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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