If one faculty develops, another must fade away

Through his descent to the physical plane mankind has lost his connection with the world of the gods. For him, only the physical world exists. Anthroposophists are not reactionaries; they know that the age of materialism was necessary. Just as the organs of sight degenerate in animals when they go to live in dark caves, while other faculties develop more powerfully, so do we find the same thing happening in the world of the spirit and the world of the senses; if one faculty develops, another must fade away. The gift of clairvoyance and the power of memory had to withdraw in order that the power of physical sight could develop. When men learnt how to conquer the world by means of the laws of nature they had discovered, they had to sacrifice the power of seership.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 95 – At the Gates of Spiritual Science – Lecture XI: The Post-Atlantean Culture-Epochs – Stuttgart, 1st September 1906

Translated by E.H. Goddard & Charles Davy

Previously posted on February 23, 2014

This war is the karma of materialism

From what is now happening (World War I), a few souls must come to a realization that we cannot go on like this; human evolution must take up the spiritual! Materialism is confronting its karma in this, the most terrible of all wars. In a certain sense, this war is the karma of materialism. The more this fact is realized by human beings, the more they will abandon their arguments about who is to blame for the war, and then they will have to realize that this war has been sent into world history to admonish man to turn to a spiritual perception of human life in its entirety.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 159 – Christ in Relation to Lucifer and Ahriman -Linz, May 18, 1915

Translated by Peter Mollenhauer, Ph.D.

Previously posted on February 22, 2014

The suspicion that everyone wants to be nasty to them arises most often in egoistic natures

There are people who are perpetually complaining about other people and the awful things they do to them. They go as far as to say that other people persecute them. Everything of this kind is always connected with the other pole of human nature, you only have to observe life in the right way, which means according to spiritual science as properly understood. Of course there is good reason to complain about unkindness, but in spite of this you will always find, if you go through life with vision that has been made somewhat clairvoyant by spiritual science, that most of these complaints come from egoists, and that the suspicion that everyone wants to be nasty to them arises most often in egoistic natures, whereas a loving disposition will not readily suspect persecution, nor that people are trying to harm them in all kinds of ways, and so on.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 275 – Art as Seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom – Lecture 7 – Dornach, 3rd January 1915

Previously posted on February 21, 2014

The upbringing of children: the first seven years

The best way to influence the child during his first seven years is through the development of his sense-organs. All the impressions they receive from the outer world are significant, and everything a child sees or hears affects him in terms of his sense-organs. The sense-organs, however, are not influenced by lesson-books or verbal teaching, but by means of example and imitation. The most important thing during the first seven years is to nourish a child’s sense-organs. He will see with his eyes how people round him are behaving. Aristotle was quite right in saying that man is the most imitative of all creatures; and this is particularly true during the first seven years. Hence during these years we must try to influence a child’s senses, to draw them out so that they become active on their own account. That is why it is such a mistake to give a child one of those “beautiful” dolls; they hinder him from setting his own inner powers to work. A normal child will reject the doll and be much happier with a piece of wood, or with anything which gives his imagination a chance to be active. […] It is very important that during these early years a child should be surrounded by noble-minded, generous-hearted and affectionate people with good thoughts, for these stamp themselves on the child’s inner life. Example, therefore, in thought and in feeling is the best means of education at this stage. It is not what we say but what we are that influences a child during his first seven years. Because of the extreme sensitivity of the inner members of a child’s being, his surroundings should be kept free from all impure, immoral thoughts and feelings.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 95 – At the Gates of Spiritual Science – Lecture VI: The upbringing of children – Stuttgart, 27th August 1906

Previously posted on February 20, 2014

What is the purpose of man’s repeated appearance on Earth?

What is the purpose of man’s repeated appearance on Earth? If there were no connection between the various incarnations, the whole process would of course be senseless, but that is not how it goes. Think how different life was for a man who was incarnated a few centuries after Christ, compared with the conditions he will find when he reincarnates today. Nowadays a child’s life between the sixth and fourteenth years is taken up with acquiring knowledge: reading, writing, and so on. Opportunities for the cultivation and development of human personality are very different from what they were in the past. A man’s incarnations are ordered in such a way that he returns to the Earth only when he will find quite new conditions and possibilities of development, and after a few centuries they will always be there. Think how quickly the Earth is developing in every respect: only a few thousand years ago this region was covered with primeval forests, full of wild beasts. Men lived in caves, wore animal skins and had only the most primitive knowledge of how to light a fire or make tools. How different it all is today! We can see how the face of the Earth has been transformed in a relatively short time. A man who lived in the days of the ancient Germanic people had a picture of the world quite different from the picture which prevails today among people who learn to read and write. As the Earth changes, man learns quite new things and makes them his own.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 95 – At the Gates of Spiritual Science – Lecture IV: Devachan – Stuttgart, 25th August 1906

Previously posted on February 19, 2014