Many want the great truths to be simple and easy

The truths in the religious documents have emerged from the depths of wisdom. But then many say: you give us complicated material; we want to have the gospel uncomplicated and straightforward. The great truths must not be complex. 

In a certain respect, these people are correct, but apart from superficial efforts, deeper wisdom-filled thinking must also find the highest truths. The standpoint from which we consider these things cannot be high enough. In the future, we must increasingly leave behind convenient points of view to seriously penetrate the most profound insights.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 97 – Das christliche Mysterium – Keulen, March 8, 1907 (page 134)

Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger

 

 Previously posted on 5 February 2021

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No occult school sees in its teaching and requirements anything like a moral law valid for all mankind

Yesterday we concluded by outlining the three methods of occult development: the Eastern, the Christian and the Rosicrucian. Today we will begin by going more closely into the details which distinguish these three paths. But first I should say that no occult school sees in its teaching and requirements anything like a moral law valid for all mankind. The requirements apply only to those who deliberately choose to devote themselves to a particular occult training. You can, for instance, be a very good Christian and fulfil everything that the Christian religion prescribes for the laity without undergoing a Christian occult training. It goes without saying that you can be a good man and come to a form of the higher life without any occult training.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 95 – At the Gates of Spiritual Science: Lecture XIII: Oriental and Christian Training – Stuttgart, 3rd September 1906

Translated by E.H. Goddard & Charles Davy

Previously posted on August 19, 2018

Christ is represented much more as the Divinity in the Koran confession than in that of the modern Protestant

If we go as missionaries to foreign cultures, or even to people in our own lands, and wish to force upon them the worship of Jesus within a religious denomination, we will not be understood since the knowledge of these people extends far beyond what is brought to them by this or that missionary. I should like to know, for example, what a Turk would say if a modern Protestant pastor should try to convey to him his conception of Christ. This conception as it is dealt with by modern Protestant pastors holds that there was once a Socrates, and then one who was somewhat more than Socrates, the Christ, the human being, the special human being, but still the human being — or any of those confused things that are said today in modern Protestantism about Christ. The Turk would say to him, “What! You tell me such a thing and you wish to be called a Christian? Just read the nineteenth chapter of the Koran; much more is contained in it about the Christ than what you are telling me!” In other words, the Turks know a great deal more concerning Christ Jesus than what the modern Protestant pastors are prone to present because the Koran contains more about Him and Christ is represented much more as the Divinity in the Turkish confession than in that of the modern Protestant. This is simply not realized because nowadays people do not often go so far as really to read the original religious documents; rather, they utter much superficial nonsense regarding all possible religions.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 172 – The Karma of Vocation – Dornach, 27th November 1916

Translated by Olin D. Wannamaker and revised for this edition by Gilbert Church, Ph.D. The final revision was prepared by Peter Mollenhauer.

Previously posted on February 22, 2015

Is anxiety and anguish the mother of religion?

Firstly Ebbinghaus (Hermann Ebbinghaus – a German psychologist 1850-1909) states: ‘anxiety and anguish are the mother of religion.’ Then he continues: ‘the churches fill and pilgrimages increase during times of war and devastating epidemics.’ I would like to know if the churches fill during epidemics and times of war with those people who, from the outset are inclined to materialism. Only those who in one way or another have a religious inclination, fill the churches at these times. This is not, however, because of fear and distress, but it is because these people detect something spiritual in their souls. In former times mankind experienced this more instinctively. Nowadays he can experience it much more consciously. Because man gradually progresses to the experience of the spiritual, he sees an image of the supersensible within the sensory impression.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 072 – Freiheit Unsterblichkeit Soziales Leben – Basel, 19th October 1917  (page 98)

Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger

HERMANN EBBINGHAUS

Previously posted on October 7, 2015

New religions will no longer arise

Anthroposophy knows full well that she can never be a religion, because she recognises the actual course of development in time; she knows that just as little as one can become a child again at the age of 60, just as little humanity can develop religions in the present era and in future times. Forming religions belonged to other times. New religions will no longer arise.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 72 – Freiheit Unsterblichkeit Soziales Leben – Basel, 19th October 1917  (page 89)

Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger

 

Previously posted on June 9, 2018