The author developed this booklet from talks that were held for members of the Anthroposophical Society. These became occasions for many to question potential membership of the First Class in a more conscious way, and for some to take the decisive step of entering the Michael School. 'This experience gave rise to the occasion for printing this lecture separately for interested individuals, as a stimulus to consider their relationship to the Michael School on Earth against the background of the karma that guides human beings in their present incarnation to anthroposophy. In this sense, the present text may well be an aid for some interested individuals to grasp to its full extent the unique significance of the establishment of the Esoteric School - carried out as it was by Rudolf Steiner based on the Michael Spirit - so as to gain the courage and will to become a member out of full inner conviction.' (From the Preface)

Rudolf Steiner's third great lecture course to physicians has a completely different character to his previous presentations. Delivered in response to a group of young doctors - who approached Steiner with the specific request for a course that would be 'quite intimate', but should not contain anything ' - which appealed only to knowledge and the intellect' - it offers unique, groundbreaking insights into the practice and art of healing. Steiner speaks about the influence of cosmic and earthly forces - the periphery and centre - on the human being. Proper understanding of these processes enables the physician to comprehend the actions of plants and minerals used in anthroposophic medicines, and thus to prescribe appropriate and individually specific remedies. Steiner paints a picture of the human being as a complex confluence of the forces of heredity, forces from the cosmos, and an individual's unique spiritual nature. The physician has to understand these relationships in order to be able to help effectively when they are out of balance. Steiner stresses the importance of personal development for physicians, and offers plentiful instructions for a meditative practice intrinsic to their work. Among a wealth of other topics, Steiner addresses inflammation and excessive growth; the nature of scarlet fever and measles; the importance of a child's food and breast milk; the functions of the liver, heart, head and skeleton; the incarnation process; karma as a guide for the physician; morality as a force streaming in from the cosmos; the cosmic trinity of Saturn, Sun and Moon in the healthy and sick human being; and the involvement of the heart in thinking. Included here are Rudolf Steiner's answers to questions, and the first newsletter from the Medical Section, with a key meditation for physicians. This volume also features 18 full colour plates of Rudolf Steiner's blackboard drawings, a comprehensive introduction, index and notes.

'I first saw the Goetheanum as a fifteen-year-old through binoculars. I was fascinated and wanted to know more about this incredible building. What am I seeing? Why these forms? What happens in this building?' - Hans Hasler The Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, was conceived as a visible expression of Rudolf Steiner's spiritual philosophy - a living experience of anthroposophy in the form of art. Whilst Steiner conveyed his ideas and concepts in many books and lectures, the Goetheanum - with its pioneering concrete forms built in the 1920s - is a manifestation of spirituality in architecture, painting and sculpture. This essential handbook, packed with colour photos and illustrations, gives a broad background to Rudolf Steiner's architectural masterpiece and the work that goes on within it. Hasler explains how the present Goetheanum was built, and describes its recently remodelled great hall and stage, with its painted ceiling and sculpted walls. He details the building's context and landscape design, the other significant structures in its vicinity, and gives a description of the first, wooden, Goetheanum and its destruction by fire. Today the Goetheanum's remarkable external contours house theatres and studios, laboratories, offices and libraries. Apart from its major stages for drama and eurythmy, it serves as the headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society and the School of Spiritual Science, with the latter's sections for medicine, agriculture, education, the arts, science, and so on. The Goetheanum is also home to numerous conferences, meetings and events. This book provides a marvellous visual and textual guide to one of the most original buildings of our time.

At the end of his life, Rudolf Steiner took up the task that was his special destiny: to bring to the West a knowledge of reincarnation and karma. To do this, he gave over eighty lectures in 1924 in which he explicitly and concretely revealed the destinies of various individuals from one life to the next in order to show how the general laws of karma operate in individual cases. He also revealed many details of the karmic streams of the members of the Anthroposophical Society. These volumes constitute an immeasurable contribution to the understanding of reincarnation and karma, and the tasks of the Anthroposophical Society in connection with the Archangel Michael. This new edition also includes Steiner's last address along with; the karmic groups of souls connected to Aristotelianism and Platonism, the karma of the anthroposophical movement, as well as the individual incarnations of Ernst Haeckel, Vladimir Solovioff and others.

