The Bridge between Universal Spirituality and the Physical Constitution of Man (CW 202)

3 lectures, Dornach, December 17-19, 1920 (CW 202) 

Rudolf Steiner addresses the following topics in these lectures:

1. Soul-and-Spirit in Man's Physical Constitution: The physical organism of man is considered today to consist of more or less solid-fluid substances; but as well as his solid, physical body, man has within him as definite organisms, a fluid body, an air-body and a warmth-body. — The connections of these organisms with the members of man's whole being and with the different Ethers. — Thought and Tone; Ego and circulating Blood. — Man in the sleeping state. — Man's relation to the universal Spirituality. — Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition. — The circumscribed view of the human organism prevailing today is unable to build any bridge between the physical body and the soul-and-spirit.
2. The Moral as the Source of World-Creative Power: Recapitulation of previous lecture. — Connection of the moral world-order with the physical world-order. — The moral world-order has no place in the natural scientific thinking of today. — The positive effect of moral ideals and ideas and the negative effect of theoretical ideas on the four organisms in man. — The materialistic conception of the imperishability of matter and energy. — Matter and energy die away to nullity; but man's moral thinking imbues life into substance and will. — The natural world dies away in man; in the realm of the moral a new natural world comes into being; thus are the moral order and the natural order connected. — Absence of spirituality in the modern picture of the world which is based on the Copernican system. — Kepler and Newton. — We need a spiritual view of the universe. — The sun is not a globe of burning gas but the reflection of a spiritual reality revealed in the physical. — The moral power developed by man rays out and is reflected as the spiritual Sun. — Julian the Apostate. — The connection of the spiritual Sun with the physical sun is the Christ-Secret.
3. The Path to Freedom and Love and Their Significance in World-Events: Man as a being of Thinking, Action and Feeling. — The connection of the life of thought with the will. — Pure thinking: irradiation of the life of thought by will. — This leads to Freedom. — Irradiation of the life of will by thoughts leads to Love. — The meaning of the ancient expressions: Semblance, Power, Wisdom. — To speak of the imperishability of matter and energy annuls Love. — The significance of Freedom and Love in world-happenings.

This volume is a translation from German of 3 (of 16) lectures from Der Mensch in Zusammenhang mit dem Kosmos 2: Die Brücke zwischen der Weltgeistigkeit und dem Physischen des Menschen. Die Suche nach der neuen Isis, der göttlichen Sophia (CW 202).