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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Alternative belief systems > Syncretist & eclectic religions & belief systems
From ancient times, people had knowledge of the zodiac's intimate
involvement in the creation of physical life. They understood that
the twelve realms of constellations of fixed stars in the sky
emanated specific forces that were brought to life and movement by
the planets. These spiritual energies created and formed all living
beings on earth - including, of course, the human being. This
traditional awareness has been reenlivened and given new meaning in
our time through Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy. Steiner gave
specific indications involving twelve individual gestures and
colours that depict the forces of the twelve zodiacal regions. In
this richly-illustrated collation of original artistic research -
which features exciting new work on the zodiac via the mediums of
sculpture, graphics and painting - these new insights are explored
and illumined in twenty-seven essays and numerous full-colour
images. Led by editor Gertraud Goodwin, the various contributing
artists offer a rich tableau of authentic, individual approaches to
understanding the zodiac, throwing light on the vast realm of
creative forces around us whilst acknowledging their primary
source. 'From the many relationships to other qualities, like the
consonants, virtues, areas of the human body, colours, eurythmy
gestures, elements (earth, water, air, fire), musical keys and many
more, in which the zodiacal forces express themselves as if through
different instruments, a harmony begins to emerge, which informs me
of an ever rounder picture of one particular force of the Zodiac.'
- Gertraud Goodwin
In a delightful study - originally comprising two separate booklets
- the accomplished artist and teacher Gladys Mayer explains that
colour is nothing other than the very substance of the soul. Just
as the body is made up of mineral, water, air and warmth, so the
soul is made up of colour. This is revealed in the emotions of
sadness and joy and the many shades in between, as expressed in
human language - for example: `seeing red', `rose-coloured
spectacles' and `jaundiced view'. Mayer discusses the basis of
colour theory and its methodology, and the importance of colour for
everyday life and health. It is as fundamental to the soul as air
is to the body. By increasing our awareness of the spiritual laws
of colour, we can acquire a balanced and enriched life of soul.
Thus, colour can become a healing force in life, enabling us to
tackle the deadening, grey aspects of our mechanised civilisation.
Based on the work of Rudolf Steiner, which she studied intensively
for many years, Mayer offers an approach to colour that is of value
to painters and artists, as well as to those interested in
psychology, health and healing, spirituality and personal
development.
`The study of music is the study of the human being. The two are
inseparable, and eurythmy is the art which brings this most clearly
to expression. In these lectures, Rudolf Steiner guides us along a
path toward an understanding of the human form as music comes to
rest - the movements of eurythmy bringing this music back to life.'
- Dorothea Mier `Fundamentally speaking, music is the human being,
and indeed it is from music that we rightly learn how to free
ourselves from matter.' - Rudolf Steiner The focus of these eight
lectures is the source of movement and gesture in the human being.
The movement in musical experience is thus traced back to its
origin in the human instrument itself. Like the degrees of the
musical scale, Rudolf Steiner leads his select audience of young
artists through eight stages, focusing on the living principles of
discovery and renewal. Eurythmy was born in the turbulent decades
of the early twentieth century. From an individual question as to
whether it was possible to create an art based on meaningful
movement, Rudolf Steiner responded with fresh creative
possibilities for a renewal of the arts in their totality. The new
art of eurythmy was an unexpected gift. Today, music eurythmy,
along with its counterpart based on speech, is practiced as an art,
taught as a subject in schools, enjoyed as a social activity and
applied as a therapy. This definitive translation of Steiner's
original lecture course on eurythmy includes a facsimile,
transcription and translation of the lecturer's notes, together
with an introduction and index. The volume is supplemented with an
extensive `companion', featuring full commentary and notes compiled
by Alan Stott, as well as a translation of Josef Matthias Hauer's
Interpreting Melos.
Prolegomena to a History of Islamicate Manichaeism provides an
annotated anthology of primary sources highlighting Manichaeism, a
dualist religion emerging in Mesopotamia in the third century and
which spread rapidly throughout the Roman and Sasanian empires
until it was violently suppressed by both polities. It nevertheless
continued to flourish - largely clandestinely - in the Near East,
Central Asia, and China until it finally disappeared at the
beginning of the seventeenth century. This book translates and
assesses the importance of a number of Arabic, Persian, Syriac, and
even Hebrew language testimonies for a better understanding of the
cultural importance of what many scholars characterize as the first
'world religion'.
`We must draw the slumbering soul away from the darkness of sleep
so that it no longer vanishes from its own scrutiny but stands
before itself as a being of pure spirit which, in volition, is
creatively active through - yet also beyond - the body.' - Rudolf
Steiner. According to Rudolf Steiner's independent research, the
soul or psyche has a relationship to both the body and the spirit.
Psychologists and psychotherapists can only work in a truly healing
way, he says, if they take this spiritual fact into account. This
expertly-compiled anthology explores the nature of the soul as
elaborated by Steiner in his writings and lectures. However, the
book comprises more than an account of the psyche and life of the
soul, but deals equally with the methodology for comprehending it -
the scientific, and above all spiritual-scientific, means of doing
so. Steiner questions methods and thought structures that are
fundamental to contemporary psychology. Rather than looking
backwards to conditions that influence how we are today, he focuses
on our further development as beings that think, feel and act with
intentionality. Given the soul's close affinity with pictorial
images, he elaborates a therapeutically-innovative meditative
schooling of the faculty of imagination. As Steiner states here,
his methods, `...do not draw only on the rules of the ordinary mind
but first prepare in the human soul another kind of consciousness,
another state of awareness, with which we then enquire into the
psyche... to approach and penetrate realities of the soul.'
There is a mental malaise creeping through the collective human
mindset. Mass psychosis is becoming normalized. It is time to break
free... One of the key problems facing human beings today is that
we do not look after our minds. As a consequence, we are unaware of
the malicious impacts that infiltrate and influence us on a daily
basis. This lack of awareness leaves people open and vulnerable.
Many of us have actually become alienated from our own minds,
argues Kingsley L. Dennis. This is how manipulations occur that
result in phenomena such as crowd behaviour and susceptibility to
political propaganda, consumerist advertising and social
management. Mass psychosis is only possible because humanity has
become alienated from its transcendental source. In this state, we
are prisoners to the impulses that steer our unconscious. We may
believe we have freedom, but we don't. Healing the Wounded Mind
discusses these external influences in terms of a collective mental
disease - the wetiko virus (Forbes), ahrimanic forces (Steiner),
the alien mind (Castaneda), and the collective unconscious shadow
(Jung). The human mind has been targeted by corrupt forces that
seek to exploit our thinking on a grand scale. This is the
`magician's trick' that has kept us captive within the social
systems that both distract and subdue us. In the first part of this
transformative book, the author outlines how the Wounded Mind
manifests in cultural conditioning, from childhood onwards. In the
second part, he examines how `hypermodern' cultures are being
formed by this mental psychosis and shaping our brave new world. In
an inspiring conclusion, we are shown the gnostic path to freedom
through connecting with the transcendental source of life.
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