"Following Rudolf Steiner's death, the mysteries cannot be revealed further at the present time, but we must continue to cultivate a living, not only rational but also ritual, continuity of the mystery contents he has given, passing them to people who did not know Rudolf Steiner and yet seek to connect with him esoterically and not just intellectually." -Ludwig Count Polzer-Hoditz Since Rudolf Steiner's death in 1925, little has been written about the "First Class" of the School for Spiritual Science in Dornach. The Class continues as an esoteric institution in the hearts of its disciples and in the mantras and meditations. This meditative work is hidden from view, yet, behind the scenes, it lives on in the inner striving for development of soul and spirit that is part of any mystery school. Rudolf Steiner himself guarded the content of the Class Lessons strictly, only intimating to members of the General Society that his esoteric school existed and how it worked. In this book, Peter Selg provides a context for the "reading" of the Class Lessons, the School for Spiritual Science itself, as well as for Rudolf Steiner's intentions for such an esoteric undertaking. The School for Spiritual Science was the work of an initiate, and through the esoteric collaboration of Rudolf Steiner and those who worked with him a Christian mystery center began to unfold. But Steiner's aim has not yet been achieved. Intense work is still needed for its realization-unwavering efforts with awareness of the foundations Rudolf Steiner laid down and consciousness of the mystery dimension of the endeavor. As an aspect of that wider mystery dimension, Peter Selg also looks back to Ita Wegman as Rudolf Steiner's "helper" in the First Class. He seeks to leave behind the conflicts of the 1920s and 1930s as Ita Wegman herself left them behind her. As Ita Wegman said, "For me the matter is settled. There are so many misunderstandings that I consider it better to leave things well alone. We all thought we were doing the right thing. Looking forward is more important now than looking back." In its exploration of the First Class, Rudolf Steiner and the School for Spiritual Science provides a much-needed perspective on what ought to be at the very heart of Anthroposophy and the movement for Spiritual Science that Rudolf Steiner brought into the world.

Underlying Sergei O. Prokofieff's life's work was a fundamental research-theme to which he returned to repeatedly: the individuality of Rudolf Steiner as manifested through his past incarnations on Earth. Beginning in 1982, inspired by a visit to an exhibition on The Epic of Gilgamesh, Prokofieff planned a full-scale spiritual biography with the intention of finding an answer to the question: Who is Rudolf Steiner? In a sequence of five past incarnations - as indicated by Steiner himself - and culminating in the life of Rudolf Steiner, Prokofieff searched for the inner thread between the six stages of this great, all-encompassing life. His intention was to find not only the outer connections in this sequence but also the deeper, more esoteric stream that offers the key to the unique significance of this individuality. In 1984, Prokofieff began to write the first chapter about Rudolf Steiner's incarnation as Enkidu in Sumer. Sadly, many obstacles in his path were to prevent him finalising the project. However, the author returned to the book in his final months, preparing a Preface that outlines its conception together with a summary chapter on Rudolf Steiner's evolutionary journey. This precious 'fragment' of a biography features valuable additional material, including: a full introduction to the relationship of the anthroposophical movement to other occult streams of esoteric Christianity and their Masters; a detailed spiritual-scientific interpretation of the Epic of Gilgamesh that establishes Rudolf Steiner's connection with the being of Jesus of Nazareth, and an exploration of Steiner's relationship to the Nathan soul, the Luke Jesus child. Serious students of anthroposophy will welcome these final writings from the pen of one of Rudolf Steiner's most faithful and insightful disciples.

Today some six million Freemasons around the world continue to perform their rituals regularly - an enormous legacy of spiritual endeavour, kept largely in secret. In Britain alone there are over 7,000 Lodges, with a quarter of a million members. What is this wealth, this appeal, and how did the philosopher and spiritual scientist Rudolf Steiner reinterpret or reconstruct Freemasonry's time-worn legacy? Unless one is a Freemason, the masonic world, with its arcane conventions and language, remains largely unknown: an obscurity that is almost impossible to fathom. Yet understanding its traditions and style are invaluable when approaching Goethe, Mozart, Herder, Lessing and Novalis - as well as Rudolf Steiner. Steiner himself renewed the 'Royal Art' of Freemasonry from 1906 to 1914 through his ritual work known as Mystica AEterna. When Steiner invigorated education, medicine, the social order and religion, he fully intended that committed and professional individuals should assume responsibility for the new initiatives. But this was not the case with the Masonic Order he founded, whose leadership he took upon himself. Even the celebration of his passing in 1925, led by Marie Steiner, was entirely Masonic in character. In the context of continuing resistance and misrepresentation, N.V.P. Franklin uncovers the living heart of Freemasonry and reveals why it was - and still is - immensely relevant to anthroposophy. With profound research into its older rituals and teachings, this detailed and conscientious study is a unique contribution to comprehending freemasonry and anthroposophy - both historically and in the present day.

