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Compiled resources on Epidemics from Dale Brunsvold

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Compiled resources on Epidemics from Dale Brunsvold

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On Epidemics: spiritual perspectives. A compilation of statements by Rudolf Steiner. Compiled and edited by Taja Gut. Translated by J. Collis

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Important Questions Regarding the Current Health Situation

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Important Questions Regarding the Current Health Situation

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By Anthroposophical Doctor Thomas Cowan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xkoy3pLV1Q

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Important Questions Regarding the Current Health Situation

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THE DAILY ROUNDLiving From the Spirit Level

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THE DAILY ROUNDLiving From the Spirit Level

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https://the-daily-round.com/

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zo7UnxT0PE

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HALLELUJA - Eurhytmie - Rudolf Steiner - Alanus Hochschule Alfter - Künstlerin Stefanie Kerstin

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As 100 million people in Europe are in lockdown, the US seems to be completely unprepared for the tsunami that is about to hit. "We're about to experience the worst public health disaster since polio," says Dr Martin Makary, professor at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Don't believe the numbers when you see, even on our Johns Hopkins website, that 1,600 Americans have the virus. No, that means 1,600 got the test, tested positive. There are probably 25 to 50 people who have the virus for every one person who is confirmed. I think we have between 50,000 and half a million cases right now walking around in the United States."

Having returned to the US from Europe on the last plane before the travel ban kicked in two days ago, I feel as if I have traveled backwards in time. Which is exactly what people report when they arrive in Europe from East Asia now. You feel as if you're moving backward in time, back into an earlier state of awareness, which the country of departure had already moved past. Here are my eight takeaways.

COVID-19 has further opened up our current state of disruption and, interestingly, has accomplished more to reduce CO2 emissions within weeks than all climate conversations combined have done in years. While some disasters, like hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis, tend to bring out the best in people (pulling folks together), pandemics tend to do the opposite, as columnist David Brooks argued recently. The virus holds up a mirror in front of us. It forces us to become aware of our own behavior and its impact on the collective, on the system. That mirror gently invites us to make a few personal sacrifices that benefit the whole - to shift our inner place from ego to eco.

If the coronavirus crisis has brought home anything, it's that we - each of us, separately and together - can change the system. Remember how distant that strange virus from Wuhan seemed to many of us when it first hit the headlines in early January? That was just a few weeks ago. It's a powerful demonstration of our current global condition of interconnectedness. We are many. We are one. Now we need to slow the spread of the virus, to flatten the curve, to avoid the massive, unnecessary suffering of those among us who happen to be the elderly, the uninsured, the working poor who live from paycheck to paycheck, the folks who are alone and without any safety net. Self-isolation and social distancing are not about you; they're about protecting the people who are especially vulnerable. In short: Your behavior changes the system. Your mindful behavior is needed to avoid a breakdown of the system.

To slow the spread of the virus we need to change our collective behavior. We can accomplish this in two ways: through (a) timely government response and (b) testing-based citizen awareness and action. China, after a slow start, navigated the pandemic by relying mostly on the former (draconian lockdowns, quarantine, and social distancing, including movement surveillance of the entire population), which worked surprisingly well. Italy (and now also Spain) pursued an approach that for an extended period was weak on government action - both in terms of control measures and testing. But if you have no effective regulation and no reliable data when facing a pandemic, it's like running in the forest while blindfolded. The result is massive suffering and death among vulnerable people, for instance when older people in need of care are turned away from hospitals. That is the very path the US now appears to be on.

A third group of countries, however, seems to have found a middle way. Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea all have had noteworthy success in navigating the pandemic without imposing draconian controls or citizen surveillance. South Korea significantly slowed the spread of COVID-19, and Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan succeeded in preventing a massive outbreak in the first place. As of today, March 16, Hong Kong has 141 confirmed cases, Singapore has 212, and Taiwan has 53. How did they do that?

It seems they succeeded in different ways that, nevertheless, share three strategies: (1) reduce arrival of new cases (travel restrictions), (2) prevent transmission between known cases and local population (quarantines), and (3) suppress silent transmission by reducing contact in the community (increased hygiene, social distancing, self-isolation).

Because Singapore is an island, travel restrictions were relatively easy to impose. Only three days (!) after the Chinese authorities alerted the world about the outbreak in Wuhan, Singapore started to refer incoming travelers from Wuhan for further assessments and possible isolation. Later, travelers from affected areas were placed under mandatory quarantine, facilities were swiftly converted to serve this function, and all who lost workdays were compensated by the government. Much effort has been made to trace the contacts of people known to be infected. Large gatherings have been suspended, yet schools and workplaces remain open.

Taiwan, also an island, first continued to allow travel from China, inspecting and screening travelers on incoming flights. Only after the first case from China was reported did Taiwan ban (most) incoming flights from China. Taiwan recommends self-isolation and home quarantine, even when public facilities remain available. School was canceled, but only for two additional weeks after the holidays.

Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of China, shares a border with the mainland that used to be crossed by approximately 300,000 people per day. It chose yet another approach. Rather than entirely blocking people from affected regions from entering, it focused on preventing transmission within the community with mandatory self-quarantine for all travelers from China, among others. It also mandates social distancing. Civil servants work from home. All schools remain closed and all classes are conducted online. Plus, the Hong Kong government proactively shares information with its citizens. For example, the government is publishing building-level maps showing where people were infected, when they were there, and how they contracted the virus, so that everyone can see the unfolding social map and adjust their behavior accordingly.

In summary: These countries have navigated the epidemic using a combination of testing, transparency (active citizen information), and citizen awareness guided by a timely and proactive government response. In other words, by not running while blindfolded. Instead, they slowed down, paused, and took off their blindfolds in order to see what was going on. They are sharing information transparently. And they are moving together more mindfully, more intentionally, and as more collectively aware populations.

Figure 1 summarizes these observations. The two axes track the two approaches: timely government response, and data-based citizen awareness. You can see China's journey at one end of the spectrum (led by government action). And the journey of the US and Italy on the other (led by citizens, due to the lack of timely government action). But what's interesting is the middle path: the journey taken by Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea. One thing that sets them apart is their history; they had the "benefit" of the SARS outbreak in 2002-2003, which led them to upgrade their institutional readiness.

Another beneficial factor may be less evident. They all share a Confucianist cultural background. For many centuries they have placed a premium on quality education and on sending the most talented people of each generation into government, not into business. The famous essay by Confucius, The Great Learning, articulates this foundation by observing that, in order to change the world, you first need to cultivate your interior condition as a human being. They share a cultural context that focuses on harmony between the external and interior. That is precisely what's at issue when you think about how to integrate government action with individual action. What are the interior conditions that, if in place, could integrate both of these levers or axes and move our disaster response pattern from the bottom-left to the top-right?

The coronavirus situation provides an opportunity for all of us to pause, reset, and step up. COVID-19, like any disruption, essentially confronts each of us with a choice: (1) to freeze, turn away from others, only care for ourselves, or (2) to turn toward others to support and comfort those who need help. That choice between acting from ego or acting from ecosystem awareness is one that we face every day, every hour, every moment. The more the world sinks into chaos, desperation, and confusion, the greater our responsibility to radiate presence, compassion, and grounded action confidence.

Figure 2 summarizes this choice by depicting the two different social fields that we can choose to embody through our actions, through our relationships, and through our thoughts. In the upper half of the figure you see the "freeze" reaction, which tends to amplify ignorance, hate, and fear. In the lower half you see the "opening" response, which tends to amplify curiosity, compassion, and courage.

Video by kind courtesy of Ctgn

Even though the physical social distancing is necessary now, it doesn't mean that our interior condition should be frozen. In fact, over the past few days we have seen very moving examples from Italy and Spain of how physical distancing can be responded to by inspired compassion and empathy. As a citizen from Spain shared over the weekend: "Earlier today there was a call on social media in Spain to go out to balconies and windows at 22:00 [10 p.m.] to give a huge ovation to thank and support hospital workers. It's 22:05 and I can hear the roar from the other side of the closed double glass windows."

How one responds to disruption - by freezing and turning away or by opening and turning toward - is both a personal choice and a collective one. Over the past four years, we all have seen an enormous uptick in the freeze reaction by whole countries, brought on by Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban, Salvini, Modi, Johnson. The list goes on. Although Trump has gotten away with telling more than 16,000 lies since taking office, this time it may be different. In "normal" times, you can get away with a lot of nonsense because for some it's less consequential and sometimes even a bit entertaining. But in times of disruption, the very same behaviors (denial, desensing, absencing, blaming, destroying) come together as a powerful engine of accelerated self-destruction. When that dynamic becomes apparent, when catastrophic breakdowns will result as a direct consequence, the mood will shift and the Trump presidency may soon be history - if the election takes place on schedule this year.

Even though I will use Trump to illustrate these behaviors below, I do not mean to imply this only goes for America. Boris Johnson and many others embody similar blind spots of their leadership. My general point is about the underlying mindset, which is one of avoiding reality - that is, science and data - rather than embracing it when the going gets tough. Clearly, this mindset is on a massive collision course with reality as we speak.

According to Andy Slavitt, Medicare and Medicaid administrator in the Obama administration, hospitals in the US could be overrun by coronavirus cases in little more than a week and result in a "tsunami-like" escalation that would leave tens of thousands in need of inpatient medical care, but unlikely to receive it. Some experts even suggest that more than 1 million could die in the US from the coronavirus.

Here is how we can view this leadership failure through the lens of Absencing (see figure 2):

Denial: "The original sin is Trump's months-long denial and his dismantling of public health and response infrastructure," said Andy Slavitt. While it took Singapore and Taiwan about three days to respond to the virus outbreak in early January, Trump didn't take action until mid March. Testing kits are still mostly unavailable. The total number of tests in the USA until March 15 is about 10,000 - the same number of people that are tested for COVID-19 in South Korea in a single day. In other words: in the US, we are only now, after losing two full months, beginning to address the situation. In contrast, Angela Merkel has bluntly warned that two-thirds of Germans will likely contract the virus.

Desensing: Trump refused to provide necessary care for American citizens on the luxury liner Grand Princess so that "his" coronavirus numbers wouldn't grow once those passengers left the ship. He continues to keep demonstrating this complete lack of empathy and compassion.

Absencing: All disruptions enable profound moments of "letting go" and "letting come." Any leadership that activates this deeper level of humanity is completely missing in the case of Trump. Recent examples include his initial refusal to buy existing testing kits that were developed by Roche and that would have solved the testing problem months ago, as well as his attempt to offer "large sums of money" for exclusive access to a Covid-19 vaccine, developed by the Germany-based biopharmaceutical company CureVac. The leadership of the company declined the offer citing the ethical aspiration to serve the entire global community, rather than just one country exclusively.

Blaming others: All Trump's announcements so far have been guided by the mindset that the source of the problem is "them," not "us" - despite the strong evidence that the virus has long been spreading domestically in the US. Calling the outbreak a "Chinese virus" has helped him justify a number of travel bans, which in the beginning have certainly been helpful. However, the same mindset also made it increasingly impossible to leverage the other two critical strategies: to prevent the transmission between known cases and local population, and to suppress silent transmission by social distancing and self-isolation.

Destroying: Trump continued to lose the trust of European allies by blindsiding them with the announcement of the travel ban and by trying to buy exclusive access to the vaccine, which would have excluded the rest of the world from accessing it. Trump has been very reliable in his attacks on science, governmental and multilateral institutions - from dissolving his own CDC task force in the White House, to pulling out of the Paris Agreement, eroding the trust in these institutions exactly when we needed them most.

All these behaviors add up to a pattern of decision-making that moves us towards accelerated self-destruction. The more this becomes visible, the more likely this old model will hit a wall, and the more possible it will be for a new pattern of social collaboration to emerge. It doesn't mean that Trumpism is already done. But it's about to hit a wall far more visibly and tangibly than we have ever seen before.

The coronavirus crisis is prompting us to improvise new ways of collaborating and coordinating. Data-driven Awareness-Based Collective action (D-ABC) operates by attending to a situation together, and then adjusting one's behavior accordingly. Another way of describing this type of governance is to coordinate by letting go and letting come, based on what we are seeing together: letting go of previous plans, and letting come what is about to emerge.

In 2008, during an earlier moment of disruption in the financial world, we saw most major organizations suddenly switch to a different mode of operating. They had to abandon the annual plans and quarterly targets that were set before the financial crisis, and instead pay full attention to the situation as it unfolded and adjust their behavior accordingly. It's a skill and capacity that we urgently need in many other areas of social and environmental crisis today.

In times of business-as-usual, we tend to "outsource" the coordination of our systems to external mechanisms, such as the visible hand of government regulation or the invisible hand of the market. In times of disruption, however, these mechanisms tend to break down. When that happens, we, the key players in the systems that we co-enact, need to come together to co-sense and co-shape the future as it emerges. In other words, our attention and intention need to quickly align with what is actually happening in the moment. Learning to connect in a more conscious and intentional way may well be the most significant gift that emerges from this crisis. The functioning of this new way of fluid coordinating seems to require two important enabling conditions:

· Accurate information about what is happening in the moment; and,

· A holding space that helps people to act for the well-being of the whole, allowing them to move from ego to eco.

This new collective capacity will be crucial in addressing many other areas of crisis in the years to come, from climate action, biodiversity, and refugee questions to social justice and well-being for all.

Each disruption has two sides: the things we need to let go of, and the things that are about to emerge. On the letting-go side of things, it's interesting to see how quickly we can adjust as a global community. Suddenly, we find that more than half the meetings we tended to fill our schedules with, may not be as necessary, as essential as we deemed them, after all. So why do we keep ourselves busy with stuff that is not essential? That's a great question to ask.

The next question might be: If we let go of everything that is not essential - what's left? It's another great question (or "mantram") to meditate on. Whatever the answer is that emerges for you from this contemplation, keep it in your heart.

And then, a third question to contemplate might be this: What if we used this disruption as an opportunity to let go of everything that isn't essential in our life, in our work, and in our institutional routines? How might we reimagine how we live and work together? How might we reimagine the basic structures of our civilization? Which effectively means: how can we reimagine our economic, our democratic, and our learning systems in ways that bridge the ecological, the social, and the spiritual divides of our time?

That's the conversation we need to have now. With our circles of friends. With our families. With our organizations and communities. If there is anything that I have learned from previous disruptions I've witnessed, such as the 2008 financial crisis, it is this: the same disruption tends to have a dramatically different impact on different organizations, depending on how the leadership - and people or change-makers in general - respond to that situation. Whether it's by turning away and freezing (i.e., operating from the upper half of figure 2) or whether it's by turning toward and opening (i.e., operating from the lower half of figure 2). I have also found that even within one single organization some leaders might exhibit one of these responses (i.e., hiding from the situation), while others exhibit another (i.e., connecting to people in the moment of vulnerability). The difference in impact is tangible and profound: the first set of teams grow apart, while the others tend to grow together at levels of collective resonance not seen before.

Which brings us all the way back to the Confucianist roots of the Four Tigers: that the outer changes necessary today require us to tune into and activate our inner sources, the deeper levels of our humanity. Of course, these deeper roots are not bound by Confucianism; they are inherent to all our cultures, and they are dormant in each and every human being.

But are we able to activate these deeper sources of knowing? And how can we activate them not only at the level of the individual, but also at the level of the whole system? How can we upgrade the operating system in our various key systems? This clearly requires us to upgrade:

1. our learning infrastructures toward whole-person and whole-systems learning;

2. our democratic infrastructures by making them more direct, distributed, and dialogic; and

3. our economic infrastructures toward shifting from ego-system to eco-system awareness.

How might we use our present situation to slow down, to pause, and to connect with our deeper sources of stillness? Maybe what's called for now is a global moment in which everything and everyone stops for a moment of stillness, for a moment of connecting to source.

Whatever it is you choose to do - and we choose to do - in this moment, whether we freeze and turn backward or open up and lean forward, let's not forget that, in the words of the German poet Hölderlin, "where the danger is, the saving power also grows."

Where the danger is, the saving power also grows. It's something I have experienced on several occasions. But it only works collectively if we slow down, pause, and take off our blindfolds to attend to the now. What actually emerges from the now? We may see the beginnings of a new wave of hyper-localizing our economies, of supporting small farmers and producers who may be more resilient to supply chain disruptions. We may see the beginnings of a more intentional economy, one that - similar to CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) - is based on aligning economic activities around a shared intention for the future, namely, co-creating an ecosystem-centric agriculture, as opposed to extending the past based on ego-driven transactions.

Many of us feel that we live in a time of profound change - change not only in terms of things ending, but also in terms of seeding and cultivating and growing a new civilization for the decades and centuries to come. That was true before the COVID-19 pandemic, and it will be true after. The question is how to respond to the current situation in ways that help this enormous potential for positive change to manifest?

How can we reimagine and reshape our various forms of movement-making in ways that allow them to embody the principles of planetary healing and societal renewal? How can we reshape our learning and leadership structures in ways that move the focus of learning from the bottom left (training of individuals) to the top right of figure 3 (eco-system learning)?

At the Presencing Institute, we have prototyped various proven formats for transformational ecosystem-based learning and leadership. Yet, to make these formats accessible at the scale necessary today will require a new platform and network of places - think of it as a School For Transformation - that focuses on activating generative social fields through providing vertical transformation literacy.

This column has discussed some of the first learning experiences that we see emerge from the corona crisis and our responses to it. The landscape of our responses forms an interesting field of possibilities. I identified the responses of the Four Tigers as interesting from a systems perspective, because it blends proactive government action with data-driven citizen awareness. From there, I explored the various interior conditions that can give rise to either a social field of co-creation (presencing) or one of self-destruction.

Which leaves us with the question: Now what? In my view, one of the most urgent priorities for the coming years is to cultivate these deeper conditions for our individual and collective actions in ways that are highly accessible, scalable, and modularized so that everyone can integrate them into their own movement building and learning infrastructures.

It is for this reason that, starting next week, my colleagues and I are going to offer an impromptu global learning infrastructure that is free, online, Zoom-based and yet designed in ways that will activate generative social fields among all of the participants throughout the coming weeks. The idea is to offer this infrastructure as a journey for change-makers from all sectors, systems, and cultures - a journey that will eventually result in a global, multi-local, multi-regional Forum, co-created among the participants later this year in July.

The actual format of this journey and the Forum will evolve with and adjust to the situation that keeps unfolding around us, between us, and within us. It's an infrastructure that invites you to join with your whole Self and that is designed to be accessible to all, whether you want to join from home while in self-quarantine or in concert with friends and fellow change-makers in your local organization or community.

If you are interested to join, check out this landing page for the journey: Global Activation of Intention and Action (GAIA) and sign up for the first session on Friday March 27. The time to pause, to sense, to connect, and then act together is now.

P.S.: We provided 1000 seats for the first session on Friday. These seats were taken within hours. This has prompted us to prepare some additional sessions on that day that will provide 4000 additional seats. These additional seats and sessions will go live later today. So check out this link to register or to put yourself on a waitlist that may clear up shortly before the event. Thank you!

Part II of this Blogpost (April 8)

On the levers for climate action: Soil; Democracy; Consciousness

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Eight Emerging Lessons: From Coronavirus to Climate Action

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Read the article in Spanish - in French - in German - in Italian - in Portuguese - in Traditional Chinese - in Polish - in Vietnamese - in Simplified Chinese part 1 & part 2 As 100 million people in...

