A conscious hatred can – in the depths of the soul – be rooted in love


We must now emphasize that the soul life of the human being is, as it were, twofold. In the soul not only does there exist what man ordinarily knows, but in the depths of the soul life things are happening that cast their shadows — or their lights — into ordinary consciousness. 

Ordinary consciousness, however, does not reach down to this level. We can find in the hidden depths of soul hatred and love, joy and fear and excitement, without our carrying these effects into conscious soul life. It is therefore entirely correct to say that a phenomenon of hatred directed from one person to another, taking place within consciousness, actually can be rooted, in the depths of soul, in love. There can be a sympathy, a deep sympathy, of one person for another in the depths of the soul, but since this person at the same time has reasons — reasons about which he perhaps knows nothing — he is confused about this love, about the sympathy, deceiving himself with hatred and antipathy. This is something that holds sway in the depths of the soul, so that these depths look quite different from what we call our everyday consciousness. 

There can be conditions of fear, of anxiety, in the depths of the soul of which one has no conscious idea. Man can have that fear in the depths of his soul, that anxiety in face of the spiritual world [….] and yet be aware of nothing consciously. 

Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 62 – Errors in Spiritual Investigation / Meeting the Guardian of the Threshold – Berlin, 6 March 1913

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