XXI. Knowledge of the Higher Worlds II
GA 90b/1905-12-18/p009
·1905-12-18
·
English
HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
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: «Frühe Vortragsreihen und Einzelvorträge für Mitglieder in Berlin 1905–1906 nach ausführlichen und z.T. fragmentarischen Mitschriften.» (Early lecture series and single lectures for members in Berlin 1905-1906, from detailed and in part fragmentary listeners' transcripts.). The publisher's description of the volume, as mirrored on AnthroWiki (GA 90b); the description calls them "Hörermitschriften", and the served text carries the note-taker's gap marker "[Lücke in der Mitschrift]". The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.
Therefore, it has become necessary to develop the occult teachings in an elementary way through the spoken word to the larger masses of our contemporaries, so that everyone can say to themselves, there and there is a center; if I want, I can join. Actually, no one should be asked to join any secret science current. How far the individual goes must be his absolutely free decision. One should never act under the sign of occultism, as is the view today. Such agitation brings about what should not be in this field. Those who join without actually being seekers say, “I like this and I don't like that – and this is not the right thing.” Actually, the principle of social union is not the right one, as in Buddhism. It is only a surrogate today because people join together socially for everything. What is right in occultism is the grouping.
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