Civil Society has become a major power in the world. The stunning defeat of the controversial and secretive Multilateral Agreement on Investments, the massive worldwide WTO protests and the yearly meetings of the World Social Forum are testimony to its coming of age. From these significant victories, civil society continued to catch world attention with the Arab Spring, the grassroots movement that helped elect former US President Barack Obama and the significant gains of the anti-fracking campaign. With tens of millions of citizens and over a trillion dollars involved in advancing its agenda, civil society now joins the state and the market as the third key institution shaping globalization. However, it cannot fully mobilize its resources and power as it currently lacks clear understanding of its identity. Shaping Globalization argues that global civil society is a cultural institution wielding cultural power, and shows how - through the use of this distinct power - it can advance its agenda in the political and economic realms of society without compromising its identity. Nicanor Perlas outlines the strategic implications for civil society, both locally and globally, and explains that civil society's key task is to inaugurate `threefolding': the forging of strategic partnerships between civil society, government and business. Such authentic tri-sector partnerships are essential for advancing new ways for nations to develop, and for charting a different, sustainable type of globalization. Using the model of the Philippine Agenda 21, we are shown how civil society and progressive individuals and agencies in government and business are demonstrating the effectiveness of this new understanding to ensure that globalization benefits the environment, the poor and society as a whole. This reprinted edition includes a new Afterword.

Biodynamic agriculture, which has consistently increased in popularity over the years, was born from a single course of eight lectures delivered by Rudolf Steiner in Koberwitz (now in Poland) in June 1924. In The Agriculture Course Peter Selg presents an unprecedented study of the context within which the lectures took place, conveying a tangible sense of the celebratory mood and atmosphere of those Whitsun events. He highlights Steiner's intentions for the course - as well as the parallel lectures he gave in Breslau - by drawing widely on the available literature and numerous archive materials. Recognizing that chemical manipulation of agriculture was neither desirable nor sustainable, Rudolf Steiner helped launch an agricultural movement with a truly pioneering outlook. As Selg describes, Steiner saw that '...what was needed instead was new, conscious insight into life forces and laws, into the nature of organisms, into the diverse realms of nature, and the determining factors of both earth and cosmos that influence them.' The vivid picture painted here reveals the importance Rudolf Steiner placed on launching this work, and the extent to which his initiative offered an answer to the emerging forces of cultural and political destruction that would lead to the Second World War.

"Rudolf Steiner's model of a spiritualized medicine could hold the key for the next growth phase in Western medicine, if it is to survive, flourish, and become consistently and deeply therapeutic instead of merely palliative." -Richard Leviton, author of Imagination of Pentecost: Rudolf Steiner & Contemporary SpiritualityRudolf Steiner, a scientist by training, lectured and wrote, at different times on medical subjects and advised physicians on their work. His view of medicine was both unconventional and precise. He could describe-based on his highly developed powers of observation and his spiritual research-processes of health and disease that escape conventional methods of medical observation. In all his lectures to doctors and in his explanations of anthroposophic medicine, Steiner emphasized that his medical concepts are not intended to replace conventional Western medicine, but to extend it; diagnosis and healing methods are expanded to include our soul and spirit. In these broadly ranging talks, Steiner introduces fundamental principles of anthroposophically extended medicine. Some of the most remarkable insights that anthroposophy brings to medicine are contained in this volume. For example, Steiner points out that the heart is not a pump and that its motion is a consequence, not the cause, of rhythmic movements in human beings. Topics include: Health problems, such as hay fever, migraine, sclerosis, cancer, tuberculosis, typhoid, and childhood diseasesThe polarity between nerve and liver cellsThe functions of the spleen and the gallbladderThe three basic processes of sensory-nervous system, rhythmic system, and metabolic-limb systemRegenerative and degenerative processesThe true nature of the nervous systemPlus many suggestions for the use of minerals, plants, and artistic therapies in healing.This Collected Works edition contains a new introduction, a chronology of Rudolf Steiner's life, and an index.

