In Honor of Fathers
Father's Day in the United States is often combined with outdoor activities, sports, and favorite foods and drinks. One might consider the fact that children are drawn to their parents before they are born into this world. In a lecture given on 29 May 1907, Munich, Rudolf Steiner discusses birth into the physical world and the role of the father in that regard.
We have heard that in accordance with his qualities, the human being clothes himself with an astral body. Through what is contained in this astral body he is attracted to certain human beings on the earth; through the etheric body, he is drawn to the folk and to the family in the wider sense, into which he is to be reborn. According to the way and manner in which he has developed his astral body, he is drawn to the mother; the essence, the substance, the organisation of the astral body draws him to the mother. The ego draws him to the father. The ego was present even in ages of remote antiquity, when the soul descended for the first time from the bosom of the Godhead into an earthly body. This ego has developed through many incarnations; the ego, the “I,” of one human being is distinct from the ego of another and at the present stage of evolution gives rise to the force of attraction to the father. The etheric body attracts the human being to the folk, to the family; the astral body attracts him particularly to the mother; the “I” to the father. The whole descent to the new incarnation is guided in accordance with these principles.
Read more: Rudolf Steiner, Theosophy of the Rosicrucian, Lecture 5, GA 99, 29 May 1907, Munich