Mystery Knowledge and Mystery Centres

By Rudolf Steiner

Rudolf Steiner gives a penetrating description - from his spiritual research into the evolution and history of the human being, earth and cosmos - of the experiences people gained through the ancient mysteries. With an Introduction by Dr A. Welburn

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Release date: Apr 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781855843172

Rudolf Steiner

Nineteenth and early twentieth century philosopher.

Book preview

LECTURE 1

The Life of the Human Soul

My dear friends, let us make use of the time available for lectures at the Goetheanum between now and Christmas to help those who have come for the Christmas Conference to absorb as much as possible of what the anthroposophical movement can bring to human hearts. What we can do at the last moment will then really stir the thoughts of those who are staying over Christmas. Not that I shall be speaking about the international Anthroposophical Society—that can be briefly covered at the Conference—but I shall try to formulate what I say in a way that will help prepare the right mood for the forthcoming event.¹ I shall therefore speak from a different point of view of a subject I have been dealing with in recent weeks, and will proceed from a description of the life of the human soul itself to speak of its entry into cosmic secrets.

Let us begin in the simplest possible way and consider what happens in the human soul if we practise self-reflection beyond the point I actually had in mind when I was writing the articles in the Goetheanum Weekly. These four articles can serve as an introduction to what we shall now look at together.²

If we begin practising self-reflection thoroughly and comprehensively we shall realize how the life of the soul can be enhanced and intensified. What happens in the first place is that we let the external world work upon us—we have been doing this since childhood—and then we have thoughts that are the product of our inner world. Indeed, what makes us human beings in the real sense is that we allow the effects produced in us by the external world to live on further in our thoughts and are able to experience ourselves inwardly in these thoughts. We create a world of mental pictures that in a certain way reflects the impressions made upon us from outside. It is possibly not very helpful to our inner life to ponder a great deal on how the external world is reflected in our soul. By doing so we do not get beyond a shadowy picture of the world of mental images in ourselves. A better form of self-reflection is to concentrate on the activity itself and try to experience ourselves in the actual element of thought without regard to the external world, pursuing in thought what came to us as impressions of the external world.

It will depend on a person’s particular nature whether he or she tends more towards thinking abstract thoughts; one person may or may not devise philosophical world systems or sketch abstract plans for anything and everything. Another person who has reflected about things that have made an impression on him and then enlarges upon them in thought may go more in the direction of imaginative ideas. We will not go further into how this inner thinking, without any external impressions, takes its course according to a person’s temperament, character or further disposition. We will rather make ourselves conscious of the fact that it is a special case when, as far as our senses are concerned, we withdraw from the external world and live for a change in our thoughts and mental images, enlarging upon them, often perhaps merely as possibilities.

Some people, of course, consider it unnecessary to pursue further possible thoughts about existence, and so on. Even in difficult times like the present you will often find people who are occupied with their business the whole day, providing all kinds of things required in the world, afterwards getting together in small groups to play cards and suchlike, in order—as people so often say—to pass the time. And it will not often happen that people get together in similar groups in order to exchange thoughts, for example, about what might have happened in connection with the day’s business if things had gone slightly differently. That would not be as amusing as playing cards, but it would have been doing some further thinking. And if they also retained a sound feeling for reality there is no reason why such thinking need become mere