Karmic Relationships 27-29

Steiner now moves on from the considerations of exemplary biographies to a viewpoint that leads more into immediate human life. He explores various correspondences between the physical and the spiritual. Karmic balancing needs to be seen as the result of living inside the other person between incarnations. Thus what someone does to me in a subsequent incarnation was actually caused by us ourselves living in that person. Details are the key. Steiner noticed for example that Frank Wedekind possessed extraordinary hands, and this led back to his previous incarnation as an alchemist. We have to learn to see other people as transparent, so that Sun, Moon, and Saturn shine through. Waiting until an insight matures is necessary for all spiritual research. KR 28 contains the all-important karma exercise extending over three days. Readers will want to contemplate the contents of this lecture especially. KR 29 considers human physiognomy and play of gestures as revelations of previous incarnations. Our exteriors provide an image of how we behaved morally, of our spiritual behavior in a previous incarnation or in a series of previous incarnations. Contemplation of the head is actually imaginatively projected into the sensory world. A rhythmic consideration of human nature must be actually inspired, active within sensory observation, active in the sensory world. Consideration of the metabolic and limb system must be intuitive, supra-sensory in the sensory world.