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The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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167. Things in Past and Present in the Spirit of Man: Thomas More and His Utopia 02 May 1916, Berlin
Translated by E. H. Goddard

But we should remember that Thomas More who in his Utopia talked about religious tolerance could not be considered the sort of rationalist or free thinker who preached religious tolerance in the 18th century. No, in order to understand his concept of religious tolerance and where it came from, we must examine his book “Utopia” carefully.
This is a real fact, and it is the basis for the terrible anxiety which certain religious confessions have in reference to occultism. Naturally they do not understand the real occultism; they do not understand how Christ can be found through the real spiritual science.
It is necessary in our times which are so filled with destiny, to understand what spiritual facts and conditions play into the external historical events. You have to understand these things because what I am giving you now is the fundamental motifs of all the lectures in order that you can understand the importance of how spiritual acts can throw light upon external historical indications.
167. Things in Past and Present in the Spirit of Man: Celtic Symbols and Cult, Jesuit State in Paraguay 09 May 1916, Berlin
Translated by E. H. Goddard

However, another type of occult brotherhood which follow the same thing but in another way understand how to work much more deeply into the human forces. The Jesuit Orders belong to such occult brotherhoods.
This sort of thing can show you exactly what is going on underneath the present life. These are much more important than one can, in the first place, imagine. It is very important to know that in our time we need a spiritual scientific stream, this stream which is feared by those people who are under the authority of their thought habit patterns.
This whole thing was done by one of our members under the title of “The Recitation Art of Eurythmy”. Our Eurythmy has been brought into the public and made a laughing stock, so much so that an article appeared in the Munich paper entitled “Eurythmy and Other Diseases of the War”.
167. Things in Past and Present in the Spirit of Man: The Value of Truth 16 May 1916, Berlin
Translated by E. H. Goddard

In a similar way, people have difficulty in trying to understand that which ought to be understood in our present age in reference to the Mystery of Golgotha. You know from my lectures that in order to understand the phenomenon of Christ Jesus, we must be able to call up in our minds three worlds.
So we see on the one side that we are attacked by official Christianity and also on the other side we do not receive understanding from the intellectual scientific people of our age. You know, for example, that in Occult Science and other books, we talk about the fact that our earth developed itself out of an ancient Moon existence.
When you realize that situation, you will be able to understand that there was a quite different kind of perception living in the human being on the Moon evolution.
167. Things in Past and Present in the Spirit of Man: Fragments from the Jewish Haggada 23 May 1916, Berlin
Translated by E. H. Goddard

Therefore we see that the idea of these ancient traditions can only be understood with the aid of spiritual science. You learn from that that Solomon's wisdom is connected with the fact that he was able to look into the spiritual world and discover the mystery of death.
We know the deepest questions of the riddle of man belongs to the question of the relationship of good and evil, and we know that we can understand it when we have insight into the working of Lucifer and Ahriman. But this working of Lucifer and Ahriman leads us back to Zarathustra.
A person who does not recognize that life is filled with contradictions will really never understand life. Life, when it is only approached with the human understanding is bound to give many contradictions.
167. Things in Past and Present in the Spirit of Man: Luciferic Dangers from the East 30 May 1916, Berlin
Translated by E. H. Goddard

However, the spiritual comprehension of the would has to be added to this intellectual thinking. Then it will be possible to understand the Mystery of Golgotha again as it was understood many, many years ago but understood now in a very advanced way. I might say that before the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha could have been acquired, that which was inserted into human understanding through the Ahrimanic powers had to occur. As a matter of fact, I can say that all the good spirits are really waiting for mankind to understand the Mystery of Golgotha; yet in spite of that people are fighting against this understanding. They do not want to enter into the understanding of this Mystery of Golgotha and therefore deny it in an unconscious way.
168. The Connection Between the Living and the Dead: The Elements of the Human Being in Life Between Death and Rebirth 18 Feb 1916, Kassel

And when souls are found here on earth that will have understanding for that which will live spiritually not just as an abstract memory but as real etheric powers – this understanding can only be gained from spiritual science – they will well sense the inspiring powers of these etheric bodies.
Today's materialism is entirely dependent on the fact that people have no urge for spiritual life, that they want no sense for spiritual life. Understanding would not be lacking either. For truly, if one opens oneself to what the spiritual researcher is able to give from the spiritual world, even for such chapters as we have allowed to arise before our soul today for the life between death and a new birth: it can be understood, one needs only a finer, more subtle understanding than the rough understanding that today's man often wants to apply to the outer world.
Let us learn to understand, not only in the abstract, but also in the concrete sense, what the countless deaths that are now flooding the earth mean.
168. The Connection Between the Living and the Dead: The Great Lie of Contemporary Civilization 26 Oct 1916, St. Gallen

But these people mostly live under the inhibiting influence of a certain constraint, arising from unconscious timidity, from unconscious spiritual cowardice, precisely in the face of what is most important for humanity today.
Much water will flow down the Rhine before wider circles of people understand and recognize the full gravity of the fact we have been talking about. Today, even the natural scientists have adopted the airs and graces that theologians once adopted towards Joan of Arc.
But there are other, no less important aspects of medical knowledge and skill that suffer tremendously under the materialistic approach and that can only approach a beneficial future by introducing spiritual-scientific knowledge into the relevant investigations.
168. Relationships Between the Living and the Dead 16 Feb 1916, Hamburg
Translator Unknown

What the smallest parts of our bodies finally become, under all circumstances, regardless of the way in which we, as bodies, are united with the earth, is warmth.
It is an experience, if you have some new sensation, or feeling which you have never had before, and you learn to understand this. You have added something to your soul which you did not possess before a new concept, a new perception.
If it were possible to arouse even a little understanding, it would be seen that, for a right understanding, it is precisely an honest natural science that points to a justification of Spiritual Science, even in all its separate details.
168. The Ego-consciousness of the So-called Dead 22 Feb 1916, Leipzig
Translator Unknown

They should not be taken up in such a way that we remain indifferent, dry and cool; but they should, instead, give us a soul-impression of the loftiness and greatness of the divine spiritual world. We can say: If anybody would undertake to present spiritual science in such a dry way that it does not take hold of our WHOLE being, and so that we do not gain an impression of the loftiness and greatness of the divine-spiritual that pulses and weaves through the world—if, after all these descriptions, we would live on indifferently and dryly, then we would be born without heads, in accordance with the present conditions of the world and in spite of everything we know!
Thus a time will come, when these forces that constitute these etheric bodies, can be used for the spiritual progress of humanity; but this time will only come, if here on earth there will be human souls who are able to understand this. When the terrible events of the present shall have passed over the earth and there will be peace once more, then the souls of those who are still living on the earth in human bodies, will have the possibility of grasping something of the fact that all those who have gone into the spiritual world before their time have their etheric bodies in that world and that they can ray their forces into the earth.
168. How Can the Destitution of Soul in Modern Times Be Overcome? 10 Oct 1916, Zurich
Translator Unknown

This is a necessity for social understanding if it is, to some extent, to create the opposite pole to the difficulty of understanding one another.
The complications of modern life make this understandable. But under the pressure of authority we shall become more and more helpless. And systematically to build up this force of authority, this habit of authority, is actually the principle of Jesuitism.
We have need of it, we must know about it, and unite ourselves with it through conscious understanding. This is the third thing which must come to pass in the fifth post-Atlantean period. RECIPROCAL UNDERSTANDING IN SOCIAL LIFE.

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