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August 20, 1919
Greeting to Participants in the Pedagogic Course
The Waldorf School as a cultural deed. The Waldorf School as a
unified school. The necessity of making compromises. Schools and
politics. Bolshevik schools as the grave of teaching. A republican
administration of the school. The composition of the pedagogical
course: general pedagogy, methodology, practice. The Waldorf
school is not a parochial school. The relationship of Anthroposophy to
instruction. Religious instruction. Necessary characteristics of
teachers: interest in world events, enthusiasm, flexibility of spirit and
devotion to the task.
August 21, 1919
Life Before Birth and After Death; Details
of Incarnation
The moral-spiritual aspect of teaching. The
founding of the Waldorf School as a "Ceremony
in Cosmic Order". The question of immortality
as an example of the relationship of modern
culture to human egotism. Education as a
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continuation of "what higher beings have done
before birth." Concerning the problem of
"prenatal education." The connection of the two
doubled trinities upon entering Earthly
existence - Spirit Human, Life Spirit, Spirit Self
and Consciousness Soul, Comprehension Soul,
Sentient Soul - with the astral, ether and
physical bodies and the animal, plant and
mineral kingdoms ("temporal body"). The task
of the teacher is to harmonize the spirit soul
with the temporal body through 1) harmonizing
the breathing with the nerve-sense process; 2)
teaching the proper rhythm between waking
and sleeping. The importance of the inner
spiritual relationship between teacher and child.
August 22, 1919
Thinking and Will, Motor Nerves;
Sympathy and Antipathy
Psychology based upon Anthroposophical world
view as a foundation for teaching. Concerning
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the empty concepts of modern psychology. The
central meaning of thinking and willing. The
pictorial character of thinking: reflection of
prenatal experience. The will as a seed for
spirit-soul reality after death. The
transformation of prenatal reality into thoughts
through the power of antipathy; the increase of
this power to memory and concept. The
increase of the sympathetic power of willing to
imagination and living pictures. Blood and
nerves: the tendency of the nerves to become
material, the tendency of the blood to become
spiritual. The intertwining of sympathy and
antipathy in the brain, in the spinal cord and in
the sympathetic nervous system. The threefold
aspects of the human being: head, chest and
limbs. The interactions of these three aspects
and their relationship to the cosmos. The
development of willing and thinking through
pedagogy.
August 23, 1919
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Body, Soul and Spirit of Man; Non-
Conservation of Energy
A comprehensive view of cosmic laws as a basis
for being a teacher. The duality of the human
being as the greatest error of modern
psychology. The misleading law of The
Conservation of Energy; the formation of new
energy and matter in the human being.
Understanding what is dying in nature through
the intellect and what is becoming through the
will. How perceiving the I is based in the
physical body. Freedom and sense-free
thinking. Nature without the human being: the
danger of extinction. The function of the human
corpse for the development of the Earth. The
prevalence of death-bringing forces in the
(dead) bones and (dying) nerves and life-giving
forces in the blood and muscles. Rickets. The
relationship of geometry to the skeleton.
Geometry as a reflection of cosmic movements.
The human being is not an observer of the
world, but its "stage." The creation of new
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matter and forces through the touching of blood
and nerves. Concerning the scientific method:
postulates instead of universal definitions.
August 25, 1919
The Three Principles of Spirit, Soul and
Body
Feeling in relationship to willing. The nine
aspects of the human being as a willing being.
The expression of will as instinct in the physical
body, drive in the etheric body, desire in the
astral body; the absorption of will into the I as
motive in the soul; as wish in Spirit Self, intent
in Life Spirit and decision in Spirit Human.
Psychoanalysis seeks the unconscious willing of
the "second person" in us. Intellectualism as will
grown old and feeling as developing will.
Concerning socialist education. The formation of
feeling and will in education: cultivation of
feeling through unconscious repetition and
cultivation of the will and strengthening the
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power of decision through conscious repetition.
The importance of artistic activity in this
connection.
August 26, 1919
Soul Qualities
The convergence of the three activities of the
soul. The connection of cognitive and will
activities in the antipathetic and sympathetic
processes of seeing. The greater isolation of the
human being from the environment in contrast
to that of animals. The necessity of an
interpenetration of thinking and willing.
