34. The Beginning and the End of the Earth
GA 68b/1907-12-16/p063
·1907-12-16
·
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: «Da keine professionellen Stenogramme vorliegen, handelt es sich oftmals um notizenhaft festgehaltene Zusammenfassungen oder Berichte.» (Since no professional shorthand transcripts exist, these are often summaries or reports kept in the form of notes.). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 68b). The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.
At the beginning of the earth, man was a spirit; but his consciousness was a dull, sleeping consciousness. His physical body did not yet exist. Then he separated himself from the astral body. Now the astral body will increasingly dominate the physical body and learn to spiritualize the physical more and more. In the process of higher development, man will again arrive at a spiritual stage, but consciously. In the end, he will stand as the great king of the earth.
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