It is not good to use the term ‘ahrimanic” without much ado any time we like, for this deadens us in our sentience, our feelings, and we then do not have the least possibility of still having words which, when we think or speak them, have the elemental significant meaning for us which they should have.
It is extraordinarily significant that we do not fling such things about in everyday life, for this will indeed gradually deprive us of the best thing, the most effective thing that anthroposophy has to offer. The more we have the anthroposophical terms on our lips under everyday conditions, the more do we deprive ourselves of the possibility that anthroposophy becomes something for us that truly sustains the soul, enters deeply into the soul.
We need only consider the force of habit and we shall see that there is a difference if we use words such as “aura”, let us say, or “ahrimanic powers” or “luciferic powers” with a certain sense of awe, knowing we are speaking of other worlds. If we always feel that we have to stop, as it were, before we use such words, using them only when it really is a matter for us of considering our relationship to the supersensible world, it will be something different from talking of these things of the higher world on any occasion in everyday life, having words that are taken from those worlds on our lips all the time.
Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 150 – Die Welt des Geistes und ihr Hereinragen in das physische Dasein – Augsburg, March 14, 1913 (page 12-13)
This English translation has been copied from the book: How the Spiritual World Projects into Physical Existence – The Influence of the Dead – Published by Rudolf Steiner Press
Previously posted on November 1, 2015
The great Rudolf Steiner Quotes Site 