Mysticism
Mysticism (from Greek: μυστικός mystikos "indescribable, inexpressible, mysterious", derived from myein "to close the eyes and lips"; {{Latin|mysticus) is one of the seven fundamental worldview moods that Rudolf Steiner characterised and assigned to the seven planetary spheres, whereby mysticism corresponds to the Venus sphere.
„Man is placed in the world; in his own soul he experiences something about the world that he cannot experience externally. Only then does the world reveal its secrets. One may look around oneself - one does not see what the world contains in secrets. - Such a state of mind can often say: What use is gnosis to me, which struggles with all its effort to attain all kinds of visions? The things of the outer world, about which one has visions, cannot reveal to one the inner world. How does logism help me to form a worldview? Logic does not express the essence of the world. What good is speculation about the will? It only detracts from looking into the depths of one's own soul. And one does not look into these depths when the soul is willing, but precisely when it is surrendering, will-less. - So even voluntarism is not the soul mood that the soul needs here, nor is empiricism, the mere looking or listening to what experience, experience gives; but the inner seeking, when the soul has become calm, how God shines forth in the soul. You will notice that this mood of the soul can be called mysticism.
One can be a mystic through all twelve spiritual constellations. It will certainly not be particularly favourable if one is a mystic of materialism, that is, if one does not inwardly experience the spiritual, the spiritual, but the material. For a mystic of materialism is actually one who has acquired a particularly fine feeling, for example, for the kind of condition one comes to when one enjoys one substance or another. It is something different when one, I want to say, enjoys the juice of one plant or that of another plant and now waits to see what effect it has on the organism. So one grows together with matter in one's experience, becomes a mystic of matter. It may even be that this can become a task for life, a task for life in such a way that one pursues in what way one or the other substance, which comes from this or that plant, has a special effect on the organism; for one has a special effect on this organ, the other on that organ. And so to be a mystic of materialism is a prerequisite for the investigation of the individual substances with regard to their healing power. One notices what the substances do in the organism. - One can be a mystic of the world of substances, one can be a mystic of idealism. An ordinary idealist or a gnostic idealist is not a mystic of idealism. A mystic of idealism is one who, above all, has the possibility in his own soul to bring up the ideals of humanity from sources hidden within, to feel them as inner divinity and as such to place them before the soul. A mystic of idealism is, for example, the Meister Eckhart.“ (Lit.:GA 151, p. 54f)
Literature
- Rudolf Steiner: Die Philosophie der Freiheit, GA 4 (1995), ISBN 3-7274-0040-4 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
- Rudolf Steiner: Schriften. Kritische Ausgabe / Band 2: Philosophische Schriften: Wahrheit und Wissenschaft. Die Philosophie der Freiheit, frommann-holzboog, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2016, ISBN 978-3772826320
- Rudolf Steiner: Die Philosophie der Freiheit, Mit beiden Ausgaben (1894 u. 1918) im Vergleich, Rudolf Steiner Ausgaben, 3. Aufl. 2015, ISBN 978-3-86772-072-4
- Rudolf Steiner: Die Mystik im Aufgange des neuzeitlichen Geisteslebens und ihr Verhältnis zur modernen Weltanschauung, GA 7 (1990), ISBN 3-7274-0070-6 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
- Rudolf Steiner: Schriften. Kritische Ausgabe (SKA). Band 5: Schriften über Mystik, Mysterienwesen und Religionsgeschichte
Die Mystik im Aufgange des neuzeitlichen Geisteslebens und ihr Verhältnis zur modernen Weltanschauung – Das Christentum als mystische Tatsache und die Mysterien des Altertums. Herausgegeben und kommentiert von Christian Clement. Frommann-Holzboog Verlag, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-7728-2635-1 - Rudolf Steiner: Die Aufgabe der Anthroposophie gegenüber Wissenschaft und Leben, GA 77a (1997), ISBN 3-7274-0771-9 English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
- Rudolf Steiner: Der menschliche und der kosmische Gedanke, GA 151 (1990), ISBN 3-7274-1510-X English: rsarchive.org German: pdf pdf(2) html mobi epub archive.org
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References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com. Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English. Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA) Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF. |
