0:27 what do you think asin's key insights in
0:30 terms of not just the understanding of
0:33 the child but of of the human being all
0:37 together I think he's given us given us
0:39 a foundation for penetrating the
0:43 connection of mind and body of psyche
0:48 and Soma of Consciousness and substance
0:52 in the sense of of you know metabolic
0:56 substances he he was schiner was a
0:58 monest he didn't split the world into
1:00 into two parts and say one part is
1:03 mental and another part is physical one
1:06 part is conscious and another part is
1:10 material for schiner matter and spirit
1:12 worked together and if there was if
1:15 there was any anything going on in in
1:17 the realm of cognition in the human
1:21 being at any rate is connected with a
1:24 metabolic process now that doesn't mean
1:28 that you can reduce Consciousness to the
1:30 materialistic picture of substance that
1:35 we have but um neither does it mean that
1:36 Consciousness is something that's
1:38 floating around
1:40 somewhere neither does it mean that
1:43 Consciousness is produced by the brain
1:45 in the way that say red blood cells are
1:48 produced by the bone marrow but all
1:50 these images that we struggle to with
1:52 which we struggle to understand
1:56 Consciousness end up being dualistic and
2:00 schiner insisted on on a on seeing the
2:03 same thing from two points of view and
2:05 his approach to medicine as well as
2:08 child development really bears that out
2:10 and G and enables us
2:15 to to see an awful lot of um things that
2:17 are going on
2:19 psychologically in terms of their physiological
2:21 physiological
2:23 correlates and movement I suppose is an
2:26 example of that it's a movement the way
2:28 we move is a bridge between the
2:30 metabolic processes that underly
2:32 movement and the gesture the
2:36 Consciousness the the drives the
2:38 awareness that that movement clearly
2:41 embodies you know is move does movement
2:44 come from from from Consciousness or
2:46 does Consciousness come through movement
2:48 it's neither the one nor the
2:53 other yeah what then is one to make
2:57 ofer's utterances about life after death
2:59 when we clearly don't have a physical body
3:00 body
3:02 I think for schiner the the life after
3:10 else I think I think it it was
3:13 acknowledging A continuing presence
3:16 within the same world that we are
3:19 otherwise living in but but at a
3:21 different level of
3:25 being um you know the the organs of the
3:28 Body for instance the liver the kidney
3:35 I don't see these organs
3:39 as merely instruments of physiological
3:43 function but I see them as as the homes
3:48 of Spiritual Beings of of living of
3:51 Living spirit and soul
3:55 beings we don't see them in the
3:58 ordinarily understood sense so I don't
4:00 see the spiritual world as something out
4:03 there but in the mysteries of the heart
4:05 which have never been better understood
4:07 than now for instance equally well of
4:10 the kidney and the liver but the heart
4:13 is perhaps a special organ in this
4:15 respect you know in in the mysteries of
4:17 how the heart functions of of the
4:20 coherence of the heart the fact that the
4:23 heart is now fully recognized as the
4:27 most sensitive sense organ in the body
4:29 not it's certainly not a crude pump
4:33 pumping the blood round it it it it
4:34 plays a unique role within the
4:38 circulatory system as a as an
4:43 enhancer of movement and and as an organ
4:47 of of coherence I would say but equally
4:50 well we can begin to be aware that the
4:53 heart is also an organ of our
4:56 Consciousness cardiac neurology card
4:58 neurology is is a subject in its own
5:00 right there a lot of work being done on
5:02 that in in America in the heart math
5:05 Institute for instance which is quite
5:08 remarkable how much is is Steiner's work
5:11 known about and respected in the medical
5:13 world generally I think I would have to
5:15 say nothing like as much as I would have
5:18 hoped or that I feel it
5:20 deserves on the other hand what I would
5:23 say is that
5:24 that
5:27 science not just the neurosciences but
5:29 science as a whole
5:32 with its increased sophistication
5:34 possibilities of you know highly complex
5:37 brain scans perfusion studies all the
5:40 manner of things that that nowadays are
5:44 possible is bringing forward
5:46 forward
5:49 evidence that those of us who have lived
5:51 and worked for many years with schiner
5:55 see as confirmation of what schiner has
5:59 said I I somehow feel it's it's up to us
6:02 to be able able to um often
6:05 interpret what is arising nowadays
6:08 through scientific research and and and
6:11 perhaps you know not not to be too
6:13 concerned whether whether people
6:16 recognized that schiner had anticipated
6:19 it in one way or another of
6:23 course in shiner's time science well
6:25 biological sciences were very primitive
6:27 I don't even know if there was a real
6:30 Concept in his day of the immune system
6:32 and and therefore he couldn't or even
6:35 the endocrine system so he couldn't
6:38 speak in in s in language that would
