10. Occult Signs and Symbols of the Astral World

GA 246/1908-01-12/p004 ·1908-01-12 · English HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: listeners' notes. Written from listeners' notes, summaries, or memory rather than a shorthand transcript. The wording is the note-taker's as much as Steiner's: weigh a single striking phrase here far more cautiously than the same phrase in a stenographic volume, and do not rest an argument on one word. Evidence: «Nach zum Teil bruchstückhaften Mitschriften» (From transcripts that are in part fragmentary). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 246), which also speaks of "fragmentarischen Hörernotizen und Vortragszusammenfassungen". The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.

Man in his astral body can have just such organs of knowledge and perception as the physical body. When the astral body leaves the physical and etheric body, unconsciousness occurs, but not because the physical senses are missing, but because there are larger and completely different worlds around him and because [man] has not yet developed his astral organs. They are very different from the sensory organs. They are called lotus flowers or wheels because of their shape. They are movements of light that flash. If we draw these movements of light in the main lines, especially the fast-moving two-petaled one, the result is the so-called swastika. We know the meaning of this drawing just as little as we know what an eye is when we only see its drawing. One cannot recognize the meaning of that sign by contemplation, but only through the knowledge of secret scientific facts.

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Cite: GA 246/1908-01-12/p004 · edition English