The Tension between East and West (CW 83)

10 lectures, Vienna, June 1-11, 1922 (CW 83)This challenging set of lectures attempts to lift the veil from modern social and spiritual problems as experienced in the contrasts between East and West. By ascribing to human thinking only a shadowy, subjective validity, modern science tries to invalidate the very faculty that gives us our human dignity. At the same time, however, this "unreality" of thought images makes possible an inner freedom that scientific doctrine tends to deny in principle. The need arises from these contradictions to extend the limits of ordinary scientific thinking to new investigative faculties. In part one, "Anthroposophy and the Sciences," Rudolf Steiner esplains that this can be achieved in a healthy way through two kinds of meditative excercises, very different in character from yoga and asceticism and other older paths to higher knowledge. These disciplines lead to the discovery of a paradoxical truth: "If you would know yourself, look into the world. If yo