6:42 nowadays be regarded as scientific but
6:45 he was able to see into a field so for
6:49 instance he said that an endocrine land
6:51 what is that an endocrine land a
6:53 secretor land like the thyroid or the
6:55 adrenal gland is a kind of an extension
6:58 of the brain into the metabolism well
7:00 that's an imaginative picture what do
7:02 you make of it but when you appreciate
7:04 now that the brain is a a neuros
7:07 secretory organ and that there is a
7:08 connection between
7:11 neurotransmitters and hormones and that
7:14 the hormones secreted in the body also
7:16 have an influence back on on
7:18 neurological development so there's a
7:21 kind of conversation going on between
7:24 between metabolic processes through the
7:27 glands and the Brain you can immediately
7:29 see what it was that schiner was was getting
7:30 getting
7:35 at um but in a in a way there's no point
7:36 in then saying well Shiner should have
7:38 got a Nobel Prize for it but
7:42 nevertheless in many areas some of his
7:44 insights medically as well as
7:46 scientifically were clearly way ahead of
7:48 their time you know I could one could
7:52 give examples of that he mentioned he
7:55 mentioned lead poisoning for instance he
7:58 mentioned the relationship of of
8:00 fluoride to the teeth
8:03 um there were many many many connections
8:06 that he made which have since been been
8:09 substantiated but I think that that it's
8:13 our job to be able to use what he said
8:16 to make more of current
8:19 science do you feel that the word
8:24 spiritual is confusing even misleading
8:27 for people today it varies enormously I
8:30 think in many ways it's much less
8:33 confusing than it was when I started my
8:38 career 30 odd years ago um I think many
8:40 I think many people appreciate that by
8:42 Spirit one doesn't mean something
8:44 floating around supernaturally but one
8:46 is referring to the creative core of a
8:50 of a person the self in Psychology for
8:52 instance in psychospiritual or even
8:55 transpersonal psychology the terms self
8:58 and spirit are often used almost interchangeably
9:00 interchangeably
9:02 because the character and the nature of
9:04 self I think is is increasingly
9:08 recognized as having something quite um
9:10 unique and separate from the the its
9:13 biological basis of course in saying
9:15 that I'm in a way falling prey to my own
9:17 dualism but it's difficult to get around
9:28 so I don't I don't personally feel
9:30 constrained by the use of the word
9:34 Spirit In My Own in my own work I I find
9:35 that people
9:40 generally um know exactly what one
9:43 means of course you can't use the word
9:46 in in in a scientifically in a scientific
9:47 scientific
9:50 environment you have you have to find
9:53 other ways but that's not not always so
9:54 difficult I think what's more
9:57 problematic with schiner shiner's
9:59 vocabulary is that he did adop
10:02 words that that were originally derived
10:05 from a kind of Eastern theosophical
10:09 context so much of his medical writings
10:12 and not only also the educational do use
10:16 terms like astral body and etheric body
10:19 which which were the terms that he had
10:21 out of the necessity of his own
10:23 biography inherited and they were the
10:26 terms that people were familiar with who
10:29 were asking him the key questions and he
10:31 said for instance in his lectures to
10:33 Young doctors I wish we could reinvent
10:36 our vocabulary here but we can't so I
10:38 just you just have to appreciate what I
10:40 mean by what I
10:44 say what what is his picture of the
10:46 human being I mean in in language that
10:50 we could relate to now people talk about
10:51 Body Soul and
10:53 Spirit but
10:56 he's little more scientific than that in
10:58 a sense isn't he I'm sure he was the
11:01 first person to to speak about Body Soul
11:04 and Spirit in in a holistic way but he
11:07 also spoke about how how we are
11:10 supported by our by the physical
11:13 substance how we have a functional body
11:15 what would nowadays perhaps be called an ecological
11:16 ecological
11:21 body uh in which the the life is held
11:24 and a a body of Consciousness a body of sentient
11:26 sentient
11:28 awareness which we share with the
11:32 animals and then this unique capacity to
11:35 self-reflect to um
11:39 observe the very process the very
11:43 activity that is going on within oneself
11:45 at any given moment we can
11:48 disidentify from
11:53 our body feelings mind and who is doing the
11:58 disidentification that's the self and
12:01 that would be the the gateway to the
12:03 spirit and the bridge between spirit and
12:06 body and schiner also
12:12 um connected the these different
12:14 functional systems which interrelate
12:16 they're not they're not separate but
12:19 they they're only separate as far as our
12:21 thinking is concerned he he he related
12:24 them to the classical elements as
12:27 described in ancient Greece and pre in
12:29 other in other earlier cultures so the
12:32 the the actual mineral world the fluid
12:36 world the air reform the air the gasius