Who was Cain and what does he represent? The first part of this book invites us to revise the traditional, biblical, view of Cain as his brother's murderer. Rudolf Steiner shows how the original Cain was ready to sacrifice his being to something higher, but this pure impulse was perverted into the desire to murder. Our earthly knowledge has an affinity with the fallen Cain, but there is also a path by which we can ascend to the condition of Cain before his fratricide - through the stages of higher knowledge. Only the descendants of Cain, coming to full and real 'I' development, can sustain themselves in the face of earthly forces. In the context of this primeval Cain, or the 'new' Cain, the ritual ceremonies enacted by Steiner between 1905 and 1914 acquire their true meaning: as a way to incorporate previously developed spirit knowledge into the human soul and into physical reality. Here the practical occultist increasingly identifies with Hiram, the central figure of the Temple Legend, in order to realize the new Cain within him.Meyer demonstrates the direct line from Rudolf Steiner's early 'rites of knowledge' to the Class lessons of 1924, which Steiner had intended to reinvest with a ritual element. Besides reflections by Rudolf Steiner and editor Thomas Meyer's commentary, this volume includes important thoughts by Marie Steiner, W.J. Stein, Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz and Rudolf Geering-Christ. The final chapter is a lecture by D.N. Dunlop - perhaps Steiner's most important pupil in the West - that reveals the universally human core of the rituals we encounter both in traditional freemasonry and in Steiner's own rites.

'If such authentic souls, such honest anthroposophists can be found ...then an upward movement and dynamic will arise. If such souls do not appear, then decadence will take its inexorable downward course...Today humanity stands before a great crisis: either it will see all civilization collapsing into the abyss, or else spirituality will raise civilization up by the power of the Michael impetus, through which the Christ impetus works, thus continuing, enriching and sustaining it.' In 1924, the final full year of his life, Rudolf Steiner gave a series of urgent, sometimes impassioned, talks to members of the Anthroposophical Society regarding their karma and its relationship to the culture of the time, referring in particular to the vital task of renewing civilization and preserving it from the threat of decline. Steiner's words characterize vividly a great spiritual battle, of forces gathering to fight for the soul of humanity itself. He presents a striking panorama in which anthroposophists are compelled to broaden their vision; to see true esoteric and exoteric anthroposophical work as a live yeast that can set all culture rising. To waken the members of the Society to the dimensions of their task, Steiner saw it as essential that they begin to understand the many different karmic threads from which the movement is woven. This recognition - of difference as much as unity - can give the strength of diversity which, if unconscious and unrecognized, leads easily to division. In the lectures and excerpts compiled here Steiner speaks of the unprecedented convergence of two specific groups of souls within the anthroposophical movement: the Platonists and the Aristotelians. In the karmic background lies a conflict of approaches, but the task today calls for a unity based on love and knowledge; to work with Michael and Christ in the face of Ahriman, materialism and the possibility of civilization collapsing into decadence. Given the challenges faced by humanity today, it has, perhaps, never been more urgent for those who ally themselves with Rudolf Steiner's work to study, absorb and take to heart the contents of this critically important material.

Hermann Beckh's masterful study of Mark's Gospel offers much more than scholarly argument. It is the work of a true visionary who allows his readers to discover the meaning of the Earth and of humanity for themselves. Beckh was in the forefront of entirely new research and recovery of the Gospel, writing more for the future than for his own time. It is not uncommon for biblical scholars to view St. Mark's Gospel as little more than an assemblage of fragmentary sources and a copy of uncertain, early memories. The Gospel is said to have little historical veracity, harmony or guiding structure. Beckh's contemporary, the German writer Arthur Drews, even argued that the text was nothing more than a simplistic solar myth, wherein another Sun-hero pursued his way around the Greco-Roman constellations. Mark's Gospel: The Cosmic Rhythm is a response to such twentieth-century materialistic thinking. He was asked to write the book in the 1920s by the leaders of The Christian Community, who sought to rescue the desecrated Gospel from its opponents. Inspired by Rudolf Steiner and a vast knowledge of ancient languages - Tibetan, Sanskrit, Pali and Avestan along with Hebrew, Greek and Latin - the Rev. Professor Hermann Beckh perceived how the Gospel reflects God's Everlasting Covenant, and meticulously expressed its aesthetic unity, the consonance of its parts and its consequent radiant clarity. His far-reaching understanding of sacred texts in the original languages, always associated with the disciplined meditation he had attained from anthroposophy, led to unprecedented insight. This new edition of his classic study has been revised and redesigned.

