Lecture XXI

GA 173c/1917-01-20/p034 ·1917-01-20 · English MediumMedium alignmentSome paragraph re-numbering between this translation and the German original — the locus may slip by a paragraph or two.
Record: stenogram (shorthand transcript). Shorthand transcript taken during the lecture — the strongest kind of lecture record in this corpus. Evidence: «Diese dreibändige Ausgabe wurde auf der Grundlage der stenografischen Nachschriften vollständig neu bearbeitet.» (This three-volume edition was completely re-edited on the basis of the shorthand transcripts.). The publisher's description of GA 173a-c, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 173a-c). The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.

Those who know how huge a number of such societies exist in the West can begin to gain an idea of what immensely effective tools such societies of ceremonial magic can be for certain far-reaching plans for the world. As you have seen, the chief aim is to prolong into our time a way of proceeding in which the spiritual world works into the sense-perceptible, physical world in a manner that was right in earlier times. For our times, however, the right procedure is for human beings to go towards the dead and meet them half-way. In the mood we have just been discussing, however, a path is sought which was appropriate in earlier, atavistic times but which today is brought about through the medium of ceremonial magic.

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Cite: GA 173c/1917-01-20/p034 · edition English