The Rudolf Steiner Archive

85. The Education of the Child from the Perspective of Spiritual Science: How Do We Understand Illness and Death?

[ 1 ] On the 8th of this month, Dr. Rudolf Steiner gave a lecture on “The Education of the Child from the Perspective of Spiritual Research.” The speaker took the following position: Until the child’s teeth begin to fall out, the educator can influence the child only through the child’s physical body—that is, through sensory impressions: The educator teaches by example; the child learns through imitation. As for the child’s play, it must be structured in such a way as to stimulate the creative imagination. In the second period, the focus must be on the etheric body—the carrier of memory, habits, and temperament. Here, natural authority and the ideal that inspires emulation have an educational effect; this is also the time when the memory should be presented with a wealth of material, preferably in pictorial form. Stimulating the power of judgment, which is connected to the astral body, is the educator’s task only after sexual maturity. Judgment should be shaped according to the truth; it is important to keep restrictive prejudices at bay. – On the 10th of this month, the same speaker then spoke on the topic: “How Does One Understand Illness and Death?” The speaker again pointed to what he regarded as the multi-faceted nature of the human being. What Paracelsus called the correspondence between the microcosm and the macrocosm consists in the fact that for every physical part of the human being there exists a correlate in external nature, which is grounded in the conditions of their respective origins. Through the intake of food, etc., the corresponding organs are thus constantly influenced. Originally, everything a person ingests contains the seed of disease; however, by assimilating a wide variety of substances, humans have made themselves immune to it; they will also become immune to what is still poisonous to them today.