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Waldorf Education Challenges 1919/1920 to 2019/2020

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Waldorf Education Challenges 1919/1920 to 2019/2020

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http://iwaldorf.net/1919audio.html

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Awakening Spiritual Thoughts - Lecture 3 of  "The Presence of the Dead on the Spiritual Path" - Basel, May 5, 1915

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Awakening Spiritual Thoughts - Lecture 3 of  "The Presence of the Dead on the Spiritual Path" - Basel, May 5, 1915

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https://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0154/19140505p01.html

"However, the important point we want to make today is that germs can become dangerous only if they are allowed to flourish. Germs should not be allowed to flourish. Even materialists will agree with this statement, but they will no longer agree with us if we proceed further and, from the standpoint of proper spiritual science, speak about the most favorable conditions for germs. Germs flourish most intensively when we take nothing but materialistic thoughts into sleep with us. There is no better way to encourage them to flourish than to enter sleep with only materialistic ideas, and then to work from the spiritual world with the ego and the astral body on those organs that are not part of the blood and the nervous system. The only other method that is just as good is to live in the center of an epidemic or endemic illness and to think of nothing but the sickness all around, filled only with a fear of getting sick. That would be equally effective. If fear of the illness is the only thing created in such a place and one goes to sleep at night with that thought, it produces afterimages, Imaginations impregnated with fear. That is a good method of cultivating and nurturing germs. If this fear can be reduced even a little by, for example, active love and, while tending the sick, forgetting for a time that one might also be infected, the conditions are less favorable for the germs."

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AWAKENING SPIRITUAL THOUGHTS
Basel, May 5, 1914

I am very glad that we can meet here today and take a break, so to speak, for a while from the work on our new building in Dornach. [ Note 1 ] But I thought it would be impossible to gather here so near our building without also discussing anthroposophical matters. I hope we can do this more often in the course of the year; otherwise our friends working on the building will not have as many opportunities to attend such meetings as they do when they are not working on our building.

Let us start with some thoughts on the life of the spirit that might be useful in considering what meaning spiritual science and living with anthroposophy can have for us, for our soul. People new to anthroposophical thinking, feeling, and perception may think we should not worry about the life of the spirit, about the spiritual world, since we enter the spiritual world anyway after death (even a materialist might say this) and will there learn all we need to know about it. Why should we not be satisfied in this life between birth and death simply to do what is necessary for life in the physical world; why is it wrong when we just fulfill our duties in the physical world, and leave matters concerning the spiritual world in the realm of the uncertain and indefinite? One could hear these words often during the time when the tide of materialism engulfed human development, especially in the last third of the nineteenth century. And it was by no means the most morally reprehensible souls who said: While on earth, let us concentrate on our tasks here and leave the rest for the world we enter after death.

Now, let us talk about something that can be grasped immediately by anyone who begins to concern himself with - I do not even want to say spiritual science - but with truly logical thinking. We actually spend only part of our time between birth and death in the physical world, namely, our waking time. And even people who have not yet thought much about the spiritual world, but who can think logically, would have to admit that with our conscious mind we know as little about life in sleep as we do about life after death. And certainly no one can deny that we continue to live in sleep - unless such a person were prepared to accept that we really die every evening and are created anew each morning. That is unlikely, but the truly logical person will be equally unable to accept that the whole human being is really present in a sleeping body lying in bed.

The fact that we sleep regularly should at least make people think. And then they will be motivated to reflect on what spiritual science has to offer. In particular, the natural sciences will more and more realize that our soul is not present in our physical body when we sleep. In fact, they will reach this conclusion on their own before the end of this century of scientific development. Then they will look to spiritual science for answers to their questions. They will be forced by their own conclusions to realize that our soul-spiritual being is really not connected with our physical body when we are sleeping. It will then become ever more important for people in the twentieth century to know something about sleep. Therefore let us begin today and get an idea of what people in our century will have to know about the nature of sleep.

We know from our studies in spiritual science that when we fall asleep, two members of our being, the ego and the astral body, leave the physical and etheric bodies. Where are the ego and the astral body when we are asleep? To begin with, we can say they are in the spiritual world. Of course, we are always in the spirit realm, because the latter is not separated from the physical world, but surrounds us just as air envelops us everywhere. We are always in the spiritual world, even when we are awake.

However, we inhabit it in a different way when we are asleep than when we are awake. Now, it may be sufficient for the immediate needs of spiritual science to describe this situation by saying that in sleep our ego and astral body are outside our physical and etheric bodies. But then we would actually be telling only half the truth. It is the same as saying the sun sets here at night; because the sun in fact sets then only for us in Europe. We know this does not apply to all the inhabitants of the earth. Fundamentally, the ego and astral body leave our physical and etheric bodies properly, we might say, completely, only after death. In sleep they actually leave only the blood and nervous system. But when the "sun" of our being, namely, the ego and astral body, sets in relation to our blood and nervous system, which they penetrate during the day, it rises for the other half of our being, that is, for the other organs.

Our ego and astral body do just what the sun does, which shines here during the day and when it sets for us, it rises for the people on the other side of the earth. When ego and astral body "set" for our blood and nervous system, they rise for the other organs and are linked all the more strongly with them.

These other organs, to which our ego and astral body are connected when we sleep, have been constructed out of the spirit, as has everything else in the world. And the remarkable fact is that while we are sleeping, we strongly influence these other organs of our body with our ego and astral body. During the day, our ego and astral body work strongly upon our blood and nervous system, but they influence our other organs, all those not part of the blood and nervous system but which affect the blood from the nerves, when we are asleep.

From this follows that it is of some consequence how we enter sleep with our ego and astral body. Materialists will not care much about what happens in sleep to their ego and astral body, which they never mention anyway. However, those who understand these things will know that the organs that are not part of the blood and nervous system and do not manifest in our conscious existence are dependent on those aspects of our ego and astral body that are active in sleep.

Let me illustrate this with an obvious example. As we know, people today are haunted by a fear we can compare with the medieval fear of ghosts. It is the fear of germs. Objectively, both states of fear are the same. Both fit their respective age: People of the Middle Ages held a certain belief in the spiritual world; therefore quite naturally they had a fear of spiritual beings. The modern age has lost this belief in the spiritual world; it believes in material things. It therefore has a fear of material beings, be they ever so small. Objectively speaking, the greatest difference we might find between the two periods is that ghosts are at any rate sizable and respectable. The tiny germs, on the other hand, are nothing much to write home about as far as frightening people is concerned. Now of course I do not mean to imply by this that we should encourage germs, and that it is good to have as many as possible. That is certainly not the implication. Still, germs certainly exist and ghosts existed also, especially as far as those people who held a real belief in the spiritual world are concerned. Thus, they do not even differ in terms of reality.

However, the important point we want to make today is that germs can become dangerous only if they are allowed to flourish. Germs should not be allowed to flourish. Even materialists will agree with this statement, but they will no longer agree with us if we proceed further and, from the standpoint of proper spiritual science, speak about the most favorable conditions for germs. Germs flourish most intensively when we take nothing but materialistic thoughts into sleep with us. There is no better way to encourage them to flourish than to enter sleep with only materialistic ideas, and then to work from the spiritual world with the ego and the astral body on those organs that are not part of the blood and the nervous system. The only other method that is just as good is to live in the center of an epidemic or endemic illness and to think of nothing but the sickness all around, filled only with a fear of getting sick. That would be equally effective. If fear of the illness is the only thing created in such a place and one goes to sleep at night with that thought, it produces afterimages, Imaginations impregnated with fear. That is a good method of cultivating and nurturing germs. If this fear can be reduced even a little by, for example, active love and, while tending the sick, forgetting for a time that one might also be infected, the conditions are less favorable for the germs.

These issues are not raised in anthroposophy merely to play on human egotism, but to describe the facts of the spiritual world. This concrete case demonstrates that in real life we cannot avoid dealing with the spiritual world, because it is the basis for our actions between going to sleep and waking up. If people were given thoughts that lead them away from materialism and spur them on to active love out of the spirit, it would serve the future of humanity better. Then infinitely more productive work could be achieved than through all the preparations now being developed by materialistic science against germs. In the course of this century, the insight has to spread more and more widely that the spiritual world is by no means irrelevant to our physical life, but is of essential importance to it because we are in the spiritual world between going to sleep and waking up, and continue to affect the physical body from there. Even if this is not immediately obvious, it is nevertheless true.

Now, we will have to get used to the fact that the direct healing powers of spiritual science have to work through the human community if we are to see these matters in the right light. What does it mean that some individual here or there enters the spiritual world in sleep with thoughts turned toward the realm of the spirit, while all around other people nourish and nurture the germ world with their materialistic thoughts, materialistic feelings, and with fears, which are always connected with materialism? What is the real nature of germs? Well, here we come to a subject essential for human life. When we see the air around us filled with different species of birds and the water filled with fishes, when we observe the life forms that creep along the earth and others frolicking on it and revealing themselves to our senses, we are looking at beings we can correctly describe as creatures of the developing Godhead in one form or another, even if they are occasionally harmful. But in the case of germ-like creatures resident and active in other living beings, in plants, animals, or humans, we are dealing with creations of Ahriman. To understand the existence of such creatures correctly we must know that they express spiritual facts, namely the relationship between human beings and Ahriman. This relationship is established through a materialistic attitude and purely egotistical states of fear. We see the conditions allowing the existence of such parasitic beings correctly if we realize that they are a symptom of Ahriman intervening in the world.

Clearly, then, it is not a matter of indifference whether we take materialistic or spiritual ideas with us into the spiritual world when we fall asleep. As soon as we realize this, we can no longer claim it is irrelevant whether or not we know of the spirit in this world. We have to start at a specific point if we really want to understand the great importance of spiritual scientific research for our life between birth and death.

It will become increasingly clear to us how this earthly life is connected with spiritual life. We rely on nature, which is on a lower level than we are, for our nourishment. For some time after death, the dead derive their nourishment from the ideas and the unconscious emotions that we here on earth take into sleep with us. Those who have died perceive a tremendous difference between people who in their waking life are filled only with materialistic feelings and ideas and also take them into sleep, and others who are wholly filled with spiritual ideas while awake and who continue to be filled with them in sleep. The two types of people are as different in their effect on the dead as a barren region where no food can grow, where people would starve, and a fruitful area that offers nourishment in abundance. For many years after death, the dead draw a vitality from the souls sleeping here on earth filled with spiritual content, a vitality that is similar, only transposed into the spiritual realm, to what we draw in our physical life from the beings of the kingdoms of nature below us. We literally turn ourselves into fruitful pastures for the dead when we fill ourselves with the ideas of spiritual science. And we turn ourselves into barren ground and starve the dead if we take only materialistic ideas and attitudes into sleep.

It is not out of the enthusiasm that leads to the establishment of many other associations and societies that we speak of spiritual science in these times. Rather, the urge to speak about it comes out of necessity and the heartfelt realization that in the twentieth century people will need it. Regardless of outer circumstances, those who fully understand how much the world needs spiritual science cannot help but talk about its results and share it with their fellow human beings. The power of the words at our disposal seems much too weak to meet the necessity of making spiritual science ever more available to those who would otherwise sink deeper and deeper into materialism.

Let us think about the nature of our relationship to the dead we were connected with in life, whom we can clearly visualize, and of whom we often think. What is our relationship to those who have died, apart from offering them spiritual nourishment by taking spiritual thoughts into sleep? What is our relationship with the dead in waking life?

If the dead draw nourishment from the content of our souls in sleep, then every thought that enters the spiritual world and is concerned with it and its beings can be perceived by the dead. On the other hand, if we do not cultivate such thoughts, the dead are deprived of them. Ideas related only to the material world, to things in nature, live in our souls in such a way that the dead cannot perceive them. These ideas, however scholarly or wise, are meaningless for the dead. As soon as we have thoughts about the spiritual world, not only the living but also the dead have immediate access to them. That is why we have often recommended that our friends read silently to an individual with whom they were closely connected and who has passed on to the spiritual world. One forms an image of the person and then, while thinking about him or her, one reads on a subject related to the spiritual world. The dead can then participate in the process, which is important. Although the dead are in the world we know through spiritual science, thoughts about the spiritual world must be produced on earth. The dead must perceive more than the spiritual world around them; they need the thoughts of those who live on earth, thoughts that for them are like perceptions.

The most important and the most beautiful thing we can give the dead is to read to them in the way I have just described. We can give something to the dead by reading on a spiritual subject. And if you doubt that this is useful, since the deceased is in the spiritual world anyway, just think that we can be surrounded by things and beings in the physical world, yet may not understand them. The understanding has to be acquired. Thus, although the deceased is in the spiritual world, thoughts from earth have to flow to him. Illuminating thoughts must flow up to those regions where the dead dwell, just as rain streams down from the clouds as a blessing to the physical world.

All these examples show that it is infinitely important even for the physical world to experience the spiritual world in thought. Obviously, we cannot wait until after death for knowledge about the spiritual world. In truth, a thorough study of the spiritual world shows us that we are not on earth for nothing; we are here to learn something that can be learned only on earth - a possession of such value that the living can give it even to the dead.

The close connection between our earth existence and life immediately after death also manifests in many other respects, but it is difficult to talk about this connection in concrete terms, because the words can so easily be misunderstood. People are greatly inclined to prejudice, and whenever a subject, such as the spiritual world and its beings, is discussed, certain motives of the heart provoke misunderstandings. When I tell of an individual case where there is this or that connection between a person's life here on earth and after death, people all too easily jump to the wrong conclusions out of a very understandable self-centeredness and apply the description of a particular case to themselves. They are tempted to think that things are quite different in their case; therefore, they will not experience something this beautiful after death. Instead of deriving satisfaction from the events described, the listeners out of egotism feel that their experience will not be equally exceptional after death.

As soon as we do more than just speak in general terms and deal with specific cases, we must develop selflessness so we can observe someone else's destiny without drawing conclusions about our own life. Then we will not worry that if the same does not happen to us, we are missing out on what is being described. These and similar reactions provide grounds for misunderstandings, which I want to avoid.

A short time ago, a very dear friend of ours died, and many of us attended his cremation. [ Note 2 ] He would have celebrated his forty-third birthday tomorrow, on May 6. In the final years of his life, he suffered much. I would like to tell here, parenthetically as it were, a wonderful story from his last years as his wife told it to me.[ Note 3 ] During his great suffering, our friend fought not against admitting to himself that he had to suffer, but against saying that he was ill. He was not ill, he said. He suffered, yes, but he was not ill, and he was adamant that such a statement should not be taken as quibbling but as something meaningful. This definition, "I suffer, but I am not ill," arose from his awareness that what he carried within him as spiritual science, what supported and carried him inwardly, defeated all attacks of illness. He was aware that he suffered, but the health of his soul is so great that, when he compared it to his physical condition, he could not call himself ill. This definition is very important and well-suited to permeate our soul as a feeling.

Anyway, we saw how the person concerned spent his last years on earth in a sick body, in a suffering body. Yet he did not see himself as sick but only as suffering. If we compare that with the spiritual life that has now begun for our friend, we will have a worthy image of what connects our earth existence with life after death. It is a fact of the spiritual world that a series of Imaginations was prepared in his body, a body that showed the symptoms of illness. A series of Imaginations, powerful Imaginations, lived, so to speak, in the sick limbs. He was completely filled with the content of the spiritual worlds. They lived in him in such a way that they worked on all those organs we are usually not as aware of as we are of our brain and nervous system, that is, organs we experience on a more subconscious level. These powerful Imaginations lived in these organs, and all the more so, the more outwardly ill these organs became. They prepared themselves and now face the soul of the deceased as a mighty tableau of the spiritual world. Now he is living in the images that were trapped in his sick organs, especially in his final years. They prepared themselves in such intensity that they now surround him as his spiritual world.

It is impossible to see more beautiful worlds, or to see the spiritual cosmos more perfectly and more beautifully, than those that blossom and unfold in spiritual art, which cannot be observed better anywhere else than through such a situation. Here, on the physical plane, an artist can create in beauty a piece of the world, so that the image on canvas or in marble lets us see more of the world than we do on our own. All of this, however, pales into insignificance in comparison to the spiritual world seen as it is and also as it arises and blossoms forth from the soul of the deceased who has been prepared by his karma in the way I have described. How he was prepared will be clear from his poetic works, which are now being printed and will appear soon. [ Note 4 ] His poetry reveals that this kind of spiritual life and passage into the spiritual world after death are intimately connected with what we have for many years called the Christ-Impulse. The Christ-Impulse, in the sense spiritual science speaks of it, is beautifully alive in our friend's poetry.

In this connection I want to add something that can truly lead us to feel the relationship between the world of our earthly life and the one we pass through between death and a new birth. I will not present this connection with abstract thoughts, but so you can grasp it at the level of feeling. You see, one can be either stupid or clever here on the physical plane; one can even be a scholar - in the life after death it is of little importance whether one was stupid, clever, or learned if all these qualities relate only to the things of the physical world. Our thoughts about the material world may be ever so clever; they will be of no use to us once we have passed through death. They will then no longer have any meaning. After death we need thoughts, ideas, and feelings that do not relate to the physical world, because only those have meaning then.

Now, I would like to put this in a somewhat grotesque, paradoxical way. Do not be put off by the paradox; what I want to say will become clear immediately. Let us assume that someone refuses to have any thoughts that are not called forth by sensory perception. As soon as anything impinges on him and thoughts begin to develop, he says: I do not want you. I proceed only on the basis of what my eyes see and my ears hear. That is what I want to think about. Stop bothering me with anything else; I will not bother with it ... Such a person does not accumulate any strength that can be used after death. He is blind when entering the world between death and new birth.

Let us assume now that someone else has a lively imagination, but cannot be bothered to approach spiritual science and learn things slowly and gradually. He finds it much easier to develop ideas about the spiritual world from his imagination, to fantasize about the spiritual world. This person has ideas concerning the sense world as well as all kinds of fantasies about the realm of the spirit. Such an individual would not enter the spiritual world as a blind person, but will have soul forces that will enable him to see in the spiritual world. However, such people will be as we are when our vision in the physical world is impaired and we see things inaccurately as a result. Such inaccurate vision is a lot worse in the spiritual world than on the physical plane because there it leads to confusion at every turn. What I have just said, even if it seems grotesque at first, shows us that we need ideas reaching beyond the life of the senses if we really want to become citizens of the spiritual world, as we must. And unless we get our bearings from beyond the sense world, we will live in the spiritual world in a crippled state, as do those who take in only ideas related to the sensory realm and those who allow their imagination to run wild.

Various founders of religions appeared throughout history to prevent people from having thoughts triggered purely by physical objects or by fantasies about the spiritual world. If we look at these personalities and the teachings they gave humanity, we find that the aim of all these religious founders was to offer people ideas about the super-sensible world that would allow them to enter it healthy and whole, not crippled. The founders of our religions provided ideas that met the needs of their particular time and culture.

Our age is different from the past and requires us to grow up into mature human beings. Please do not take this in a superficial, merely external sense, but in a deeply inward one. We have to reach maturity and find the path into the spiritual world through our souls. The ancient founders of our religions spoke to a humanity that was not yet mature. They addressed people at a stage through which all our souls have also passed. These ancient religious leaders knew their times, and also knew that they could not speak in the same way to a humanity moving further toward the future. For humanity must develop toward maturity and independence.

If people of ancient times had either restricted themselves to sense impressions or had reached for the products of their imagination, in both cases they would have entered the spiritual world crippled or at the very least in a confused state. At that point a leader appeared, bringing true ideas from the spiritual world. People then said that they themselves did not gain access to the spiritual world through sensory perception or use of the imagination, but rather through Zarathustra, Buddha, or Krishna, who stimulated thoughts in them that allowed them to enter the realm of the spirit. [ Note 5 ] In our time human beings must come of age, regardless of whether the ego causes confusion or blindness. The Mystery of Golgotha took place so that we can find the way into the spiritual world as independent beings. Religious leaders no longer appear in history as they did in earlier times.