Isolation from the world in seeing and
connection with the world in doing. The struggle
against animalistic "sympathetic" instincts
through the integration of moral ideals. The
intertwining of soul activities exemplified by the
argument between Brentano and Sigwart about
the nature of human judgment. Feeling as
retained cognition and willing: the revelation of
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hidden sympathy and antipathy in willing and
thinking. The rise of feeling in the body through
the touching of blood and nerves exemplified by
the eyes and ears. The argument between
Wagner and Hanslick concerning feeling and
cognition in musical hearing. The erroneous
position of modern psychology exemplified by
sense theory. Errors in Kantianism.
August 27, 1919
Soul and Ego
An overview of the lecture cycle. Until now,
consideration of the human being from the
point of view of the soul and the body and now
from the point of view of the spirit: levels of
consciousness. Thinking cognition is fully
conscious and awake, feeling is half-conscious
and dreaming, willing is unconscious and
sleeping. Working with dreamy and numb
children. The completely wakeful life of the I is
possible only in pictures of the world, not in the
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real world. The life of the I in activities of the
soul: pictorial and awake in thinking cognition,
dreaming and unconsciously inspired in feeling,
sleeping and unconsciously intuitive in willing.
Nightmares. The rise of intuition exemplified by
Goethes creation of Faust, Part 2. The close
connection of intuitive willing with pictorial
cognition contrasted to inspired feeling. The
existence of the head separate from sleeping
willing.
August 28, 1919
Soul and Spirit
The human being from a spiritual standpoint:
observations of consciousness levels.
Concerning comprehension. The loss of the
capacity of the body to absorb the spiritual with
increasing age. From the child's feeling will to
the elderly person's feeling thinking.
Observation of what is purely soul in adults.
Freedom. The task of education is to separate
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feeling from willing. The nature of sensation:
the misleading view of modern psychology and
Moriz Benedikt's correct observations. The
sleepy-dreamy nature of the body's surface as
the realm of sensing: the willing-feeling nature
of sense perception. The difference of
sensations in children and elderly people.
Waking, dreaming and sleeping in human
spatiality: a sleeping-dreaming surface and
inner core and the wakeful nervous system
lying between. The nerves in relationship to the
spirit-soul: the formation of voids for the nerves
through continual dying. Sleeping and waking in
connection with human temporality: forgetting
and remembering.
August 29, 1919
Sleep and Ego; Remembering and
Forgetting
Comparison of the processes of forgetting and
remembering with those of falling asleep and
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awakening as exemplified disturbances in sleep.
The process of remembering. Training the
power to remember and the will through the
effects of repetition. Strengthening memory
through awakening intense interest.
Comprehending human nature through division
into components on the one side and the
integration of components on the other. The
twelve senses. Concerning the sense of I and
the difference between the perception of
another I (cognitive process) and the perception
of one's own I (will process). The sense of
thought. The division of the twelve senses into
will oriented senses (touch, life, movement and
balance), feeling oriented senses (smell, taste,
sight and temperature) and cognitive senses (I,
thought, hearing and speech). The division of
the world by the twelve senses and their
reintegration through judgment.
Comprehension of the spirit through levels of
consciousness (waking, sleeping, dreaming), of
the soul through states of life (sympathy,
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antipathy) and of the body through forms
(sphere, crescent moon and lines).
August 30, 1919
Seven-Year Periods in the Child's Life
The first three seven-year periods of life. The three aspects of
logical thinking: conclusion, judgment, concept. Healthy
conclusions live only in completely awake aspects of life. The
descent of judgment into the dreaming soul and concepts into the
sleeping soul. Development of the habits of the soul through the
type of judging. The effects of concepts which have descended into
the sleeping soul upon the formation of the body, in particular the
uniform common physiognomies. The necessity of living concepts:
characterizations instead of definitions. Flexible and fixed
concepts. The structure of a human idea. The child's unconscious
basic tenor: 1) In the first seven years "the world is moral," and
therefore to be imitated; the impulse of the prenatal past. 2) In the
second seven-year period, "the world is beautiful"; life in art,
enjoyment of the present. 3) In the third seven-year period "the
world is true"; systematic instruction and an impulse toward the
future.
