81. On the Formation of Destiny

GA 246/1923-04-12/p006 ·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.

Learning to speak is based on the instinct of imitation. Thinking develops out of speaking. Thinking is developed the latest. What about thinking anyway? The child descends from pre-earthly existence. Quite shortly before it incarnates, it first forms its etheric body. The ego and the astral body come down, draw the etheric body from all parts of the world, and then the incarnation takes place. The child learns to think through the etheric body, the physical body is only the ground. At first this etheric body is only very dully active. But thinking is based on a more external handling of the etheric body. What underlies these processes? Thoughts are actually contained in the world ether, they are not formed in the head. Anyone who would say that would be just as clever as someone who says: I drink water, therefore the water forms on my tongue.

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Cite: GA 246/1923-04-12/p006 · edition English