
Translated by Harry Collison

Rudolf Steiner
Everywhere by my side was Marie von Sievers, who, while entering with her fine and full appreciation into all that I was privileged to experience of perception in art and culture, also shared and supplemented all this experience in a beautiful way. She understood how these experiences flowed into all that gave movement to the ideas of anthroposophy; for all the impressions of art which became an experience of my soul penetrated into what I had to make effective in lectures.
[ 15 ] And here I feel that it has been a peculiarly fortunate destiny for the Anthroposophical Society that I received in Marie von Sievers a fellow-worker assigned by destiny who understood fully how to nourish from the depths of her nature this artistic, emotionally charged, but unsentimental element.
One must be able to “wait” in patience, endurance, and conscientiousness until the consciousness has undergone this testing. It must have grown to be strong enough in its capacity for ideas in a certain sphere for this capacity for concepts to take over the perception with which it has to deal.
28. The Story of My Life: Chapter XXXVIII
Translated by Harry Collison

Rudolf Steiner
This group also arranged for my public lectures in Munich. The ever-deepening understanding in this group brought about a very beautiful response to what I had to say. So anthroposophy unfolded within this group in a manner which can truly be designated as very satisfying.
What she said bore a subjective colouring, and a manifold and arbitrary form of fantasy; yet, after allowing for this, one could see the truth under many veils, and one was faced by the revelation of an unusual personality. [ 8 ] Other groups at Munich possessed different characteristics.
A connection with the nature of the ancient mysteries – even though in so feeble a form – was thus afforded; but the important thing was that the congress had now an artistic aspect, – an artistic element directed toward the purpose of not leaving the spiritual life henceforth void of art within the Society. Marie von Sievers, who had undertaken the role of Demeter, showed already in her presentation the nuances which drama was to reach in the Society.
28. The Story of My Life: Conclusion by Marie Steiner
Translated by Harry Collison

Rudolf Steiner
Before us lies this road of knowledge in the crystal clarity of thoughts of which this book itself constitutes an example. He raised human understanding up to the spirit; permeated this understanding and united it with the spiritual being of the cosmos.
The greatest deed of the Gods he taught us to understand; the greatest human deed he achieved. How could he escape being hated with all the demonic power of which Hell is capable?
So now they greet The son of man who his creative power Unfolded thus to serve the Gods' high will; Who to the age of hardened understanding And to the time of dead machinery Stamped clear the Spirit, called the Spirit forth ...
The Story of My Life: A Letter

Rudolf Steiner
Of one thing I can assure you: I do not force myself, I put myself under no kind of strain, when I relate the truths of the spiritual life just as I would relate the realities of this world of the senses.
The Festivals and Their Meaning III : Ascension and Pentecost: Whitsun: the Festival of United Soul-Endeavour 07 Jun 1908, Cologne
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond, Alan P. Shepherd

Rudolf Steiner
The question why there are beings just here and nowhere else, does not arise for anyone who understands the spiritual world. If opportunities are provided for such beings, then they are there; give them that on which they can live and they are there.
Mankind will land itself in a blind alley if it fails to acquire a spiritual understanding of these things. As with the gnomes, so with the beings we may call undines; they are found where the plants come into contact with the mineral kingdom.
We have here a case where cast-off products of evolution, as it were, are made of service under the wise guidance of higher Beings. Left to themselves, these would disturb the Cosmos, but under a higher guidance the sylphs, for example, can be used to lead the bees to the flowers.
118. The Festivals and Their Meaning III : Ascension and Pentecost: Whitsun: The Festival of the Free Individuality 15 May 1910, Hamburg
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond, Alan P. Shepherd