Those who compare Christ to the ancient religious teachers do not understand anything about him. In the first place, Christ worked through a deed, the ancient religious leaders through their teachings. To describe him merely as a teacher of humanity means not knowing at all who Christ is. The essential thing about him is the deed he performed, which began as a consequence of his baptism by John and ended with the crucifixion on Golgotha. What was done there for humanity is spiritually all-important. What happened there is what can permeate human souls ever since then, namely, the experience St. Paul described as "Not I, but Christ in me." Indeed, Christ has become the path into the spiritual world because he brought it into this world. He brought us the spiritual world we need if we are not to be crippled or blind after death.

It is quite possible these days to deny Christ and claim that there is no evidence that Christ lived in the physical world in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, people have even produced evidence showing there was no historical Christ. But with that they merely prove that they missed the point. If Christ had chiseled into a rock for all future generations, "I was here," then those future generations would have known he existed from the sensory world, and they would not have needed to believe it. His deep significance, the possibility of redemption, is precisely that this was not the case, that we cannot comprehend him through our senses but have to accept him with the forces of the spirit. Seen in this light, we find Christ intimately connected with those things that even here on earth lift human beings beyond the sense-perceptible world into the spiritual realm. None of this exists for those who cannot raise themselves to the spiritual world, because they cannot escape their doubts.

In this context it can be a great relief for someone fully involved in modern culture, in science and art, to come across a view of Christ that is appropriate to our modern civilization, namely the anthroposophical view of Christ presented in spiritual science. Much can be learnt from it, for example, how to view the physical world correctly. Oh, the physical world - where is it headed these days? I hinted at some of these things recently in a public lecture, but now I can be more explicit. [ Note 6 ] Of course, we have to admire materialist civilization and all the achievements of technology, industry, and so on. An immense amount of intellectual energy has flowed into these things; they have taken up a great deal of human energy. But who benefits from these intellectual efforts? Insofar as they satisfy the material needs of modern humanity, they serve Ahriman. Christ Jesus experienced the temptation by Ahriman. Ordinary human souls could certainly not survive the sudden shock of such an experience. For us the temptation has to be diluted. But as a consequence of this dilution of temptation, Ahriman can say to us: Yes, think only with the power of your science, with all those things you can discover through science applied to technology, industry, and so on. Use only those things for your thinking and apply them to nothing but physical experience; that suits me fine. It fits in well with my aims, says Ahriman, if you are unable to see me. You might well despise reason and knowledge, the supreme achievements of human beings; thus you are absolutely mine - at least as long as you do not see me. I will instill the drive in you to use reason and knowledge only for earthly things!

Something else is required to counterbalance the service we render Ahriman. It is therefore important that we gather everything modern technology and so on can accomplish to build something with it that is not to serve our outer existence, but only our spiritual life.

In ancient times, people presented sacrifices to the gods, the first fruits of the field and of the herd. I do not intend to talk about the meaning of sacrifice today, but you can see what it could signify presented in a form appropriate to modern times. When the first fruits had been sacrificed to the gods, the people partook of the remainder. Spiritual science is certainly not based on false asceticism. It will not be guilty of the absurdity of ranting and raving against modern culture with all its material blessings. On the contrary, it recognizes their value. But if it wants to avoid serving only Ahriman, it has to sacrifice something of the first fruits of this external material culture to the gods.

So you see, there is a profound thinking underlying the building that is growing outside on the hill at Dornach: We want to offer the first fruits of modern civilization to the gods. Everything is different now from the way it was in the times our souls passed through in previous incarnations. And we have to understand the nature of our current task just as we understood what we had to do in our earlier incarnations when we were guided by spiritual luminaries. That is especially difficult now because we have to take into account not only the nature of our time but also our soul qualities. In addition, we can no longer rely on the external authority that supported the founders of religions; we have to work with quite different forces. Christ was the Word; in the same way true spiritual science wishes to work only through the word and must not use any other means.

Such reflections give us an insight into the connection between the spiritual world and our world here on earth. And no matter where we begin, we see the Mystery of Golgotha radiating toward us as the heart and soul of such reflections. But we must not forget that we have to become mature, truly mature, so that we can understand what spiritual science is meant to be. We must never forget that it must exist because humanity must come of age.

It is completely true that humanity descended from higher spiritual regions and has moved away from the old atavistic clairvoyance by developing a world view based on reason and systematic thinking. We have to take this progress in evolution seriously. We must realize we live at a time when it is our mission to develop our thinking, to advance through our thinking, and to learn through studying. Spiritual science is our basis, our point of departure. We must try to immerse ourselves in these ideas so that they stimulate within us what our souls need in the future. What spiritual science offers can be understood by everyone. Those who claim one cannot understand the contents of spiritual science, but must believe it, speak without knowing how these things really are.

We must not be misled when we meet people who have not advanced by means of intellectual understanding, but have certain psychic abilities that seem to appear spontaneously. Based on our understanding of the mission of spiritual science, we know that souls can now think only because the clairvoyance of an earlier age has been suppressed. People with natural clairvoyance, which was not acquired through inner effort, must be seen as persons who have remained at an earlier evolutionary stage and who should therefore receive special care in our Society, rather than be considered particularly advanced. It would be an incorrect judgment if we were to consider such souls particularly mature, as having experienced particularly high incarnations. People with a natural gift of clairvoyance have gone through far less than those who are thinkers nowadays. These things have to be properly understood in our Society. Then it would be possible (and it is my duty to say this) for our Society to be a place where such souls with psychic powers can find care and be guided on the right path. Our Society could give them what they cannot get anywhere else: order in their soul. But to make that possible most of the members of our Society must have a profound inner knowledge of the mission of true spiritual science in the present. If that happened, then the case that so saddened us in recent days could not recur. I am referring to a member, who joined in the belief our Society would care for clairvoyant psychic forces, but then found here a captive audience and took on the role of a prophet. Such an event opens the door to all those things that, if they were to prevail, would turn our Society into the exact opposite of what it should be according to the intentions of the spiritual forces supporting it.

Unfortunately, we have had to suffer the case of ..., who came from a country in the north. He might have become a good member if he had worked quietly on developing his psychic powers. Instead, he was immediately surrounded by a kind of aura. He presented himself everywhere as a healer in a way we can only consider regrettable. It became necessary to announce that he could no longer be considered a member of our Society. For it would be turned into the exact opposite of what it should be if we failed to carefully draw attention to psychic phenomena that are not imbued with true spiritual power, which, after all, is the true power of Christ. Christ, not psychic powers, must work in us. These circumstances must be handled so as to make it clear that our Society will have nothing to do with this. It knows no other sanction than the one used in the last few days. Unfortunately, a step had to be taken we otherwise oppose in principle: a member had to be expelled.

This cannot be separated from a serious and worthy concept of the mission of the Anthroposophical Society. And certainly you will understand that it is only with great sorrow one lives through the events that had to be lived through here in the last few days. We are in principle opposed to all expulsions and yet could not avoid expelling someone in such a case. It will happen less and less frequently if our dear friends continue to take to heart the things that have been said so often and that were also the subject of tonight's talk. With that I will conclude my remarks, my dear friends, and entrust them to your souls.

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Presence of the Dead: Lecture Three: Awakening Spiritual Thoughts

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AWAKENING SPIRITUAL THOUGHTSBasel, May 5, 1914 I am very glad that we can meet here today and take a break, so to speak, for a while from the work on our new building in Dornach. [ Note 1 ] But I thought it would be impossible to gather here so near our building without also discussing anthroposophical matters.

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Awakening Spiritual Thoughts - Lecture 3 of  "The Presence of the Dead on the Spiritual Path" - Basel, May 5, 1915

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Awakening Spiritual Thoughts - Lecture 3 of  "The Presence of the Dead on the Spiritual Path" - Basel, May 5, 1915

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https://wn.rsarchive.org/GA/GA0154/19140505p01.html

"Now, we will have to get used to the fact that the direct healing powers of spiritual science have to work through the human community if we are to see these matters in the right light. What does it mean that some individual here or there enters the spiritual world in sleep with thoughts turned toward the realm of the spirit, while all around other people nourish and nurture the germ world with their materialistic thoughts, materialistic feelings, and with fears, which are always connected with materialism? What is the real nature of germs? Well, here we come to a subject essential for human life. When we see the air around us filled with different species of birds and the water filled with fishes, when we observe the life forms that creep along the earth and others frolicking on it and revealing themselves to our senses, we are looking at beings we can correctly describe as creatures of the developing Godhead in one form or another, even if they are occasionally harmful. But in the case of germ-like creatures resident and active in other living beings, in plants, animals, or humans, we are dealing with creations of Ahriman. To understand the existence of such creatures correctly we must know that they express spiritual facts, namely the relationship between human beings and Ahriman. This relationship is established through a materialistic attitude and purely egotistical states of fear. We see the conditions allowing the existence of such parasitic beings correctly if we realize that they are a symptom of Ahriman intervening in the world."

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AWAKENING SPIRITUAL THOUGHTS
Basel, May 5, 1914

I am very glad that we can meet here today and take a break, so to speak, for a while from the work on our new building in Dornach. [ Note 1 ] But I thought it would be impossible to gather here so near our building without also discussing anthroposophical matters. I hope we can do this more often in the course of the year; otherwise our friends working on the building will not have as many opportunities to attend such meetings as they do when they are not working on our building.

Let us start with some thoughts on the life of the spirit that might be useful in considering what meaning spiritual science and living with anthroposophy can have for us, for our soul. People new to anthroposophical thinking, feeling, and perception may think we should not worry about the life of the spirit, about the spiritual world, since we enter the spiritual world anyway after death (even a materialist might say this) and will there learn all we need to know about it. Why should we not be satisfied in this life between birth and death simply to do what is necessary for life in the physical world; why is it wrong when we just fulfill our duties in the physical world, and leave matters concerning the spiritual world in the realm of the uncertain and indefinite? One could hear these words often during the time when the tide of materialism engulfed human development, especially in the last third of the nineteenth century. And it was by no means the most morally reprehensible souls who said: While on earth, let us concentrate on our tasks here and leave the rest for the world we enter after death.

Now, let us talk about something that can be grasped immediately by anyone who begins to concern himself with - I do not even want to say spiritual science - but with truly logical thinking. We actually spend only part of our time between birth and death in the physical world, namely, our waking time. And even people who have not yet thought much about the spiritual world, but who can think logically, would have to admit that with our conscious mind we know as little about life in sleep as we do about life after death. And certainly no one can deny that we continue to live in sleep - unless such a person were prepared to accept that we really die every evening and are created anew each morning. That is unlikely, but the truly logical person will be equally unable to accept that the whole human being is really present in a sleeping body lying in bed.

The fact that we sleep regularly should at least make people think. And then they will be motivated to reflect on what spiritual science has to offer. In particular, the natural sciences will more and more realize that our soul is not present in our physical body when we sleep. In fact, they will reach this conclusion on their own before the end of this century of scientific development. Then they will look to spiritual science for answers to their questions. They will be forced by their own conclusions to realize that our soul-spiritual being is really not connected with our physical body when we are sleeping. It will then become ever more important for people in the twentieth century to know something about sleep. Therefore let us begin today and get an idea of what people in our century will have to know about the nature of sleep.

We know from our studies in spiritual science that when we fall asleep, two members of our being, the ego and the astral body, leave the physical and etheric bodies. Where are the ego and the astral body when we are asleep? To begin with, we can say they are in the spiritual world. Of course, we are always in the spirit realm, because the latter is not separated from the physical world, but surrounds us just as air envelops us everywhere. We are always in the spiritual world, even when we are awake.

However, we inhabit it in a different way when we are asleep than when we are awake. Now, it may be sufficient for the immediate needs of spiritual science to describe this situation by saying that in sleep our ego and astral body are outside our physical and etheric bodies. But then we would actually be telling only half the truth. It is the same as saying the sun sets here at night; because the sun in fact sets then only for us in Europe. We know this does not apply to all the inhabitants of the earth. Fundamentally, the ego and astral body leave our physical and etheric bodies properly, we might say, completely, only after death. In sleep they actually leave only the blood and nervous system. But when the "sun" of our being, namely, the ego and astral body, sets in relation to our blood and nervous system, which they penetrate during the day, it rises for the other half of our being, that is, for the other organs.

Our ego and astral body do just what the sun does, which shines here during the day and when it sets for us, it rises for the people on the other side of the earth. When ego and astral body "set" for our blood and nervous system, they rise for the other organs and are linked all the more strongly with them.

These other organs, to which our ego and astral body are connected when we sleep, have been constructed out of the spirit, as has everything else in the world. And the remarkable fact is that while we are sleeping, we strongly influence these other organs of our body with our ego and astral body. During the day, our ego and astral body work strongly upon our blood and nervous system, but they influence our other organs, all those not part of the blood and nervous system but which affect the blood from the nerves, when we are asleep.

From this follows that it is of some consequence how we enter sleep with our ego and astral body. Materialists will not care much about what happens in sleep to their ego and astral body, which they never mention anyway. However, those who understand these things will know that the organs that are not part of the blood and nervous system and do not manifest in our conscious existence are dependent on those aspects of our ego and astral body that are active in sleep.

Let me illustrate this with an obvious example. As we know, people today are haunted by a fear we can compare with the medieval fear of ghosts. It is the fear of germs. Objectively, both states of fear are the same. Both fit their respective age: People of the Middle Ages held a certain belief in the spiritual world; therefore quite naturally they had a fear of spiritual beings. The modern age has lost this belief in the spiritual world; it believes in material things. It therefore has a fear of material beings, be they ever so small. Objectively speaking, the greatest difference we might find between the two periods is that ghosts are at any rate sizable and respectable. The tiny germs, on the other hand, are nothing much to write home about as far as frightening people is concerned. Now of course I do not mean to imply by this that we should encourage germs, and that it is good to have as many as possible. That is certainly not the implication. Still, germs certainly exist and ghosts existed also, especially as far as those people who held a real belief in the spiritual world are concerned. Thus, they do not even differ in terms of reality.

However, the important point we want to make today is that germs can become dangerous only if they are allowed to flourish. Germs should not be allowed to flourish. Even materialists will agree with this statement, but they will no longer agree with us if we proceed further and, from the standpoint of proper spiritual science, speak about the most favorable conditions for germs. Germs flourish most intensively when we take nothing but materialistic thoughts into sleep with us. There is no better way to encourage them to flourish than to enter sleep with only materialistic ideas, and then to work from the spiritual world with the ego and the astral body on those organs that are not part of the blood and the nervous system. The only other method that is just as good is to live in the center of an epidemic or endemic illness and to think of nothing but the sickness all around, filled only with a fear of getting sick. That would be equally effective. If fear of the illness is the only thing created in such a place and one goes to sleep at night with that thought, it produces afterimages, Imaginations impregnated with fear. That is a good method of cultivating and nurturing germs. If this fear can be reduced even a little by, for example, active love and, while tending the sick, forgetting for a time that one might also be infected, the conditions are less favorable for the germs.

These issues are not raised in anthroposophy merely to play on human egotism, but to describe the facts of the spiritual world. This concrete case demonstrates that in real life we cannot avoid dealing with the spiritual world, because it is the basis for our actions between going to sleep and waking up. If people were given thoughts that lead them away from materialism and spur them on to active love out of the spirit, it would serve the future of humanity better. Then infinitely more productive work could be achieved than through all the preparations now being developed by materialistic science against germs. In the course of this century, the insight has to spread more and more widely that the spiritual world is by no means irrelevant to our physical life, but is of essential importance to it because we are in the spiritual world between going to sleep and waking up, and continue to affect the physical body from there. Even if this is not immediately obvious, it is nevertheless true.

Now, we will have to get used to the fact that the direct healing powers of spiritual science have to work through the human community if we are to see these matters in the right light. What does it mean that some individual here or there enters the spiritual world in sleep with thoughts turned toward the realm of the spirit, while all around other people nourish and nurture the germ world with their materialistic thoughts, materialistic feelings, and with fears, which are always connected with materialism? What is the real nature of germs? Well, here we come to a subject essential for human life. When we see the air around us filled with different species of birds and the water filled with fishes, when we observe the life forms that creep along the earth and others frolicking on it and revealing themselves to our senses, we are looking at beings we can correctly describe as creatures of the developing Godhead in one form or another, even if they are occasionally harmful. But in the case of germ-like creatures resident and active in other living beings, in plants, animals, or humans, we are dealing with creations of Ahriman. To understand the existence of such creatures correctly we must know that they express spiritual facts, namely the relationship between human beings and Ahriman. This relationship is established through a materialistic attitude and purely egotistical states of fear. We see the conditions allowing the existence of such parasitic beings correctly if we realize that they are a symptom of Ahriman intervening in the world.

Clearly, then, it is not a matter of indifference whether we take materialistic or spiritual ideas with us into the spiritual world when we fall asleep. As soon as we realize this, we can no longer claim it is irrelevant whether or not we know of the spirit in this world. We have to start at a specific point if we really want to understand the great importance of spiritual scientific research for our life between birth and death.

It will become increasingly clear to us how this earthly life is connected with spiritual life. We rely on nature, which is on a lower level than we are, for our nourishment. For some time after death, the dead derive their nourishment from the ideas and the unconscious emotions that we here on earth take into sleep with us. Those who have died perceive a tremendous difference between people who in their waking life are filled only with materialistic feelings and ideas and also take them into sleep, and others who are wholly filled with spiritual ideas while awake and who continue to be filled with them in sleep. The two types of people are as different in their effect on the dead as a barren region where no food can grow, where people would starve, and a fruitful area that offers nourishment in abundance. For many years after death, the dead draw a vitality from the souls sleeping here on earth filled with spiritual content, a vitality that is similar, only transposed into the spiritual realm, to what we draw in our physical life from the beings of the kingdoms of nature below us. We literally turn ourselves into fruitful pastures for the dead when we fill ourselves with the ideas of spiritual science. And we turn ourselves into barren ground and starve the dead if we take only materialistic ideas and attitudes into sleep.

It is not out of the enthusiasm that leads to the establishment of many other associations and societies that we speak of spiritual science in these times. Rather, the urge to speak about it comes out of necessity and the heartfelt realization that in the twentieth century people will need it. Regardless of outer circumstances, those who fully understand how much the world needs spiritual science cannot help but talk about its results and share it with their fellow human beings. The power of the words at our disposal seems much too weak to meet the necessity of making spiritual science ever more available to those who would otherwise sink deeper and deeper into materialism.

Let us think about the nature of our relationship to the dead we were connected with in life, whom we can clearly visualize, and of whom we often think. What is our relationship to those who have died, apart from offering them spiritual nourishment by taking spiritual thoughts into sleep? What is our relationship with the dead in waking life?

If the dead draw nourishment from the content of our souls in sleep, then every thought that enters the spiritual world and is concerned with it and its beings can be perceived by the dead. On the other hand, if we do not cultivate such thoughts, the dead are deprived of them. Ideas related only to the material world, to things in nature, live in our souls in such a way that the dead cannot perceive them. These ideas, however scholarly or wise, are meaningless for the dead. As soon as we have thoughts about the spiritual world, not only the living but also the dead have immediate access to them. That is why we have often recommended that our friends read silently to an individual with whom they were closely connected and who has passed on to the spiritual world. One forms an image of the person and then, while thinking about him or her, one reads on a subject related to the spiritual world. The dead can then participate in the process, which is important. Although the dead are in the world we know through spiritual science, thoughts about the spiritual world must be produced on earth. The dead must perceive more than the spiritual world around them; they need the thoughts of those who live on earth, thoughts that for them are like perceptions.

