Janesdiggo's List: Anthroposophy

• • Arguments that 'free will' is an illusion fail to take into account that man can act 'consciously'. They assume all actions are the result of instinct, desire, motives or character; however, desire, motives and character all arise from 'thinking'. Steiner's implication is that man can control his thinking and in that he does have 'free will'; it is not an illusion.
• Spinoza, and all who think like him, overlook the fact that man not only is conscious of his action, but also may become conscious of the causes which guide him.
• the opponents of freedom never ask themselves whether a motive of action which I recognize and see through, is to be regarded as compulsory for me in the same sense as the organic process which causes the child to cry for milk.
• Eduard von Hartmann asserts that the human will depends on two chief factors, the motives and the character.
• Here again the difference between motives which I allow to influence me only after I have permeated them with my consciousness, and those which I follow without any clear knowledge of them, is absolutely ignored.
• If there is a difference between a conscious motive of action and an unconscious urge, then the conscious motive will result in an action which must be judged differently from one that springs from blind impulse.
• For the question is just whether reason, purposes, and decisions exercise the same kind of compulsion over a man as his animal passions.
• What distinguishes man from all other organic beings arises from his rational thinking.
• Nothing is gained by seeking analogies in the animal world to clarify the concept of freedom as applied to the actions of human beings.
• For without the recognition of the thinking activity of the soul, it is impossible to form a concept of knowledge about anything, and therefore of knowledge about an action.
• as soon as our conduct rises above the sphere of the satisfaction of purely animal desires, our motives are always permeated by thoughts.

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• as a child, he was aware of the existence of a supersensible world which to him was just as real as the physical, and which was just as full of objects and beings, but he also adds that he felt lonely and cut off from the rest of his fellows because no one made reference to this 'other' world.
• His degree of Doctor of Philosophy was awarded for a dissertation published later as Truth and Science.
• asked to edit an edition of Geothe's scientific works and he became a recognized authority on these matters
• The Philosophy of Freedom, also translated under the title of The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (1894). There followed, Christianity as Mystical Fact (1902), Theosophy (1904), Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. How is it Achieved? (1904), and Occult Science — An Outline (1910).
• He was not, however, entirely in accord with theosophical thought, particularly in the belief that Christ would reincarnate as a young Indian boy.
• Thus the Anthroposophical Society came into existence in 1913. It was reconstituted in 1923 with himself as president.
• it demands no endorsement of doctrine, and that the unifying principle is a striving for the knowledge of the spirit in man and in the universe.
• to create a bridge between the physical and the spiritual world. That which he gave to the world he called Anthroposophy.
• An anthropos therefore is a person who looks up into the heights.
• Anthroposophy would be 'wisdom or knowledge of the person who considers the source of his/her life to be in the heights', i.e. knowledge of the spiritual as well as the physical human being.
• Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge.
• The information given is not of prime importance. Of greater significance is the effort made to understand it and the way it affects one's dealings with the world.
• mere reading is not sufficient. Meditation and digestion are required.
• In the ancient world thoughts were considered to be realities which came to man from the spiritual world. Only in Greek times, as signalled by the beginning of philosophy, did man begin to feel that thought arose in his own mind.
• it must be understood that the opening of the organs of perception is only the first step
• This is not to pass judgement but only to pose the question as to whether Steiner's indications are always properly interpreted and carried out, and to suggest to the visitor that he perhaps needs a little time to study and digest.
• not every book is suitable for the newcomer.
• Positive thinking (and doing) is preferable to negative and is a prerequisite of development.
• Digestion is essential to development. Study is rewarding in so far as the pattern of existence will become clearer.
• sleep is not just a blank between periods of waking but that it gives an opportunity to meet higher beings
• The time may come when you feel it right to take into your sleep life the thought of committing yourself to higher spiritual powers, to taking into the spiritual world the experiences of the day where they will be judged and transformed by the beings met there.
• Beyond this there comes conscious study of a book like Knowledge of the Higher Worlds or the relevant chapters in Occult Science and Theosophy where certain advice is given to be carried out at your will and discretion.
• You will learn to look back on the day's events and to judge your own actions.

