Now let us assume that a man does positive harm to another, out of hatred or antipathy. We can imagine every conceivable degree. A man may harm his fellows out of a positively criminal sense of hatred. Or — to omit the intermediate stages — he may merely be a critic. To be a critic, you must always hate a little — unless you are one who praises; and such critics are few nowadays. It is uninteresting to show recognition of other people’s work; it only becomes interesting when you can be witty at their expense.
Now there are all manner of intermediate stages. But it is a matter here of all those human deeds which proceed from a cold antipathy — antipathy of which people are often not at all clearly aware — or, at the other extreme, from positive hatred. All that is thus brought about by men against their fellows, or against sub-human creatures — all this finds vent in conditions of soul which in their turn are mirrored in the life between death and a new birth.
To be continued
Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 235 – Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies – Volume I: Lecture IV – Dornach, 24th February 1924
Translated by G. Adams, M. Cotterell, C. Davy, & D. S. Osmond
Previously posted on November 9, 2014
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