Rudolf Steiner Audio CW 200 The New Spirituality and the Experience of Christ: Lecture 7: The future spiritual battle between the East and the West. (31 October, 1920) [End of Book] by Rudolf Steiner
Oct 8, 2021
A provocative forecast of a looming spiritual clash between East and West and its cultural consequences. A critique of scientific materialism and its failure to account for the human soul. Reflections on shifts in human inner life since the 15th century and the rise of nationalism as a spiritual denial. A call to cultivate inner capacities in preparation for a future cosmic and Christ-centered transformation.
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Modern Science Leaves Out The Human Being
- Modern scientific materialism excludes the human being and creates a void where self-understanding should be.
- Rudolf Steiner argues science treats humans as animals or mechanisms, leaving the human 'I' and spiritual nature unexplained.
Feeling Like A Product Of Heredity
- Contemporary people increasingly feel themselves as products of heredity rather than as beings formed by pre-earthly spiritual experience.
- Steiner links this shift to rising nationalism and a sense of worthlessness tied to seeing human nature as purely inherited blood traits.
Nationalism As Symptom Of Spiritual Denial
- Nationalism is the social expression of a materialistic worldview that denies the spirit and orders society by blood and inherited traits.
- Steiner sees postwar border-making and 'Wilsonian' rhetoric as symptomatic of this spiritual denial and social error.