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• The object of this chapter is to help to recall the individual to a realization of himself.
• Man has infinite possibilities for good, but also for evil; he can create, and destroy.
• deep down he still has an awareness that the material world is not the be-all and end-all of existence.
• We could therefore look upon the spiritual part as the activator, the one who acts
• We must now look a little closer at spiritual man and differentiate between component parts.
• a sort of second body, albeit immaterial and insubstantial, which permeates the physical. A name given to this agency is the etheric formative force or, simply, the etheric.
• This something within is like a third body, although, as with the etheric, it is non-physical. It is given the name of astral body.
• There is in every human being what is in essence an individualized portion of the divine substance and this is termed the ego.
• Thus we can now define four members of the human being: physical body, etheric, astral, ego.
• The ego can direct and control the astral and this means that the human being is capable of reaching higher stages of development.
• we might say that the human being evolves to a higher state when his life of emotion is brought under control and he then creates new faculties.
• there is also a threefold aspect to the human being which we need to consider, namely, body, soul, spirit.
• Willing, feeling, thinking — they are brought about by outside stimuli through the senses, but they belong to the inner being of man.
• In this sense we can say that man builds up a world for himself within himself, and this can be termed the soul.
• The soul is formed out of astral substance. It is the intermediary between body and spirit. It receives experiences via the body through the senses and via the spirit by intuition.
• That part of the human being which conveys eternal truth to the soul is the spirit and this spirit, working in the individual soul, is what we have referred to previously as the ego.
• If a person has too much of the Earth in him we call him a melancholic; Water, phlegmatic; Air, sanguine; and Fire, choleric.
• melancholic
• withdrawn and introspective, turning his experiences over and over in his mind.
• Centred in himself he has difficulty in seeing any point of view but his own,
• astonished if accused of selfishness
• He is an intellectual and a great reader. He has a good memory for anything touching himself, particularly if he has been slighted.
• phlegmatic is an easy-going, good-humoured person, probably inclined to rotundity.
• He will neither be hurried nor worried by anything in particular and although he may take his time over whatever task he has to do, he will do it well and conscientiously
• sociable but has a natural reserve; he likes a settled routine
• persevering and persistent.
• his judgement will be sound.
• sanguine, a happy, talkative, quick-witted, lithe companion, jumping from one subject to another and not staying with anything for long.
• shows interest in everything but it is fleeting
• He lives in the moment and for the moment, finds it difficult to fulfil tasks and perhaps overlooks responsibilities.
• He is forceful, emphatic, deliberate and feels himself the born leader. He has the will; he has the energy; he has the right idea; only he can direct the enterprise properly
• Fixed in purpose, he has little regard for anyone else, but as long as he is the recognized leader, all is well and he will even show magnanimity and generosity.
• The phlegmatic is usually reliable, truthful, orderly, and hence detailed administration is his field of work.
• Most people are a mixture of at least two elements.
• After long periods of development a new age begins in which man is to come to a consciousness of his ego and to take over his further development himself. This is man's present stage of evolution.
• When a person dies his etheric is thus breathed out or we could say his etheric body dissolves and this usually takes about three days.
• Every soul [in the sense of the human being] comes into this world strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defects of its previous life.
• On average the human being inhales and exhales 18 times in a minute = 1,080 per hour = 2160 in 2 hours = 25, 920 per day of 24 hours.
• The 72 is also the rate of our pulse beat per minute.
• It is obvious then that there is some connection between human and cosmic rhythms.
• Every person has these collective forces within him. According to the position of the Sun and zodiac, modified by the relationship to the planets, a person receives specific forces at birth. This does not mean that he is determined by those forces. They are given to him as an endowment. What he does with them is his own affair.

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• When a man reaches the stage of being able to think of other properties of the world independently of sense-perception in the same way as he is able to think mathematically of geometrical forms and arithmetical relations of numbers, then he is fairly on the path to spiritual knowledge.
• But the method of perception which underlies mathematical science must not be lost. We must attain the faculty to speak of the realms of Life and Soul, etc., quite as independently of the particular objective entity, as we are able to speak of the “circle” independently of the particular circle drawn upon paper.
• it is true that on all the higher planes knowledge can be acquired only when it is fashioned after the pattern of mathematical science.
• Euclid expresses by mathematical formulae only what can be described and constructed within the field of the “finite.”
• In the Differential, sense-perception is brought to a vanishing point and then we get a new basis — free from sense-perception — for our reckoning.
• for our spiritual perception, Space itself is called to life.
• Even when mathematical thought ventures beyond the limits of sense-perception, it yet retains the strictness and sureness of true thought-control.
• Plato and the Gnostics only recognised in mathematical science a good means of education, and no more than this is here implied about the mathematics of the infinitely small;
• Mathematical science teaches the way to become independent of sense-perception, and at the same time it teaches the surest path; for though indeed its truths are acquired by supersensible means, they can always be confirmed in the realm of the senses.
• Only when we pass over from what is limited by finite form to that which does not yet possess any form, but which contains within itself the possibility of form-creation, only then are we able to understand what is the realm of Arupa in contrast to the realm of Rupa.
• in its direct meaning mathematical science after all has to do only with what is quantitative; where the qualitative begins, there its domain ends.
• The point is, however, that we should also be able to research (in the exact sense of the word) in the domain of the qualitative itself.
• so does the Occultist shape life and soul in the world according to the laws of these realms which he has understood in the spirit of mathematical science.

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• Those who willingly close their eyes to the spiritual world deny themselves a measure of intelligence; they become obtuse.
• Thus everywhere we meet the fate that we have prepared for ourselves, and we should recognize that events and surroundings are parts of our own being.
• When, on the other hand, people die in the circumstances of such natural catastrophes as earthquakes, it does not necessarily signify that they have a common karma from the past.
• Obviously some illnesses and cures are brought about by events in the same life and not everything must be attributed to karma.
• the substance of the material world has a spiritual origin and thus one can assume that it has a spiritual effect when taken into the human organism.
• There is progression and no two incarnations follow the same pattern.
• Life is not always formed on the basis of conscious experience.
• Since we do not wish to burden ourselves with difficult future karma, it behoves us to act with moral responsibility.

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• Let's begin with the reflection that every change has to be made by human beings and that therefore every condition that's brought about for the social order arises from human thoughts and feelings. Once one has this thought firmly in mind one can free oneself from the materialistic view that everything is brought about by external conditions.
• So conditions are the way they are now because men made them that way through their inadequate thoughts and feelings
• One such truth is that poverty, misery and suffering are nothing but the result of egoism.

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