On educating yourself in holistic spiritual science

In contemporary mineral science, we find many different fields and subfields, and each is broken down in specializations.

In spiritual science, everything is interconnected with everything, and the multiple, different perspectives (or information dimensions) to approach a topic are an essential ingredient and requirement of the study process because this represents a key characteristic of the type of knowledge.

Therefore an open attitude and agile and flexible mind are required, as the approach to learning is non-linear or 'compartimented' - see Notes on the study process. Your study is a soul process, you are actually developing or re-building for yourself a worldview in its totality. You are building a new spiritual scientific worldview foundation which encompasses everything your logical mind can take in scope of consideration.

Furthermore, educating yourself should not mean theoretical study, but also practice (see initation and initiation exercises) and combined praxis, learning a way of life. How do you live it, use it as a compass for your soul?

Inspirational quotes

Daskalos (in book HTS by Markides), quoting "what Father Yohannan [editor, see: Individuality of Christian Rosenkreutz] said in a previous lesson"

"Thoughts and beliefs are too weak as wings to help us attain great heights of knowledge"

Illustrations

Lecture coverage and references

1911-06-GA15

It is not well to make many definitions or summaries in spiritual science or theosophy, or indeed in occultism generally. It is better to give a description, and to try and call forth a feeling of what really exists.

Albert Soesman

explains on the first page of his book on the senses:

There are many ways to approach anthroposophy. The way I propose to do it is to take a particular subject as my starting point. You can start with anthroposophy in general and make your way from there into a specific subject, but, interestingly enough, you can also start with a certain subject and work your way up from this into anthroposophy as a whole, in as far as it is possible to arrive at a general outline of anthroposophy in a limited number of lectures. I hope your souls will succeed in following this reverse path — starting with something specific in order to end up with something general.
As was announced, the following will be based on the studies of Rudolf Steine, who once said that a study of the senses is actually the first chapter of anthroposophy. While that sounds simple enough, I will have to start by saying something first about that word `first'.
Usually, when you read an ordinary book, and you have read chapter 1, you are then finished with chapter 1. Next comes chapter 2, and subsequently chapter 3, etc. That is, in fact, how many books are written. But by no means all books are written like that. When you read The State by Plato, for instance, you will find something very peculiar about that book. Its structure is not: chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, etc.; instead, reading that book is like walking through an immense temple building, as it were. The whole book is structured like a Greek temple; it is not just a sequence you follow. And this is often also the case with the work of Rudolf Steiner. You have to get used to this at first — that in fact everything, to the last chapter, is already contained in chapter 1. And it is the same in chapter 2 — everything is already there.
This is also how it will be with my lectures. So you will have to bear with me. For some of you it will seem strange that I do not follow a logical sequence — that you have to learn to consider matters in a compositional fashion. You will have to have some patience, and be prepared to wait and see whenever I say something that seems unusual to you. You will have to let go of linear thinking to some extent.
I hope you will find that when something seems strange to you, the next thing may, in fact, balance it out. You will have to look upon these lectures as a piece of music. When you listen to music, you do not think: 'All right, here is the first tone, now where is the second, the third?'. Instead you simply wait until the entire piece is finished, and then you can say: 'That was terrible', or: 'Yes, it did something for me', or whatever. That is the sort of consideration I ask of you — to bear with me until the compositional element makes an appearance. I know I am asking a lot of your patience, but I hope that in the end you will find it worthwhile.

Fred Poeppig

his book'Rückblick' contains the following quote, not in the GA.

machine translation (in DE below)

Rudolf Steiner's oral statement to Mrs. Sybell-Petersen, conveyed by Adelheid Petersen in a lecture given in August 1950

The coming youth comes from completely different cosmic worlds than we do, that will increase. They will bring with them a tremendous ability to think, a virtuosity of thought. But this is the greatest temptation and at the same time the greatest Ahrimanic attack against anthroposophy. There will be the danger that through the tremendous ease of understanding the anthroposophical concepts the matter will get stuck in the thinking and a tremendous sense of well-being will develop in the thinking of anthroposophy; but one will not break through to training. The only thing that youth can get, that will steel it to withstand future events, is that it meets anthroposophy in training. Training is the foundation through which study alone can lead to a true goal.
If anthroposophy is taught as a science, it becomes harmful. Anthroposophy must never be mere theory; it must become immediate life. If it is allowed to be mere doctrine, it is killed and handed over to Ahriman, the Lord of Death.
But it is much more convenient for people today to think and adopt a few anthroposophical concepts than to discard a single habit. What anthroposophy makes of our souls is much more important than any amount of theoretical knowledge about spiritual scientific concepts.
[1] from "Rudolf Steiner on the coming youth".

Mündliche Äußerung Rudolf Steiners gegenüber Frau Sybell-Petersen, übermittelt von Adelheid Petersen in einem Vortrag, gehalten im August 1950

«Die kommende Jugend kommt aus ganz anderen kosmischen Welten her als wir, das wird sich steigern. Sie bringt eine ungeheure Denkfähigkeit, eine Virtuosität des Denkens mit. Das ist aber die größte Versuchung und zugleich der größte ahrimanische Angriff gegen die Anthroposophie. Da wird die Gefahr sein, daß durch die ungeheure Leichtigkeit der Auffassung der anthroposophischen Begriffe die Sache im Denken stecken bleibt und sich ein ungeheures Wohlgefühl im Denken der Anthroposophie entwickelt; aber man wird nicht durchstoßen zur Schulung. Das einzige, was die Jugend bekommen kann, was sie stählen wird, um die künftigen Ereignisse zu bestehen, das ist, daß sie der Anthroposophie in der Schulung begegnet. Die Schulung ist das Fundament, durch das das Studium allein zu einem wahren Ziel geführt werden kann.
Wenn Anthroposophie als Wissenschaft gelehrt wird, wird sie schädlich. Anthroposophie darf niemals bloß Theorie sein; sie muß unmittelbares Leben werden. Läßt man sie bloß Lehre sein, so tötet man sie und übergibt sie Ahriman, dem Herrn des Todes.
Es ist aber den Menschen heute viel bequemer zu denken und einige anthroposophische Begriffe sich anzueignen, als nur eine einzige Gewohnheit abzulegen. Was die Anthroposophie aus unseren Seelen macht, das ist viel wichtiger als noch so viel theoretisches Wissen über geisteswissenschaftliche Begriffe.
[1] from "Rudolf Steiner über die kommende Jugend".

Discussion

Related pages

References and further reading

Erhard Fucke: 'Das anthroposophische Studium - Seine Bedeutung für den Schulungsweg' (1981)