How the Spiritual World Interpenetrates the Physical

How the Spiritual World interpenetrates the Physical

RUDOLF STEINER Ph.D.
Two Lectures, 9–10 May 1914
given at Cassel

SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS

This Synopsis is only for the possible convenience of readers, and has no claim to be authoritative.

LECTURE 1. Importance of spiritual thoughts on going to sleep. The spiritual thoughts must be selfless. Danger of fear when going to sleep. Egoism. Parasites. Epidemics. The dead are starving for spiritual food which it is our duty to supply. The consciousness of the dead is refreshed when we read to them. The religious disposition of the future. Importance of communion with the dead. But it is always a presumption to force our will beyond what is karmic ally allowed to us by cosmic wisdom. Death is a transformation of activity. A reason for early death. The soul is sometimes too powerful for the body. A long illness. Christian Morgenstern.

LECTURE 2. The Spiritual world is dull and weak and dreamy to us if the soul cannot, during life on earth, acquire an inward activity. Fantastic idealism IS dangerous even III the spiritual world. Before Golgotha the clairvoyance was aroused in the physical body. To counteract the danger of wrong and fantastic vision, the great religious teachers appeared. Spiritual knowledge at that time was given on authority, it is now produced inwardly. The Christ-Impulse. ‘I am with you always.’ In the spiritual world one does not see, but one is seen. The dead perceive the living according to the measure of force received from Higher Hierarchies. We on earth can thus be helped by the dead to be good. They do not give us faculties, but the fact of our knowledge of their presence is a help. The Mystery Plays. We are also helped unconsciously. For this help, spiritual vision is not necessary. The old dreamy clairvoyance was stimulated by the physical body. Now spiritual knowledge is gained by Spiritual Science. Understanding is necessary for spiritual development. A chaotic psychic power belongs only to the backward soul. Fichte: ‘Heaven exists everywhere, in every living heart.’