12:40 and the Fire or the warmth um schiner
12:43 reinstated not as mere descriptions of
12:47 states of matter but
12:51 as conditions through which
12:54 different systems in the human being
12:58 were able to connect to the physical so consciousness
12:59 consciousness
13:03 is very much sentience Consciousness
13:07 reactivity sense perception is very much
13:09 held within within the the gasius
13:12 element the air element and the the life
13:15 processes very much within the fluid body
13:17 body
13:20 um and and of course one can translate
13:24 this nowadays into uh into chemistry
13:26 because of course we know just how
13:28 important the dissolved gases are in the
13:30 body in relation to our
13:33 Consciousness oxygen carbon dioxide and
13:37 indeed also nitrogen you know our our
13:40 our soul life our Consciousness life is
13:43 intimately related with particularly the
13:45 gaseous elements within
13:49 us you see that for instance in in the way
13:51 way
13:55 that stress is handled in the body
13:59 nitrogenous products nitrous oxide
14:01 are involved in the maintenance of blood
14:03 pressure the whole connection of
14:06 something like blood high blood pressure
14:10 I mean hypertension with stress which is a
14:11 a
14:14 psychophysiological inter relationship
14:16 which I think everyone now recognizes
14:20 and which has so much to do with the
14:21 with the
14:23 kidney these connections schiner
14:26 appointed to long before the the
14:28 detailed physiology of the kidney in
14:29 relation to
14:33 rein Angiotensin nitrogen metabolism
14:35 carbonate secretion all these things
14:37 were were were were
14:40 known he he also you know he made
14:44 statements such as the much that goes by
14:46 the by way of heart disease today and
14:50 enlarged Hearts should be seen in terms
14:53 of kidney pathology well people would
14:54 stare at that at the time and not know
14:58 what he meant nowadays the relationship
15:00 between the the two is well established
15:03 and much of heart pathology is treated
15:04 via the
15:08 kidney I think what what this points to
15:10 is that is that Steiner's
15:15 insights were looking for physiological
15:18 verification he wanted this he always
15:21 said the spiritual researcher can show the
15:22 the
15:26 direction but the scientific researcher
15:30 has to corroborate this show that it
15:34 that it that it holds together and from
15:36 a certain point of view schiner was born
15:38 much too early because the science of
15:41 his day the instrumenty the the
15:43 investigations simply couldn't do what
15:47 he was needing on any level nowadays he
15:49 would have been
15:52 um working with the scientific
15:55 researchers in a much more active way
15:57 than was possible in in his time therefore
16:04 inevitably I think a split arose between
16:06 the the the general approach of the
16:10 anthroposophical doctor and the approach
16:13 that conventional medicine took and I
16:16 think that nowadays we're all really
16:20 working at at Cross referencing here we
16:23 we don't want there to be such a thing
16:25 as anthroposophical
16:30 medicine we want there to be medicine
16:33 but a great deal that schiner has said
16:36 and addressed can take hold of and and
16:40 make much more sense of medicine as it
16:44 is so yes we have to
16:47 maintain something of our own identity
16:49 because it's not possible for the two
16:52 streams to flow together instantaneously
16:54 but the direction we're working is one of
16:55 of
16:57 integration and certainly in the
16:59 practice of Medicine
17:01 nowadays there is no way that an
17:04 anthroposophical doctor can can isolate
17:07 himself from what's going on out there
17:08 in the
17:11 mainstream it's
17:14 impossible James what about um the
17:17 nature nurture debate I mean
17:21 that's kind of cliche almost that the
17:23 that these two
17:25 factors explain as it were where we are
17:28 now what what what is where does time is
17:32 in insights come in in that sense I mean
17:35 nature would nowadays be we would see
17:38 very much in terms of genetics I think
17:41 and nurture
17:49 environment I think one of the most
17:52 Illuminating fields of modern research
17:54 is is some
17:56 epigenetics which is epigenetic
18:00 regulation for instance it's
18:02 studying the relationship between the
18:04 effect of sense
18:07 perception and
18:11 via VIA the nervous system obviously how
18:17 influence which genes become active the
18:19 whole balance between the stimulator and
18:21 the inhibitor genes during the
18:23 developmental period of life you see
18:26 schiner made an outrageous statement in
18:29 this field which which we've been um
18:32 staring at for a long time um with I
18:36 think on the one hand realizing yes what
18:38 he's saying is is right in principle but
18:40 how on Earth can we justify it
18:44 scientifically the statement was that by
18:46 the time a child is seven he's overcome
18:49 the forces of in of his inheritance he
18:51 has he is a genetically different
18:55 individual from the person that was born
18:59 well of course DNA testing um doesn't
