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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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Search results 561 through 570 of 1752

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4. The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (1949): Thinking as the Instrument of Knowledge
Translated by Hermann Poppelbaum

All contents of sensations, all perceptions, feelings, acts of will, dreams and fancies, representations, concepts, Ideas, all illusions and hallucinations, are given to us through observation.
All other things, all other processes, are there independently of me. Whether they be truth, or illusion, or dream, I know not. There is only one thing of which I am absolutely certain, for I myself am the author of its indubitable existence; and that is my thinking.
An experienced process may be a complex of percepts, or it may be a dream, an hallucination, etc. In short, I cannot say in what sense it exists. I can never read off the kind of existence from the process itself, for I can discover it only when I consider the process in its relation to other things.
235. Karma: Karma and Freedom 23 Feb 1924, Dornach
Translated by Henry B. Monges

It is a certainty that stuns the human being, that makes him literally faint, so that he is in a state resembling a fainting dream, a state which fills him with the longing to descend again to earth. These are only a few indications of the great difference prevailing between the earthly life and the life between death and a new birth.
In contrast to this brutally clear consciousness of today, the consciousness of the human being of the ancient Egyptian period was much more dream-like, a consciousness that did not, like ours, strike against outer objects. It passed through the world, as it were, without striking against objects.
Do not ask: How could a man with this more dream-like consciousness, not the brutally clear consciousness of today, have performed the tremendous tasks which were actually achieved, for instance, in the ancient Egyptian or Chaldean epochs?
235. Karmic Relationships I: Lecture III 23 Feb 1924, Dornach
Translated by George Adams, Mabel Cotterell, Charles Davy, Dorothy S. Osmond

It is a certainty that stuns him, that makes him actually weak and faint—so that he passes through conditions, like a fainting dream, conditions which imbue him with the longing to come down again to earth. These are but scant indications of the great difference now prevailing between the earthly life and the life between death and a new birth.
Compared to this terribly clear-cut consciousness, the consciousness of the men of the ancient Egyptian time was far more dream-like. It did not impinge, like ours does, upon outer objects. It rather went its way through the world without “knocking up against” objects.
Do not object: “How could a man with this more dream like, and not the clear-cut consciousness of today, have achieved the tremendous tasks which were actually achieved, for instance, in ancient Egypt?”
141. Between Death and Rebirth: Lecture III 03 Dec 1912, Berlin
Translated by Dorothy S. Osmond, E. H. Goddard

Although during the hurry and bustle of daily life people are for the most part disinclined to give rein to feelings of what might have happened, nevertheless there are times in life when events that might have happened have a decisive influence upon the soul. If you were to observe your dream-life more closely, or the strange moments of transition from waking life to sleep or from sleep to waking life, if you were to observe with greater exactitude certain dreams which are often quite inexplicable, in which certain things that happen to you appear in a dream-picture or vision, you would find that these inexplicable pictures indicate something that might have happened and was prevented only because other conditions, or hindrances. intervened.
If he develops such feelings he is preparing himself to receive from the spiritual world impressions from human beings who were connected with him in the physical world. Such influences then manifest as genuine dream-experiences which have meaning and point to some reality in the spiritual world. In teaching us that in the life between birth and death karma holds sway, Anthroposophy makes it quite clear that wherever we are placed in life we are faced perpetually with an infinite number of possibilities.
164. The Value of Thinking for Satisfying our Quest for Knowledge: The Value of Thinking I 17 Sep 1915, Dornach

But episodes, parts of them, also arise in the ordinary dream world. Even the dream as it presents itself to us is a complicated reality, because what is actually experienced is in many ways hidden behind it. But the ideas that we cover up are taken from memory. So the dream, the experiences of those struggling with death, like drowning people and the like, and experiences that occur immediately after passing through the gate of death, show this world of imagination, which is a more spiritual world than the world of ordinary human intelligence on the physical plane.
It is already evident from the creative soul that you have something in the subconscious that is more spiritual than what can be brought up through the dream. There we have a world of unconscious mental life, connected with the whole core of the human being.
177. The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness: The Fallen Spirits' Influence in the World 27 Oct 1917, Dornach
Translated by Anna R. Meuss

