It does not depend on what a person says or believes

You can find plenty of doctors nowadays, properly recognised members of the medical profession, who would never admit to being sworn materialists; they profess to one or another religious faith, and they would staunchly deny the accusation of being materialistic. But this is not the point. Life does not depend on what a man says or believes. That is his personal concern. To be effective it is necessary to know how to apply and make valuable use in life of those facts that are not limited to the sense world but have an existence in the spiritual world. So that however pious a doctor is and however many ideas he has regarding this or the other spiritual world, if he nevertheless works according to the rules that arise entirely out of our materialistic world conception, that is, he treats people as though they only had a body, then however spiritually minded he believes himself to be, he is nevertheless a materialist. For it does not depend on what a person says or believes but on his ability to set in living motion the forces behind the external world of the senses.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 107 – The Being of Man and His Future Evolution: Lecture 2: Different Types of Illness – Berlin, 10th November 1908

Translated by Pauline Wehrle

Painting by Nesta Carsten-Krüger

Previously posted on 18 December 2018

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Modern thinking is unable to cope with and master the chaos

Modern thinking is simply unable to cope with and master the chaos of outer conditions and tasks in which man is becoming so deeply involved. Thinking itself will become rigid. Today we are living in an age of transition but thinking will soon no longer be sufficiently fluid and flexible to grapple with and transform the complicated conditions of life. Why do we promulgate anthroposophy? In order to achieve practical effects. Anthroposophical thoughts make thinking more elastic, more flexible, enable a more rapid survey of far-reaching circumstances.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 109 – Rosicrucian Esotericism: Lecture I – Budapest, 3rd June 1909

Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

 

INNER OCEAN SUNSET – Art of Carol Herzer

Previously posted on 8 december 2018

Knowledge / Compassion / Preaching

The path to the peaks of knowledge and the path to the heights of compassion are one and the same. Only knowledge and understanding -not preaching- will lead to empathy.

A man with a broken leg will not be helped by the compassion of a surrounding crowd, but by one who, knowing what to do, treats his leg correctly.

Mere preaching is like standing before a stove, and asking it to perform its duty of warming up the room. It is the same when you tell people they need to practise brotherly love. Just as one must put wood in the stove and light a fire, so must he give people the knowledge their souls need in order to join in brotherly love.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 97 – Das christliche Mysterium – Vienna, 22 February 1907 (page 245)

Anonymous translator

 

Previously posted on 17 november 2018

For the truly practical person it is not important what the contents of the thoughts are, but the activity they bring about

It is not the theories that have significance, but the habits of thought. For the truly practical person it is not important what the contents of the thoughts are, but the activity they bring about. That is what it is all about. It does not matter whether someone is an idealist, but what is important in life is that one’s thoughts are fruitful, that they stimulate life and bring progress. It must be kept in mind that Spiritual Science does not want to have any part in one or the other dogma or belief system. It is of no importance that someone has many spiritual theories, but that these ideas are fruitful when applied to life. When someone declares that they are not materialistic and believe in the force of life, even in the spirit, but at the same time treats the human being like a gigantic test tube when considering nutritional matters, his worldview cannot bear fruit. Spiritual Science can only bring adequate answers to concrete questions when it is able to penetrate the details – and it is indeed able to shed light on nutritional as well as health issues.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 57 – Wo und wie findet man den Geist? – Berlin, 17 December 1908 (p. 172-173)

Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger

 

Previously  posted on September 13, 2018

Anecdote farmer Zeltner

When the anthroposophists laid the foundation stone for the Goetheanum in Dornach, a village near Basel, Switzerland, on 20 September 1913, many anthroposophical Society members naturally began settling near the site. Many were well-off and did not have to work for a living. They had time to listen to Rudolf Steiner’s lectures, money to follow him on his lecture tours, and enthusiasm to do some artistic work now and then. When they got too tired, they went for nature walks in the Dornach area. To the ordinary people in Dornach, a farming village, those anthroposophists were just odd, a bunch of rich idlers. They had little faith in the whole “temple” thing and allowed themselves to be influenced by the local clergy. Perhaps not all farmers are naturally suspicious of city people, but that was certainly the case with the father of Mrs von Arx, a midwife from Dornach. She recalled the following event from her childhood, around 1914. Her father, farmer Zeltner and a barrel-maker in Oberdornach did not like those anthroposophical idlers much and regularly treated them rudely. One day he was mowing his meadow along Melcher Road. A stroller approached him slowly and spoke as he passed by the mowing farmer:

“Tricky work you are doing there.”

Zeltner, already bathed in sweat, replied rather harshly:

“What do my lords understand about that when they have nothing to do but walk around?”

The other man replied, “I used to do that too.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Zeltner mumbled. But the gentleman spoke calmly:

“When I was little, I often mowed down a steep railway embankment for our goats.”

He stepped up to Zeltner, took the scythe out of his hands and began mowing precisely according to the rules. Farmer Zeltner paused: “Well, damn, he can do it too!”

Thereupon they started talking about the grass, about which herbs were the best for good milk. The strange gentleman turned out to be as good a connoisseur of all grasses as farmer Zeltner. He inquired whether there was milk in surplus and whether it was sold. When this was confirmed, he had milk collected from the Zeltner family every day from then on.

That gentleman was Rudolf Steiner.

Source (German): Erinnerungen an Rudolf Steiner by Hans Kühn (page 506)

Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger

Drawing by Jopie Huisman