81. On the Formation of Destiny
GA 246/1923-04-12/p005
·1923-04-12
·
English
MediumMedium alignmentSome paragraph re-numbering between this translation and the German original — the locus may slip by a paragraph or two.
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.
We will start with the beginning of human life on earth. Man must first form his body out of himself. The child's consciousness is dreamlike. Three things emerge from the twilight of the child's dreamlike consciousness that are of particular importance for life. The child learns more during this time than in later years. During this time, the child learns to walk, speak and think. But walking, for example, is only a one-sided expression of what the child is learning. It must first learn to balance itself. But it must also learn to adapt to earthly conditions in other ways. For example, they must first learn that hot objects burn and the like.
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