In the early part of the last century, Professor Hermann Beckh began a search to discover the truth about the Mystery wisdom of antiquity. As a recognized authority on Buddhist texts, he knew that complete knowledge of such Mysteries was not to be found within the limitations of waking consciousness, sense perception and logic. Beckh was already aware that Gautama Buddha had indicated the stages of higher knowledge. Furthermore, his studies of Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophical teachings revealed that such knowledge could be experienced directly, given disciplined meditation. Clairvoyant cognition included the conscious penetration of sleep consciousness, the dream state and an experience of pre-natal consciousness. Both the Mysteries and Rudolf Steiner's major books, he concluded, were founded on the same perceptions. Beckh - a worldwide expert on Tibetan, Sanskrit, Pali and Avestan texts - quickly became disenchanted with Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy, as it displayed little precise academic knowledge of primary records. At the same time, university departments showed scant trace of understanding the texts they analysed through philology and sociology. Thus, based on comprehensive studies and personal experience, he resolved to present his own perceptions and vision to the public. The results are to be found in this invaluable book, bringing together for the first time in English three groundbreaking publications: Our Origin in the Light (Genesis 1-9) (1924); Zarathustra (1927) and From the World of the Mysteries

Today, illness is almost universally regarded as either a nuisance or a grave misfortune. In contrast to this conventional thinking, Rudolf Steiner places the suffering caused by disease in a broad vista that includes an understanding of karma and personal metamorphosis. Illness comes to expression in the physical body, but mostly does not originate in it, says Steiner, and thus a key part of the physician's work involves gaining insight into the whole nature of an individual - his essential core being. From this perspective, illness offers us the opportunity for deeper healing. Throughout this volume Rudolf Steiner draws our attention to the greater scope of the smallest phenomena - even a seemingly insignificant headache. He casts vivid light on things we normally take for granted, such as the human capacity to laugh or cry, and in the process broadens our vision of human existence. The apparently mundane human experiences of forgetting and remembering are intrinsic to our humanity, for example, and have unsuspected moral and spiritual dimensions. Steiner's insights are never merely 'lofty' or nebulously 'spiritual' but time and again connect with the minutest realities of everyday life. In these 18 lectures, delivered on a weekly basis as part of an ongoing course covering 'the whole field of spiritual science', Steiner elaborates in detail on the diverse interplay of the human being's constituting aspects (physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego or 'I') in relation to rhythmic processes, developing consciousness, the history of human evolution, and our connection with the cosmos. Within this broad canvas, some of his themes acquire a very distinctive focus - such as vivid accounts of the 'intimate history' of Christianity, 'creating out of nothing', the interior of the earth, and health and illness. Other topics include: the nature of pain, suffering, pleasure and bliss; the four human group souls of lion, bull, eagle and man; the significance of the Ten Commandments; the nature of original sin; the deed of Christ and the adversary powers of Lucifer, Ahriman and the Asuras; evolution and involution; the Atlantean period - and even Friedrich Nietzsche's madness!