The most important and the most beautiful thing we can give the dead is to read to them in the way I have just described. We can give something to the dead by reading on a spiritual subject. And if you doubt that this is useful, since the deceased is in the spiritual world anyway, just think that we can be surrounded by things and beings in the physical world, yet may not understand them. The understanding has to be acquired. Thus, although the deceased is in the spiritual world, thoughts from earth have to flow to him. Illuminating thoughts must flow up to those regions where the dead dwell, just as rain streams down from the clouds as a blessing to the physical world.

All these examples show that it is infinitely important even for the physical world to experience the spiritual world in thought. Obviously, we cannot wait until after death for knowledge about the spiritual world. In truth, a thorough study of the spiritual world shows us that we are not on earth for nothing; we are here to learn something that can be learned only on earth - a possession of such value that the living can give it even to the dead.

The close connection between our earth existence and life immediately after death also manifests in many other respects, but it is difficult to talk about this connection in concrete terms, because the words can so easily be misunderstood. People are greatly inclined to prejudice, and whenever a subject, such as the spiritual world and its beings, is discussed, certain motives of the heart provoke misunderstandings. When I tell of an individual case where there is this or that connection between a person's life here on earth and after death, people all too easily jump to the wrong conclusions out of a very understandable self-centeredness and apply the description of a particular case to themselves. They are tempted to think that things are quite different in their case; therefore, they will not experience something this beautiful after death. Instead of deriving satisfaction from the events described, the listeners out of egotism feel that their experience will not be equally exceptional after death.

As soon as we do more than just speak in general terms and deal with specific cases, we must develop selflessness so we can observe someone else's destiny without drawing conclusions about our own life. Then we will not worry that if the same does not happen to us, we are missing out on what is being described. These and similar reactions provide grounds for misunderstandings, which I want to avoid.

A short time ago, a very dear friend of ours died, and many of us attended his cremation. [ Note 2 ] He would have celebrated his forty-third birthday tomorrow, on May 6. In the final years of his life, he suffered much. I would like to tell here, parenthetically as it were, a wonderful story from his last years as his wife told it to me.[ Note 3 ] During his great suffering, our friend fought not against admitting to himself that he had to suffer, but against saying that he was ill. He was not ill, he said. He suffered, yes, but he was not ill, and he was adamant that such a statement should not be taken as quibbling but as something meaningful. This definition, "I suffer, but I am not ill," arose from his awareness that what he carried within him as spiritual science, what supported and carried him inwardly, defeated all attacks of illness. He was aware that he suffered, but the health of his soul is so great that, when he compared it to his physical condition, he could not call himself ill. This definition is very important and well-suited to permeate our soul as a feeling.

Anyway, we saw how the person concerned spent his last years on earth in a sick body, in a suffering body. Yet he did not see himself as sick but only as suffering. If we compare that with the spiritual life that has now begun for our friend, we will have a worthy image of what connects our earth existence with life after death. It is a fact of the spiritual world that a series of Imaginations was prepared in his body, a body that showed the symptoms of illness. A series of Imaginations, powerful Imaginations, lived, so to speak, in the sick limbs. He was completely filled with the content of the spiritual worlds. They lived in him in such a way that they worked on all those organs we are usually not as aware of as we are of our brain and nervous system, that is, organs we experience on a more subconscious level. These powerful Imaginations lived in these organs, and all the more so, the more outwardly ill these organs became. They prepared themselves and now face the soul of the deceased as a mighty tableau of the spiritual world. Now he is living in the images that were trapped in his sick organs, especially in his final years. They prepared themselves in such intensity that they now surround him as his spiritual world.

It is impossible to see more beautiful worlds, or to see the spiritual cosmos more perfectly and more beautifully, than those that blossom and unfold in spiritual art, which cannot be observed better anywhere else than through such a situation. Here, on the physical plane, an artist can create in beauty a piece of the world, so that the image on canvas or in marble lets us see more of the world than we do on our own. All of this, however, pales into insignificance in comparison to the spiritual world seen as it is and also as it arises and blossoms forth from the soul of the deceased who has been prepared by his karma in the way I have described. How he was prepared will be clear from his poetic works, which are now being printed and will appear soon. [ Note 4 ] His poetry reveals that this kind of spiritual life and passage into the spiritual world after death are intimately connected with what we have for many years called the Christ-Impulse. The Christ-Impulse, in the sense spiritual science speaks of it, is beautifully alive in our friend's poetry.

In this connection I want to add something that can truly lead us to feel the relationship between the world of our earthly life and the one we pass through between death and a new birth. I will not present this connection with abstract thoughts, but so you can grasp it at the level of feeling. You see, one can be either stupid or clever here on the physical plane; one can even be a scholar - in the life after death it is of little importance whether one was stupid, clever, or learned if all these qualities relate only to the things of the physical world. Our thoughts about the material world may be ever so clever; they will be of no use to us once we have passed through death. They will then no longer have any meaning. After death we need thoughts, ideas, and feelings that do not relate to the physical world, because only those have meaning then.

Now, I would like to put this in a somewhat grotesque, paradoxical way. Do not be put off by the paradox; what I want to say will become clear immediately. Let us assume that someone refuses to have any thoughts that are not called forth by sensory perception. As soon as anything impinges on him and thoughts begin to develop, he says: I do not want you. I proceed only on the basis of what my eyes see and my ears hear. That is what I want to think about. Stop bothering me with anything else; I will not bother with it ... Such a person does not accumulate any strength that can be used after death. He is blind when entering the world between death and new birth.

Let us assume now that someone else has a lively imagination, but cannot be bothered to approach spiritual science and learn things slowly and gradually. He finds it much easier to develop ideas about the spiritual world from his imagination, to fantasize about the spiritual world. This person has ideas concerning the sense world as well as all kinds of fantasies about the realm of the spirit. Such an individual would not enter the spiritual world as a blind person, but will have soul forces that will enable him to see in the spiritual world. However, such people will be as we are when our vision in the physical world is impaired and we see things inaccurately as a result. Such inaccurate vision is a lot worse in the spiritual world than on the physical plane because there it leads to confusion at every turn. What I have just said, even if it seems grotesque at first, shows us that we need ideas reaching beyond the life of the senses if we really want to become citizens of the spiritual world, as we must. And unless we get our bearings from beyond the sense world, we will live in the spiritual world in a crippled state, as do those who take in only ideas related to the sensory realm and those who allow their imagination to run wild.

Various founders of religions appeared throughout history to prevent people from having thoughts triggered purely by physical objects or by fantasies about the spiritual world. If we look at these personalities and the teachings they gave humanity, we find that the aim of all these religious founders was to offer people ideas about the super-sensible world that would allow them to enter it healthy and whole, not crippled. The founders of our religions provided ideas that met the needs of their particular time and culture.

Our age is different from the past and requires us to grow up into mature human beings. Please do not take this in a superficial, merely external sense, but in a deeply inward one. We have to reach maturity and find the path into the spiritual world through our souls. The ancient founders of our religions spoke to a humanity that was not yet mature. They addressed people at a stage through which all our souls have also passed. These ancient religious leaders knew their times, and also knew that they could not speak in the same way to a humanity moving further toward the future. For humanity must develop toward maturity and independence.

If people of ancient times had either restricted themselves to sense impressions or had reached for the products of their imagination, in both cases they would have entered the spiritual world crippled or at the very least in a confused state. At that point a leader appeared, bringing true ideas from the spiritual world. People then said that they themselves did not gain access to the spiritual world through sensory perception or use of the imagination, but rather through Zarathustra, Buddha, or Krishna, who stimulated thoughts in them that allowed them to enter the realm of the spirit. [ Note 5 ] In our time human beings must come of age, regardless of whether the ego causes confusion or blindness. The Mystery of Golgotha took place so that we can find the way into the spiritual world as independent beings. Religious leaders no longer appear in history as they did in earlier times.

Those who compare Christ to the ancient religious teachers do not understand anything about him. In the first place, Christ worked through a deed, the ancient religious leaders through their teachings. To describe him merely as a teacher of humanity means not knowing at all who Christ is. The essential thing about him is the deed he performed, which began as a consequence of his baptism by John and ended with the crucifixion on Golgotha. What was done there for humanity is spiritually all-important. What happened there is what can permeate human souls ever since then, namely, the experience St. Paul described as "Not I, but Christ in me." Indeed, Christ has become the path into the spiritual world because he brought it into this world. He brought us the spiritual world we need if we are not to be crippled or blind after death.

It is quite possible these days to deny Christ and claim that there is no evidence that Christ lived in the physical world in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, people have even produced evidence showing there was no historical Christ. But with that they merely prove that they missed the point. If Christ had chiseled into a rock for all future generations, "I was here," then those future generations would have known he existed from the sensory world, and they would not have needed to believe it. His deep significance, the possibility of redemption, is precisely that this was not the case, that we cannot comprehend him through our senses but have to accept him with the forces of the spirit. Seen in this light, we find Christ intimately connected with those things that even here on earth lift human beings beyond the sense-perceptible world into the spiritual realm. None of this exists for those who cannot raise themselves to the spiritual world, because they cannot escape their doubts.

In this context it can be a great relief for someone fully involved in modern culture, in science and art, to come across a view of Christ that is appropriate to our modern civilization, namely the anthroposophical view of Christ presented in spiritual science. Much can be learnt from it, for example, how to view the physical world correctly. Oh, the physical world - where is it headed these days? I hinted at some of these things recently in a public lecture, but now I can be more explicit. [ Note 6 ] Of course, we have to admire materialist civilization and all the achievements of technology, industry, and so on. An immense amount of intellectual energy has flowed into these things; they have taken up a great deal of human energy. But who benefits from these intellectual efforts? Insofar as they satisfy the material needs of modern humanity, they serve Ahriman. Christ Jesus experienced the temptation by Ahriman. Ordinary human souls could certainly not survive the sudden shock of such an experience. For us the temptation has to be diluted. But as a consequence of this dilution of temptation, Ahriman can say to us: Yes, think only with the power of your science, with all those things you can discover through science applied to technology, industry, and so on. Use only those things for your thinking and apply them to nothing but physical experience; that suits me fine. It fits in well with my aims, says Ahriman, if you are unable to see me. You might well despise reason and knowledge, the supreme achievements of human beings; thus you are absolutely mine - at least as long as you do not see me. I will instill the drive in you to use reason and knowledge only for earthly things!

Something else is required to counterbalance the service we render Ahriman. It is therefore important that we gather everything modern technology and so on can accomplish to build something with it that is not to serve our outer existence, but only our spiritual life.

In ancient times, people presented sacrifices to the gods, the first fruits of the field and of the herd. I do not intend to talk about the meaning of sacrifice today, but you can see what it could signify presented in a form appropriate to modern times. When the first fruits had been sacrificed to the gods, the people partook of the remainder. Spiritual science is certainly not based on false asceticism. It will not be guilty of the absurdity of ranting and raving against modern culture with all its material blessings. On the contrary, it recognizes their value. But if it wants to avoid serving only Ahriman, it has to sacrifice something of the first fruits of this external material culture to the gods.

So you see, there is a profound thinking underlying the building that is growing outside on the hill at Dornach: We want to offer the first fruits of modern civilization to the gods. Everything is different now from the way it was in the times our souls passed through in previous incarnations. And we have to understand the nature of our current task just as we understood what we had to do in our earlier incarnations when we were guided by spiritual luminaries. That is especially difficult now because we have to take into account not only the nature of our time but also our soul qualities. In addition, we can no longer rely on the external authority that supported the founders of religions; we have to work with quite different forces. Christ was the Word; in the same way true spiritual science wishes to work only through the word and must not use any other means.

Such reflections give us an insight into the connection between the spiritual world and our world here on earth. And no matter where we begin, we see the Mystery of Golgotha radiating toward us as the heart and soul of such reflections. But we must not forget that we have to become mature, truly mature, so that we can understand what spiritual science is meant to be. We must never forget that it must exist because humanity must come of age.

It is completely true that humanity descended from higher spiritual regions and has moved away from the old atavistic clairvoyance by developing a world view based on reason and systematic thinking. We have to take this progress in evolution seriously. We must realize we live at a time when it is our mission to develop our thinking, to advance through our thinking, and to learn through studying. Spiritual science is our basis, our point of departure. We must try to immerse ourselves in these ideas so that they stimulate within us what our souls need in the future. What spiritual science offers can be understood by everyone. Those who claim one cannot understand the contents of spiritual science, but must believe it, speak without knowing how these things really are.

We must not be misled when we meet people who have not advanced by means of intellectual understanding, but have certain psychic abilities that seem to appear spontaneously. Based on our understanding of the mission of spiritual science, we know that souls can now think only because the clairvoyance of an earlier age has been suppressed. People with natural clairvoyance, which was not acquired through inner effort, must be seen as persons who have remained at an earlier evolutionary stage and who should therefore receive special care in our Society, rather than be considered particularly advanced. It would be an incorrect judgment if we were to consider such souls particularly mature, as having experienced particularly high incarnations. People with a natural gift of clairvoyance have gone through far less than those who are thinkers nowadays. These things have to be properly understood in our Society. Then it would be possible (and it is my duty to say this) for our Society to be a place where such souls with psychic powers can find care and be guided on the right path. Our Society could give them what they cannot get anywhere else: order in their soul. But to make that possible most of the members of our Society must have a profound inner knowledge of the mission of true spiritual science in the present. If that happened, then the case that so saddened us in recent days could not recur. I am referring to a member, who joined in the belief our Society would care for clairvoyant psychic forces, but then found here a captive audience and took on the role of a prophet. Such an event opens the door to all those things that, if they were to prevail, would turn our Society into the exact opposite of what it should be according to the intentions of the spiritual forces supporting it.

Unfortunately, we have had to suffer the case of ..., who came from a country in the north. He might have become a good member if he had worked quietly on developing his psychic powers. Instead, he was immediately surrounded by a kind of aura. He presented himself everywhere as a healer in a way we can only consider regrettable. It became necessary to announce that he could no longer be considered a member of our Society. For it would be turned into the exact opposite of what it should be if we failed to carefully draw attention to psychic phenomena that are not imbued with true spiritual power, which, after all, is the true power of Christ. Christ, not psychic powers, must work in us. These circumstances must be handled so as to make it clear that our Society will have nothing to do with this. It knows no other sanction than the one used in the last few days. Unfortunately, a step had to be taken we otherwise oppose in principle: a member had to be expelled.

This cannot be separated from a serious and worthy concept of the mission of the Anthroposophical Society. And certainly you will understand that it is only with great sorrow one lives through the events that had to be lived through here in the last few days. We are in principle opposed to all expulsions and yet could not avoid expelling someone in such a case. It will happen less and less frequently if our dear friends continue to take to heart the things that have been said so often and that were also the subject of tonight's talk. With that I will conclude my remarks, my dear friends, and entrust them to your souls.

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Presence of the Dead: Lecture Three: Awakening Spiritual Thoughts

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AWAKENING SPIRITUAL THOUGHTSBasel, May 5, 1914 I am very glad that we can meet here today and take a break, so to speak, for a while from the work on our new building in Dornach. [ Note 1 ] But I thought it would be impossible to gather here so near our building without also discussing anthroposophical matters.

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How the Spiritual World Interpenetrates the Physical Rudolf Steiner Lecture  - Casel, May 9, 1914

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How the Spiritual World Interpenetrates the Physical Rudolf Steiner Lecture  - Casel, May 9, 1914

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https://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/SpiritPhys/19140509p01.html

"Around us we see Nature with her many creatures; all that lives outside in Nature draws its life from the good, wise and progressive beings. Everything having its existence in other organisms and preferring to thrive therein belongs to the creatures of a Luciferic or Ahrimanic order. All parasites are of Luciferic or Ahrimanic origin; if we remember this we can easily distinguish the differences in the nature-kingdoms. There is something, as I said, very helpful for Ahrimanic creatures when they infest the human body. Suppose we are living at the time of an epidemic or plague. Naturally at such a time we must look after others, and a strong human fellowship or co-operation comes into being, for the karmic conditions may actually be such that the one who in his individual life seems least likely to have the illness, falls a prey to it. Nevertheless — we must not be deceived by appearances — what I am going to say is generally true. If we are living among the sick or dying and have to absorb these pictures that are around us and then fall asleep with these pictures in our minds and if nothing is linked with them but selfish fear, the imaginations arising from these pictures in the soul during sleep become filled with this selfish fear, and that enables injurious forces to enter the human body. Imaginations of fear are really the fostering forces for the Ahrimanic enemies of man. When a noble disposition is present, so that egotistic fear retires and loving help for others prevails, and we pass into the sleep life, not with fearful imaginations but with the effects produced by loving help, this means destruction for the Ahrimanic enemies of humanity. It is quite true that by the encouragement of such an attitude we could put an end to epidemics, if we regulated our conduct accordingly.

Here I may indicate how some day (but it cannot be yet) the results of knowledge of spiritual life will be seen in the social life of humanity: human souls will become strong through spiritual knowledge, and those whose disposition is to accept spiritual Knowledge will work healingly on material life on earth."

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HOW THE SPIRITUAL WORLD
INTERPENETRATES THE PHYSICAL

RUDOLF STEINER Ph.D.

LECTURE 1.

Cassel, 9th May, 1914.

ONE of the repeated objections to the search for spiritual knowledge, in the last third of the nineteenth century, is this: when a man has passed through the gates of death he will see the nature of the spiritual life as lived without the physical body, but while here in the physical body attention must be paid to earthly life; here man should live as if the earth were his sole sphere of activity. A deeper study of Spiritual Science shows us increasingly what a superficial grasp of spiritual life is contained in such a statement. It teaches us that things are not really as though life in a physical body before death were entirely separate from life in the spiritual world after death, as if the one did not contact the other. We shall best come to a common understanding for study, if we consider what we already know of the connection of the spiritual life with physical life. Let us begin by reminding ourselves of what we have learnt from Spiritual Science about the alternating life of man between sleeping and waking. We speak of this rightly when we say: The Ego and astral body are outside the physical body during sleep. This is a sufficient answer for the immediate demand for knowledge, but only one aspect of the full truth; it is as though we were to say: the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, and is not there in the interval. We know that for the earth this is not the case; we know that during the time the sun is not shining for us it is shining elsewhere, giving its light to other inhabitants of the earth when it is dark for us. It is much the same with the life of the Ego and astral body in. relation to that of the physical and etheric bodies, if we take a wide view of it. True, the Ego and astral body are outside the physical body during sleep, but only partially they are outside the blood and nerve-systems. When we all asleep the sun of our Ego and astral body sets in this way for the blood and nerve-systems; yet from the Ego and astral body outside, the forces radiate while we are sleeping into those organs not connected with the blood and nerves. Our body lives in two spheres. We live in one while awake, when we are ensouled by our Ego and astral body; and in the other when we sleep, in the sphere from which the radiations and force of our Ego and astral body pour into the activities of our body-with the exception of the functions connected with the blood and nerves. Actually during sleep we are in the spiritual world with our Ego and astral body - as it were inserted into it - and just those forces of the astral body and Ego of which man is unconscious in normal human life, stream into his bodily organs when he is asleep. Thus we see the enormous significance of sleep for healthy human life on earth. I will make this clear by a little diagram. Let us take (a) for the sphere of the spiritual world, and (b) our body on earth. I will then shade the part connected with the blood and nerves; the other contains the organs apart from the system of blood and nerves. This cannot really be so sharply divided, for in a certain sense the nerve and blood systems are themselves organs with activities of their own like the other organs; but in so far as they are instruments for the conscious soul-life they may be considered as ensouled and inspired by the Ego and astral body.

