The Task of Anthroposophy
"The task of Anthroposophy is not simply to replace a false view of the world with a correct one...The task is to raise the spirit-soul into the realm of the spiritual, so that the human being is no longer a thinking and feeling automaton...The human being is...in danger of drifting into the Ahrimanic world, in which case the spirit-soul will evaporate into the cosmos.” (FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 115.)
Demonic Possession in Children
Dr. Steiner: “That little girl L.. in the first grade must have something very wrong inside. There is not much we can do. Such cases are increasing in which children are born with a human form, but are not really human beings in relation to their highest I [the highest element of one’s spiritual being]; instead, they are filled with beings that do not belong to the human class. Quite a number of people have been born since the [1890s] without an I, that is, they are not reincarnated, but are human forms filled with a sort of natural demon. There are quite a large number of older people going around who are actually not human beings, but only natural; they are human beings only in regard to their form. We cannot, however, create a school for demons.”
A teacher: “How is that possible?”
Dr. Steiner: “Cosmic error is certainly not impossible. The relationships of individuals coming into earthly existence have long been determined. There are also generations in which individuals have no desire to come into earthly existence and be connected with physicality, or immediately leave at the very beginning. In such cases, other beings that are not quite suited step in.... They are also quite different from human beings in regard to everything spiritual. They can, for example, never remember such things as sentences; they have a memory only for words, not for sentences....
“I do not like to talk about such things since we have often been attacked even without them. Imagine what people would say if they heard that we say there are people who are not human beings. Nevertheless, these are facts. Our culture would not be in such a decline if people felt more strongly that a number of people are going around who, because they are completely ruthless, have become something that is not human, but instead are demons in human form.
“Nevertheless, we do not want to shout that to the world. Our opposition is already large enough. Such things are really shocking to people. I caused enough shock when I needed to say that a very famous university professor, after a very short time between death and rebirth, was reincarnated as a black scientist. We do not want to shout such things out into the world.” (Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, Anthroposophical Press, 1998, pp. 649-650.)
"Demons are born through man's immoral conduct. Let us look at the difference between the demons that arise through immoral behaviour and the spiritual entities - spiritual in so far as they only achieve a watery existence on Earth - the spiritual forms that are created by moral actions." ...
"The demons created out of immoral actions also have an astral body, an ether body and a physical body, at the watery level of course, but they do not have the basis for developing an ego. They are born headless, as it were. They do not take up the basis for regular evolution to Jupiter existence but reject it. By doing so they condemn themselves to a fate of dropping out of evolution and adding to the hordes of Luciferic beings, falling into their power. Unable to progress in a regular way they become parasites. This is what happens to all the spirits who reject normal evolution; they have to attach themselves to others in order to progress. Spirits who arise through immoral actions have a particular tendency to be parasites in human evolution on Earth under Lucifer's leadership, and to seize hold of the evolution of human beings before these make their physical entry into the world. They attack human beings during the embryonic stage and share their existence between conception and birth. Some of these spirits, if they are strong enough, can continue to accompany the human being after birth, creating the phenomena seen in children who are possessed.
"The criminal demons attached as parasite to unborn children cause deterioration in the succession of the generations; this eats into human beings, making them less good than they would be if these demons did not exist. There are various reasons for the decline of families, tribes, people and nations, but one of them is the existence of these criminal demon parasites during the period mentioned.
"These things play an important part in Earth evolution as a whole, and we are here touching on deep secrets of human existence. People often acquire certain prejudices and points of view even before they are born because of this. They are then tormented by doubts and uncertainties in life, and all kinds of other things, because of these demonic parasites.
"These spirits cannot do very much once human beings develop their ego, but they prey on them all the more before they are born or in their earliest years." (from "Future Jupiter Existence" (Dornach, 3 January 1915), reprinted in Angels: Selected Lectures by Rudolf Steiner; London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1996 reprinted 1998). (pp 167-168))
“Whoever could be misled by the preceding expositions into believing that the described evolution bears a fatalistic stamp, would have misunderstood them. Whoever were to believe that in such an evolution a certain number of men would be condemned to belong to the kingdom of “evil humanity,” fails to perceive how the mutual relationship between outer world and the world of soul and spirit takes shape in this evolution. Both outer world and the world of soul and spirit form, within certain limits, separate evolutionary streams. Through the forces inherent in the sensory stream there arise the forms of the “evil human kingdom.” The necessity for a human soul to incarnate in such a form will only occur if this soul itself has created the conditions for it. The case might also arise that the forms originating from the forces of the sensory could not find human souls originating in the previous age, for these souls might be too good for that type of body. These forms would then have to be ensouled from the cosmos by something quite different from former human souls. Human souls will incarnate in the forms characterized only when they have made themselves ready for such an incarnation. Supersensible cognition is bound to state what it perceives concerning this sphere, namely, that in the future indicated there will exist two human kingdoms, one good and one evil, but it does not abstractly deduce from the present state of human souls a future state appearing as though with the force of self-evident necessity. Evolution of human forms and evolution of soul-destinies must be sought by supersensible cognition on two quite separate paths; any attempt to mix the two in the conception of the world would be a remnant of a materialistic attitude that, if present, would project itself dangerously into the science of the supersensible.”
Science in Waldorf
“With the students, we should at least try to...make it clear that, for instance, an island like Great Britain swims in the sea and is held fast by the forces of the stars. In actuality, such islands do not sit directly upon a foundation; they swim and are held fast from outside.” (FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 607.)
“It is not that the planets move around the Sun, but these three, Mercury, Venus, and the Earth, follow the Sun, and these three, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, precede it.” (FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER., pp. 30-31.)
Teaching Reincarnation to Waldorf Students
“For the seventh, eighth, and ninth grade independent religious instruction we could move into a freer form and give a theoretical explanation about such things as life before birth and after death. We could give them examples. We could show them how to look at the major cultural connections and about the mission of the human being on Earth. You need only look at Goethe and Jean Paul [i.e., Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, a German author] to see it. You can show everywhere that their capacities come from a life before birth.” (FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 184.)
Physical Assessment of Student
"And now, if you will begin to observe the child for yourselves -- [to the boy]
Come here a minute! -- you will find many things to notice. Let me draw your
attention, first of all, to the strongly developed lower half of the face. Look
at the shape of the nose and the mouth. The mouth is always a little open, which
has an effect on dental development. It is important to note these things, for
they are unquestionably bound up with the whole soul-and-spirit constitution of
the child... The formation you see here in the jaws -- the jaws belong, of
course, to the limb system -- is wholly part of the head system ... (Look, he's
amused! I think Fraulein B. was asking him why he keeps his mouth open, and his
reply was: 'To let the flies come in.' This is a firmly fixed opinion of his.)
"... Here (in the front) as we remarked, the head is pressed together. In all
probability this points back to a purely mechanical injury, either at birth or
during pregnancy, a mechanical injury in which we can see nothing else than a
working of karma ...
"[T]he whole breathing system ... is very little under control ... Hence the
symptom that is so conspicuous in a child of this kind ... What ought to happen
is that gradually, in the course of life, the whole system of movement in man
should become a servant of the intellectual system. [To the boy] Stand still a
minute! And now come here to me and do this! (Dr. Steiner makes a movement with
his arm as if to take hold of something; the boy does not make the movement.)
Never mind! We mustn't force him. Do you see? It is difficult for him to do
anything; he has not the power to exercise the right control over his
metabolism-and-limbs system...." [Rudolf Steiner, EDUCATION FOR SPECIAL NEEDS
(Rudolf Steiner Press, 1998), pp. 106-110.]