19:02 exactly confirm that fact however what
19:06 we are now aware of is the extent to
19:10 which our genetic inheritance is not
19:13 determining how that will necessarily
19:15 manifest in our life it will depend upon
19:19 how it is regulated particularly in the
19:22 early years of childhood and that's epigenetic
19:24 epigenetic regulation
19:26 regulation
19:28 and there is a particular window of
19:30 opport opportunity for this particularly
19:31 in the in the first three years but I
19:34 think it extends a little longer and it
19:37 also works between Generations
19:44 so how a child deals with the
19:46 environment now and what what comes
19:49 towards a child may not necessarily have
19:53 an immediate effect on the on on the
19:56 genetic expression of that child but may
20:04 so back to your question of Nature and
20:07 nurture they work
20:10 together the given the the the genetic
20:13 material that is given
20:16 is far more
20:20 malleable than our um traditional
20:23 science of genetics would have thought
20:26 in the past far more open and malleable
20:29 to sense perception and of course this
20:32 this emphasizes just how important early
20:34 the early years of childhood are in
20:38 terms of establishing um genetic
20:39 Pathways and in in terms of
20:42 salutogenesis in terms of health
20:45 promotion but in in in simpler terms am
20:48 I right in thinking then that we are not
20:53 totally determined uh by our genetic
20:56 inheritance on the one hand and the the
20:58 sort of environment in which we grow up
21:02 on the other other that there is another
21:06 factor which what exists already before
21:09 we're born I mean that's the implication
21:11 is yes that that's very much the
21:14 implication that what that what we meet
21:17 in our environment is not actually
21:20 arbitrary no more than what we meet in
21:21 our body is
21:24 arbitrary and the two are not as
21:27 disconnected as our dualistic
21:29 Consciousness might imagine
21:31 there is there is perhaps even a lock
21:34 and key relationship so how does one
21:36 understand that one can imagine a kind
21:40 of a kind of unifying system if you like
21:44 at a higher level that is linking and
21:53 body but okay and and I mean to to to
21:56 put it in to put it in dualistic
21:59 language the human the human self the
22:04 human Spirit pre-exists birth
22:07 and exists after
22:12 death the spirit is at work before birth
22:15 both in the building up of the body and
22:17 in the building up of the
22:20 environment both this is this is if you
22:23 like the story that schiner is offering
22:27 us perhaps it's a
22:29 parable we can't can't take it too
22:31 literally because the language in which
22:34 it's expressed is is Earthly language
22:36 and it's talking about something that
22:40 transcends the Earth but I think the the
22:43 essence of it is that we are not simply
22:46 arbitrarily placed here on this planet
22:49 the victim of our genetic makeup or for
22:51 that matter the victim of our
22:53 environment but
22:58 that there is there is a part of us
23:01 which is the architect of both and that
23:04 is the part that awakens in our
23:07 Consciousness as self we may not be
23:10 aware of it but an increasing number of
23:13 people nowadays often are you know
23:16 people do have not only near-death
23:19 experiences but experiences of of of
23:22 birth and pre-birth memories this is
23:24 well well known and well
23:27 established also you know all the work
23:29 that Yung did
23:31 around the theme of
23:34 coincidence you know the outer event
23:35 matching the inner
23:40 process this is confirmation of the fact
23:43 that we don't we don't simply live in a
23:45 cause and effect relationship to the
23:48 outside world but a an ecological one
23:51 that there is in fact a a
23:54 coherence between the two now we can
23:57 call that coherence the third factor
23:59 that transcends the nature and the
24:02 nurture but but works through
24:06 both I think that would be that would be
24:09 one attempt to to describe something
24:12 that is in in its Essence um
24:14 transcendental and
24:16 transpersonal I think Barfield would
24:19 have called it no etic I think and it's
24:21 this what you call third element then
24:25 that in a wall of school they are also
24:28 as it were addressing and and nurturing
24:31 with that be right if you hold an
24:34 awareness of this third element in terms
24:36 of an attitude in terms of a of an
24:40 approach to the child I think that that
24:44 your your possibility of of empathy
24:47 increases and I think that your your
24:50 capacity to be there to serve the
24:54 individual nature of each child is is
24:56 enhanced I I think it it it helps to
24:59 build faculty
25:03 rather than holding uh you know I mean
25:05 was it Aristotle who said education has
25:07 more to do with lighting fires than
25:10 filling buckets you know well if you're
25:12 talking about lighting a fire what are
25:18 you talking about fire warmth Spirit
25:21 self and the spirit in the child needs
25:24 to be seen the spirit needs to be heard seen