In Hindu tradition, the concept of kundalini refers to a form of primal energy located at the base of the spine. Through traditional Eastern methods, efforts were made to `awaken' the kundalini in order to achieve transformed consciousness. Rudolf Steiner offers an entirely new perspective, integrating the kundalini idea into his spiritual philosophy. This anthology contains all relevant comments and notes by Steiner on the theme, highlighting how his thinking evolved. At the same time, it accentuates the differences - and similarities - between Western and Eastern spiritual paths, and in the process reveals what is new and original about Steiner's esoteric teachings. In contrast to most yoga traditions - which cultivate the energy rising from the lower life centre - the Western path of esoteric schooling starts in our upper centre of consciousness, in thinking and the `I'. From there, the centre of experience is shifted downward, from the head to the heart. After development of the `new heart centre', as Rudolf Steiner describes it, forces can be guided consciously and, through specific exercises, the `kundalini snake' can be fully awoken. In his detailed introduction, editor Andreas Meyer distils the perspectives and instructions from Steiner's complete works, presenting a valuable synopsis for our understanding and practice of meditation today. Chapters include: `The Meaning of Meditation, and the Six Exercises'; `Developing and Cleansing the Lotus Flowers'; `The Snake Symbol'; `The Kundalini Fire'; `The Kundalini Light'; `Developing the New Heart Organ'; `The Reversal in Thinking and Will'; `Specific Aspects of Kundalini Schooling'; `Transforming Physical Love and the Division of the Sexes'; `Breathing, the Light-Soul Process, and the New Yoga Will'; `The Polarity of Light and Love' and `Transforming the Kundalini Fire into Fraternity'.

'I rang the bell, the door opened, and there stood Rudolf Steiner in person. I was so taken aback that I dropped the basket which burst open and all my clothes and underclothes, together with my other belongings, were lying at the feet of the Doctor. A ball of wool got away and rolled between Dr Steiner's feet into the long corridor. Somewhat surprised, but amused, he said: "I have never been greeted in this way."' Anna Samweber (1884-1969), an active coworker in Berlin with Rudolf Steiner and Marie Steiner-von Sivers, presents a lively, homely, and often moving collection of anecdotes and recollections. Recorded by Jacob Streit during an intensive two-day session, this short work offers a warm, illuminating and intimate picture of Rudolf Steiner, the man and his work, during a critical phase in the development of anthroposophy.

In this inspiring lecture, addressed primarily to the anthroposophic movement, Prokofieff gives an overview of how the spiritual hierarchies and Christ, the Lord of Karma, work in the ordering of human karma. We are led to the karma and mission of the Anthroposophical Society, with indications as to what needs to happen before that karmic mission can be fulfilled. Prokofieff explains why true modern Christian research into karma does not arise out of intellectual speculation, curiosity or nebulous mystical experiences. The process of karmic research based on spiritual science should lead to a fundamental transformation of human nature, leading to a full experience of the cosmos.

`And that is one thing we need to relearn, that all of life brings its gifts - not only the first two or three decades.' - Rudolf Steiner When are we actually old? What happens as we age? How will we cope with old age? Growing old is an art, and to grow old in the right way we need spiritual understanding. In this enlightening anthology - compiled by a director of care homes for the elderly - wide-ranging cosmological perspectives alternate with detailed observations of the phenomena of ageing. Rudolf Steiner sees ageing within the context of the earthly and spiritual evolution that encompasses all forms of existence. The book thus begins with the primary meaning that ageing has in developmental terms and ends with a consideration of the human being as co-creator in cosmic processes - and with our capacity to become increasingly conscious of the tasks this implies. These key texts by Rudolf Steiner show how spiritual knowledge can broaden the current debate on the study of old age, the process of ageing, and the particular problems faced by older people. Concerns about our `ageing population' can be seen in a broader context that recognizes the fruits of old age. The productive relationship between childhood and old age - a running theme throughout this volume - is one example. If we grow old consciously, viewing ageing not only as a period of physical decline but as a time when we can actively participate in shaping life, then we can begin to find greater meaning in it. Chapters include: `The Core Messages of Ageing'; `Fundamental Principles of Gerontology'; `Ageing as a Developmental Process'; `Ageing: the Risks and Opportunities'; The Art of Growing Old'; `Old Age and Death'; `Growing Old - A Challenge for Education'; `The Cosmological Dimensions of Ageing'.

Near the end of his life, Rudolf Steiner took up the task that was his special destiny to bring knowledge of reincarnation and karma to the West. Consequently, he gave more than eighty lectures in 1924 to explicitly reveal the destinies of various individuals from one life to the next. He explained how the general laws of karma work in individual cases and revealed many details of the karmic streams of the members of the Anthroposophical Society. These volumes constitute an immeasurable contribution to the understanding of reincarnation and karma and the tasks of the Anthroposophical Society in connection with the Archangel Michael. In volume five, Steiner discusses the difference between moon karma and sun karma, the influences of Christian and Islamic thinking, the transformation of inner human qualities from one life to the next, and much more.