This same Ego and astral body are taken into the sphere of spiritual life during the night and they thence radiate their forces into the other organs of the body. Thus we may say: There is in our physical body something that is strengthened and revived by what our soul in its sleeping condition draws into itself from the spiritual world and with which it is permeated by the spiritual world. The sun of our Ego and astral body sets for the nerves and blood, in so far as the Ego is connected with the blood, and the latter is not merely bodily life. It sets for the blood and nerves when the human being sleeps, and shines into the other organs functioning in our body. From this fact we can easily understand that sleep is an important Healer, and that unhealthy sleep may be regarded as one of the most deep-seated causes of illness, especially in relation to certain inner functions of our bodily life. Spiritual Science shows us that the way in which our Ego and astral body leave the blood and nerve-systems during sleep and enter spiritual life, is a matter of great consequence. Such things as I am about to discuss can apparently be refuted easily by so-called external experience, but the Spiritual Scientist must become accustomed to the fact that these refutations are only apparent, and that what is actually derived from the observations of inward processes is true. If the outer facts seem contradictory, we must search and see in how far they are illusion. I will now give a concrete instance, verified by Spiritual Science, which has an important bearing on this point.

Human life changes with respect to many things, but certain fundamental facts of life remain constant for long periods. In the Middle Ages there existed a certain fear, the so-called fear of spirits, of all sorts of elemental beings and ghosts; this we now call mediaeval superstition. In our day the object has changed, but not the fear; for just as the people of the Middle Ages were afraid of ghosts- - those of the present time are afraid of bacilli and similar things. It might be said that ghosts are more respectable and more to be feared than bacilli. The change has come about through the fact that formerly people were of a more spiritual disposition; they were afraid of the elemental spirit-beings; while now as the disposition is more materialistic, the spirits must be of a physical nature. This corresponds better with the age of materialism. What I wanted to say, however, is that Occult Science reveals the fact that bacilli are nourished in the human body if they are to thrive. Human beings do cultivate them. Of course everyone in the present time will say that it would be silly to breed bacilli. This is not a question of principle of any kind, but of looking at things from the right standpoint. It cannot be denied that, as Spiritual Science teaches, an Ego and astral body which have been fed on materialistic ideas alone, and have rejected all spiritual conceptions and wished to have nothing to do with them, when they leave the body during sleep, send into the bodily organs forces from the spiritual spheres which are just what the bacilli need. Nothing better can be done for the rearing of bacilli than to carry crude material ideas into sleep-life; thereby calling forth Ahrimanic forces which stream into the body and become the cultivators of bacilli.

To form a proper judgment of all this, we must understand clearly that the moment we turn to the study of spiritual life, we immediately have to consider what is called human fellowship. For a common co-operation in fellowship is effectual in a far greater measure when working at spiritual matters than when only concerned with the physical plane. We might say that in order to have no harmful bacilli in our bodies, it is best to apply the remedy of falling asleep with spiritual thoughts in our minds. Perhaps that might become a remedy, if it were to be medically proved, so that the most materialistic people in times to come would allow spiritual thoughts to be prescribed for them; and something contributing to spiritual life might be hoped for in this way. But the matter is not so simple, for the importance of communal life really begins when we touch spiritual matters, and there we can say: it is perhaps of no advantage to the individual to cherish spiritual ideas if all those around him are breeding bacilli by their materialistic thinking; here the one breeds for the other. This is an important fact and we must bear it in mind. Therefore I must again emphasize what I have already told you, that Spiritual Science can only be fruitful in its service to humanity when it does not merely serve the individual. It is not enough for the individual to accept it; Spiritual Science must patiently wait until it can become a factor in civilization, until it grips the heart and soul of the many; then we shall see what it can do for man.

There is, however, something which affects the Ahrimanic beings in the bacilli just as strongly. I say Ahrimanic beings, for I can easily show you the difference between Ahrimanic and other beings - and even externally it can be easily seen. Around us we see Nature with her many creatures; all that lives outside in Nature draws its life from the good, wise and progressive beings. Everything having its existence in other organisms and preferring to thrive therein belongs to the creatures of a Luciferic or Ahrimanic order. All parasites are of Luciferic or Ahrimanic origin; if we remember this we can easily distinguish the differences in the nature-kingdoms. There is something, as I said, very helpful for Ahrimanic creatures when they infest the human body. Suppose we are living at the time of an epidemic or plague. Naturally at such a time we must look after others, and a strong human fellowship or co-operation comes into being, for the karmic conditions may actually be such that the one who in his individual life seems least likely to have the illness, falls a prey to it. Nevertheless - we must not be deceived by appearances - what I am going to say is generally true. If we are living among the sick or dying and have to absorb these pictures that are around us and then fall asleep with these pictures in our minds and if nothing is linked with them but selfish fear, the imaginations arising from these pictures in the soul during sleep become filled with this selfish fear, and that enables injurious forces to enter the human body. Imaginations of fear are really the fostering forces for the Ahrimanic enemies of man. When a noble disposition is present, so that egotistic fear retires and loving help for others prevails, and we pass into the sleep life, not with fearful imaginations but with the effects produced by loving help, this means destruction for the Ahrimanic enemies of humanity. It is quite true that by the encouragement of such an attitude we could put an end to epidemics, if we regulated our conduct accordingly.

Here I may indicate how some day (but it cannot be yet) the results of knowledge of spiritual life will be seen in the social life of humanity: human souls will become strong through spiritual knowledge, and those whose disposition is to accept spiritual Knowledge will work healingly on material life on earth.

Hence we see how unjustifiable the objection is, that while living on earth we need not bother about spiritual life. A great deal depends upon the kind of spiritual life we take with us into sleep while here on earth, for by it we mold our souls into good or bad instruments for the sending forth of forces from the spiritual world into those organs of the body which are not used as instruments by the soul in the day consciousness, but which function physically and chemically beneath the threshold of consciousness. Those functions which do not belong to the activity of nerves and blood in the human being but are simply of an organic nature-physical and chemical activity - those are not life functions such as obtain in the plant and mineral kingdoms, but functions into which the forces of the spiritual world flow during sleep. Therefore we see the importance of being able to carry spiritual knowledge into sleep life, and we realize the attitude of mind it creates. If there still is doubt as to the inter-working of the spiritual and physical worlds, we may, among other things, make the following remarks.

Let us imagine that some sort of climatic change were to corrupt the whole ground of the earth, so that nothing good for food could grow on it; we should then discover how important the earth's mineral and plant kingdoms are for man. If the earth were to decay under our feet, we should realize how much we need the lower kingdoms of earth, that human life may be sustained. What the ground and fruits are for our physical life that we are, as living beings with the activities of our souls, for those who have passed through the gates of death. It is a fact that the dead living in their sphere have need of a ground from which they may gather fruits. The following illustration will give an idea of this: Let us think of a crowd of people asleep, all filled with conceptions belonging to earthly life alone, materialistic ideas. This ground which they form for the dead, is just as sterile for them as waste, corrupt ground would be to us. The dead feel this as a region in which they starve.

Every spiritual conception which we take into our soul and carry into sleep helps, while we sleep, to create part of the ground needed by the dead, even as the mineral and plant kingdoms are needed by us. In a certain sense souls filled with spiritual ideas during sleep, form the fruitful spiritual basis for the nourishing of the dead; and we take away the nutriment which the dead need and which must be gathered on our earth, if we allow our souls to become desolate, i.e., empty of spiritual ideas - and conceptions. Here we see still more clearly the importance of cosmic spiritual knowledge, and its fruitfulness for the spiritual world itself. Just as our sleeping souls provide the ground from which the dead draw their sustenance, so, if we knowingly cause spiritual concepts to pass through our souls that helps the dead in their power of perception. For this reason I have advised those who have been bereaved to read to their dead. If we call them to mind, and read in thought something from Spiritual Science, or cause any other spiritual thoughts quietly to pass through our souls, our dead will perceive these. They observe them and are nourished by the unconscious after-effects of the spiritual ideas. Their own consciousness is refreshed or revived by means of what has been read to them. Here again we see constant intercourse between the physical and spiritual worlds. It may easily be suggested that the dead are in the spiritual world and that this method of reading can be of no use to them. Yes! They are in the spiritual world, but the concepts of Spiritual Science have to be formed on earth, and nowhere can they be conceived except in the minds of men on earth: the dead are indeed in a spiritual world and precisely there can these conceptions reach them and sustain them, and we enhance their consciousness if from earth we send these to them. As the most intimate connections exist between the dead and those amongst whom they have lived, the best persons to read to them are those who were friends and helpers before they died, or who have been closely related to them. If you cultivate such thoughts about the connections of the physical with the spiritual world, you will actually experience a new disposition, which truly in the greatest sense of the word must be called the religious disposition of the future. From such spiritual-scientific studies as have just been given, a disposition will be developed which in the highest sense deserves to be called religious, for he who thus acknowledges the spiritual world will build upon the foundations of the Divine Wisdom streaming through the Cosmos.

It is tremendously important that we should acquire this feeling of the ruling Wisdom in the Cosmos and that we should fill ourselves with it. When humanity is permeated by this feeling, it will, with a deep genuine confidence in the wise ruling Wisdom of the Universe, accept its destiny and all the strokes of destiny which are so hard to bear. When we observe the spiritual worlds in which the dead live, we can often see how much easier it is for the dead when the friends they left behind on earth are permeated with this ruling Wisdom of the Universe. Weeping over the dead is, of course, quite natural; but if we cannot put an end to our weeping it looks as though we doubted the ruling Wisdom of the Universe; and he who can look into spiritual worlds knows, that those who long for their dead to be here and not in the spiritual world, are doing the greatest harm to them. We very much help the dead in their life after death if we accept our destiny, and think of the dead as having been taken from us at the right moment by a good ruling Wisdom, because they were needed for other spheres of existence beyond earth. In the future much will depend on people helping more (not less) in all that touches the sorrows of humanity, having a clear knowledge that destiny is ever at work, and that if through Karma even death has befallen those who belong to them, this had to be. This must not prevent us, as long as a person is living, from doing all that is possible to help him when he is ill if he is amenable to treatment, but as human beings, we may not presume to go beyond what is allotted to us as such. We must be sure that the ruling Wisdom of the Universe is wiser than we are. This is all commonplace and trivial, but it is too little spoken of to-day. Great happiness would come to both the living and dead, if this knowledge were more generally circulated; if it could enter as a conviction into men's souls, if they could think of the dead as living, as having experienced a transformation of life, and not think of them as having been taken from them.

If we only observed a little of this connection between the physical and spiritual worlds, we should see the manifold ways in which the one world is intimately linked with the other, and that the affairs of the physical world only become clear when observed in the light of the spiritual world. If with reference to anything that happens to us in the physical world we could but succeed in finding the spiritual causes of some stroke of fate or misfortune, we should look beyond it, and understand that what seems supremely sad may be understood at the fount of Cosmic Wisdom. We must emphasize this over and over again. It does not alter the fact that much suffering may come to us; but it does alter our attitude to it, we do not sink under it and shut ourselves egotistically in our sorrow, or withdraw from the world's life, which we certainly ought not to do. Many other things are similarly linked together and precisely these significant incidents teach us the falsity of the saying that we need not trouble about the spiritual life during our physical life on earth. For the bringing of spiritual ideas, feelings and convictions into physical earth-life is of great importance. Let me now add some examples to what I have told you to-day. Examples will show us clearly the truth of what I have been saying.

A person well-known to some of the members of our Society died before attaining middle age. If a person dies early in life, about the beginning of the thirties, it is often asked: What is the meaning of this? Why should a person be cut off from earth life in the first third of his physical life on earth? When we traced this person back, to describe what she was as an individual, we came to an earlier incarnation about the third or fourth century after Christ, in which she had acquired certain forces, of which we may say that, civilization being as it was at that time, these and similar soul-capacities did not really belong to that period. The time had not arrived when the talents then acquired by the soul of this individual could be used. She was born again in a new life, became one of our members and died before the first half of her life, the ascending part, had been completed. In this case we could immediately see, on studying the whole connection of the physical with the spiritual, that this person was one of the most important and significant workers with us in all our Cosmic work.

Materialism is rampant in our times, it puts its stamp on earth-life more than we realize. In our day particularly, materialism is so strong that those beings of the higher Hierarchies whose task it is to carry on the progress of Cosmic evolution actually cannot rescue all the souls who have to-day become materialistic. These must not be left behind, they must be saved; yet their salvation can only be accomplished by the death of certain souls at an early age, who take with them into the spiritual world the forces which would otherwise have been used in the course of their earth-life, and which they then transmute so that they may help the beings of the higher Hierarchies who are working for the redemption of the materialistically-minded souls. Persons who have thus died early in life, are a wonderful help to the higher beings. Now in the case of the soul to which I am referring, something special resulted. She brought with her into her latest incarnation the powers which could not be fully used in her earlier life, poured them as it were into her body, which became weak and ill because of the penetration of these forces. The soul was too powerful for the body; it really contained very great powers. This person died at the above mentioned early age, and, with the forces which instead of being weakened by age remained at their youthful strength, she passed through the gates of death into the spiritual world, still possessing the fund of strength which would have served a long life in that incarnation, and filled to overflowing with earthly force would have so poured itself into the body, as to bring the same into relationship with the external world. Instead she was able to take up spiritual ideas enthusiastically and thus to bring a great supply into the spiritual world. When we trace this individual, who was dear to a large number of our friends, we may learn a great deal from her. What we see in her is, that at a definite time (in this case about the Third or Fourth Century A.D.) certain forces appeared on the path of human evolution which could not be brought to fulfillment then, and that the work to be done through these forces must be taken up later - we have to look back to what belongs to an earlier period and is preserved by certain individuals for a later life. Now when we look for this individual during her life after death we observe direct results - we see that the powers which have lain dormant for a time, reserved for a coming period, now burst forth and are preparing for humanity's future. Thus we see how a later life must be linked with an earlier one, when talking of human evolution. We could not know certain things, of which it may be said that what had existed in the third and fourth epochs had to be revived in the fifth post Atlantean times, unless we could see into the spiritual worlds and say: 'There we see an individuality who, by means of a short life on earth, acquired faculties which shine forth like a revival of something that has been lost to human life.' A great inflow of strength comes to the spiritual investigator on observing such individuals in their life after death.

If the time of physical life on earth were ever so bad, if ever so many enemies were to arise against Spiritual Science, and if danger threatened on all sides, it would certainly be a sad and desperate outlook; but there is one thing which may always be a comfort for the future of Anthroposophy, that is, that in those who have died, in such a way as the person above mentioned, we have the best helpers for our earth, the most powerful fellow-workers. This is a case in which a short life on earth served for the gathering of strength with which to take possession of certain fruitful forces requisite for a later period on the path of human evolution. The wise ruling Cosmic powers far surpass in Wisdom all that we, with our merely earthly wisdom, can comprehend. Naturally such fruits of a shortened earth-life can only result when life is shortened in a purely natural way. In anthroposophical circles it should not be necessary to mention that such results do not occur in cases of suicides, and would be quite impossible.

Now, having said all this, I shall give you another concrete example in reference to a member who has not long since passed from our midst, who had a very long illness, which was connected in a remarkable way with his condition of soul, a lively intellectual person, a renowned poet in his earth life and as we can clearly see, a much more important individual than we had deemed while observing his life on earth. After a life lived in sickness of body and long years of suffering, how strangely the fruits of his suffering on earth, after a relatively short period, reveal themselves in the spiritual world; though only in their beginning. That I may make you understand what I want to say, I should like to lead up to the right concept by means of a comparison.

With deep feeling we can admire nature - a scene in nature or a group of people-but we do not on that account lose anything when a clever artist comes along and depicts the scene as his own soul sees it. We then find in the picture created by the artist something which he has placed alongside nature. We know that we have gained by having looked at Nature through another's soul as well, if we can observe nature side by side with it. Why do I say this? To make use of an illustration: we can go into the spiritual world, we can observe things there; yet it is of great importance to observe something else besides. The person to whom I am referring, who died after a life of much suffering on earth, had during his long illness formed for himself a world of Cosmic imaginations, as it were lifting them up out of a sick body gradually approaching death. In the measure in which the body became more sick and incapacitated, there arose from it this world of Cosmic imaginations. That person then passed through the gates of death, and his imaginations are beginning to shine out in wondrous beauty so that in the spiritual world they can be perceived as a wonderful spiritual work of art, as if created out of the Cosmos. They had their origin in the sick body, and were carried from the sick body into the spiritual world; and for those who are able to see the spiritual worlds in other ways they provide a far richer gain in spiritual knowledge than can be acquired by direct spiritual observation; as in a work of art one sees the world as another soul sees it, side by side with what one sees oneself. The above-mentioned person absorbed spiritual conceptions with great devotion, and was even able to put into his poems much of that which comes to the human soul when it grasps the Mystery of Golgotha in a truly Anthroposophical way, when we allow ourselves to be permeated with the thought of the Christ Whom we have learnt to know through Anthroposophy. For we then so recognize Him in our nature, that we really live according to the Pauline saying 'Not I, but Christ in me contemplates the Universe.'

These truly Rosicrucian Christian thoughts flowed into the later poems of this personality. While his conscious earth-life was occupied with such poetry and creating these poems, his subconscious powers were molding this world of Cosmic imaginations which really consumed the body by the strength of their inner life, but which so worked that to this person in the spiritual world is probably allotted a task about which I will not speak further now. In any case it must be said that behind this conscious life lies another which passes through the gates of death and so manifests that we know it had already been prepared during earth-life through the disposition which is the result of Spiritual Science, and which has turned into beautiful tableaux of Cosmic imaginations which radiate toward the exploring spiritual investigator, and explain much that perhaps would not otherwise have been so easy to discover, but which will continue to work in the tasks which will be allotted to such an individual.

We must regard such results of Spiritual Science with awe and deep reverence. For if in past times the religious sense of the soul had to be aroused through feeling, in the times in which we now live spirituality must be kindled more and more in man through the inter-working of the physical and spiritual worlds, we must become more and more concrete in our spiritual life. In the future, humanity cannot be prevented from seeking the spiritual in a concrete way, and from thinking about how a human individual continues to work on after death with the forces which, as in this case, were prepared before he had passed through the gates of death.

What depths will be found in human life, how noble will be the feelings with which one human being confronts another I They will in the true sense of the word be moral, and filled with the Divine essence which will then be weaving and working in human life, when the thoughts which speak of the dead in as concrete a way as we now speak of the living, find a home in the hearts of men.

We must think of all this, that we may gain in our hearts and souls a proper sense of the mission and work of Anthroposophy in the future.

I should like you to ponder over the things I have said in the last part of this lecture, regarding them as really springing from that attitude towards Spiritual Science which can only speak of such matters in sacred modesty and with deep reverence, and with this feeling I should like to leave in your souls what I have said.

Tomorrow I shall tell you of other facts, for the stimulation of Spiritual Science in your hearts.

