What the Gods Once Intended for Man

GA 265a/1912-09-04/p004 ·1912-09-04 · 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 Erinnerungsaufzeichnungen von Teilnehmenden» (From participants' records written from memory). Rudolf Steiner Verlag Gesamtverzeichnis 2022, volume subtitle. The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.

The world in which man lives today was not originally intended for him by the gods, ordained by the gods. Man therefore lives in the sensual world, in a world to which he must adapt. Before the Lemurian period, before the Luciferic impact, man was only intended to be in the environment of the earth, but in such a way that he could symbolically experience and reflect his inner experience in eyes, ears and brain. (We have the higher senses from Lucifer.) No senses as we have them now were intended [for humans by the divine spiritual beings]. Eyes, ears, brain as we have them now, we have received from Lucifer. As a breathing-knowing being, the human being is intended by the gods, and in inhaling, holding the breath and exhaling, a whole world enters into the human being.

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Cite: GA 265a/1912-09-04/p004 · edition English