People often find it embarrassing to admit to others their knowledge of spiritual influences, but many things they do, or initiate, are done because something appeared to them in a dream which was a genuine spiritual influence. Ask poets why they have become poets. Speaking of the time when they first began to be poets they will tell you that they had spiritual experiences which came as in a dream, and this gave them the impulse to be creative. Ask people who have started journals why they did so—I am giving you facts—and they will speak of what they call dreams, though this was actually the transmission of impulses from the spiritual to the physical world. And there is much more of this, also in other areas, but people will not admit to it, for they think if they tell someone: ‘I've done something or other because some spirit or other appeared to me in a dream,’ the other person will call them idiots. This, of course, is not a nice thing to hear. It is the reason why we know so little about what really goes on among people today.
213. Human Questions and World Answers: Seventh Lecture 08 Jul 1922, Dornach

If we look back to the earliest times of humanity, we know that a kind of dream-like clairvoyance was present everywhere as a general human faculty. To this dream-like clairvoyance, the initiates, the initiates of the mysteries, added higher supersensible knowledge, but also knowledge about the sensory world.
In our feelings we have a little more, but feeling, as you know, remains in a dream-like state, and the will, one no longer even notices with the ordinary consciousness. The will remains entirely in the unconscious, but in it there is still most of the life of what we were before we descended to earth.
You know, these three soul activities are listed as if they were present for ordinary consciousness, whereas in anthroposophy we first have to point out that actually only thinking is fully awake. Feeling is already like dreams in people, and people know nothing at all about willing. I must emphasize again and again: Even if we only want to raise an arm, the thought, “I am raising my arm,” flows into the organism and becomes will, so that the arm is actually raised.
162. Whitsuntide in the Course of the Year 23 May 1915, Dornach
Translated by Violet E. Watkin

On this basis we should make ourselves familiar with the ideas which initiation gives us concerning man's so-called evolution We know that at first the child grows into the world as in a kind of dream. This dream-life of the child is, however, closely united with his growth, with all the sprouting and budding processes; and the younger the child whom we consider, the more do these budding and sprouting processes meet our eye.
On the other handy I have also called attention to how in more ancient times, when manes knowledge proceeded more from his participation in the sleeping condition of the earth, when his soul had to sink into the sleeping Earth-soul in order to have Imagination, the. dream-like Imagination of the old spiritual vision, then the corresponding festival, the John festival, had to be held during the heat of summer. This festival might be said to signify union in dream and ecstasy with the sleeping, dreaming spirit of the earth. The Christmas festival signifies a conscious union with the waking Earth-spirit.
312. Spiritual Science and Medicine: Lecture V 25 Mar 1920, Dornach
Translator Unknown

So for instance we should ask the patient about his dream-life: does he dream much or little? An extensive dream-life is an extremely important constitutional peculiarity, for it testifies to a tendency of the astral body and Ego to unfold an activity of their own, and not to concern themselves very closely with the physical body, so that the formative forces of the soul do not flow down into the organic system.
Let us suppose that you are consulted by a person suffering from some disease (we shall deal with particular diseases later) in which there are particularly vivid and frequent dreams. This means that the astral body likes to separate from the physical, does so with ease, and goes about its own business.
194. The Mission of the Archangel Michael: The Michael Revelation. The Word Becomes Flesh and the Flesh Becomes Spirit 22 Nov 1919, Dornach
Translated by Lisa D. Monges

We are awake only in regard to our thinking and sense perceiving, we dream in regard to our life of feeling; we are sound asleep in regard to our life of willing. For we know only of the thoughts and ideas of our volition; we know nothing of the process of willing.
I cannot describe to you today how the Old Testament came into existence, but I should like to point out to you that we have repeatedly dealt with these matters, and that the teachers of the ancient Hebrew people were conscious of the fact that their God had spoken to them not through direct sense perceptions, not through ordinary thinking, not through that of which the head is the mediator, but that their God had spoken to them through dreams, not ordinary dreams, but dreams permeated by reality. God spoke to them in moments of clairvoyance, as when he spoke to Moses out of the burning bush.

Results 561 through 570 of 1752

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