25:25 seen
25:29 recognized a child's neurology
25:30 neurology
25:34 mirrors being seen the the act of being
25:39 seen is vital for the inner stimulation
25:40 of the
25:43 child's bioc
25:46 pychology even even to the extent that
25:48 that there are neurons nowadays
25:52 identified called mirror neurons and I
25:54 think they have something to do with
25:56 their activity I think has something to
25:59 do with with autis or the autistic
26:01 Spectrum but in a sense all of us not
26:05 just children are hugely influenced by
26:07 how other people perceive
26:09 us I think we're not just seeing
26:14 outwardly but a sense of what we are or
26:16 might become
26:19 yes and and this is vital in ter in
26:22 terms in terms of an approach to
26:25 education because if you concentrate
26:29 solely on weable and measurable
26:31 outcomes then you already have a mold
26:38 fulfill you can hold that as part of
26:40 your your picture but there is another
26:43 half there is another part
26:46 there what's seeking to emerge what's
26:50 seeking to unfold because a human being
26:52 doesn't just replicate a species in the
26:55 way that an animal does a human being
26:57 has this unique capacity to unfold
26:59 something new and creative that will
27:02 make a difference in the world
27:06 fundamentally but that depends upon the
27:08 human being knowing that they
27:11 are valued that they are
27:18 important so a child centered education
27:25 vital that's very well
27:28 expressed should we tackle re Carnation
27:36 means I mean how does that play into
27:48 doctor well I certainly don't claim to
27:50 be able to
27:58 trace illness or happenings in this life
28:00 to former lives and neither do I see
28:03 that as my my task for yourself or for
28:07 your patient or both for both generally speaking
28:09 speaking
28:12 but the the way that you the way that you
28:14 you
28:18 carry if you see if you see a human life
28:22 as a segment of a much bigger
28:25 process then it enables you to
28:27 appreciate that the mission or the
28:30 Destiny or or the the the motivation
28:34 that lives in a child is
28:37 probably an activity of will that is
28:39 carried over from a former life that
28:42 there is something there of a mission
28:44 that was perhaps in a former life only
28:47 able to come to a very provisional um
28:51 fruition or expression and is now being
28:54 um given an opportunity to go
28:57 further and I I certainly hold the
28:59 picture that that
29:07 um we take
29:11 stock of what it is that we're here
29:13 for and that
29:16 we we then at the end of our life as is
29:18 indeed often described in you know
29:21 people who've had near-death experiences
29:23 meet the question what have you done
29:25 with your
29:28 life now no human life can never fulfill
29:32 its entire potential it can only be a
29:36 fragment a part and for me I find the
29:39 the idea that that is one fragment among
29:44 many very helpful but of course it's not
29:48 the it's not the the personality that
29:51 reincarnates it it's that invisible
29:54 intell that we're calling self that is
29:55 able to self-
29:58 observe it is it is a part of the
30:00 universal self it's a part of the universal
30:02 universal
30:05 spirit and I think that through
30:07 reincarnation and
30:10 Karma the spirit is evolving through human
30:17 beings you know a remarkable statement
30:20 schiner once made is that human beings
30:23 are the religion of the
30:26 Gods another way of putting that is is
30:32 the spirit that through the spirit in
30:34 the human being the spirit in the
30:36 universe is also evolving and that in
30:39 the course of evolution human beings are
30:44 in this sense um Co
30:46 co-participants in in in the
30:50 Divine and within every individual human
30:56 spark for me the picture of
30:59 reincarnation and Karma thoughts that
31:03 makes it more more coherent more more more
31:04 more
31:08 intelligible and one would then be able
31:10 to look
31:12 upon even
31:16 illnesses as as possibly a part of the
31:18 the resistance that we have to meet in
31:21 order to fulfill our potential because
31:24 resistance in life is vital you know
31:27 without without resistance psychology
31:29 talks about optimal
31:32 resistance if if a child isn't given
31:35 resistance nothing develops it's the
31:37 same in with muscles isn't it you know
31:39 we muscles need resistance in order to develop
31:41 develop
31:43 strength psychological muscles need
31:46 resistance too and sometimes in our
31:48 lives we have to we have to meet
31:51 resistance and pain in order that it
31:55 will eventually bring the best out of us and
31:56 and
31:59 that that is now now dayss in in in
32:01 medical in the medical field we call that
32:02 that
32:04 self-regulation the the the the ability
32:08 of a human being to to be aware of the
32:12 resistances of illness and to to take
32:15 account of them and assume assume
32:18 responsibility within them rather than
32:22 expecting Medical Science to just do it
32:25 for you because however much Medical
32:29 Science indeed can and does do it's the
