Week 5
Within the light that out of spirit depths
Weaves germinating power into space
And manifests the gods' creative work:
Within its shine, the soul's true being
Is widened into worldwide life
And resurrected
From narrow selfhood's inner power.
Week 31
The light from spirit depths
Strives to ray outwards, sun-imbued;
Transformed to forceful will of life
It shines into the senses' dullness
To bring to birth the powers
Whereby creative forces, soul-impelled,
Shall ripen into human deeds.
—Translation by Ruth and Hans Pusch
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Throughout our life, we have to struggle with questions that cannot be answered on the basis of our experience or with our ordinary thinking. Spiritual science can help us penetrate to a realm where new possibilities open up to address these questions. These lectures offer fascinating insights into the spiritual nature of everyday matters such as forgetting, laughing and weeping, different types of illnesses, and rhythms in the bodies of the human being. Steiner shows how we can become, through our own efforts, "co-creators" in evolution.
Nine Lectures, 2nd November 1908 to 17th June 1909, given in Berlin. Translated by Pauline Wehrle from shorthand reports unrevised by the lecturer. The original texts of these lectures are contained in the series of 19 lectures entitled Spiritual-Scientific Anthropology/Knowledge of Man (in German, Geisteswissenschaftliche Menschenkundein).
I. | Forgetting | November 2, 1908 |
II. | Different Types of Illness | November 10, 1908 |
III. | Original Sin | December 8, 1908 |
IV. | Rhythm in the Bodies of Man | December 21, 1908 |
V. | Rhythms in the Being of Man | January 12, 1908 |
VI. | Rhythms in the Being of Man | January 26, 1908 |
VII. | Illness and Karma | April 27, 1908 |
VIII. | Laughing and Weeping | May 3, 1908 |
IX. | The Manifestation of the Ego in the Different Races of Men | June 17, 1908 |
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