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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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Aspects of Human Evolution
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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Aspects of Human Evolution
On-line since: 30th September, 2009
Aspects of Human Evolution
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
Lectures Section
This volume goes deeply into questions of the soul's evolving, changing
needs for development. Steiner shows how the natural development of the
soul stops at about the age of 27. After that we no longer inwardly grow
unless we bring it about ourselves. Steiner also explains that a
comprehension of how we arrive at aesthetic assessments is dependent on
an understanding of the higher members of the human being and their
relationships to the lower members. This volume along with Karma of
Materialism completes the entire German volume Bn/GA 176.
By Rudolf Steiner
Translated by Rita Stebbing
Bn/GA 176
This volume goes deeply into questions of the soul's evolving, changing
needs for development. Steiner shows how the natural development of the
soul stops at about the age of 27. After that we no longer inwardly grow
unless we bring it about ourselves. Steiner also explains that a
comprehension of how we arrive at aesthetic assessments is dependent on
an understanding of the higher members of the human being and their
relationships to the lower members. This volume along with Karma of
Materialism completes the entire German volume GA 176.
The eight lectures presented here were given between May and July
of 1917 in Berlin. In the collected edition of Rudolf Steiner's
works, the volume containing the German texts is entitled,
Menschliche und menschheitliche Entwicklungswahrheiten.
Das Karma des Materialismus
(Vol. 176 in the Bibliographic Survey). They were translated from
the German by Rita Stebbing.
This volume is presented here with the kind permission of the Rudolf
Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.
Copyright © 1987
This e.Text edition is provided with the cooperation of:
The Anthroposophic Press
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| Cover Sheet |
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| Publisher's Note |
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| Contents |
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| Foreword by J. Leonard Benson |
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| Lecture I |
May 29, 1917 |
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The general age of mankind as a whole is
receding. This means that the development of man's soul and
spirit ceases to be dependent on the physical body at an ever
earlier age. At the time of the ancient Indian cultural epoch
this dependence lasted up to the age of 56, receding during
that epoch to 49. During the Persian epoch it receded to the
age of 42, during the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch to the age of
35, during the Graeco-Latin epoch to the age of 28, so that
at the beginning of the present fifth post-Atlantean epoch
man's soul and spirit were dependent on the physical body
only up to the age of 28 and it has by now receded to the age
of 27. This has far-reaching consequences for mankind's
evolution. At the time the Mystery of Golgotha took place
mankind's age had receded to 33 and therefore coincided
exactly with the age of Christ Jesus. This event bestowed
upon man the power to take his inner development in hand
which will otherwise cease at the age of 27.
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| Lecture II |
June 05, 1917 |
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The necessity not only for different, but
for more mobile concepts. Goethe's greatest contribution was
his ability to bring movement into concepts. The concepts of
spiritual science are not only new but of necessity mobile.
The experience of God the Father is bound up with the
growing, thriving forces of the body. When the bodily forces
began to decline in ancient times man could experience the
spirit of the cosmos, later known as the Christ, because his
soul and spirit were still dependent on the body in mature
age. As the age of mankind receded, so did the experience of
the cosmic Christ. To be an atheist is an illness, to deny
the Christ a tragic destiny, not to recognize the spirit is
blindness of soul.
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| Lecture III |
June 19, 1917 |
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Because of the soul and spirit's
dependence on the body in the early post-Atlantean epochs,
people grew wise as they grew old. The elders were therefore
the natural lawgivers. People experienced the spirits of the
elements. This meant that the earth was experienced as a
living being whose physiognomy was reflected in the various
cultures. In the Persian culture the teaching of Ormuzd and
Ahriman, of Light and Darkness, arose as a consequence of
man's experience of the spiritual world growing dark when, on
awakening, he plunged into the body. In the Egyptian-Chaldean
epoch arose the cult of the stars. In the Greek
epoch, what had formerly been direct experience became
philosophy, mainly through Aristotle. Christ's union with
mankind's evolution was an inherent necessity. Modern
theologians speak of Christ, but what they describe is God
the Father. Thoughts become ever more abstract in the West,
whereas in Eastern Europe an intellectuality is developing
which expresses itself mystically. The manifesto sent out by
Czar Peter III was formulated in concrete concepts and led to
the ending of the Seven Years War. The ideas emerging in the
West in regard to the 1914 world war are completely abstract,
with no relation to the reality.