* * * * *

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HOW THE SPIRITUAL WORLD INTERPENETRATES THE PHYSICAL RUDOLF STEINER Ph.D. LECTURE 1. Cassel, 9th May, 1914.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY3qfRpa-9w

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Anthroposophic Medical Treatments for Fever, Flu and Pneumonia

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Anthroposophic Medical Treatments for Fever, Flu and Pneumonia

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From PAAM
https://anthroposophicmedicine.org/event-3796325

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Anthroposophic Medical Treatments for Fever, Flu and Pneumonia

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Seven Life Processes and the Unique Role of Metal Preparations in AM

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Kolisko Institute FREE Webinar Thursday March the 26th, 6:30-7:30 PM 

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Kolisko Institute FREE Webinar Thursday March the 26th, 6:30-7:30 PM 

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Viral illnesses and some ideas of what to do from an anthroposophical point of view.

http://www.koliskoinstitute.org/upcoming-webinars/

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Recent and upcoming webinars:

Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 6:30 PM CST: Viral illnesses and some ideas of what to do from an anthroposophical point of view.
We live in complicated times where some facts and many more plain fears are strongly interconnected. Especially now it might be helpful for those who value Anthroposophy to re-familiarize (or familiarize) ourselves with some insights given by Rudolf Steiner regarding viruses, lung illnesses, etc. Since his days many remedies ( based on his indications), that might be helpful now, have been introduced. We will explain some of them and hopefully this will answer some of the many questions that have come to the True Botanica Company and the Kolisko Institute. Importantly we will present a sequence of eurythmy therapy exercises that Rudolf Steiner gave specifically to improve the immune system in connection with viral illnesses.

Please see the store for webinars that are free or available for purchase.

Past Webinars:

We recommend:

"Michael and the Being of Eurythmy - A Christmas Imagination" - December 9th 2015
This webinar was co-sponsored by the Anthroposophical Society in America, http://www.anthroposophy.org/
Rudolf Steiner considered Eurythmy to be part of the core of Anthroposophy. He expected Eurythmy to become as much part of the daily life of the anthroposophists as meditation.

Since all of Anthroposophy is so intimately related to Michael the central question must arise: what is the connection of Michael to Eurythmy.

The new aspects to be presented here will hopefully intensify - or rekindle - our love for this special movement activity that connects us to the spiritual world and makes us truly human.

Webinar Information:

The webinars are meant to familiarize listeners with anthroposophy and anthroposophic medicine.

Webinar Speakers:
Razvan "Ross Rentea" MD, Mark Kamsler MD, Andrea Rentea MD
and invited guest contributors

Additional details on the webinars:

Audience:
The webinars are open to both professionals and generally interested individuals.
Times:
To be announced by email or blog. Please join the email list/ sign up for the newsletter on the Kolisko web page to get timely updates.

Course Fees:
Currently the webinars can be attended for FREE when given live. The webinars can be offered for FREE only if enough supporters donate to keep the work ongoing. Please donate generously.

The webinars can be viewed online at a later time for a modest fee.

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Upcoming Webinars - Lili Kolisko Institute

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Recent and upcoming webinars: Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 6:30 PM CST: Viral illnesses and some ideas of what to do from an anthroposophical point of view. We live in complicated times where some facts and many more plain fears are strongly interconnected. Especially now it might be helpful for those who value Anthroposophy to ...

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An Imagined Letter from Covid-19 to Humans By Krisin Flyntz

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An Imagined Letter from Covid-19 to Humans By Krisin Flyntz

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Stop. Just stop.
It is no longer a request. It is a mandate.
We will help you.
We will bring the supersonic, high speed merry-go-round to a halt
We will stop
the planes
the trains
the schools
the malls
the meetings
the frenetic, furied rush of illusions and “obligations” that keep you
from hearing our
single and shared beating heart,
the way we breathe together, in unison.
Our obligation is to each other,
As it has always been, even if, even though, you have forgotten.
We will interrupt this broadcast, the endless cacophonous broadcast of
divisions and distractions,
to bring you this long-breaking news:
We are not well.
None of us; all of us are suffering.
Last year, the firestorms that scorched the lungs of the earth
did not give you pause.
Nor the typhoons in Africa,China, Japan.
Nor the fevered climates in Japan and India.
You have not been listening.
It is hard to listen when you are so busy all the time, hustling to
uphold the comforts and conveniences that scaffold your lives.
But the foundation is giving way,
buckling under the weight of your needs and desires.
We will help you.
We will bring the firestorms to your body
We will bring the fever to your body
We will bring the burning, searing, and flooding to your lungs
that you might hear:
We are not well.Despite what you might think or feel, we are not the enemy.
We are Messenger. We are Ally. We are a balancing force.
We are asking you:
To stop, to be still, to listen;
To move beyond your individual concerns and consider the concerns of all;
To be with your ignorance, to find your humility, to relinquish your
thinking minds and travel deep into the mind of the heart;
To look up into the sky, streaked with fewer planes, and see it, to
notice its condition: clear, smoky, smoggy, rainy? How much do you
need it to be healthy so that you may also be healthy?
To look at a tree, and see it, to notice its condition: how does its
health contribute to the health of the sky, to the air you need to be
healthy?
To visit a river, and see it, to notice its condition: clear, clean,
murky, polluted? How much do you need it to be healthy so that you may
also be healthy? How does its health contribute to the health of the
tree, who contributes to the health of the sky, so that you may also
be healthy?Many are afraid now.
Do not demonize your fear, and also, do not let it rule you. Instead,
let it speak to you—in your stillness,
listen for its wisdom.
What might it be telling you about what is at work, at issue, at risk,
beyond the threats of personal inconvenience and illness?
As the health of a tree, a river, the sky tells you about quality of
your own health, what might the quality of your health tell you about
the health of the rivers, the trees, the sky, and all of us who share
this planet with you?Stop.
Notice if you are resisting.
Notice what you are resisting.
Ask why.Stop. Just stop.
Be still.
Listen.
Ask us what we might teach you about illness and healing, about what
might be required so that all may be well.
We will help you, if you listen.Kristin Flyntz

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The experience of the Gospel of St. John
A project with many parts.

How can we learn to know something on a deeper level?

"Saint John relates what he experiences as an initiated seer, who could look into the Spiritual worlds.... Whoever looks upon it as a book that one should read and understand in the same way as one reads and understands any other book knows nothing of the Saint John Gospel. He alone has knowledge of it who can experience it". Rudolf Steiner Esoteric Christianity

I started by making drawing exercises for the Gospel of St. John. As I read the Gospel I asked myself what is the movement of the image here? How can it be expressed in a few lines or surfaces? How can I describe this so that someone else can try it? Then I wrote out the instructions. Then I made a painting following my instructions. Gradually my questions changed and I began to wonder what is the teaching here? What must I do to take this path?

I made a book of the exercises so others could enter this investigation. It is available through Lulu and on Amazon. I have given workshops to help people understand the process of drawing in order to know something. If you would like me to come to your area you can contact me at laurasummer@taconic.net or at 518.672.7302

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The experience of the Gospel of St. John A project with many parts. How can we learn to know something on a deeper level? "Saint John relates what he experiences as an initiated seer, who could look into the Spiritual worlds....

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Starlink is a satellite internet constellation operated by SpaceX providing satellite Internet access to most of the Earth. The constellation consists of over 1600 satellites in mid-2021, and will eventually consist of many thousands of mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), which communicate with designated ground transceivers. While the technical possibility of satellite internet service covers most of the global population, actual service can be delivered only in countries that have licensed SpaceX to provide service within any specific national jurisdiction. As of September 2021, the beta service offering is available in 17 countries.

Product development began in 2014. Two prototype test-flight satellites were launched in February 2018. Additional test satellites and 60 operational satellites were deployed in May 2019. SpaceX launches up to 60 satellites at a time, aiming to deploy 1,584 of the 260 kg (570 lb) spacecraft to provide near-global service by late 2021 or 2022.

On 15 October 2019, the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) submitted filings to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on SpaceX's behalf to arrange spectrum for 30,000 additional Starlink satellites to supplement the 12,000 Starlink satellites already approved by the FCC. By 2021, SpaceX had entered into agreements with Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure to provide on-ground compute and networking services for Starlink.

Astronomers have raised concerns about the constellations' effect on ground-based astronomy and how the satellites will add to an already jammed orbital environment. SpaceX has attempted to mitigate these concerns by implementing several upgrades to Starlink satellites aimed at reducing their brightness during operation. The satellites are equipped with krypton-fueled Hall thrusters which allow them to de-orbit at the end of their life. Additionally, the satellites are designed to autonomously avoid collisions based on uplinked tracking data.

The communication satellite network SpaceX envisions was publicly announced in January 2015, with bandwidth to carry up to 50% of all backhaul communications traffic, and up to 10% of local Internet traffic, in high-density cities. CEO Elon Musk said that there is significant unmet demand for low-cost global broadband capabilities.

The opening of the SpaceX satellite development facility in Redmond was announced by SpaceX in January 2015 with partners, to develop and build out the new communication network. At the time, the Seattle-area office planned to initially hire approximately 60 engineers, and potentially 1000 people by 2018. The company operated in 2,800 m 2 (30,000 sq ft) of leased space by late 2016, and by January 2017 had taken on a 2,800 m 2 (30,000 sq ft) second facility, both in Redmond. In August 2018, SpaceX consolidated all their Seattle-area operations with a move to a larger three-building facility at Redmond Ridge Corporate Center to support satellite manufacturing in addition to R&D.

In July 2016, SpaceX acquired a 740 m 2 (8,000 sq ft) creative space in Irvine, California (Orange County). SpaceX job listings indicated the Irvine office would include signal processing, RFIC, and ASIC development for the satellite program.

In November 2016, SpaceX filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a "non- geostationary orbit ( NGSO) satellite system in the Fixed-Satellite Service using the Ku- and Ka- frequency bands".

In March 2017, SpaceX filed plans with the FCC to field a second orbital shell of more than 7,500 " V-band satellites in non-geosynchronous orbits to provide communications services" in an electromagnetic spectrum that has not previously been heavily employed for commercial communications services. Called the "Very-Low Earth Orbit ( VLEO) constellation", it would comprise 7,518 satellites and would orbit at just 340 km (210 mi) altitude, while the smaller, originally planned group of 4,425 satellites would operate in the K a- and K u-bands and orbit at 1,200 km (750 mi) altitude.

SpaceX's plans were unusual in two ways:

The March 2017 plan called for SpaceX to launch test satellites of the initial Ka/Ku-bands type in both 2017 and 2018, and begin launching the operational constellation in 2019. Full build-out of the approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) constellation of around 4,440 satellites was not then expected to be completed until 2024.

Some controversy arose in 2015-2017 with regulatory authorities on licensing of the communications spectrum for these large constellations of satellites. The traditional and historical regulatory rule for the licensing spectrum has been that satellite operators could "launch a single spacecraft to meet their in-service deadline [from the regulator], a policy is seen as allowing an operator to block the use of valuable radio spectrum for years without deploying its fleet". By 2017, the FCC had set a six-year deadline to have an entire large constellation deployed to comply with licensing terms. The international regulator, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), proposed in mid-2017 a guideline that would be considerably less restrictive.[citation needed ] In September 2017, both Boeing and SpaceX petitioned the United States FCC for a waiver of the six-year rule, but they were denied. By 2019, the FCC had ruled that half of the constellation must be in orbit in six years, with the full system in orbit nine years from the date of the license.

SpaceX trademarked the name Starlink for their satellite broadband network in 2017; the name was inspired by the book The Fault in Our Stars.

SpaceX filed documents in late 2017 with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to clarify their space debris mitigation plan, under which the company was to:

"...implement an operations plan for the orderly de-orbit of satellites nearing the end of their useful lives (roughly five to seven years) at a rate far faster than is required under international standards. [Satellites] will de-orbit by propulsively moving to a disposal orbit from which they will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere within approximately one year after completion of their mission."

In March 2018, the FCC issued SpaceX approval, with some conditions. SpaceX would need to obtain a separate approval from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The FCC supported a NASA request to ask SpaceX to achieve an even higher level of de-orbiting reliability than the standard that NASA had previously used for itself: reliably de-orbiting 90% of the satellites after their missions are complete.

In November 2018, SpaceX received U.S. regulatory approval to deploy 7,518 broadband satellites, in addition to the 4,425 approved earlier. SpaceX's initial 4,425 satellites had been requested in the 2016 regulatory filings to orbit at altitudes of 1,110 km (690 mi) to 1,325 km (823 mi), well above the International Space Station. The new approval was for the addition of a very-low Earth orbit non-geostationary satellite orbit constellation, consisting of 7,518 satellites operating at altitudes from 335 km (208 mi) to 346 km (215 mi), below the ISS. Also in November 2018, SpaceX made new regulatory filings with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to request the ability to alter its previously granted license in order to operate approximately 1,600 of the 4,425 Ka-/ Ku-band satellites approved for operation at 1,150 km (710 mi) in a "new lower shell of the constellation" at only 550 km (340 mi) orbital altitude. These satellites would effectively operate in a third orbital shell, a 550 km (340 mi) orbit, while the higher and lower orbits at approximately 1,200 km (750 mi) and approximately 340 km (210 mi) would be used only later, once a considerably larger deployment of satellites becomes possible in the later years of the deployment process. The FCC approved the request in April 2019, giving approval to place nearly 12,000 satellites in three orbital shells: initially approximately 1,600 in a 550 km (340 mi) - altitude shell, and subsequently placing approximately 2,800 Ku- and Ka-band spectrum satellites at 1,150 km (710 mi) and approximately 7,500 V-band satellites at 340 km (210 mi).

In February 2019, a sister company of SpaceX, SpaceX Services Inc., filed a request with the FCC to receive a license for the operation of up to a million fixed satellite Earth stations that would communicate with its non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite Starlink system.

SpaceX's plans in 2019 were for the initial 12,000 satellites to orbit in three orbital shells:

Second shell: 2,825 Ku-band and Ka-band spectrum satellites at 1,110 km (690 mi)

In total, nearly 12,000 satellites were planned to be deployed, with (as of 2019) a possible later extension to 42,000.

By the end of June 2019, SpaceX had communicated with all 60 satellites but lost contact with three; the remaining 57 worked as intended. Forty-five satellites had reached their final orbital altitude of 550 km (340 mi), five were still raising their orbits, and another five were undergoing systems checks before they raise their orbits. The remaining two satellites were intended to be quickly removed from orbit and re-enter the atmosphere in order to test the satellite de-orbiting process; the three that lost contact were also expected to re-enter, but will do so passively from atmospheric drag as SpaceX was no longer able to actively control them.

In June 2019, SpaceX applied to the FCC for a license to test up to 270 ground terminals - 70 nationwide across the United States and 200 in Washington (state) at SpaceX employee homes - and aircraft-borne antenna operation from four distributed United States airfields; as well as five ground-to-ground test locations.

As of 14 September 2021, SpaceX has launched 1,740 Starlink satellites, including demo satellites Tintin A and B. They plan to launch up to 60 more per Falcon 9 flight, with launches as often as every two weeks in 2021.[citation needed ]

First shell: 1,440 in a 550 km (340 mi) altitude shell at 53.0° inclination

Second shell: 1,440 in a 540 km (340 mi) shell at 53.2° inclination

Third shell: 720 in a 570 km (350 mi) shell at 70° inclination

Fourth shell: 336 in a 560 km (350 mi) shell at 97.6°

Fifth shell: 172 satellites in a 560 km (350 mi) shell at 97.6°

SpaceX previously had regulatory approval from the FCC to operate another 2,825 satellites in higher orbits between 1,110 km (690 mi) and 1,325 km (823 mi), in orbital planes inclined at 53.8°, 70.0°, 74.0° and 81.0°. The modified plan submitted to the FCC by SpaceX foresees Ku-band and Ka-band satellites in the next phase of the Starlink network all operated at altitudes between 540 km (340 mi) and 570 km (350 mi) at inclinations of 53.2°, 70.0° and 97.6°. The application covers 4,408 Starlink satellites, one fewer than envisioned under the previous architecture. SpaceX plans to launch another 7,500 V-band satellites into orbits around 345 km (214 mi). The FCC approved the application in April 2021.

The Federal Communications Commission awarded SpaceX with nearly US$900 million worth of federal subsidies to support rural broadband customers through the company's Starlink satellite Internet network. SpaceX won subsidies to bring service to customers in 35 U.S. states. The Free Press advocacy group called the award to Starlink "another Hyperloop-style boondoggle", showing examples of territory awarded to Starlink in New York City, a strip mall near McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, and other urban blocks that were labelled as underserved by the FCC. The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association also filed a complaint about the awards to Starlink.

SpaceX released a new group of 10 Starlink satellites on 24 January 2021, the first Starlink satellites in polar orbits. The launch also surpassed ISRO's record of launching the most of satellites in one mission (143), taking to 1,025 the cumulative number of satellites deployed for Starlink to that date.

In February 2021, SpaceX completed raising an additional US$3.5 billion in equity financing over the previous six months, to support the capital-intensive phase of the operational fielding of Starlink, plus the development of the Starship launch system. In April 2021, SpaceX clarified that they have already tested two generations of Starlink technology, with the second one having been less expensive than the first. The third generation, with laser intersatellite links, is expected to begin being launched "in the next few months [and will be] much less expensive than earlier versions".

By May 2021, SpaceX announced that they had over 500,000 Starlink orders by consumers and almost 100,000 users in June 2021. and announced agreements with Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure to provide on-ground compute and networking services for Starlink. Viasat made a legal attempt to temporarily halt Starlink launches.

In June 2021, SpaceX applied to the FCC to use mobile Starlink transceivers on launch vehicles flying to Earth orbit, after having previously tested high-altitude low-velocity mobile use on a rocket prototype in May 2021.

In Oct 2021, SpaceX announced that Sanjay Bhargava, who had worked with Elon Musk as part of a team that founded electronic payment firm, PayPal, will now head the tech billionaire entrepreneur's Starlink satellite broadband venture in India

The deployment of the first 1,440 satellites will be into 72 orbital planes of 20 satellites each, with a requested lower minimum elevation angle of beams to improve reception: 25° rather than the 40° of the other two orbital shells. SpaceX launched the first 60 satellites of the constellation in May 2019 into a 450 km (280 mi) orbit and expected up to six launches in 2019 at that time, with 720 satellites (12 × 60) for continuous coverage in 2020.

In August 2019, SpaceX expected four more launches in 2019 and at least nine launches in 2020, but since January 2020 expectations had increased to 24 total launches in 2020.

In March 2020, SpaceX reported producing six satellites per day.

In February 2021, Musk stated that the satellites are traveling on 25 orbital planes clustered between 53° north and south of the equator.

Two test satellites known as Tintin A and B (MicroSat-2a and 2b) that were deployed as co-payloads to the Paz satellite. As of 1 September 2020, the orbits have decayed and both satellites have reentered the atmosphere.

First launch of 60 Starlink test satellites. Said to be "production design", these are used to test various aspects of the network, including deorbiting. They do not yet have the planned satellite interlink capabilities and they only communicate with antennas on Earth. A day after launch an amateur astronomer in the Netherlands was one of the first to publish a video showing the satellites flying across the sky as a "train" of bright lights. By five weeks post launch, 57 of the 60 satellites were "healthy" while 3 had become non-operational and were derelict, but will deorbit due to atmospheric drag. As of 14 September 2021, only 7 failed satellites are still in orbit. All working satellites have been deorbited deliberately.

First launch of Starlink "operational" satellites (v1.0), with an increased mass of 260 kg each and included Ka-band antennas. Satellites were released in a circular orbit at around 290 km altitude, from which the satellites raised their altitude by themselves.

One of the satellites, dubbed DarkSat, has an experimental coating to make it less reflective, and to reduce the impact on ground-based astronomical observations.

First time the satellites were released in an elliptical orbit (212 × 386 km).

