A church is a place of energy. The greatest power in the building is found where nothing is built, in the crossing at the middle—the center of the church. The architect Lothar Bracht pointed this out in lectures. The center is free—a place of freedom, a place of development. Applied to the soul, this means looking at feelings, because feelings are centered between thoughts and will, just as the heart is centered between head and feet. Feelings would not be a center if they did not extend into the poles, and indeed, they do!
A hundred years ago, Rudolf Steiner was quite alone in explaining that feelings are formed from ideas, but today, this is generally accepted. It has become part of the basic understanding of personality development. It is expressed in the process of manifesting—“as you think, so you feel.” Feelings, therefore, have their source in thinking, in the human mind.
In her book Gefühle und Emotionen—Eine Gebrauchsanweisung [Feelings and Emotions—A User’s Guide], Vivian Dittmar describes that feelings are also at home in the body. Everything that we are unable to feel because it is too painful is stored there, and these old burdens suddenly shoot into the center as an emotion when we are triggered. Cultivating feelings, therefore, calls for thoughts to be grasped with the will so that intentional ideas give rise to intentional feelings. Cultivating feelings also calls for us to sink into our body with our mind, our inner perception, in order to bring the feelings stored there into the center and release them. This is how we become a whole, centered person.
Translation Laura Liska
Image Barbara Schnetzler, Ohne Worte [Without words,] charcoal on Japanese paper, 60x30cm, 2025.
