The gift of clairvoyance is not always a desirable gift

The first thing man gets to know when he enters the astral space, what he sees when his astral eye is opened, is that he finds himself enveloped in the astral body. It is in this astral body that all desires, passions, sensations and so on surge. Here we see clearly what otherwise lies hidden in human nature. Everything hidden becomes visible when we look at this human aura. What I have called the astral, man’s entire sentient nature flows out of it in wavy movements with a certain luminosity. 

I would like to mention a few details that will show you how some things that we otherwise find incomprehensible immediately become understandable. One can often see that certain people, when they are standing at an abyss, show an insuperable desire to throw themselves into it, although they fight against it with all their might. Or one can see what thoughts pass through a man’s soul when he has a knife in his hand. All these things have their deep basis in the human astral body. They are based on the fact that in the astral we have a completely different being than we encounter in the human outside. But they are subject to fate, to karma. If you have certain desires in life, you have had experiences in a previous life that can be pushed into the background by the present mind. But they slumber in the astral body. 

Suppose someone took part in a cruel war in a previous life; there you will see in his aura how through his karma all these atrocities were built into his astral body, with which he now has to wage hard struggles in his present physical life has. Just as threads are spun between a past life and the present, so are threads spun from the present to later lives. The seer sees all this. He sees how a person’s karma works out, and he also sees how for example, a person tries to suppress a tendency out of prudence or how he suppresses feelings. The seer sees to the bottom of the soul. 

Those who have the gift of sight do not consider it a desirable gift that brings joy in all cases, especially when people have feelings they shouldn’t have. And for the beginner, the chela, it is often disastrous because he is easily attracted by everything he now sees.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 88 – Über die astrale Welt und das Devachan – Berlin, 18 November 1903 (page 60,61)

Translated by Google with a few adjustments of my own

PS  This makes me think of a cousin of mine. It’s been about 30 years now. He was 33 years old at the time. He had a good job as a lab technician. Had a good girlfriend whom he was to marry. They had also already bought a house. But one Wednesday morning he drove in his car to the highest flat in Sneek and jumped off. Sad, terribly sad.

Art of Nesta Carsten-Krüger 

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In the future, a man’s moral qualities will be recognised from his actual appearance

In the sixth epoch (3573-5733) of post-Atlantean evolution, men will be born with bodies quite definitely expressing their inner, moral qualities. A man’s moral qualities will be recognised from his actual appearance. The moral physiognomy will then be very strongly in evidence and the physiognomy as it now is, will have receded more into the background. Man’s physiognomy today is largely determined through heredity: he resembles his parents, his grandparents, his people, and so forth. In the sixth epoch this will play no part at all; man will himself determine his outer appearance — as the result of his incarnations. 

Human beings will all be very different, but each will have a very definite stamp. It will then be known with certainty: You have before you now a well-disposed or an ill-disposed man. Just as it is known today: You now have before you an Italian or a Frenchman, it will then be known: Here is a malicious or a kindly man — with all the many gradations. More and more, therefore, the moral qualities will be expressed in the countenance.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 254 – Significant Facts Pertaining to the Spiritual Life of the Middle of the XIXth Century – Lecture III – Dornach, 7th November 1915

Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

PS  I do find this a most remarkable quote. Because in the present time, I have noticed many times that one often does not recognize criminals by their faces at all. I have seen the most terrible serial killers on TV or the Internet or in photographs, who did not look unsympathetic at all and often even seemed sympathetic. It does happen that criminals really do have a lousy face, but that is more the exception than the rule. It also happens that good, kind people have heads like a sick monkey. So it can be said, that the well-known saying is true: You can not judge a book by its cover. So in the future, according to Steiner, this will be very different. Then one will be able to tell by the face whether one is dealing with an evil or good person.

Birth of the Moon Bird – Art of Carol Herzer

Previously posted on 28 December 2018

What is destined to happen in the course of evolution will happen

Just as an age was once ready to receive the Copernican theory of the universe, so is our own age ready for the ideas of reincarnation and karma to be brought into the general consciousness of humanity. And what is destined to happen in the course of evolution will happen, no matter what powers rise up against it. When reincarnation and karma are truly understood, everything else follows of itself in the light of these truths.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 135 – Reincarnation and Karma: Lecture V– Berlin, 5th March 1912

Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond & Charles Davy

Work of Iris Art

Previously posted on 26 december 2018

The teachings of Anthroposophy are accessible to everyone

It is undoubtedly highly desirable that, for example, the teachings of reincarnation and karma, of the “higher worlds” and so on become widely known. But these teachings can only be seen in the right light if illuminated by inner thinking activity. It should by no means be believed that there are people who, due to poor education, would not be suitable for such thought activity. All sensible thinking and feeling people are capable of this. Only a little effort is needed, and one could indeed teach the rudiments of anthroposophy to those who have not even learned to read and write.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 034 – GRUNDLEGENDE AUFSÄTZE ZUR ANTHROPOSOPHIE UND BERICHTE aus den Zeitschriften «Luzifer» und «Lucifer – Gnosis» – October 1905 (page 401-402)

Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger

Painting by Nesta Carsten-Krüger

Love / Karma / Physical body

It is possible to observe, in all details, how the tendencies that were present in one life, work, in the next, on the physical body. A person who is disposed to love everything around him, who is loving to all creatures, who pours out love, will have in the next incarnation a physical body that remains young and fresh until late in life. Love for all beings, the cultivation of sympathy, gives rise to a physical body that preserves its youthful vigour. A man who is full of antipathy against other human beings, who criticises and grumbles at everything, trying to keep aloof from it all, produces, as the result of these tendencies, a physical body that ages and becomes wrinkled prematurely. Thus are the tendencies and passions of one life carried over to the physical, bodily life of subsequent incarnations.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 99 – Theosophy of the Rosicrucian – VI: The Law of Destiny – Munich, 30th May 1907

Translated by M. Cotterell & D. S. Osmond

Cosmic Fire – Art of Carol Herzer

Previous posted on   17 December 2018