32:31 self-regulating activity that is
32:33 probably the the health promoting
32:37 activity if you want to make a person
32:40 ill you disempower them you give them
32:42 you you put them in an environment in
32:45 which they their ability to feel that
32:48 they matter is worn down and it's the
32:52 worn down person who has no longer any sense
32:53 sense
32:56 of the ability to change the environment
33:00 that they're in that will die it's the
33:02 the spirit that remains
33:05 remains
33:09 um inwardly active and responsible under
33:11 adversity that survives the concentration
33:13 concentration
33:17 camp and therefore this is seen
33:20 increasingly um
33:29 Factor antonovsky work in America B
33:31 bears that
33:34 out James one of the sort of stumbling
33:37 blocks for for people they come across China
33:39 China
33:43 is how can somebody know these sort of
33:45 things with that sort of exactitude and
33:49 certainty it's even quite
33:53 off-putting what what would you say to
33:56 that well in the first instance I think
33:58 it's a matter of
34:00 it's a matter of living living with the
34:03 facts as you perceive them and coming to
34:07 terms with with the facts isn't
34:10 it what facts well
34:12 well
34:15 schiner shiner's work is so
34:17 all-encompassing so
34:21 transdisciplinary it spans so much that
34:23 we would assume that it's unrealistic
34:25 that any one human being could have
34:28 brought so much forward and indeed many
34:30 people have said if schiner had just
34:32 specialized on any one field he would have
34:33 have
34:35 become the Einstein the Freud or
34:37 whatever of that particular field given
34:39 that he he
34:42 was interdisciplinary multidisciplinary
34:45 he could never achieve that status
34:48 that's that's true but it is it is
34:52 remarkable that a human being is is able
34:55 to say so much from
34:58 a from the point of view of what he he
35:00 himself calls uh spiritual cognition spiritual
35:08 perception you can only live with it and
35:11 live with it um with your own
35:13 questioning questioning
35:17 mind and see to what extent it makes
35:20 sense and that's what he asks us to
35:24 do probably most people dismiss it
35:27 because it it it doesn't it doesn't
35:31 appear to easy digestion that's for sure
35:32 to to really
35:35 work to really get to grips with schiner
35:37 you have to you have to work hard very
35:42 hard over over over years over decades
35:45 decades and
35:53 gradually something of where he's coming
35:56 from conveys itself and a sense of a
35:59 sense of integrity and and confidence in
36:01 this person grows not because you're
36:04 believing in his authority but but
36:06 because there there is a a coherent
36:09 inter relationship between what he says
36:11 in one context and what he brings in
36:14 another and also because you will be
36:18 looking for substantiative evidence in
36:20 in the fields in which he's speaking and
36:22 also the proof of the pudding is in the
36:25 eating you know you know W of
36:28 education has its result
36:30 as does anthroposophic
36:33 medicine as does biodynamic farming
36:36 farming
36:39 um now
36:44 how if that if that fact increases one's
36:47 awe and respect for what the human
36:49 spirit is capable
36:52 of that can only be a good thing and
36:56 schiner had a particular capacity which
36:59 um and he he came at a particular moment
37:01 in evolution and culture you know at
37:04 that moment when the 19th century
37:07 materialism was in a way falling falling
37:11 away but when the the modern world of of
37:14 Science and Technology was beginning he
37:16 he stood at that critical point also at
37:17 the time when
37:20 psychoanalysis was was in its infancy
37:22 but you know it was already launched but
37:26 this this this this this amazing time at
37:29 the beginning of the 20th
37:33 century and maybe he could only it he
37:34 could only have lived at that time and
37:36 brought forward what he did in the way
37:38 that he did
37:40 then it's no answer to your question
37:43 it's just it's an attempt at a
37:46 response Steiner did of course
37:49 indicate that the these faculties that
37:53 he were was drawing on were potentially
37:54 in all of
37:58 us y I mean that's important isn't it
38:01 because it stops one putting him in some
38:06 sort of ultimately UNH helpful box well
38:09 schiner schiner of course said a very
38:13 great deal from his out of his own let's
38:15 let's say intuitive spiritually
38:19 intuitive faculties which perhaps nobody
38:22 since has been able to say in quite that
38:28 way but his his message was to
38:33 everybody the capacity to come to
38:37 spiritual insights is latent in every
38:40 single individual person and the the
38:43 path the most important thing is that
38:46 each and every one of us finds their own
38:49 access to that to that development and
38:52 it will be a different access point for different
38:53 different
38:56 people phenomenology of the natural
38:58 world cultiv activating the ability to
39:01 observe to truly observe
39:05 nature um as for instance Dennis kochek