One of the satellites, dubbed VisorSat, has a sunshade to reduce the impact on ground-based astronomical observations.

First Starlink rideshare launch, carrying only 58 of SpaceX's satellites plus three Planet Labs, SkySats 16-18 Earth-observation satellites.

BlackSky Global 7 and 8, the 5th and 6th BlackSky Global satellites, launched as rideshare payloads. All of the Starlink satellites are outfitted with the sunshade visor that was tested on a single satellite on 4 June 2020 launch.

Rideshare satellites from Planet Labs, SkySats 19-21 Earth-observation satellites.

Part of Transporter-1 (SmallSat Rideshare Mission 1). First launch of production Starlink satellites to polar orbits.

SpaceX lost the Falcon 9 booster in the Atlantic Ocean.

Second stage failed to deorbit actively, reentered March 26 over Oregon and Washington in the United States.

Rideshare satellites: a radar Earth imaging satellite for Capella Space, and an Earth observation satellite, Tyvak 0130, for Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems.

Part of Transporter-2 (SmallSat Rideshare Mission 2). Second launch of production Starlink satellites to polar orbits.

First launch of operational Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base, and first launch into a high-inclination, non- SSO orbit. Musk stated that the satellites were version 1.5 and featured "laser inter-satellite links, which are needed for high latitudes and mid-ocean coverage".

Total satellites launched (30 September 2021): 1791

Total satellites failed or deorbited (30 September 2021): 134

Total satellites currently working (30 September 2021): 1657

Total satellites operational (30 September 2021): 1429

In order to offer satellite services over any nation state, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) regulations and long-standing international treaties require that landing rights be granted by each country jurisdiction. As a result, even though the Starlink network has near global reach at latitudes below approximately 60°, broadband services to rural and underserved areas can only be provided in approximately twelve countries to date. SpaceX can also have business operation and economic considerations that may make a difference in which countries Starlink service is offered, in which order, and how soon. For example, SpaceX formally requested authorization for Canada only in June 2020, the Canadian regulatory authority approved it in November 2020, and SpaceX rolled out service two months later, in January 2021. As of September 2021, Starlink services were on offer in 18 countries, with applications pending regulatory approval in many more. Japan's major mobile provider, KDDI, announced a partnership with SpaceX to begin offering in 2022 expanded connectivity for its rural mobile customers via 1,200 remote mobile towers.

SpaceX intends to provide satellite internet connectivity to underserved areas of the planet, as well as provide competitively priced service in more urbanized areas. The company has stated that the positive cash flow from selling satellite internet services would be necessary to fund their Mars plans.

In early 2015, two space entrepreneurs announced satellite Internet ventures in the same week. In addition to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announcing the project that would later be named Starlink, serial entrepreneur Richard Branson announced an investment in OneWeb, a similar constellation with approximately 700 planned satellites that had already procured communication frequency licenses for their radio spectrum.

After the failures of previous satellite-to-consumer space ventures, satellite industry consultant Roger Rusch said in 2015, "It's highly unlikely that you can make a successful business out of this". Musk publicly acknowledged that business reality, and indicated in mid-2015 that while endeavoring to develop this technically complicated space-based communication system he wanted to avoid overextending the company, and stated that they are being measured in their pace of development. Nevertheless, internal documents leaked in February 2017 indicated that SpaceX expected more than US$30 billion in revenue by 2025 from its satellite constellation, while revenues from its launch business were expected to reach US$5 billion in the same year.

In February 2015, financial analysts questioned established geosynchronous orbit communications satellite fleet operators as to how they intended to respond to the competitive threat of SpaceX and OneWeb LEO communication satellites. In October 2015, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell indicated that while development continues, the business case for the long-term rollout of an operational satellite network was still in an early phase.

With the initial launch of the first 60 satellites of the operational constellation in 2019, SpaceX indicated that it would require 420 satellites in the constellation to achieve minor broadband coverage of Earth, and 780 of the first circa 1,600 to provide moderate coverage.

On 17 April 2020, in documentation to the FCC, SpaceX said lower altitude will put the satellites closer to Starlink consumers and allow the network "to provide low-latency broadband to unserved and underserved Americans that is on par with service previously only available in urban areas". The change will also improve service for U.S. government users in polar regions and allow for more rapid deployment of the network, SpaceX said. The lower orbits will help ensure the satellites re-enter the atmosphere in a shorter time in case of failure and will enable them to broadcast signals at reduced power levels, because they are closer to Earth, which SpaceX said will allow the fleet to be compliant with limits to reduce radio interference with other satellite and terrestrial wireless networks.

The initial version of Starlink was limited to working within a few miles of the customers' registered address. In April 2021, Musk tweeted that users would be able to move the Starlink unit anywhere by the end of the year after more satellite launches and software updates.

Contains all v0.9 and higher satellite generations. Tintin A and Tintin B as test satellites are not included.

Early designs had all phase 1 satellites in altitudes of around 1100-1300 km. SpaceX initially requested to lower the first 1584 satellites, and in April 2020 requested to lower all other higher satellite orbits to about 550 km. This modification has been approved in April 2021.

The Internet communication satellites were expected to be in the smallsat-class of 100 to 500 kg (220 to 1,100 lb)-mass, and were intended to be in low Earth orbit (LEO) at an altitude of approximately 1,100 km (680 mi), according to early public releases of information in 2015. In the event, the first large deployment of 60 satellites in May 2019 were 227 kg (500 lb) and SpaceX decided to place the satellites at a relatively low 550 km (340 mi), due to concerns about the space environment. Initial plans as of January 2015 were for the constellation to be made up of approximately 4,000 cross-linked satellites, more than twice as many operational satellites as were in orbit in January 2015.

The satellites will employ optical inter-satellite links and phased array beam-forming and digital processing technologies in the Ku- and Ka-bands, according to documents filed with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). While specifics of the phased array technologies have been disclosed as part of the frequency application, SpaceX enforced confidentiality regarding details of the optical inter-satellite links. Early satellites were launched without laser links. The inter-satellite laser links were successfully tested in late 2020.

The satellites will be mass-produced, at a much lower cost per unit of capability than previously existing satellites. Musk said, "We're going to try and do for satellites what we've done for rockets." "In order to revolutionize space, we have to address both satellites and rockets." "Smaller satellites are crucial to lowering the cost of space-based Internet and communications".

In February 2015, SpaceX asked the FCC to consider future innovative uses of the Ka-band spectrum before the FCC commits to 5G communications regulations that would create barriers to entry, since SpaceX is a new entrant to the satellite communications market. The SpaceX non-geostationary orbit communications satellite constellation will operate in the high-frequency bands above 24 GHz, "where steerable earth station transmit antennas would have a wider geographic impact, and significantly lower satellite altitudes magnify the impact of aggregate interference from terrestrial transmissions".

Internet traffic via a geostationary satellite has a minimum theoretical round-trip latency of at least 477 milliseconds (ms; between user and ground gateway), but in practice, current satellites have latencies of 600 ms or more. Starlink satellites are orbiting at to of the height of geostationary orbits, and thus offer more practical Earth-to-sat latencies of around 25 to 35 ms, comparable to existing cable and fiber networks. The system will use a peer-to-peer protocol claimed to be "simpler than IPv6", it will also incorporate end-to-end encryption natively.

Starlink satellites use Hall-effect thrusters with krypton gas as the reaction mass for orbit raising and station keeping. Krypton Hall thrusters tend to exhibit significantly higher erosion of the flow channel compared to a similar electric propulsion system operated with xenon, but krypton is much more abundant and has a lower market price.

The system will not directly connect from its satellites to handsets (unlike the constellations from Iridium, Globalstar, Thuraya and Inmarsat). Instead, it will be linked to flat user terminals the size of a pizza box, which will have phased array antennas and track the satellites. The terminals can be mounted anywhere, as long as they can see the sky. This includes fast-moving objects like trains. Photographs of the customer antennas began to be seen on the internet in June 2020, supporting earlier statements by SpaceX CEO Musk that the terminals would look like a "UFO on a stick. Starlink Terminal has motors to self-adjust optimal angle to view sky". The antenna is known internally as "Dishy McFlatface".

Limited reports from very early domestic beta users of the partial satellite constellation in August 2020 suggested users experienced download speeds from 11 to 60 Mbit/s, and upload speeds from 5 to 18 Mbit/s. In October 2020, SpaceX launched a paid-for beta service in the U.S. called "Better Than Nothing Beta", charging US$499 for a user terminal, with an expected service of "50 Mbps to 150 Mbps and latency from 20 ms to 40 ms over the next several months". From January 2021, the paid-for beta service was extended to other continents, starting in the United Kingdom.

In September 2020, SpaceX applied for permission to put terminals on 10 of its ships.

In 2019, tests by the United States Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) demonstrated a 610 Mbit/s data link through Starlink to a Beechcraft C-12 Huron aircraft in flight. Additionally in late 2019, the United States Air Force successfully tested a connection with Starlink on an AC-130 Gunship

In 2020, United States Air Force utilized Starlink in support of its Advanced Battlefield management system during a live-fire exercise. They demonstrated Starlink connected to a "variety of air and terrestrial assets" including the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker.

SpaceX has made applications to the FCC for at least 32 ground stations in United States, and as of July 2020 has approvals for 5 of them (in 5 states). SpaceX's ground stations would also be installed on-site at Google data-centers world-wide.

MicroSat-1a and MicroSat-1b were originally slated to be launched into 625 km (388 mi) circular orbits at approximately 86.4° inclination, and to include panchromatic video imager cameras to film images of Earth and the satellite. The two satellites, "MicroSat-1a" and "MicroSat-1b" were meant to be launched together as secondary payloads on one of the Iridium-NEXT flights, but they were instead used for ground-based tests.

At the time of the June 2015 announcement, SpaceX had stated plans to launch the first two demonstration satellites in 2016, but the target date was subsequently moved out to 2018. SpaceX began flight testing their satellite technologies in 2018 with the launch of two test satellites. The two identical satellites were called MicroSat-2a and MicroSat-2b during development but were renamed Tintin A and Tintin B upon orbital deployment on 22 February 2018. The satellites were launched by a Falcon 9 rocket, and they were piggy-pack payloads launching with the Paz satellite.

The satellites orbit in a circular low Earth orbit at about 500 km (310 mi) altitude in a high-inclination orbit for a planned six to twelve-month duration. The satellites communicate with three testing ground stations in Washington (state) and California for short-term experiments of less than ten minutes duration, roughly daily.

The 60 Starlink v0.9 satellites, launched in May 2019, have the following characteristics:

V1.0 (operational)

The Starlink v1.0 satellites, launched since November 2019, have the additional following characteristics:[citation needed ]

100% of "all components of this design will quickly burn in Earth's atmosphere at the end of each satellite's lifecycle"

Mass: 260 kg (570 lb)

One of them, numbered 1130 and called DarkSat, had its albedo reduced using a special coating but the method was abandoned due to thermal issues and IR reflectivity

More recent satellites[clarification needed ] have visors to block sunlight from reflecting from parts of the satellite to reduce its albedo further.[citation needed ]

First batch of ten satellites launched into a 97.5° polar orbit on 24 January 2021 with lasers for inter-satellite communication

A further 338 laser-equipped satellites will launch into polar orbit from Vandenberg. SpaceX launched 51 of these laser-equipped satellites on September 14, 2021.

In addition to the OneWeb constellation, announced nearly concurrently with the SpaceX constellation, a 2015 proposal from Samsung outlined a 4,600-satellite constellation orbiting at 1,400 km (870 mi) that could provide a zettabyte per month capacity worldwide, an equivalent of 200 gigabytes per month for 5 billion users of Internet data, but by 2020, no more public information had been released about the Samsung constellation. Telesat announced a smaller 117 satellite constellation in 2015 with plans to deliver initial service in 2021. Amazon announced a large broadband internet satellite constellation in April 2019, planning to launch 3,236 satellites in the next decade in what the company calls " Project Kuiper", a satellite constellation that will work in concert with Amazon's previously announced large network of twelve satellite ground station facilities (the " AWS ground station unit") announced in November 2018.

By October 2017, the expectation for large increases in satellite network capacity from emerging lower-altitude broadband constellations caused market players to cancel some planned investments in new geosynchronous orbit broadband communications satellites.

The planned large number of satellites has been met with criticism from the astronomical community because of concerns over light pollution. Astronomers claim that the number of visible satellites will outnumber visible stars and that their brightness in both optical and radio wavelengths will severely impact scientific observations. Because the Starlink satellites can autonomously change their orbits, observations cannot be scheduled to avoid them.[citation needed ] The International Astronomical Union (IAU), National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), and Square Kilometre Array Organization (SKAO) have released official statements expressing concern on the matter.

On 20 November 2019, the four-meter Blanco telescope of the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) recorded strong signal loss and the appearance of 19 white lines on a DECam shot (left image). This image noise was correlated to the transit of a Starlink satellite train, launched a week earlier.

SpaceX representatives and Musk have claimed that the satellites will have minimal impact, being easily mitigated by pixel masking and image stacking. However, professional astronomers have disputed these claims based on initial observation of the Starlink v0.9 satellites on the first launch, shortly after their deployment from the launch vehicle. In later statements on Twitter, Musk stated that SpaceX will work on reducing the albedo of the satellites and will provide on-demand orientation adjustments for astronomical experiments, if necessary. However, as of March 2020, only one Starlink satellite (Starlink 1130 / DarkSat) has experimental coating to reduce its albedo. The reduction in g-band magnitude is 0.8 magnitude (55%). Despite these measures, astronomers found that the satellites were still too bright thus making DarkSat essentially a "dead end".

On 17 April 2020, SpaceX wrote in a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) filing that it would test new methods of mitigating light pollution, and also provide access to satellite tracking data for astronomers to "better coordinate their observations with our satellites". On 27 April 2020, Musk announced that the company would introduce a new sunshade designed to reduce the brightness of Starlink satellites. As of 15 October 2020, over 200 Starlink satellites have a sunshade. An October 2020 analysis found them to be only marginally fainter than DarkSat. A January 2021 study pinned the brightness at 31% of the original design.

According to a May 2021 study, "The large number of fast-moving transmitting stations (i.e. satellites) will cause further interference. New analysis methods could mitigate some of these effects, but data loss is inevitable, increasing the time needed for each study and limiting the overall amount of science done."

The large number of satellites employed by Starlink is claimed by critics to create long-term danger of space debris resulting from placing thousands of satellites in orbit and the risk of causing a satellite collision, potentially triggering a phenomenon known as Kessler syndrome. SpaceX has said that most of the satellites are launched at a lower altitude, and failed satellites are expected to deorbit within five years without propulsion. Early in the program, a near-miss occurred when SpaceX did not move a satellite that had a 1 in 1000 chance of colliding with a European one, ten times higher than ESA's threshold for avoidance maneuvers. SpaceX subsequently fixed an issue with its paging system that had disrupted emails between ESA and SpaceX. ESA said it plans to invest in technologies to automate satellite collision avoidance maneuvers.

SpaceX was challenged regarding Starlink in February 2021 when the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) pressured the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to "actively, and aggressively, and thoughtfully vet" the subsidy applications of SpaceX and other broadband providers. SpaceX had previously been approved to receive US$886 million for a commitment to provide service to 642,925 locations in 35 states as part of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF).

The NRECA criticized the funding allocation because Starlink will include service to locations - such as Harlem and terminals at Newark Liberty International Airport and Miami International Airport - that are not rural, and because SpaceX will build the infrastructure and serve any customers who request service with or without the FCC subsidy. Additionally, Jim Matheson, chief executive officer of the NRECA voiced his concern about technologies that have not been proven to meet the high speeds required for the award category. Starlink was specifically criticized for being still in beta testing and an unproven technology.

Viasat, Inc. - a current broadband satellite provider providing fixed, ground mobile, and airborne antennas.

O3b - Medium Earth orbit constellation that provides access to mobile phone operators and internet service providers. It covers only the equatorial region.

Orbcomm - an operational constellation used to provide global asset monitoring and messaging services from its constellation of 29 LEO communications satellites orbiting at 775 km

Globalstar - an operational low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation for satellite phone and low-speed data communications

Iridium satellite constellation - an operational constellation of 66 active satellites used to provide global satellite phone service

Lynk Global - a satellite-to-mobile-phone satellite constellation with the objective to coverage to traditional low-cost mobile devices

Teledesic - a former (1990s) venture to accomplish broadband satellite internet services

Project Loon - former concept to provide internet access via balloons in the stratosphere

^ "Starlink Statistics". planet4589.org - Jonathan's Space Report. Archived from the original on 5 May 2021.

Gates, Dominic (16 January 2015). "Elon Musk touts launch of "SpaceX Seattle"". The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on 13 February 2015.

^

^

[permanent dead link ]

de Selding, Peter B. (4 September 2017). "SES asks ITU to replace "one and done" rule for satellite constellations with new system". Space Intel Report. Archived from the original on 27 June 2018.

^ Henry, Caleb (26 April 2019). "FCC OKs lower orbit for some Starlink satellites". SpaceNews. Archived from the original on 17 November 2020. lower the orbit of nearly 1,600 of its proposed broadband satellites. The Federal Communications Commission said 26 April 2019 it was correct with SpaceX changing its plans to orbit those satellites at 550 km (340 mi) instead of 1,150 km (710 mi). SpaceX says the adjustment, requested six months ago, will make a safer space environment, since any defunct satellites at the lower altitude would reenter the Earth's atmosphere in five years even without propulsion. The lower orbit also means more distance between Starlink and competing Internet constellations proposed by OneWeb and Telesat. FCC approval allows satellite companies to provide communications services in the United States. The agency granted SpaceX market access in March 2018 for 4,425 satellites using Ku-band and Ka-band spectrum, and authorized 7,518 V-band satellites in November 2018. SpaceX's modified plans apply to the smaller of the two constellations

^ "0517-EX-CN-2019 - Application Question 7: Purpose of Experiment". FCC. June 2019. SpaceX seeks experimental authority for two types of testing: (1) a total of 70 user terminals (mixed between the two types of antennas) so that it can test multiple devices at a number of geographically dispersed locations throughout the United States; and (2) up to 200 phased array user terminals to be deployed within the state of Washington at the homes of SpaceX employees for ongoing testing. Such authority would enable SpaceX to obtain critical data regarding the operational performance of these user terminals and the SpaceX NGSO system This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.

^ "Application question 7: Purpose of Experiment". FCC. June 2019. Archived from the original on 17 November 2020. SpaceX seeks an experimental authorization to test activities ... tests are designed to demonstrate the ability to transmit and receive information (1) between five ground sites ("Ground-to-Ground") and (2) between four ground sites and an airborne aircraft ("Ground-to-Air") ... This application seeks only to use an Earth station to transmit signals to the SpaceX satellites first from the ground and later from a moving aircraft. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.

^ [permanent dead link ]

^ This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.

^ "Sanjay Bhargava to head Elon Musk's Starlink satellite broadband venture in India". The Economic Times.

^ Elon Musk [@elonmusk] (22 February 2018). "First two Starlink demo satellites, called Tintin A and B, deployed and communicating to Earth stations" (Tweet). Archived from the original on 22 February 2018 - via Twitter.

^

^ Elon Musk [@elonmusk] (11 May 2019). "These are production design, unlike our earlier Tintin demo sats" (Tweet) - via Twitter.

^

^ Clark, Stephen (27 July 2021). "SpaceX is about to begin launching the next series of Starlink satellites". Spaceflight Now. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. SpaceX is expected to launch an average of one Starlink mission per month from Vandenberg over the next year, and there will be a regular cadence of Starlink flights from Cape Canaveral, too.

