CW 170 The Riddle of Humanity: Lecture 5 (Dornach, 6 August 1916) by Rudolf Steiner
Oct 6, 2026 · 39 min · 13 segments
- Top entities
- Rudolf Steiner×7Plato×11Earth×13Faust×4Dornach×3
- Show signals
- SuitabilitySafeBiasNot political
Oct 6, 2026 · 39 min · 13 segments
Today the essential thing for which I would like to use our time is to develop some things that will provide the basis for tomorrow's discussion.
These things are an expansion of what was described yesterday.
Consider how birth, or say, conception, is the entry into the life a person leads between birth and death.
Think of what we have said in the course of the past years about how a human being enters the physical body.
We know that in a certain sense the three lower realms of nature, the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, flow together in man, and that he rises above these three realms that are joined together symbiotically in him.
But as a being of soul and spirit he also grows into these realms.
Man becomes human by descending to the physical plane and growing into the mineral, plant, and animal realms.
After death he ascends again.
Then something similar happens from a spiritual point of view.
In the spiritual world something happens that resembles the growing into the three kingdoms of physical existence on earth.
With all such descriptions you must be clear that everything that has already been said in earlier presentations still holds true.
Everything we have previously said about how a human being grows into the spiritual world after passing through the gates of death still holds good.
The further details that arise are only to be taken as additions to that.
Thus we can say: As a human being grows into the spiritual worlds he is received into the realm of morality, the esthetic realm, and the realm of wisdom or truth.
Now, in this life when we speak of the moral realm, the realm of the good; the esthetic realm, the realm of the beautiful; and the realm of truth, of wisdom, naturally we are speaking more or less abstractly.
But the forces in the spiritual world into which a human being grows and which are left behind when physical existence is once more taken up are absolutely concrete forces.
They are real, spiritual modes of existence.
We use names like these just to summarize.
Here on earth a person's aura carries a kind of remnant of the things he received when he had ascended to the spiritual world.
Having left behind the realms of wisdom, of beauty, of truth, mankind must enter the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms.
But the three spiritual realms continue to shine into the human aura, so that if we include his spiritual parts, then the whole human is a being who lives most directly in the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms and lives more at a distance from that which, so to speak, comes down from the three spiritual realms, hovers before him, and shines and weaves through him.
The light from the three spiritual realms shines over a human being.
Today the essential thing for which I would like to use our time is to develop some things that will provide the basis for tomorrow's discussion.
These things are an expansion of what was described yesterday.
Consider how birth, or say, conception, is the entry into the life a person leads between birth and death.
Think of what we have said in the course of the past years about how a human being enters the physical body.
We know that in a certain sense the three lower realms of nature, the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, flow together in man, and that he rises above these three realms that are joined together symbiotically in him.
But as a being of soul and spirit he also grows into these realms.
Man becomes human by descending to the physical plane and growing into the mineral, plant, and animal realms.
After death he ascends again.
Then something similar happens from a spiritual point of view.
In the spiritual world something happens that resembles the growing into the three kingdoms of physical existence on earth.
With all such descriptions you must be clear that everything that has already been said in earlier presentations still holds true.
Everything we have previously said about how a human being grows into the spiritual world after passing through the gates of death still holds good.
The further details that arise are only to be taken as additions to that.
Thus we can say: As a human being grows into the spiritual worlds he is received into the realm of morality, the esthetic realm, and the realm of wisdom or truth.
Now, in this life when we speak of the moral realm, the realm of the good; the esthetic realm, the realm of the beautiful; and the realm of truth, of wisdom, naturally we are speaking more or less abstractly.
But the forces in the spiritual world into which a human being grows and which are left behind when physical existence is once more taken up are absolutely concrete forces.
They are real, spiritual modes of existence.
We use names like these just to summarize.
Here on earth a person's aura carries a kind of remnant of the things he received when he had ascended to the spiritual world.
Having left behind the realms of wisdom, of beauty, of truth, mankind must enter the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms.
But the three spiritual realms continue to shine into the human aura, so that if we include his spiritual parts, then the whole human is a being who lives most directly in the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms and lives more at a distance from that which, so to speak, comes down from the three spiritual realms, hovers before him, and shines and weaves through him.
The light from the three spiritual realms shines over a human being.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
