Fear of the spiritual world

The soul life of man, as well, is entirely accommodated to space and time. If you enter a world to which you are not adapted, the lack of adaptation implies sensations of pain and suffering; so that the first entrance into the spiritual world is not won without the vanquishing of pain and suffering. […] There are indeed few people today who have sufficient inner courage to venture themselves, as it were, into the bottomless and timeless in actual experience. Certain people, however, are bound by their destiny to cross over the threshold; and without the wisdom which can be brought over from beyond the threshold no further progress is possible.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 194 – The Mysteries of Light, of Space, and of the Earth: Lecture III: Historical Occurrences of the Last Century – Dornach, December 14, 1919

Translated by Frances E. Dawson

Previously posted on February 7, 2015

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Simply an illusion

Although to physical vision the Earth appears as it presents itself to the Geologists, in such a way that they regard it simply as a stony mass surrounded by an atmosphere, that fundamentally is simply an external illusion. What appears thus as this stony mass is simply the body for certain Spiritual beings.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 203 – Social Life – Dornach. 29th, January 1921

You can imagine what a difficult situation one is in, as representative of spiritual science

You can imagine what a difficult situation one is in as representative of spiritual science: One not only has the representatives of the religions against one, but also the whole philosophical world and their followers as well. Every Tom Dick or Harry then comes and says: Well, you claim this or that about the spiritual world; but after all, Kant has already proven – so they say – that nothing can be known about it! – This is actually the most generalizing objection that one can make. Someone can say: I do not want to hear anything that Steiner says, because Kant has already proven that nothing can be known about the Spiritual world.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 353 – Die Geschichte der Menschheit und die Weltanschauungen der Kulturvölker – Dornach, May 14, 1924 (page 240)

Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger

Fear of the new and unknown

Daily we are experiencing that there actually lives a fear of the new and unknown in the souls of many people. They come and say, ‘ What is brought to us here is in contradiction with proven scientific results.’ Often such a supposed proof is firmly believed in and it is hardly possible to penetrate the preconceived thought patterns. But these thought combinations are nothing else but a pleasant mask with which the fear of the new and unknown clothes itself. And because it’s so nice to be able to say to oneself: one can prove something with logic, all arguments speak against this new way of looking at the world, one hides the fear; a fear that one would be ashamed of when one can see it in its true form.  Even much that nowadays is merited as scientifically sound, which occurs with seemingly strict logic is nothing else but the masked inner fear for the new and unknown.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 77b–Kunst und Anthroposophie, Der Goetheanum-Impuls – Dornach, 21 August 1921 (page 18)

Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger

Previously posted on December 2, 2014

All is not moonlight and roses behind the veil of sensory perception

One should not believe that when one glimpses behind the veil of the senses and reaches the region beyond the threshold, that one ends up in a realm of pure beauty. Do not think that someone who cognisant of these worlds expresses himself light-heartedly when he says: if people are not carefully prepared, they need to be held back when coming to the threshold of the spirit world. – Because it is essential that one first of all gets to know the totally unedifying foundations, before one experience what in a sense is elevating and wholesome behind the curtain.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 219 – Das Verhältnis der Sternenwelt zum Menschen und des Menschen zur Sternenwelt – Dornach, 16 December 1922 (page 81)

Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger

Previously posted on July 18, 2016