It is a complete misunderstanding to say spiritual science must also be believed

I have often emphasized that it is a complete misunderstanding to say spiritual science must also be believed. When people say this, it is because they are so crammed full with materialistic prejudices that they do not look at what spiritual science really has to offer. As soon as it is examined, everything becomes understandable. One does not need clairvoyance for this; our ordinary understanding is enough to really grasp and comprehend all this gradually — of course, “gradually” will be inconvenient for some people.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 154 – The Presence of the Dead on the Spiritual Path: Lecture One: Understanding the Spiritual World (Part One) – Berlin, April 18, 1914

Translated by Christian von Arnim

Previously posted on October 16, 2016

The Importance of Education for the Human Being

When you consider the whole human lifespan, not only what is comfortable, not just childhood, to obtain basic pedagogical rules, pedagogical impulses, it becomes clear for the first time what a vitally important role education and upbringing have in the life of a human being. One realises, how often happiness or misfortune in terms of mental, psychological and physical wellbeing are related to education and upbringing.

When you see how the doctor, when treating people in old age, without knowing, needs to correct upbringing mistakes and that he often fails to address the problems he encounters, because they are too firmly anchored in the human being. When you see how a child lives with its feelings into what it experiences and how this has physical consequences, when you realise how the interchanging between the physical and the psychical occurs, you come to deeply respect, to evaluate in the right way the importance of the methodology of learning.  You begin to understand what the existential conditions for educating should be, merely according to the nature of the human being himself.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 308 – Die Methodik des Lehrens und die Lebensbedingungen des Erziehens – Stuttgart, April 8, 1924 (page 16) 

Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger

Previously posted on March 21, 2019

Every agitation in the psyche works on the circulation of the child as well as on the breathing and metabolism

Every agitation in the psyche works on the circulation of the child as well as on the breathing and metabolism. Body, soul and spirit are not differentiated yet. Therefore, every negative arousal that comes from the environment penetrates deeply into the bodily organisation of the child. So, when a choleric teacher lets his temperament go rampant in the vicinity of a child, is even merely in the presence of the child, then the letting go of the choleric temperament penetrates the soul of the child, planting itself into the physical body. What the teacher does under the influence of his temperament – when he does not exercise that self-control that we will discuss later – leaves an imprint in the child’s physical body.

The curious thing is that it penetrates the deeper layers of the existence of the developing child and the consequences will show only later in adulthood. In the same way that a seed planted in the earth in the autumn becomes a plant in the spring, so it happens with children. When the child of eight, nine years, enters its forty-fifth, fiftieth year, we see the effects of the choleric temperament of the teacher who let himself go. Metabolic diseases appear, not only in the adult but also in old age. 

Research thoroughly, and you will realise why we encounter this or that person in his fortieth, fiftieth year, suffering from rheumatism. Your investigations will lead you to understand why a person may be suffering from all kinds of metabolic diseases like poor digestion.  You will discover why this person is as he or she is, why he suffers from gout at an early age: much of it must be attributed merely to a choleric teacher who let go of the reins when he dealt with this person at a young age.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 308 – Die Methodik des Lehrens und die Lebensbedingungen des Erziehens – Stuttgart, April 8, 1924 (page 15-16)

Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger

Previously posted on February 13, 2019

Taking into consideration the whole earthly life

For the educator and the teacher, it is necessary to keep the whole earthly life in mind. Because what we put into a child in the eighth or ninth year of life works through into the forty-fifth or fiftieth year of the adult human being, as we will discuss. So, what I do as a teacher during the primary school age with the child, penetrates deeply into the physical, psychic and spiritual nature of the human being.

It often lives under the surface for many years, strangely coming to light after decades, sometimes even at the end of life, because at the beginning of life, it was laid in the child as a germ. One can only work in the right direction at this age when you do not only consider the present age of the child but keep in mind the whole future life from out of true knowledge of the human being.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 308 – Die Methodik des Lehrens und die Lebensbedingungen des Erziehens – Stuttgart, April 8, 1924 (page 12)

Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger

Previously posted on January 16, 2019

An entity that contacts nothing can have no knowledge of itself

A simple observation can convince everyone how ego-consciousness develops and becomes strong in a child. Suppose he knocks his head against the corner of a table. If you observe closely you will find that the feeling of “I” is intensified after such a thing happens. In other words, the child becomes aware of himself, is brought nearer to a knowledge of self. 

Of course, it need not always amount to an actual injury or scratch. Even when the child puts his hand on something there is an impact on a small scale that makes him aware of himself. You will have to conclude that a child would never develop ego-consciousness if resistance from the world outside did not make him aware of himself. The fact that there is a world external to himself makes possible the unfolding of ego-consciousness, the consciousness of the “I.” […]

An entity that contacts nothing can have no knowledge of itself, not, at least, in the world in which we live! 

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 140 – Life Between Death and Rebirth: III: Man’s Journey Through the Planetary Spheres and the Significance of a Knowledge of Christ – Hanover, November 18, 1912

Translated by Rene Querido

Previously posted on November 22, 2016