Theosophy

by Rudolf Steiner

Overview

This book is a good starting point among the hundreds of books written by Rudolf Steiner. He sees a tripartate model of the individual here: body, soul and spirit, cautioning us that these are only approximate terms. This book will give a description of some of the regions of the supersensible world. The reader who is willing to admit the existence of the sensible world only will regard this delineation as a mere unreal production of the imagination. He, however, who looks for paths that lead beyond this world of the senses will soon learn to understand that human life only gains in worth and significance through sight into another world. Such a man will not, as many fear, be estranged from the "real" world through this new power of vision. He learns to know the causes of life, while without it he gropes like a blind man through their effects. Only through the understanding of the supersensible does the sensible "real" acquire meaning.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783736803305
Publisher:	BookRix
Publication date:	01/09/2019
Sold by:	StreetLib SRL
Format:	eBook
Pages:	195
File size:	635 KB

About the Author

Rudolf Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, literary scholar, educator, artist, playwright, social thinker, and esotericist. He was the founder of Anthroposophy, Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophical medicine, and the new artistic form of Eurythmy.
Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual component. He derived his epistemology from Johann Wolfgang Goethe's world view, where "Thinking... is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas.

Read an Excerpt

THEOSOPHY INTRODUCTION When Johann Gottlieb Fichte, in the autumn of 1813, gave to the world his "Introduction to the Science of Knowledge" as the ripe fruit of a life wholly devoted to the service of truth, he said, at the very beginning: "This science presupposes an entirely new inner sense organ or instrument, by means of which there is revealed a new world which does not exist for the ordinary man." And he proceeded to give the following comparison to show how incomprehensible this doctrine of his must be when judged by means of conceptions founded on the ordinary senses: "Think of a world of people born blind, who therefore know only those objects and relations which exist through the sense of touch. Go among them and speak to them of colors and the otherrelations which exist only through light and for the sense of sight. Either you convey nothing to their minds, and this is the more fortunate if they tell you so, for you will in that way quickly notice the mistake and, if unable to open their eyes, will cease the useless speaking. . . ." Now those who speak to people about such things as Fichte deals with in this instance find themselves only too often in a position like that of a man who can see among the born blind. But these are things that refer to man's true being and highest goal, and to believe it necessary "to cease the useless speaking" would amount to despairing of humanity. On the contrary, one should not for one moment doubt the possibility of opening the eyes of everyone to these things, provided that he is in earnest in the matter. On this supposition have all those written and spoken who felt that within themselves the "inner sense- instrument" hadgrown by which they were able to know the true nature and being of man, which is hidden from the outer sens...