'From the contents of original Greek drama and the soul drama of the present day that leads to self-knowledge, Rudolf Steiner develops his thought processes - pulsating with lively contemplation - about wonders of the world, trials of the soul and revelations of the spirit!' - Marie Steiner In this remarkable interpretation of Greek mythology, Rudolf Steiner goes beyond Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell in reading mythological figures such as Demeter, Persephone, Eros and Dionysos as primordial archetypes of macrocosmic thinking, feeling and will. Moreover, he explains in detail how this archetypal consciousness was gradually lost, giving way to new-found, subjective experience of these faculties, which in turn opens up possibilities for human freedom. His overarching theme of 'the evolution of consciousness' is grand in its sweep, but Steiner also shows himself to be the master of telling details. Lectures include: 'The origin of dramatic art in European cultural life and the Mystery of Eleusis'; 'The living reality of the spiritual world in Greek mythology and the threefold Hecate'; 'Nature and spirit'; 'The entry of the Christ Impulse into human evolution and the activity of the planetary gods'; 'The merging of the ancient Hebrew and the Greek currents in the Christ-stream'; 'The ego-nature and the human form'; 'The Dionysian Mysteries'; 'Eagle, Bull and Lion currents, Sphinx and Dove'; 'The two poles of all soul-ordeals'; and 'On Goethe's birthday'. The freshly revised text features an introduction, notes and appendices by Professor Frederick Amrine, colour images and an index.

'Concern for the world today provides the impetus to ask of ourselves a profound question... how can our way of knowing, the very style of our thinking which informs our research and our teaching, come to express care, to reveal itself to be a deed and duty of care?' Basing this practical study on the human quality of care for the world around us, Nigel Hoffmann takes us to a threshold beyond which lies a true science of living form. Care, he says, springs from the whole human being - the thinking, heart and will - and is implicit in the scientific method of conscious inner participation in nature that derives from the work of the poet and scientist Goethe. The Goethean approach - a living form that unites science and art - is not an alternative to contemporary science but complements it. Artistic practice, says Hoffmann, is a guide across the threshold and into the sphere of the living whole. But artistic sensibility can be raised to a higher possibility of itself, allowing us to discover the faculties of cognitive feeling and cognitive will. The author calls for a grounding in Goethean science for all students as a preliminary to their specialist and professional studies. He introduces us to the concept of the metamorphosis of the university - from the doctoral ideal to the ideal of the whole human being - and concludes with a case study of the economic sphere and capital using Goethean methodology. This profound book indicates a transformative path for human culture and civilization in the 21st century. NIGEL HOFFMANN PhD has for eighteen years been a high school teacher, in Australian and Swiss Rudolf Steiner schools. He is the author of Goethe's Science of Living Form: The Artistic Stages (Adonis Press) and is a director of the Education for Social Renewal Foundation.

With great empathy, delicacy, and directness, Peter Selg recounts, in three lectures, the moving story of Ita Wegman and her relationship with Rudolf Steiner in the context of the development of anthroposophic medicine and the formation of the Medical Section of the School for Spiritual Science. Steiner had suffered patiently until the right person-Ita Wegman-arrived to guide spiritual science's healing mission into the medical fi eld. In the fall of 1920, Ita Wegman founded a medical clinic in Arlesheim. From then on, she and Rudolf Steiner worked together, both medically and spiritually, gradually unveiling a karmic working relationship unique in Steiner's life. Thus the stage is set. The second lecture focuses on anthroposophic curative education: ..". the social center, the heart even, of Ita Wegman's 'Medical Section.' To make a commitment to children with severe obstacles in their incarnation, out of spiritual insight into the human being and the wider karmic context, and to make this commitment as a group of people working out of a Christian-religious impulse-this was for Ita Wegman the true anthroposophic medicine." Dr. Selg then describes Dr. Wegman's heroic eff orts to create a true community of physicians working anthroposophically out of Rudolf Steiner's indications and in the spirit of Christ; how she looked after her colleagues, always seeking to wake them up "to the destiny of their own being." As well, she sought to resist all that was happening in Nazi Germany, never forgetting Rudolf Steiner's warning: "In the future the Anthroposophical Society will be faced with the crucial decision of whether responsibilities will be met or not..." And here exactly lies the heart of this wonderful book: the inner struggle to make love responsible.