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September 1, 1919
Planets and Parts of the Body
The spherical form as a foundation of the three
bodily aspects: 1) head (only physical),
spherical form completely visible; 2) chest
(physical and soul), only visible as a crescent
shaped spherical fragment; 3) limbs (physical,
soul, spiritual), only visible as radii. The head as
an expression of intellect and the limbs as an
expression of will; the tubular and bowl-like
bones in this connection. The skull as a
transformed vertebra. The tubular bones as
transformed head bones. The centers of the
head, chest and limb spheres. Head and limbs
in connection with cosmic movement. The
imitation of cosmic movement in dancing and
its translation into music. The origin of sense
perceptions and their connection with sculpture
and music. Body, soul and spirit in connection
with the head, chest and limb spheres. The
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Council of 869: the Catholic Church as the
source of scientific materialism. The
development of the head from the animal
world. The importance that the teacher have a
feeling of the connection of human beings with
the cosmos. Pedagogy as an art.
September 2, 1919
Relation of Head to Body, Soul and Spirit
Human physical nature in relationship to the
world of the soul and the spirit: head -
developed body, dreaming soul and sleeping
spirit; chest - wakefulness in the body-soul,
dreaming of the spirit; limbs - wakefulness in
the still unformed body, soul and spirit. From
this perspective the task of the teacher is to
develop the limbs and partially the chest and to
awaken the head. The educational effect of
language in the early stages of childhood and of
the mother's milk in the first part of childhood:
awakening of the sleeping human spirit.
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Awakening the intellect through artistic
involvement of the will during elementary
school. The influence of education upon the
child's growth forces: accelerating growth
through too much emphasis upon memory and
inhibiting growth through too much emphasis
on imagination. The necessity that the teacher
observe the bodily development of the child
over a period of years and the senselessness of
the commonly practiced frequent changes in
teachers. Children who tend toward memory or
imagination.
September 3, 1919
Relation of the Human Organs to the Outer
World
The inner connections between the physical
body and the environment. The physical
structure of the human being: the continual
overcoming by the torso and limbs of
animalistic forms emanating from the head;
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thoughts as their supersensible correlation. The
relationship of the torso to the plant kingdom.
The opposing processes of human breathing
and plant assimilation. The development of
plantlike tendencies in human beings as a
cause of illness. The plant kingdom as a picture
of all illnesses. Human nutrition as the central
portion of the combustion processes occurring
in plants. Breathing as an anti-plant process.
The relationship of breathing and nutrition to
the physical body and the soul. The future task
of medicine and healthcare. Modern medicine's
search for bacteria. The relationship of the
limbs to the mineral kingdom. The continual
dissolving of minerals by the limbs. Illnesses
such as diabetes or gout as a beginning of the
crystallization process in the body. The I lives in
forces. The task of the human physical body:
dissolving what is mineral-like, reversing what is
plantlike, spiritualizing what is animal-like.
September 4, 1919
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Head and Limbs, Soul and Spirit
The form of the human head aspect (from
within outward) compared to the form of the
human limb aspect (from outside inward). The
human being as a "dam" for the spirit-soul. The
absorptive tendency of the spirit-soul process.
The creation of superfluous matter (formation of
fat) by the chest-digestive system; how this
matter is consumed by the spirit-soul working
through the limbs. The pooling of the spirit-soul
in the head and its coursing along the nerve
paths. The opacity of living organic matter to
the spirit and the transparency of the physically
dead skeletal and nervous system to the spirit.
The overabundance of spiritual activity in
physical work and of bodily activity in mental
work. Purposeful and senseless activity and its
effects upon sleep; calisthenics and eurythmy in
this context. Extreme sports as "practical
Darwinism." Insomnia as a result of too much
spirit-soul activity and drowsiness as a result of
too much physical work. The senselessness of
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cramming for exams. Healthy and unhealthy
kinds of thinking activity. Importance of
spiritualizing external work for teaching and
social life and importance of bringing blood to
inner work for teaching and health.
September 5, 1919
The Head in Relation to the Whole Body
The three aspects of the physical body. The
three aspects of the head: the head, the chest
(the nose as metamorphosed lung) and the
limbs (jaws); the limbs as metamorphosed jaw.
The chest-torso between the head and the
limbs: the tendency of the upper chest aspect
toward the head aspect (larynx and speech)
and the lower chest aspect toward a coarsened
limb formation (sexuality). Appealing to
imagination through teaching material in the
last elementary school years. Example of the
Pythagorean theorem. The conditions of the
teacher: permeate the teaching material with
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feeling will and maintain a lively imagination.
Pedantry is immoral. Nineteenth century views
concerning the use of imagination in teaching;
Schelling. The teacher's motto: Imagination,
Sense of Truth, Feeling of Responsibility.
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