39:08 is is exemplifying Craig holridge people
39:11 I think you've already spoken spoken to
39:15 um these are individuals who are
39:18 developing and to a degree have
39:21 developed in their field a kind of
39:24 reliable perception of phenomena that
39:26 could be termed
39:29 spiritual following in many cases in
39:31 most cases the the indications that
39:36 schiner gave and schiner um also gave
39:40 us simple but nevertheless quite arduous
39:44 exercises to do in in order to to
39:49 develop um intuitive insights even um
39:52 quite apart from from developing
39:54 anything vaguely resembling
39:59 Clairvoyance so taking a child the
40:01 perception of a child how they've spoken
40:03 to you what's lived on in your
40:06 perception of that child into the night in
40:07 in
40:10 sleep and then noticing what you wake up
40:12 with in the morning in relation to the
40:19 child can awaken uh a capacity of of
40:22 practical intuition which he suggested
40:26 teachers developed and indeed this uh
40:27 something very similar can can happen
40:30 with a you know with with a doctor or a
40:34 therapist um one doesn't one doesn't
40:37 have to achieve the stage
40:40 of Clairvoyant perception that schiner
40:43 himself obviously had done in order to
40:45 be a a spiritual researcher and in order
40:48 to take further what he's
40:50 said um and I think that
40:54 the particularly in the last 20 years
40:55 the amount of secondary literature
40:57 that's appeared from schiner
40:59 from people who've been influenced by
41:00 schinina but have done independent
41:07 impressive schiner expressed in a verse
41:09 the the the the concept of the inter
41:11 relationship of the the macrocosm and
41:14 the human being and I if I remember
41:17 rightly it says um in the free human
41:20 being the whole universe is gathered
41:23 up so with the free resolve of your
41:25 heart take your own life in hand and you
41:27 will find the world
41:29 the spirit of the world will find
41:32 herself in you I think that was the
41:34 particular way he framed it in this in
41:44 verse one can't prove such a thing it
41:47 it's not a it's not a scientific
41:50 statement I don't think if by science
41:54 you mean you mean something that can be
41:56 Quantified but if the spirit of the
42:00 world if the Universal spirit that is
42:03 out there spiritual physical neither
42:06 matter nor Spirit but that which
42:10 underlies both if that spirit is
42:12 evolving in its own very
42:16 existence through human beings then it
42:19 follows from that that each human being
42:21 has to be an inner kind of has to have a
42:24 representative is is a drop of the ocean
42:27 has represents something of that
42:30 totality now you know schiner was often
42:33 very very crude and simple in the way
42:35 that he he said things you know when he
42:37 in his lectures to the Workman for
42:39 instance he said
42:42 well the hairs on our head are like the
42:44 grass on the
42:48 fields he made comparisons which from a
42:50 certain point of view seem seem very
42:52 simplistic but when you live into them
42:54 they're not necessarily
42:57 simplistic the stars in the sky
43:01 relate to the neurons in the brain why
43:05 not how many stars are there in the sky
43:07 has anybody tried to quantify it it's
43:11 it's probably an unquantifiable
43:14 question it's probably an unquantifiable
43:16 question how many interconnections
43:18 between neurons is it possible to have
43:26 quantifiable the these are imaginative
43:28 pictures which which if you take them
43:31 seriously can deepen your your
43:33 relationship to to who you are and how
43:37 you relate to the world and can overcome
43:39 alienation you know part of the problem
43:42 nowadays in depression is that the human
43:45 being feels powerless and alienated so
43:47 often from the
43:49 environment if we live with the picture
43:52 that what's out there in the universe
43:56 also lives in us and we can bring it to
43:57 an expression
44:01 in every every thought and every deed
44:04 then that can can give us a sense of our
44:06 own worth it can stimulate our
44:09 initiative it can bring out the best in
44:13 US whereas a you know a picture that
44:15 just shugs its shoulders at the whole
44:28 cynicism I think we have to distinguish
44:32 really between the what Shina gives as living
44:33 living
44:36 imaginations which an individual person
44:40 may fruitfully live with and if you like
44:43 facts that are in the literal sense true
44:45 um schiner works with both but we have
44:47 to know when he's doing the one and when
44:50 he's doing the other so this picture
44:53 that the human being is a microcosm of a
44:56 macrocosm um is is at least in the first instance
44:57 instance
44:59 an imagination to live with and to
45:02 explore it it's an Avenue into a
45:04 meditative approach to the
45:07 world schiner said for instance imagine
45:10 that our sense organs our eyes and our
45:12 ears are
45:15 like the source of a river in in the top
45:17 of a
45:20 mountain and then imagine that our
45:23 muscles and blood are like the salt
