Especially with regards to the will, it is important to see to exactly what extent the will can be educated at all. In the Act of the Consecration of Man, it is said that good will springs from a feeling that unites itself with Christ.
This is in accordance with all the research in modern psychology: the will can only be summoned via a detour through feeling. Will cannot simply be pumped out of the human being. However, to stay with the image, it is possible to let it rain until the earth is overflowing with springs. In this way, great agitators have only acted on feeling, and under certain circumstances have paused and slowed down precisely where feeling wants to pass over into the will – so that the will may burst out of humans ever more forcefully. One example is Antony’s famous speech in Shakespeare’s «Julius Caesar».
From Friedrich Rittelmeyer, «Meditation: Zwölf Briefe über Selbsterziehung», [Meditation: Twelve Letters on Self-Education]. Stuttgart 1997, p. 212.
Translation Monika Werner
Image Sofia Lismont
