Lecture XI

GA 93a/1905-10-06/p011 ·1905-10-06 · 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: «Notizen von einem esoterischen Lehrgang» (Notes from an esoteric course). Rudolf Steiner Verlag Gesamtverzeichnis 2022, volume subtitle. The translation is the maintainer's, not a published one.

In the physical world man is left to himself, here nobody leads him, he is in very truth god-forsaken. When he came forth from the astral world the Gods forsook him. In the physical world he had to learn to become his own master. Here therefore he can only live, as he actually does live, swinging pendulum-wise between truth and error. He must grope about and seek his way for himself. Now for the most part he is groping in the dark. His gaze is turned outwards; he has freedom of choice, but he is also exposed to error. On the Astral Plane man had no such freedom; there he was subject to compulsion from the powers standing behind him. Like a kind of marionette he still dangled on the strings of the Gods; they still had to guide him. In so far as man today is still a soul being, the Gods still live in him. Here freedom and unfreedom are strongly mixed. His wishes are continually changing. This ebb and flow of wishes proceeds from within. Here it is the Gods who are working in man.

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