Rudolf Steiner
Then ten days later there followed what is expressed for us in another picture, speaking powerfully to all hearts which have the will to understand it. The disciples of Christ are gathered together, those who were the first to understand Him.
But then we must learn to understand this Whitsun festival in its truly Christian sense. We must learn to understand first of all what the mighty tongues, the mighty Whitsun inspiration, said.
Then do we feel the future, as the first understanders felt it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, if only we are willing to make alive in our souls that which knows nothing of the boundaries separating the different parts of humanity and speaks a language which all souls, all the world over, can understand.
169. The Festivals and Their Meaning III : Ascension and Pentecost: Whitsun: A Symbol of the Immortality of the Ego 06 Jun 1916, Berlin
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond, Alan P. Shepherd

Rudolf Steiner
Luke, by those parts of the Gospel which make the most general appeal to simple hearts and are the easiest to understand. It is therefore a festival of universal humanity, intelligible, to a certain extent at least, even to the child and to men who have preserved a childlike quality of heart and mind.
They will come to light again when humanity has the will to acquire understanding of spiritual truths such as these. But now, besides the etheric body and the astral body, we bear within us as that which is supremely spiritual, our Ego.
At Christmas we are reminded of what is most holy in the earth, at Easter of what is most holy in the heavens. But the thought underlying the Christian festival of Whitsun is associated in a most beautiful way with what is even above the stars—the universal, spiritual, cosmic fire which individualises and in the fiery tongues descends upon the Apostles.
224. The Festivals and Their Meaning III : Ascension and Pentecost: The Whisun Mystery and its Connection with the Ascension 07 May 1923, Dornach
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond, Alan P. Shepherd

Rudolf Steiner
No materialistic knowledge, no materialistic science can understand the Mystery of Golgotha. Hence the soul must acquire the power of spiritual cognition, of spiritual perception, of spiritual feeling, in order to be able to understand how, on Golgotha, the Christ Impulse was united with the impulses of the earth.
That it must be understood—this is the challenge of the Whitsun Mystery. That it came to pass for all mankind—this is the revelation given in the Ascension.
If a man has a true feeling for this Festival he will go out among the buds and blossoms opening under the influence of the sun, under the etheric and astral influences—and he will perceive in the flower-decked earth the earthly image of what flows together in the picture of Christ's Ascension, and the descent of the tongues of fire upon the heads of the disciples which followed later.
226. The Festivals and Their Meaning III : Ascension and Pentecost: World-Pentecost: the Message of Anthroposophy 17 May 1923, Oslo
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond, Alan P. Shepherd

Rudolf Steiner
In order that this might be achieved, it was necessary that He, as a god, should undergo what no god had ever previously undergone, namely, birth and death. Christ became the soul of a man, Jesus of Nazareth, and passed through birth and death.
Anthroposophy would fain open this path by leading men again to knowledge of the spiritual world. For the Christ Event can only be understood as a spiritual Fact. Those who are incapable of this do not understand the Christ Event at all.
Moreover this knowledge can give a new understanding of Christ, in the sense that, where Anthroposophy is rightly understood. Christ can be presented in a way that is comprehensible to all men.
The Festivals and Their Meaning III : Ascension and Pentecost: The Whitsun Festival. Its Place in the Study of Karma 04 Jun 1924, Dornach
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond, Alan P. Shepherd

Rudolf Steiner
There remains the other half of the year. If we understand that too, there dawns on us the other aspect of our human life. If we understand the relationship of the physical to the soul of man and to the superphysical—which contains the true freedom of which man is to become a partaker on the Earth,—then in the interconnection of the Christmas, Easter and Whitsun festivals we understand the human freedom on Earth. As we understand man from out of these three thoughts, the Christmas thought, the Easter thought and the Whitsun thought, and as we let this kindle in us the desire to understand the remaining portions of the year, there arises the other half of human life which I indicated when I said: “Gaze upon this human destiny; the Hierarchies appear behind it—the working and weaving of the Hierarchies.”
Then we shall be able to go further in our study of Karma; your power of understanding will be fertilised by what the Whitsun thought contains. Just as once upon a time at the first Whitsun Festival something shone forth from each one of the disciples, so the thought of Pentecost should now become alive again for our anthroposophical understanding.

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