Table of Contents
This lecture by Rudolf Steiner, read by Rudolf Steiner Press Audio, asks how invisible hierarchies meet a person and why an older wisdom vanished. Three capacities, he says, do not grow from that organism. People learn an upright walk. Speech depends on that posture. Free will does not. Animals may have ideas arise in them, but they do not think. Thinking, feeling, and willing therefore reach three ranks he still names with old words. Angels go with thought. Feeling belongs to spirits of a sun that is hollow suction, not a ball of hot gas. Will belongs to thrones, cherubim, and seraphim. The older poetic knowledge was not destroyed by materialism. Materialism appeared because that knowledge had already failed. Early people, had soft bones and a soft brain in denser, wetter air, and higher beings had to guide them, so they were not yet free. Harder bone and brain bought independence and dulled direct knowing. He rejects Kant for treating a chair’s weight as an idea the mind pastes on, which he says helped lock spirit outside knowledge.
Key points
- Upright walking, speech, and free will are the three human marks Steiner says animals do not develop from their own bodies.
- Thinking, feeling, and will link a person to three hierarchies: angels, sun spirits, and the highest thrones, cherubim, and seraphim.
- The spiritual sun of feeling is described as suction and emptiness inside, not as a sphere of burning gas.
- Materialism is the result of lost ancient knowledge, not the cause of that loss.
- Softer bodies in denser air meant guidance from higher beings and no freedom yet. Hardening bought freedom and dulled direct knowing.
- He urges a science of the spirit perceived by the soul, and he blames Kant for teaching that thought content is added onto things.
Topics on this site
Short quotes
Apes we certainly cannot say that they are like humans in this respect
Rudolf Steiner, Steiner on Man and the Hierarchies
He denies that apes share the upright walk he treats as the first human distinction. Watch at 2:28
Humanity has bought Freedom the price being materialism
Rudolf Steiner, Steiner on Man and the Hierarchies
Freedom and the loss of the old soul knowledge arrive together, with materialism as the cost. Watch at 28:38
Kant is in many respects responsible for the fact that Humanity has not found its way out of materialism
Rudolf Steiner, Steiner on Man and the Hierarchies
He blames Kant’s theory of knowledge for keeping spirit outside what people think they can know. Watch at 37:14
Video by Rudolf Steiner Press Audio. Watch on YouTube.