"Only in our time has it become possible once again to unlock the sources of Rosicrucian wisdom and allow them to flow into the whole of culture... Christian Rosenkreutz has always lived among us and he is with us today too as the guide of spiritual life.... "The spiritual stream related to Christian Rosenkreutz offers the most potent assistance to those who strive to understand the Christ impulse." -Rudolf Steiner Rudolf Steiner spoke often of the relationship of Anthroposophy or Spiritual Science to Rosicrucianism, but he spoke less of the being of Christian Rosenkreutz himself. As he said, "To speak of Christian Rosenkreutz presumes a profound trust in the mysteries of the life of the spirit-a trust or faith not in the person of Christian Rosenkreutz, but in the mysteries of spiritual life." For Steiner, Christian Rosenkreutz was active in at least three ways. First, as one of the "great leaders of humanity," he worked to bring esoteric spirituality into the modern world and to lead it into the future. Second, as "the greatest teacher of Christianity" he worked to bring to humanity true "heart knowledge" of Christ through the continued unveiling of the Mystery of Golgotha in the etheric. Third, as a concrete, particular individual being, Steiner had a living, actual, personal relationship with him. As such, because of our failure to understand, Steiner called him "a noble martyr...who, through his way of working, endured, and will in future endure, more than any other person. I say 'person, ' for the suffering of Christ was the suffering of a god." In the first part of this inspiring book-a work of devotion both to Rudolf Steiner and to Christian Rosenkreutz-Peter Selg, as "The Great Servant of Christ Jesus," gives a detailed, chronological, and fascinating account of Steiner's portrayal and, as much as possible, experiences of Christian Rosenkreutz. He shows how Steiner had essentially two teachers: the Master Jesus (Zoroaster) and Christian Rosenkreutz. Moreover, Selg shows how these two, with Rudolf Steiner, unfolded spiritual science for our time. In the second part, he shows how all this culminates, astonishingly and miraculously, in the Michael School as it manifested in the First Class. Rudolf Steiner and Christian Rosenkreutz concludes with an appendix containing the text of the original (1614) Fama, or "Announcement of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood." Anyone interested in the esoteric foundations of Anthroposophy or in the true meaning of Rosicrucianism will be find this book of great value.

Created in 1911, eurythmy was developed for years as an artistic and educational discipline. Although Rudolf Steiner pointed out its healing aspects from the very beginning, it was only in 1921 that he gave a course of lectures that gave the art of eurythmy a vital new application. To the assembled eurythmists and doctors, he presented what one participant described as '...a complete and detailed method of eurythmy therapy, in which we could directly experience that even today the creative and therapeutic power of the word ...is still at work'. Steiner's comprehensive lectures, republished here in a thoroughly revised translation, describe the principles of therapeutic eurythmy, giving many specific exercises. Primarily intended for practising eurythmists, these lectures also contain much material of particular interest. Steiner reveals the intricacies of rhythmic interplay between human physiology and the life-forces in the world around us. He describes the qualities of language and the dynamism contained in the individual vowels and consonants, elucidating their relationship with eurythmical movements and human experience. Through such movements, individuals are able to access the healing etheric forces. The exercises, referred to by Steiner as 'inner gymnastics', contain enormous potential for psychological and physiological well-being. Gaining ever-wider recognition today, they complement conventional medicine, offering a therapeutic process concerned with mind, soul and body. This new edition of these important lectures - previously published under the title Curative Eurythmy - includes an appendix with reminiscences by early eurythmists, as well as additional commentary from Dr Walter Kugler.

Based on direct communications with his eight spirit guides, Dr Bob Woodward confirms that we have all lived in spirit worlds before our birth - and that we will enter these same realms again after our material deaths. In a very real sense, these higher spirit worlds are actually our true home, he says, rather than our present physical existence, which is only a temporary abode. In consultation with his spirit guides - including a Tibetan Lama, a Jewish Rabbi, a Native American and his personal guardian angel - Bob Woodward gives a detailed survey of our lives in spirit worlds before birth and after death, our relationships there with friends, family and even pets, and our connections with both good and evil spiritual beings. He also gives a commentary on a range of subjects such as reincarnation and climate change. In a final extensive and moving interview, Woodward finds and speaks with the soul of his deceased father, who offers enlightening glimpses of life after death. Whilst the author's knowledge is grounded in decades of study of the work of Rudolf Steiner - with which he compares the results of his own extrasensory perceptions - Knowledge of Spirit Worlds is not intended as a dry philosophical study. Rather, it has a warm, experiential quality - based as it is on personal interaction with spirit entities - and emphasizes the love that connects all worlds and beings together.

