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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 1 through 10 of 32

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68a. The Essence of Christianity: The Relationship of the Germanic Peoples to Christianity 26 Jul 1904, Berlin

/gap] A culture that disappeared again because he had to be there in person, this people of the Celts, who had a powerful influence, was attached to blood... /gap] It did not die out, but it does not work through tradition, but still today through its blood.
These people pushed into the areas formerly inhabited by the Celts, settled in areas as far as Russia, and broke up into a myriad of tribes. Freedom was innate in a sense, but depended on defending it with weapons.
But this was a misinterpretation of a word. However, the Celts gave their religion to the Germanic tribes, who were in league with nature. Druids were called oaks.
51. The History of the Middle Ages: Lecture I 18 Oct 1904, Berlin
Translator Unknown

Thus we find in the Germani, hemmed in by the other two races, a strong intermingling of Celts and Slavonic blood. And this mixture of the Celtic and Slavonic element, influenced the whole culture of the Middle Ages. When we look back into the far past we see a great and remarkable culture of the ancient Celts. Even to this day the Celtic blood shows itself as active, energetic, mentally alert, inclined to revolutionary impulses. To the Celtic race we owe magnificent poems, songs and scientific ideas. It was the Celts who gave the stimulus for the legends elaborated by German poets in the Middle Ages—Roland, Tristan, Parsifal, etc.
299. The Genius of Language: The Transforming Powers of Language in Relation to Spiritual Life 29 Dec 1919, Stuttgart
Translated by Ruth Pusch, Gertrude Teutsch

The Germans accepted foreign word elements from the Celts, who were then their western neighbors, much as they later accepted them from the Romans coming from the South.
There seems to have been no metamorphosis of the word, either in Central Europe or the West; apparently the Germans took over the word later from the Celts. In fact, a whole series of such words was taken over, for some of which the power of adaptation could be found.
Rix, originally Celtic, was taken up by the Celts to mean ‘the ruler,” the person of power (Gothic reiks Latin rex). It has become the German word reich (Anglo-Saxon, rice, ‘powerful’, ‘rich’), ‘to become powerful through riches’.
121. The Mission of Folk-Souls: Lecture Ten 16 Jun 1910, Oslo
Translator Unknown

There above all we find that people, that collection of peoples, that community of peoples whom we know by the name of Celts. The Folk-spirit of the Celts—of whom from former lectures we know that later he received quite different tasks—then had the task of educating the still youthful ‘I’ of the peoples of Europe. For this it was necessary that the Celts should receive an education and instruction which was communicated directly from the higher world. Hence it is perfectly true that through their Initiates, the Druid Priests, the Celts did receive instruction from the higher worlds which they could not have acquired by their own strength, and which they then had to hand on further to the other nations.
121. The Mission of the Individual Folk-Souls: The Mission of Individual Peoples and Cultures in the Past, Present and Future. 16 Jun 1910, Oslo
Translated by A. H. Parker

Each individual people had its appointed task; chief amongst them was that homogeneous group of peoples, that widely distributed folk community whom we know by the name of Celts. It was the responsibility of the ancient Celtic Folk Spirit, who, as we know from earlier lectures, was later given quite different tasks, to educate the still youthful ‘I’ of the peoples of Europe. To this end it was necessary that the Celts themselves should receive an education and instruction which was mediated directly from the higher world. Hence it was entirely appropriate that through their Initiates, the Druid priests, the Celts should transmit to other nations instruction received from higher worlds and which they could not have acquired of themselves.
54. Parsifal and Lohengrin 29 Mar 1906, Berlin

We know that the Teutons, the ancestors of the German and Anglo-Saxon tribes took an area in possession that other tribes inhabited, the Celts in primeval times. The Celts: one only knows a little about them; history tells a little only about these past times of Europe in which these strange people had big influence which was pushed then by the invading Teutons to the west, but was also forced back there as people. The Celts were forced back as people. Their influence has remained. A spiritual sediment of this old Celtic time exists in Europe.
Ideas of the spiritual world remained from that. Among the Celts, the old clairvoyance was preferably home, the immediate consciousness that one could have experiences in the divine-spiritual world.
51. The History of the Middle Ages: Lecture III 01 Nov 1904, Berlin
Translator Unknown

The spiritual strivings of the free ranks were encouraged by the influx of the Celtic element. The Celts, whose fiery blood again manifested itself, became the teachers and leaders of the spiritually less active Franks.
Their education lagged far behind that of the other clergy; the learned priests and monks were all Celts. In these centuries, therefore, the most divine tribes were gradually shaken up together; the invasion of the Huns gave rise to these changes While that which has been described was taking shape within the actual currents of civilisation, great struggles had been going on outside.
92. The Occult Truths of Old Myths and Legends: Germanic Mythology 15 Jul 1904, Berlin

These have propagated the original doctrine of Wotan, Wili and We and their priesthood. The Celts had priests, whom we call Druid priests. These were centered in a great lodge, in the Nordic Lodge.
There you will find an indication of what the initiates of the East had to give. And what the Celts gave them was the saga of Baldur, the saga of the god of light and the god of darkness. Thus the initiates of the West slowly introduced this saga to the initiates of the East, with the well-considered intention of imparting something important to them.
300a. Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner I: Fifth Meeting 23 Dec 1919, Stuttgart
Translated by Ruth Pusch, Gertrude Teutsch

Steiner: The Etruscans were a southern Celtic element, a branch of the Celts transplanted in the south. A teacher asks about books on Oriental history. Dr.
167. Things in Past and Present in the Spirit of Man: Death and Resurrection 18 Apr 1916, Berlin
Translated by E. H. Goddard

Then the Frenchman, shall we say tries to describe the French and says that they became wise through the fact that France descends partly from the ancient Celts and then he describes the Celts. When you compare and find that person who describes the Germans in Central Europe attributes the same qualities to the Germans which the Frenchman ascribes to the ancient Celts.

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