45:27 water of the sea
45:30 and imagine how the the water in the
45:33 springs is connected to the water in the
45:35 sea and
45:39 recycles and in the same way imagine how
45:42 what we take in through our sense
45:44 perceptions enters into our blood and
45:46 muscles and inspires our action and our
45:48 will and
45:51 then goes beyond us because our actions
45:54 that we put into the world are no longer
45:56 bound up with ourselves they then have
45:59 their own life and fate out there in the
46:02 world that's that's in a way like the
46:06 water returning to its source it's a cyclical
46:07 cyclical
46:11 picture now living living with pictures
46:14 like that
46:18 connects the scientificness of the fact
46:23 with with the feeling and it can
46:25 stimulate um
46:28 initiative and these pict es can can
46:32 live fruitfully not not not in a not in
46:35 the sense are they true or are they
46:38 untrue but what do they release and
46:41 unlock within the human
46:43 being they they
46:47 also depend very much on the way they
46:50 are taken up you know that the mood the
46:54 sole mood and this is where I think for
46:57 schiner the the the science Shin of the
47:00 scientist the artist and the religious
47:03 person flowed together they weren't
47:05 science art and religion were not Forin
47:08 of three different things the scientific
47:11 fact should engender a response in the
47:15 feeling and should invoke an an awesome
47:17 feeling in the will which is of more of
47:20 a religious character let's say a
47:24 respect and there is then a a kind of
47:27 cycle from the one through the one to the
47:33 other GIA Consciousness
47:36 Consciousness
47:45 theme an appreciation that the the
47:48 universe that we live in um nurtures us
47:51 and has the the quality and character of
47:54 the mother this is a
47:58 a an expression of the the picture that
48:01 we are we are children of the universe
48:04 that we're not just objects that have
48:07 evolved in an arbitrary way and that we
48:13 together last
48:15 question the film's called The Challenge
48:18 of Rin what what do you see is the
48:26 challenge schina challenged us to take
48:28 our own
48:30 thinking very very
48:34 seriously he challenged us to think Way
48:37 Beyond The Logical framework of what's
48:40 inside the box but to make connections
48:42 in our thinking which we could continually
48:44 continually test
48:46 test
48:50 the the challenge of schiner is to
48:52 uphold the freedom of the individual
48:57 human being and to awaken in each of us
48:58 a sense of our
49:01 responsibility for the not just for the
49:04 future of the planet physically but for
49:07 the for the evolution of this this
49:10 Matrix in which we find ourselves this
49:14 firmament as Shakespeare called it to
49:17 evoke a sense not just of
49:21 connectedness but of co-responsibility
49:24 and in that in the challenge of that
49:27 path we have to meet also
49:34 um limitations and our own potential for
49:37 evil we have to we have to meet in other
49:38 words our own
49:41 Freedom we can't just
49:45 replicate what what we've been told but
49:49 something has to be reborn in us because
49:54 we will it so because we think it
49:58 so I think that's perhaps the ultimate
50:03 Challenge to to to help to bring human
50:06 beings to the point where we can sit
50:11 around a table together and say our
50:15 collaboration is in the service of
50:18 of the universe as we know it we can
50:22 change we can we can make a
50:25 difference and he's given us a unique
50:29 set of tools to approach that if we can
50:32 if if we if we if we resonate with them
50:35 and and take them up you haven't use the word
50:58 God I I I don't I don't want to
51:01 postulate I don't want to postulate a
51:06 hypothetical god um but the the material
51:09 world of which we are part
51:10 part
51:15 is is in its Essence Divine substance I
51:18 mean that that that that schiner was
51:19 quite clear about
51:22 about
51:24 substance silica
51:28 calcium magnesium
51:32 carbon the these are the clothing of the
51:33 body of
51:37 God and God is that being through which
51:38 all these
51:42 substances find find their ultimate um
51:46 sublimation God created the
51:50 substances and they they've come to rest
51:52 just for a short while in order that
51:54 human beings can find their freedom in
51:57 relationship to them and I think at some
52:00 future point we will all go into a kind
52:04 of um process together again the world
52:07 that we know won't be here in this form
52:11 forever how can it be if it's if it's in
52:14 evolution you know the sun's life is
52:17 limited the Earth's life is limited but
52:20 does it all stop when the the outer
52:22 manifestation Falls
52:25 away this is this is the ultimate
52:27 existential question question for human
52:29 beings isn't it can you
52:33 disidentify from the manifestation and
52:35 still retain a connection to the sense
52:39 of being and I think for many people God
52:46 being the ground of our existence that
52:50 we through which we experience our own our
52:51 our