What lies at the root of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the worldwide pandemic it has caused, affecting the health and livelihoods of untold millions of people? What are the deeper, spiritual realities behind COVID-19 and the global turmoil it has left in its trail? In an effort to answer these queries and many others put to her at the start of the pandemic, Judith von Halle composed two letters in March 2020, based on her own spiritual-scientific research. Published in this book together with an additional essay, she addresses questions such as: * Which entities stand behind the virus? * How and why does it affect human beings? * What measures can be taken for prevention and therapy? * What does the crisis mean to individuals and what possibilities does it offer for personal development? The author suggests that, apart from the material havoc triggered by coronavirus, the spiritual causes behind it are extremely serious and - if the present pandemic is not to be the first in a series of catastrophes - humanity is called upon to respond in a radically transformative way. In an additional article von Halle tackles the controversial issues relating to government lockdowns and the protest movements that have sprung up in opposition to them. How do these events point to real questions of individual freedom and, most importantly, how do they relate to the central event of our time - an event that, tragically, remains largely unknown? Revealing unexpected perspectives to the COVID-19 pandemic, Judith von Halle asks urgent and difficult questions and offers shattering insights for humanity's further development.

During 1924, before his last address in September, Rudolf Steiner gave over eighty lectures on the subject of karma to members of the Anthroposophical Society. These profoundly esoteric lectures examine the underlying laws inherent in reincarnation and karma, and explore in detail the incarnations of specific historical figures. In Rudolf Steiner's words, the study of karma is "...a matter of penetrating into the most profound mysteries of existence, for within the sphere of karma and the course it takes lie those processes which are the basis of the other phenomena of world existence..." In this volume, Steiner discusses the karmic relationships within the anthroposophical movement, including the predispositions which lead souls to anthroposophy, the two streams within the movement, plus Rosicrucianism, Arabism, Aristotelianism, the Platonists and the School of Michael.

These two lecture courses, given just after the beginning of World War I, stand as a kind of unexpected gift. A few months later, once the war became a reality, the possibilities for esoteric work would change and it would become more difficult to do spiritual research. But in the short interval before the true horror of the conflict unfolded, Rudolf Steiner was able to give these lectures, which lay out in the clearest fashion the path of anthroposophic meditation, and its assumptions, language, and consequences.

Our instinctive knowledge of which foods are helpful and which are harmful appears increasingly to be fading. We are bombarded with advice, information and prescriptions as to what we should eat and drink, but the issues surrounding nutrition - questions of health, diet, taste, even ecology and sustainability - remain largely unresolved. Unlike most commentators on this subject, Rudolf Steiner tackles the theme of nutrition in a refreshingly open way. At no point does he try to tell us what we should or should not be putting into our bodies - whether with regard to an omnivorous or vegetarian diet, smoking, drinking alcohol, and so on. The job of the scientist, he says, is to explain how things act and what effect they have; what people do with that information is up to them. However, he emphasizes that our diet not only determines our physical wellbeing, but can also promote or hinder our inner spiritual development. In this carefully collated anthology, with an introduction, commentary and notes by Christian von Arnim, Rudolf Steiner considers nutrition in the light of his spiritual-scientific research. He explains the impact of raw food, vegetarian and meat diets, the effects of protein, fats, carbohydrates and salts, individual foodstuffs such as potatoes, beetroots and radishes, as well as the impact of alcohol and nicotine. His insights are vital to anybody with a serious interest in health, diet and spiritual development.

In his final lectures to the general public, Rudolf Steiner speaks with great clarity and purpose about the inner and outer necessity of the anthroposophical impulse in modern times. Following the fire that destroyed the first Goetheanum building in Dornach, Switzerland, Steiner had focused his efforts on rebuilding and reorganizing the Anthroposophical Society. But he also continued to travel and speak to the public - in Prague, Vienna and Basel - to explain the purpose of the Goetheanum and to elucidate the broader aims of his spiritual work. These lectures, including a semi-public series in Dornach, are gathered here and published in English for the first time, together with an introduction, notes and index. The volume features the following lectures: 'The Purpose of the Goetheanum and the Aims of Anthroposophy'; 'Enhancing Human Powers of Perception to Develop Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition'; 'Human Soul Life and the Development of Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition'; 'Experience and Perception of the Activities of Thinking and Speech'; 'The Physical World and Moral-Spiritual Impulses': 'Four Stages of Inner Experience'; 'Perceiving the Etheric World'; 'Soul's Eternity in the Light of Anthroposophy'; 'Human Development and Education in the Light of Anthroposophy'; 'Supersensible Perception, Anthroposophy as a Contemporary Need'; 'Anthroposophy and the Ethical and Religious Life'; 'How Do We Gain Knowledge of the Supersensible World?'