18. The Origin of Evil and the Evil in the Light of Spiritual Science

GA 69d/1914-03-29/p027 ·1914-03-29 · English HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Author: Rudolf Steiner
Record: mixed sources. This volume draws on more than one kind of record (transcripts, notes, documents). Check the volume's own front matter before weighing a single passage. Evidence: «Im Anhang Notizen und Berichte von weiteren Vorträgen» (In the appendix, notes and reports of further lectures). Rudolf Steiner Verlag Gesamtverzeichnis 2022, volume subtitle. The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.

Rudolf Steiner: There is nothing to be done with this question either. Gravity, which is extraordinarily beneficial when it drives the earth around the sun, can cause evil as an avalanche rolling down from the mountain. The lecture was not intended to teach reevaluation in a different sphere, but change into a different sphere [hinein]. Even if people do not know what evil they do, that is not the point: it is completely irrelevant whether something happens consciously or unconsciously in the sphere of decay. The lecture was not an apology for evil, as if to say: Those who are truly evil are the best, because they have the gift of clear-sighted good. It was not stated that the best person is the great criminal, but rather that there is no “beyond good and evil” in the sensual world, only in the supersensible world.

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Cite: GA 69d/1914-03-29/p027 · edition English