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| Lecture IV |
June 26, 1917 |
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Two aspects of the modern world's attitude
to spiritual knowledge are described. On the one hand a
modern scientist, Moritz Benedikt, arrives at a recognition
of Goethe's theory of color, purely through his scientific
research into the phenomenon of water divining. On the other,
a modern professor of philosophy, Max Dessoir, not only
rejects the science of the spirit, but by misquoting at great
length passages from Occult Science and other books he
deliberately sets out to falsify it.
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| Lecture V |
July 03, 1917 |
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Franz Brentano — a representative of
modern striving man. His deep concern is the true nature of
the human soul. But without spiritual insight he has no
possibility of arriving at proper answers to his questions
concerning the true and the good. Brentano's greatness
reveals itself not so much in his conclusions, as in the
earnestness of his striving. The reality of truth and the
source of the good cannot be discovered without insight into
the higher members of man's being; nor can a true
comprehension of how we arrive at aesthetic assessments. That
is why the abstract conclusions put forward by Kant and his
followers have no basis in reality. The experience of pure
thinking is the first step in modern clairvoyance. Unless
instincts for the good are brought into the light of
consciousness, they do not enter the stream of heredity. Only
concepts based on spiritual knowledge can produce effective
solutions to legal, moral and social questions.
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| Lecture VI |
July 10, 1917 |
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To imagine self-knowledge to be simple is
an illusion. The I is complex; we encounter it as a shadowy
picture in the conceptual sphere. This picture is the seed of
what will become our I in the next life, as the seed in a
plant will become plant the following spring. It can be
enriched if man develops a sense for the hidden connection
between events. Example of the gypsy and Rousseau. The I
which is sought through the will works across from man's
former life on earth. By developing a sense for hidden karmic
connections, man can gain insight into life in the spiritual
world before birth. Example of the meeting between Bernstein
and Stepniack just before the death of the latter. Wrong
comparisons lead to wrong conclusions. Example of triangle
and worm.
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| Lecture VII |
July 17, 1917 |
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Man no longer experiences the Rubicon he
crosses when in his thirties the bodily forces begin to
decline. This is because his soul and spirit become
independent from the body at the age of 27. When the
dependence lasted into mature age, he grew naturally wise.
The elders in ancient India were super-geniuses. Now man does
not grow wise beyond the age of 27 unless he develops through
his own inner initiative. He remains at age 27 even if he
lives to be a hundred years old. This means he produces
nothing that can carry evolution forward into the future. A
perfect example of a brilliant personality who remained at a
soul age of 27 although he accomplished much is Lloyd George.
Just because he had no affinity with impulses stemming from
another age group, he became, as did others, a puppet
manipulated by individuals who possessed occult powers
through ancient impulses and traditions, powers which brought
about the 1914 world war.
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| Lecture VIII |
July 24, 1917 |
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The importance of truth being experienced
as a living reality. Only now is the moment right for the
revelation the connection between the individual and the age
of mankind. The concepts of spiritual science establish a
connection with spiritual reality. Only what is in the
process of becoming is alive. The West suffers from a
superstitious belief in the printed word, in what has become
detached from man. This tendency has opened the door for evil
practices in certain quarters. Eastern Europe is preparing
the way, though as yet it has hardly begun, for true
individuality, for ethical individualism. Eastern, Central,
and Western Europe can only be understood if seen, not only
side by side in space, but in a historical sense following
one another.
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| Notes |
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Last Modified: 07-Oct-2024
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