The Art of Speech presents a dynamic path of practice leading to an experience of the Word as a living, healing and creative power. Helping to deliver Western intellectual speech from what Artaud described as 'shrivelled throats' and 'monstrous talking abstractions', Langman brings to life the spiritual realities out of which a true Art of Speech arises. Inspired by Rudolf Steiner and pioneered initially in the German language by Marie Steiner, this artform is illuminated here through the genius of the English language. Langman builds a bridge between mainstream research into the intrinsic nature of Speech, and the levels of spiritual cognition that led to Rudolf Steiner's insights. Speech and language can no longer be reduced to an arbitrary collection of abstract symbols, she asserts. This book will inspire those working with these disciplines as practitioners (both artistic and therapeutic) as well as those who wish to understand their significance in human evolution, both past and future. Following her first book The Art of Acting, this volume completes a foundation of understanding for an exploration - in the conclusion of Langman's trilogy - of an integrated art of speech and acting. Grounded in the spiritual reality of the human being, Langman presents a systematic methodology with which to explore Rudolf Steiner's Speech and Drama Course.

Madame Blavatsky's Victorian-era masterpiece is now scaled down to its essentials, providing the most readable, accessible experience ever of one of history's seminal occult works.
"The Secret Doctrine," Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's masterwork on the origin and evolution of the universe and humanity itself, is arguably the most famous, and perhaps the most influential, occult book ever written. Published since 1888 only in expensive, two-volume editions of some 1,400 pages, it has long eluded the grasp of modern readers- until now.
This single-volume edition, abridged and annotated by historian and Theosophical scholar Michael Gomes, places the ideas of "The Secret Doctrine" within reach of all who are curious. In particular, Gomes provides a critical sounding of the book's famous stanzas on the genesis of life and the cosmos- mysterious passages that Blavatsky said originated from a primeval source and which form the heart of "The Secret Doctrine." Gomes scrupulously scales down the book's key writings on symbolism to their essentials, and offers notes and a glossary to illuminate arcane references. His historical and literary introduction casts new light on some of the book's sources and on the career of its brilliant and elusive author, one of the most intriguing personages of the nineteenth century.
At once compact and representative of the work as a whole, this new edition of "The Secret Doctrine" brings unprecedented accessibility to the key esoteric classic of the modern era.

Speaking to audiences in Denmark, Germany and France, Rudolf Steiner discusses a wide range of topics: from positive and negative human soul capacities, true self-knowledge and karma, to changes in human consciousness, from ancient times to the modern era - all in the context of the incarnation of Christ on earth. The lectures illustrate the diversity of Steiner's approach when speaking to different audiences. Reflecting on the polymath Novalis, for example, he is urgent about the responsibility of spiritual science to help humanity awaken to the new age. A few months later, talking of Hegel and deploring the fact that an interest in spiritual matters often fails to be accompanied by an equal interest in logical thought, Steiner uses a dispassionate, philosophical tone. But throughout the lectures he is consistent in his view that spiritual science does not reject conventional science. Trained philosophical thinking leads to different conclusions than materialism, he says, but there is nothing in the field of spiritual science that need be rejected by rigorous scientific thought. Although the lectures were given to a variety of audiences, ideas recur from different perspectives and in different contexts, with strong thematic links binding them together. These include the relationship between philosophy and science; the nature of clairvoyance; Christ's presence in the etheric realm; reincarnation and karma; the mystery drama The Portal of Initiation; Christmas and its symbols; and the transformation of consciousness that occurred when Christ incarnated physically on earth. In the final lectures, Rudolf Steiner speaks inspiringly about the Christmas festival, contrasting the feeling of inwardness that people used to experience with the hectic cultural environment of modern cities. However, this does not lead Steiner to be nostalgic about the past. Rather, he states, we should seek to recreate a mood of inwardness in a new way, appropriate to our modern age and consciousness. These lectures give us the tools to bring such a contemporary spiritual approach to our lives.