when one enters a space, a room, one's feelings take on the shape of
that room. for example, the shapes one takes on as one enters a gothic
arched vault would be different in nature than the shape one takes on
when one enters a square box...

--| The Effect of Forms > Gothic Arches |-----------------------
--| Rudolf Steiner, 1907 |--------------------------------------

When one sees these peculiar [gothic] achings, when one views the inner
space in which the columns rise as trees rise in a grove, such a House
of God works upon the soul quite differently than does a house, for
instance, that is carried by old columns, that has an ordinary Roman or
Renaissance cupola. Of course, man does not become conscious of the fact
that such forms [Gothic Arches] produce quite definite effects; they
occur in the unconscious. He cannot be rationally clear about what is
happening in his soul...What the eye sees is of far greater importance,
for it has an influence on soul processes that more or less run their
course in the unconscious. This is of eminently practical importance...

I have often called attention to the fact that it was something
different from what it is today when one in the Middle Ages walked
through the streets. Right and left there were house facades that were
built up out of what the soul felt and thought. Every key, every lock,
carried the imprint of him who had made it. Try to realise how the
individual craftsman felt joy in each piece, how he worked his own soul
into it. In every object there was a piece of soul, and when a person
moved among such things, soul forces streamed over to him. Now compare
this with a city today. Here is a shoe store, a hardware store, a
butcher shop, then a tavern, etc. All this is alien to the inner soul
processes; it is related only to the outer man. Thus, it generates those
soul forces that tend towards materialism. These influences work much
more strongly than do the dogmas of materialism. Add to these our
horrible art of advertising. Old and young wander through a sea of such
abominable products that wake the most evil forces of the soul. So
likewise do our modern comic journals. This is not meant to be a
fanatical agitation against these things, but only indications about
facts. All this pours a stream of forces into the human soul,
determining the epoch that leads the person in a certain direction. The
spiritual scientist knows how much depends upon the world of forms in
which a man lives.


--| References |----------------

(Exerpted from: Rudolf Steiner, Occult Signs and Symbols, 1907).
Illustration from: http://www.uen.org/Centennial/08BuildingsA.html

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