Rudolf Steiner

Unver nderter Nachdruck der Originalausgabe von 1924.

Unver nderter Nachdruck der Originalausgabe von 1924.

‘The mission of our age is not to reproduce an ancient wisdom, but to engender a new one – a wisdom that points not only to the past but that works prophetically into the future.’ – Rudolf Steiner Beginning with ancient Egypt, the pyramids and sphinxes – and a comparison of that epoch with our own – Rudolf Steiner surveys a vast spiritual landscape of human development. In symphonic style, he describes the conquest of the physical plane in post-Atlantean civilizations, the relationships between the various cultural epochs, the human being’s connections with the kingdoms of nature and the different planetary bodies, and the relationship of animal forms to ‘the physiognomy of human passions’. Through this panoramic vision, we discover how the changed conditions of human consciousness call for a new spiritual understanding today. In her Introduction, Marie Steiner relates the special experience of being a member of Rudolf Steiner’s audience for this timeless series of lectures: ‘Enormous cosmic pictures were unfolded before the spiritual gaze of the listeners; insights were of such depths of ancient wisdom, views of distant futures of human and world development, that deepest devotion flowed through their hearts…’ This new edition features a revised translation, introduction, notes and an index.

In this series of previously-untranslated lectures, Rudolf Steiner describes how myths and legends portray humanity’s most ancient evolutionary and spiritual history. Folklore presents ancient mystical wisdom in the form of stories – clothed in pictures by initiates – that enable individuals to understand their content in a more intellectual form at a later time. Focusing on Greek and Germanic mythology, the lectures in the first part of this volume cover the chronicles of Prometheus, Daedalus and Icarus, Parzival and Lohengrin, the Argonauts and the Odyssey, and the heroic dragon-slayer Siegfried. From these focal points, Rudolf Steiner discusses a variety of themes – from the mysteries of the Druids and the founding of Rome to the esoteric background of Wolfram von Eschenbach; from good and evil and the unjust death sentence on Socrates to the significance of marriage. The second part of this book features lectures on the nature and significance of the musical dramas of Richard Wagner. Wagner’s works, from his earliest attempts to his most mature opera Parsifal, are discussed from spiritual viewpoints. Although Wagner did not have a fully conscious awareness of the deeper meanings of his compositions, Steiner suggests that his shaping of Germanic legends was driven by an instinctive, creative and artistic certainty that accords with deep occult truths.

Speaking towards the end of the catastrophic Great War, Rudolf Steiner reveals the spiritual roots of the crises of our times. Since 1879, he says, human minds have been influenced by backward angels, 'spirits of darkness', who - following their defeat in battle with Archangel Michael - were forced out of the heavens and 'fell' to the earth. This war in the spiritual worlds had consequences, and it is essential that people today are sufficiently awake to the retrogressive influences around them. In a positive sense, we can choose freely to engage with the spirits of light, who seek to emancipate human beings from bonds of race, nation and blood. In this extraordinary series of lectures, Rudolf Steiner throws light on hidden aspects of world affairs. With the Bolshevik Revolution having just taken place, he discusses events in Russia and humanity's attempts to build theoretically perfect social orders. Steiner also speaks about the roles and spiritual backgrounds of significant individuals, such as the mystics Johann Valentin Andreae, Vladimir Soloviev and Saint-Martin, the American and British politicians Woodrow Wilson and Lloyd George, and world-historic figures including Charles Darwin and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The new edition of this classic work features a revised translation, notes and extensive appendices by editor Frederick Amrine, plus a new introduction by Christopher Schaefer.

This volume contains a collection of short essays by Steiner for the members of the Anthroposophical Society. They were written near the end of Steiner's life and in a way summarize, in highly concentrated form, the whole of Anthroposophy. Each essay ends with a short summary of its contents and these are known, in this translation, as the "guidelines." The guidelines are mantras and can be used quite fruitfully for meditation. Frank Thomas Smith provides a new, reinvigorated translation of Rudolf Steiner's classic, "Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts." Any serious student of Anthroposophy, in fact, any individual, any citizen of the world, needs to read this book.

Unver nderter Nachdruck der Originalausgabe von 1921.

Unver nderter Nachdruck der Originalausgabe von 1921.

Parmi les ouvrages r cents sur l'origine et la port e du christianisme, aucun ne m'a frapp comme celui de Rudolf Steiner. Voici donc une tude singuli rement pr cise et document e de ce que fut l'initiation secr te dans les religions antiques, notamment en gypte et en Gr ce, et de ce qu'elle est devenue dans le christianisme par son fondateur J sus et par ses successeurs. Cette tude est faite par un homme, qui a v cu en lui-m me le ph nom ne mystique et religieux dans ce qu'il a de plus profond et de plus transcendant, mais qui, pour l'appliquer l'histoire, s'arme des m thodes rigoureuses emprunt es aux sciences naturelles et la philosophie moderne. De ces trois m thodes, concentr es en un seul foyer, il r sulte quelque chose de surprenant. Je ne puis en comparer l'effet qu' l' clair blouissant produit par ces bandes d'aluminium que les guides font flamber dans les cryptes des temples gyptiens. On t tonne, on tr buche dans l'obscurit profonde d'un caveau, mais peine le fil de m tal a-t-il pris feu au toucher du phosphore, qu'une fus e de lumi re blanche fouille les t n bres paisses de la crypte et fait saillir de ses quatre murs et du plafond les vieilles peintures qui les recouvrent. Ainsi plus d'une fois, en lisant ce livre discret, qui s'abstient modestement de conclure, voit-on s' clairer l'arcane du christianisme, la crise pr sente qu'il traverse et les premiers lin aments de sa figure nouvelle s' baucher dans les limbes de l'avenir. (Edouard Schur ) L'original allemand s'intitule: Le Christianisme comme fait mystique (Das Christenthum als mystische Thatsache, Schwetschke. Berlin, 1902). On doit le titre de la traduction fran aise - Le Myst re chr tien et les myst res antiques, qui d finit plus nettement l'id e et le sujet du livre - douard Schur .