^

^ Sheetz, Michael (29 September 2020). "Washington emergency responders first to use SpaceX's Starlink internet in the field: 'It's amazing'". CNBC. Archived from the original on 3 July 2021.

^

^

^

^ Foust, Jeff (12 March 2018). "Musk reiterates plans for testing BFR". SpaceNews. Archived from the original on 2 April 2020. Construction of the first prototype spaceship is in progress. "We're actually building that ship right now", he said. "I think we'll probably be able to do short flights, short sort of up-and-down flights, probably sometime in the first half of next year".

^ Winkler, Rolfe; Pasztor, Andy (13 January 2017). "Exclusive Peek at SpaceX Data Shows Loss in 2015, Heavy Expectations for Nascent Internet Service". The Wall Street Journal. Eastern Edition. The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on 17 November 2020.

^ Elon Musk [@elonmusk] (11 May 2019). "Much will likely go wrong on 1st mission. Also, 6 more launches of 60 sats needed for minor coverage, 12 for moderate" (Tweet) - via Twitter.

^ Elon Musk [@elonmusk] (15 April 2021). "Yeah, should be fully mobile later this year, so you can move it anywhere or use it on an RV or truck in motion. We need a few more satellite launches to achieve compete coverage & some key software upgrades" (Tweet) - via Twitter.

^

^

^ "Application for Fixed Satellite Service by Space Exploration Holdings, LLC [SAT-MOD-20200417-00037]". fcc.report. FCC. 17 April 2020. Archived from the original on 17 November 2020. Space Exploration Holdings, LLC seeks to modify its Ku/Ka−band NGSO license to relocate satellites previously authorized to operate at altitudes from 1110 km to 1325 km down to altitudes ranging from 540 km to 570 km, and to make related changes. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.

^ Alleven, Monica (22 February 2015). "In 5G proceeding, SpaceX urges FCC to protect future satellite ventures". FierceWirelessTech. Archived from the original on 26 February 2015. SpaceX pointed out that it recently announced plans to build a network of 4,000 non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) communications satellites, which it will manufacture, launch and operate.

^ Elon Musk [@elonmusk] (25 February 2018). "Will be simpler than IPv6 and have tiny packet overhead. Definitely peer-to-peer" (Tweet) - via Twitter.

^ KHT - KRYPTON HALL THRUSTERS - IDENTIFICATION, EVALUATION AND TESTING OF ALTERNATIVE PROPELLANTS FOR ELECTRIC PROPULSION SYSTEMS. Project KHT. European Space Agency. 6 September 2017. Archived from the original on 17 November 2020. The overall outcome is that propellant different from xenon can provide significant economic benefits in the long term for commercial telecom applications. In particular, krypton would allow for a major reduction of qualification and operation costs with minor performance drawbacks.

^ O'Callaghan, Jonathan (27 October 2020). "SpaceX Reveals Monthly Cost Of Starlink Internet In Its 'Better Than Nothing Beta'". Forbes. Archived from the original on 17 November 2020.

^ "SpaceX Requests FCC Approval For Starlink Earth Stations As Company's Applications Continue To Pile With The Commission". 6 July 2020. Archived from the original on 18 August 2020.

^ This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.

^ Tintin A Archived 17 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine and Tintin B Archived 17 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine at n2yo.com

^ Khan, Farooq (2015). "Mobile Internet from the Heavens". arXiv:1508.02383 [cs.NI].

^ [permanent dead link ]

^ de Selding, Peter B. (5 October 2017). "Panasonic Avionics' surprising conversion into a satellite mega-constellation believer". Space Intel Report. Archived from the original on 13 October 2017.

^ Mallama, Anthony (2020). "A Flat-Panel Brightness Model for the Starlink Satellites and Measurement of their Absolute Visual Magnitude". arXiv:2003.07805 [astro-ph.IM].

^ Tregloan-Reed, J.; Otarola, A.; Ortiz, E.; Molina, V.; Anais, J.; González, R.; Colque, J. P.; Unda-Sanzana, E. (2020). "First observations and magnitude measurement of Starlink's Darksat". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 637: L1. arXiv:2003.07251. Bibcode:2020A&A...637L...1T. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202037958. S2CID 212725531.

^ Cole, Richard E. (2020). "A Sky Brightness Model for the Starlink "Visorsat" Spacecraft". Research Notes of the AAS. 4 (10): 182. arXiv:2107.06026. Bibcode:2020RNAAS...4..182C. doi:10.3847/2515-5172/abc0e9. S2CID 228996341. Archived from the original on 1 November 2020.

^ Anthony Mallama (2 January 2021). "The Brightness of VisorSat-Design Starlink Satellites". Astrophysics. arXiv:2101.00374. Archived from the original on 24 June 2021.

^ Boley, Aaron C.; Byers, Michael (20 May 2021). "Satellite mega-constellations create risks in Low Earth Orbit, the atmosphere and on Earth". Scientific Reports. 11 (1): 10642. doi:10.1038/s41598-021-89909-7. ISSN 2045-2322. PMC 8137964. PMID 34017017.

^ Does Starlink Pose a Space Debris Threat? An Expert Answers. Archived 17 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine Jan Hattenbach, Sky & Telescope, 3 June 2019

^ Jones, Andrew (27 July 2021). "Chinese rocket company Space Pioneer secures major funding ahead of first launch". SpaceNews. Archived from the original on 27 July 2021.

^ Amazon lays out constellation service goals, deployment and deorbit plans to FCC Archived 25 April 2020 at perma-archives.org , Caleb Henry, SpaceNews, 8 July 2019, accessed 9 September 2019.

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Starlink is a satellite internet constellation operated by SpaceX providing satellite Internet access to most of the Earth. The constellation consists of over 1600 satellites in mid-2021, and will eventually consist of many thousands of mass-produced small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), which communicate with designated ground transceivers.

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Product Description

The sequence of sounds in the sacred word Halleluiah are used to purify yourself, the room you are standing in, and the realms of space, as far and wide as you can spread. Use this to spread blessing into this world.

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Course Details

This is a list of the included lessons for this course.

Only logged in customers who have purchased this product may leave a review.

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The sequence of sounds in the sacred word Halleluiah are used to purify yourself, the room you are standing in, and the realms of space, as far and wide as you can spread. Use this to spread blessing into this world.

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Fasting from Overreacting and Feasting on Responding Thoughfully

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Fasting from Overreacting and Feasting on Responding Thoughfully

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Unity's thoughts for March 11 and March 12, just before my mortality/immortality bubble burst. I am grateful to have read this when I did. I will try to post an image. Sorry if it does not work.
Sharleen

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eurythmyonline.com/products/halleluiah   The Halleluiah lesson is now available for free. Other beautiful for  lesson modules and sequences are available at 50% discount: use code  lightcorona at checkout. Share widely!  eurythmyonline.com/blog

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Hive consciousness~evolve.

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All things must change to something new, to something strange.

Nothing that is can pause or stay,

the moon will wax, the moon will wane,

the mist and cloud will turn to rain ,

the rain to mist and cloud again,

tomorrow be today.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

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Following on from Laura's suggested nature embodiment exercise that is also a community sharing, I'd like to offer this structured Beholding practice I use in teaching and meditation to come closer to Nature.

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Beholding as a nature observation exercise

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The following is from C. S. Lewis. It was written in 1948 after the dawn of the atomic age:

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. "How are we to live in an atomic age?" I am tempted to reply: "Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents."

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

— "On Living in an Atomic Age" (1948) in Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays

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Thursday, March 26, at 2:00-3:15 pm ET, the Biodynamic Association is holding a BDA Member Conversation Salon

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Thursday, March 26, at 2:00-3:15 pm ET, the Biodynamic Association is holding a BDA Member Conversation Salon

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Thursday, March 26, 2020

11:00am-12:15pm PT, 1:00-2:15pm CT, 2:00-3:15 pm ET

In recent days and weeks, news and fear of the global spread of the novel coronavirus has been everywhere. As a biodynamic community dedicated to health and healing for Earth and humanity, how do we respond to this crisis, individually and collectively?

Join fellow Biodynamic Association members, including David Gershan, and anthroposophical medical doctor in San Francisco; Patricia Frazier, a trained nurse and biodynamic farmer in Colorado; Adam Blanning, the vice-president of the Association for Anthroposophic Medicine and Therapies in America; and Deb Soule, a biodynamic herbalist and founder of Avena Botanicals in Maine, for an online interactive member conversation salon to discuss biodynamic and anthroposophical perspectives on health and disease and explore how the biodynamic community can support each other as we adapt to changing global and local conditions. Free for all BDA members to participate.

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Thursday, March 26, 2020 11:00am-12:15pm PT, 1:00-2:15pm CT, 2:00-3:15 pm ET In recent days and weeks, news and fear of the global spread of the novel coronavirus has been everywhere. As a biodynamic community dedicated to health and healing for Earth and humanity, how do we respond to this crisis, individually and collectively?

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Feel at home in your body

Our courses and videos are for those who wish to take care of themselves. We help you to cope with themes like stress reduction, hypersensitivity, regulation of emotions (such as anxiety, sadness, impulsivity), and general aspects of human well-being.

Our self-help courses for daily practice are based on practical exercises that work in combination with the mindful movements of .

Our courses on eurythmy provide important insights into the inner mobility of your body, enabling you to move more effortlessly than you may think possible.

E urythmy affects every level of your being. It helps all parts of your being to develop in harmony. Being in touch with your inner forces frees them to grow and develop. Since you as a human being are not only confined in your physical skin, you do this work not only for yourself, but for the world in which you live.

Our self-help courses, webinars and workshops are designed to help you face challenges as an opportunity for inner growth. That gives meaning to everything you encounter.

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Our courses and videos are for those who wish to take care of themselves. We help you to cope with themes like stress reduction, hypersensitivity, regulation of emotions (such as anxiety, sadness, impulsivity), and general aspects of human well-being. Our self-help courses for daily practice are based on practical exercises that work in combination with the mindful movements of .

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The dead know better than we what needs to happen in the Social Life, and we need
to turn to them and seek their support.

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moving the soul with color - inviting spirit

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moving the soul with color - inviting Spirit

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I was born in sub tropical Australia near the warm ocean. I studied at Emerson college in England ( founded on the work of Rudolf Steiner) and discovered art as a way of experiencing and expressing a connection to world creative forces. I have continued wo

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Corona virus form drawing from Laura Embrey

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Corona virus form drawing from Laura Embrey

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https://lauraembrey.com/

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In the Morning

O Michael, I commend myself to thy protection,
With all the forces of my heart, I place myself
under thy leadership, that so the day that is
now beginning may be indeed a picture of the
right ordering of destiny that belongs to thy Being.

Evening:
I carry my sorrow into the setting Sun,
I lay all my cares in its shining lap
These my cares come back to me filled with
glowing light, warmed through and through with love,
come back to me as helping thoughts, as power to carry out deeds that are filled with joy of sacrifice.

ANOTHER TRANSLATION :

Morning:

O Michael,
Under your protection I place myself,
With your guidance I connect myself,
Wholeheartedly,
So that this day becomes an image
Of your destiny-ordering Will.

Evening:

I carry my sorrows into the setting sun,
Place all my worries into her radiating womb,
Purified in love, transformed into light,
They return as helping thoughts,
As strength for self-sacrificing deeds.

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Horseback on Sunday morning, harvest over, we taste persimmon and wild
grape, sharp sweet of summer’s end.

In time’s maze over the fall fields, we name names that went west from here,
names that rest on graves.

We open a persimmon seed to find the tree that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed’s marrow.

Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes.

Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way,
clear, in the ancient faith: what we need is here.

And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart,
and in eye clear.
What we need is here.

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Last night over 300 of us gathered online to share practical ways to work with this challenging time. We ask that people send us photos from nature and we can start posting them everyday. Please go out and spend time in nature, take it in without technology, and once you have done so, snap a photo of it and share !

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We must eradicate from the soul
All fear and terror of what comes towards man out of the future.

We must acquire serenity
In all feelings and sensations about the future.

We must look forward with absolute equanimity
To everything that may come.

And we must think only that whatever comes
Is given to us by a world-directive full of wisdom.

It is part of what we must learn in this age,
namely, to live out of pure trust,
Without any security in existence.

Trust in the ever present help
Of the spiritual world.

Truly, nothing else will do
If our courage is not to fail us.

And let us seek the awakening from within ourselves
Every morning and every evening.

-Rudolf Steiner

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I came to understand that we all were to do the Hallelujah and the Foundation Stone Meditation upon waking - before we do any daily tasks.

I have been doing the Hallelujah in eurythmy, then speaking the FSM aloud, then again doing the Hallelujah, consciously seeing that 'grid' that goes from East to West and North to South, consciously seeing the different 'light' that warms hearts, enlightens heads and ignites initiative/directs will.

- Christine Burke and friends

There will be people doing Hallelujah between 7:30 and 8 am all across the world. Anyone can participate on their own.- Barbara Mills

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Video from Brian Gray

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Please enable JavaScript to experience Vimeo in all of its glory.

Presenter: Brian Gray
March 4, 2014
Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks, California
Special thanks: The diagram and presentation owes a great deal to the work of Rene Querido, my teacher at Rudolf Steiner College.

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Please enable JavaScript to experience Vimeo in all of its glory. Presenter: Brian Gray March 4, 2014 Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks, California Special thanks: The diagram and presentation owes a great deal to the work of Rene Querido, my teacher at Rudolf Steiner College.

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The IRON NECESSITY of Our Technological Age - March 20-21

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The IRON NECESSITY of Our Technological Age - March 20-21

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3 Lectures & Discussion Session

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Steiner used the words "iron necessity" when discussing an apparent dire future. We will explore changes coming to our lives by technology and the activity of various spiritual beings. Along with the usual suspects Ahriman and Michael, we'll explore the role of the elementals, the Vulcans, and others. Drawing from the depths of Occult Science, Andrew will explain how Steiner foresaw our future. In the workshop we will explore the cosmic role for our Ahrimanic double and find counter-balances for a healthy social life.

Friday Lecture March 20, 2020, 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. (Central Time)

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

1. The Iron Necessity of Our Technological Age

In this lecture, Andrew Linnell will focus on Steiner's descriptions of past planetary conditions and their recapitulations to form a surprising view of mankind's future with machines.

"That which must be acquired by mankind - freedom of the will - can be acquired only during Earth-evolution. In the Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan stages men will need this freedom of will." -The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century , lecture 5, Oct. 18, 1915, GA 254

Rudolf Steiner's words might sound like transhumanism:

"...the welding together of Mankind with Machines will be a great and important problem for the rest of the earth-evolution." - The Wrong and Right Use of Esoteric Knowledge, Lecture 3, Nov. 25, 1917

"As earth evolution progresses, human beings will be less and less able to develop their souls parallel to their bodies. Why, then, should it not be possible for an individual to incarnate in a body, the whole constitution of which destines it for evil? The individual can still be good inside such a body, for the connection with the physical has become less close." -The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness , lecture 5, Oct. 7, 1917, GA 177

"Only those human beings, however, in whom are incarnated human souls that have developed in a manner possible through the influences of the Greco-Latin and the subsequent 5th, 6th, and 7th Cultural Ages of evolution will be able to cope with the future earth conditions." -Outline of Occult Science

Saturday March 21, 2020, Two Lectures

In these Lectures, Andrew Linnell will elaborate on Steiner's surprising view of mankind's future with machines. As time permits, we can examine things we can do now to deal with the impacts of technology (EMR/5G, addiction, virtual reality, AI) both in our daily lives as individuals, as families, and as groups striving to nudge the development of new technologies in a healthy threefold direction.

2. The Human Double and Its Future: 9:30 - 10:30 am, (Central Time)

Discussion Session (Open to Everyone): 11 - 12 pm, (Central Time) - To Join ONLY this discussion you can signup

Counter-balances, Children & Devices, Education, Evolution

Emancipation from Dead Thinking: a gift from Ahriman?

3. The Three Occultism's, State of MysTech, Social MysTech: 1 - 2 pm, (Central Time)

About the Speaker
Andrew Linnell
is a 40-year veteran of the computer industry. Andrew has an MSE degree from the Univ. of Michigan and is a co-founder of MysTech which is devoted to the cultivation of a mechanical occultism that operates only through moral impulses. He has been an active member of the Anthroposophical Society and currently serves as president of the Greater Boston Branch. He has offered lectures that have covered various topics from Quantum Physics to Dangers Arising from Nanotechnology to Christian Mysticism. He is author of two children's book and The Hidden Heretic of the Renaissance: Leonardo.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

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The IRON NECESSITY of Our Technological Age - 3 Lectures & Discussion Session

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Steiner used the words "iron necessity" when discussing an apparent dire future. We will explore changes coming to our lives by technology and the activity of various spiritual beings. Along with the usual suspects Ahriman and Michael, we'll explore the role of the elementals, the Vulcans, and others.

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April 8, 7:15 PM Central Regional Council  will discuss the Lecture

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Next meeting Wednesday, June 5
7:15-8:30 p.m. Central Time

(We generally meet the first Wednesday evening of each month.)

The Zoom details are sent via email before each meeting. Contact Mary Mertz at CentralRegion.ASA@gmail.com if you want to receive emails from the Central Regional Council.

Focus of the June 5 meeting: Lecture 3 of The Spiritual Hierarchies and the Physical World -- Zodiac, Planets and Cosmos (CW 110).

Rudolf Steiner gave these 10 lectures in Dusseldorf in April 1909. They take us into the exalted regions of the spiritual world, illuminating the actions of the spiritual beings and explaining the task allotted to humanity in world evolution.

The lectures can be found on the Rudolf Steiner Archive by clicking this link. *
* Please consider giving to the digital library of Rudolf Steiner's work. You can read more at https://steinerlibrary.org/.

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Next meeting Wednesday, June 5 7:15-8:30 p.m. Central Time (We generally meet the first Wednesday evening of each month.) The Zoom details are sent via email before each meeting. Contact Mary Mertz at CentralRegion.ASA@gmail.com if you want to receive emails from the Central Regional Council.

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Cynthia Hoven:

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Welcome to Eurythmy Online

This website was the first comprehensive online eurythmy journey, created with the vision of making Eurythmy available to anyone, anywhere, with special concern for people who cannot attend live eurythmy classes, as well as for people who have taken courses but would like to go deeper at home. The project focuses on Eurythmy as a Personal Practice.

I have over 60 pre-recorded eurythmy lessons that teach warm-up exercises, rod exercises, how to move in space eurythmically, vowels, consonants, and health-bringing exercises.

The advent of the Covid quarantine asked for another deepening of the work, and in 2020 I expanded to offer multi-week live eurythmy modules that focus on various themes, including Healing Exercises, Healthy Sleep, Planets and Vowels, Constellations and Consonants, Four Elements in Eurythmy, and more.

In addition, I also offer lecture series on topics of deep interest to the modern spiritual seeker.

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eurythmyonline.com - Live Eurythmy Classes and On Demand Lessons to Create Your Eurythmy Home Practice

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Welcome to Eurythmy Online This website was the first comprehensive online eurythmy journey, created with the vision of making Eurythmy available to anyone, anywhere, with special concern for people who cannot attend live eurythmy classes, as well as for people who have taken courses but would like to go deeper at home.

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Quiet I bear within me,
I bear within myself
Forces to make me strong.
Now will I be imbued with their glowing warmth.
Now will I fill myself
With my own will’s resolve.
And I will feel the quiet
Pouring through all my being
When by my steadfast striving
I become strong
To find within myself the source of strength
The strength of inner quiet.

-Rudolf Steiner