The Bridge Between Universal Spirituality and the Physical Constitution of Man: 3 Lectures, Dornach, December 17-19, 1920 (CW 202)

Rudolf Steiner addresses the following topics in these lectures: 1. Soul-and-Spirit in Man's Physical Constitution: The physical organism of man is considered today to consist of more or less solid-fluid substances; but as well as his solid, physical body, man has within him as definite organisms, a fluid body, an air-body and a warmth-body. The connections of these organisms with the members of man's whole being and with the different Ethers. Thought and Tone; Ego and circulating Blood. Man in the sleeping state. Man's relation to the universal Spirituality. Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition. The circumscribed view of the human organism prevailing today is unable to build any bridge between the physical body and the soul-and-spirit. 2. The Moral as the Source of World-Creative Power: Recapitulation of previous lecture. Connection of the moral world-order with the physical world-order. The moral world-order has no place in the natural scientific thinking of today. The positive effect of moral ideals and ideas and the negative effect of theoretical ideas on the four organisms in man. The materialistic conception of the imperishability of matter and energy. Matter and energy die away to nullity; but man's moral thinking imbues life into substance and will. The natural world dies away in man; in the realm of the moral a new natural world comes into being; thus are the moral order and the natural order connected. Absence of spirituality in the modern picture of the world which is based on the Copernican system. Kepler and Newton. We need a spiritual view of the universe. The sun is not a globe of burning gas but the reflection of a spiritual reality revealed in the physical. The moral power developed by man rays out and is reflected as the spiritual Sun. Julian the Apostate. The connection of the spiritual Sun with the physical sun is the Christ-Secret. 3. The Path to Freedom and Love and Their Significance in World-Events: Man as a being of Thinking, Action and Feeling. The connection of the life of thought with the will. Pure thinking: irradiation of the life of thought by will. This leads to Freedom. Irradiation of the life of will by thoughts leads to Love. The meaning of the ancient expressions: Semblance, Power, Wisdom. To speak of the imperishability of matter and energy annuls Love. The significance of Freedom and Love in world-happenings.