An association of foolish people

Again and again, if it happens that people speak to those outside the anthroposophical society about me, saying for example: ‘The doctor has said this or that ‘, one should place oneself in the shoes of the person who hears someone else making such statements! For example, if someone says – such things happen in our association, I do not even say jokingly that this does not happen amongst us – so if someone says: ‘The doctor takes care of the spiritual development of the members‘, what should a person from outside think other than that this is an “Association of Foolish People”, who blindly follow one human being. […] We need to take Spiritual Science seriously, and we should do nothing to harm it.

Source (German): Rudolf Steiner – GA 253 – Probleme des Zusammenlebens in der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft – Dornach, September 10, 1915 (page 31)

Translated by Nesta Carsten-Krüger

Previously posted on 31 October 2018

Advertisement

The present catastrophe is but the beginning

The fact that — to use a colloquialism — people in the future are not going to get much fun out of developments on the physical plane will bring home to them that further evolution must proceed from spiritual forces.

This can be understood only by surveying a lengthy period of evolution and applying what is discovered to experiences that will become more and more general in the future. The trend of forces that will manifest in the well-nigh rhythmical onset of war and destruction — processes of which the present catastrophe is but the beginning — will become only too evident. It is childish to believe that anything connected with this war can bring about a permanent era of peace for humanity on the physical plane. That will not be so. What must come about on the earth is spiritual development. 

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 193 – Influences of Lucifer/Ahriman: Lecture Three – Bern, 4th November, 1919

Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond

Previously posted on June 18, 2016

Immune to develop spiritual life

I have pointed out that while human bodies will develop in such a way that certain spiritualities can find room in them, the materialistic bent, which will spread more and more under the guidance of the spirits of darkness, will work against this and combat it by physical means. 

I have told you that the spirits of darkness are going to inspire their human hosts, in whom they will be dwelling, to find a vaccine that will drive all inclination towards spirituality out of people’s souls when they are still very young, and this will happen in a roundabout way through the living body.

Today, bodies are vaccinated against one thing and another; in future, children will be vaccinated with a substance which it will certainly be possible to produce, and this will make them immune, so that they do not develop foolish inclinations connected with spiritual life — ‘foolish’ here, of course, in the eyes of materialists.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 177 –  Fall of the spirits of darkness – LECTURE 13: The Fallen Spirits’ Influence in the World – Dornach, 27 October 1917

Translated by Anna R. Meuss

Human beings will be immunised against any predisposition for spiritual ideas

The age of materialism is striving, through the work of certain circles, to paralyse, to eliminate all spiritual development in mankind, to bring human beings to a point where simply by temperament and character they reject everything that is spiritual and regard it as folly.

This trend — and it is already perceptible in some individuals today — will intensify. People will actually long for the time when the Spiritual is universally deemed to be insanity, craziness! Attempts will be made to achieve this end by inoculations; just as viruses have been discovered as means of protection against illnesses, so certain inoculations will be used to influence the human body in such a way that it provides no place for the spiritual proclivities of the soul. Human beings will be immunised against any predisposition for spiritual ideas … such, at least, will be the endeavour. They will try by inoculation to bring it about that even in childhood, human beings lose the urge towards the spiritual life. 

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 178 – Behind the scenes: Lecture 1 – Zurich, November 6, 1917

Artistic feeling/Spiritual faculties

It should be remarked that artistic feeling, when coupled with a quiet introspective nature, forms the best preliminary condition for the development of spiritual faculties. This feeling pierces through the superficial aspect of things, and in so doing touches their secrets.

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 10 – Knowledge of the Higher Worlds: II: The Stages of Initiation

Translated by George Metaxa

Previously posted on August 25, 2018