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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Alternative belief systems > Syncretist & eclectic religions & belief systems > Post-renaissance syncretist / eclectic systems > Theosophy & Anthroposophy
"This biography does not aim for completeness, but focuses on
Rudolf Steiner's being, intentions, and journey-aspects that must
not be obliterated by the many events, foundations, and people
involved with Anthroposophy.... It wants to convey (to quote Emil
Leinhas) 'the immense greatness and unique significance of this
individuality who radiates out over the centuries.'" -Peter Selg
(from the introduction) To acknowledge and understand Rudolf
Steiner's unique achievement and life's work, one must be able to
accept that the founder and spiritual researcher of Anthroposophy
was "a citizen of two worlds" the spiritual and the physical.
Anthroposophy teaches that this duality, rather than being a
quality reserved for special individualities, is inherent to human
nature. According to Rudolf Steiner, it is a central aspect of
being human, even in times when the suprasensory aspect of humanity
is eclipsed (for ordinary day consciousness) and almost eliminated
by certain civilizations. The interest in Rudolf Steiner's person
and essence, in his attitude toward life and work, will continue to
grow in the decades and centuries that lie ahead, both within and
outside the anthroposophical movement. It will take hold of
entirely different groups of people, including those who come with
spiritual questions or discover them in times of need. Rudolf
Steiner's work grew to be "one unique effort of bringing courage to
human beings" (Michael Bauer). This is the first of seven
comprehensive volumes on Rudolf Steiner's "being, intentions, and
journey." It presents Rudolf Steiner from childhood and youth
through his doctorate degree and up to the time of his work for the
Goethe Archives as editor of Goethe's scientific writings. By
considering his formative years in depth, we come to understand
better the roots and development of Rudolf Steiner's later
spiritual research and teachings.
6 lectures, Berlin, November 16-December 12, 1915 (CW 157a) This is
a fully revised edition of the book previously published as The
Forming of Destiny and Life after Death Rudolf Steiner delivered
these lectures near the end of 1915 and the beginning of World War
I, when the issue of death and destiny weighed on the minds of many
in Europe. He describes, from a spiritual perspective, the process
of crossing the threshold of death to life in the spiritual world;
the soul's experience immediately after death; and the process of
forming one's destiny, or karma, while we remain on Earth and later
in the spirit world. Steiner also discusses the importance of our
connection with those who have died and how love and reverence to
the memory of the dead must be united with our love for the
physical world, and how we can strengthen ourselves through
meditation. In the final lecture, given on December 21, Steiner
stresses the esoteric importance of the thirteen nights of
Christmas and how we can consciously affect our future karma during
that time. This edition includes "The Dream Song of Olaf Asteson,"
a Nordic poem (discussed in lecture 6) that describes in pictorial
language the deep mysteries of the Christmas nights.
Ita Wegman, born in 1876 to a Dutch family living in Indonesia,
first met Rudolf Steiner in Berlin in 1902 when she was 26 years
old. She studied medicine at the University of Zurich and in 1917,
following Steiner's indications, developed a treatment for cancer
using mistletoe. In 1921 she founded the first anthroposophical
medical clinic, in Arlesheim, Switzerland, followed in 1922 by the
Sonnenhof home for children with special needs. Karl Koenig first
met Wegman in 1927, and she quickly recognized his great potential,
as well as his weaknesses. She invited him to work at the Arlesheim
clinic as her assistant, and encouraged and advised him in his
medical work. This book includes the complete correspondence
between Koenig and Wegman.
Part one, ?A Way of Self-Knowledge, ? contains eight meditations
that take the reader on a journey through human experience.
Beginning with ordinary experience, Steiner offers ways to imagine
and understand the physical body, the elemental (or etheric) body,
the elemental world, the Guardian of the Threshold, the astral
body, the I-body (or thought body), the nature of experience in
suprasensory worlds, and ways of perceiving previous earthly lives.
Part two, ?The Threshold of the Spiritual World, ? contains sixteen
short chapters in which Steiner provides aphoristic thoughts on
trusting one's thinking? cognition of the spiritual world? karma
and reincarnation? the astral body and luciferic beings? how to
recognize suprasensory consciousness; the true nature of love; and
more.
Usually, motivating ourselves to geth through the demands of daily
life is difficult enough; finding the will to excel is even harder.
Our occupations can become routine and boring, leading us to to
ask: What is the purpose of my work? Is it merely to satisfy the
demands of survival, which in turn simply allows me to keep
working? Or is it a matter of more disposable income and
consumerism? In the end, it can all seem rather pointless. In these
remarkable talks, Rudolf Steiner takes us behind the scenes of the
routine activities of vocation where we are shown how the combined
vocational activity of all humanity affects the higher suprasensory
realms. This activity mobilizes forces that lead to future worlds,
which is the "karma of vocation." It prepares new worlds in which
we will participate. By understanding this deeper aspect of our
daily work, we can bring new meaning to the most insignificant
activities. In fact, we begin to understand that no human work is
insignificant; it all contributes to grand cosmic processes. Such
understanding helps us to bring new enthusiasm to our work and
lives.
Gertrude Reif Hughes, an anthroposophist of many years, offers her
insights for practicing important exercises, verses, and
meditations given by Rudolf Steiner to his esoteric students.
Although Eastern Europe has been part of the Christian world for
more than a thousand years, its spiritual identity remains a
mystery. This mystery, says Sergei Prokofieff, can only fully be
solved by looking behind external events and seeking spiritual -
meta-historical - dimensions of reality. In illuminating the maya
of outer history, Prokofieff reveals the forces that have been at
work to hinder the progress of mankind: the materialistic
Brotherhoods of the West and the occult aspects of both Jesuitism
and Bolshevism. These adversary groups have created a 'karma of
materialism', that the eastern Slavic peoples have taken upon
themselves out of their 'exalted willingness for sacrifice'.
Prokofieff shows how, from the earliest times, the future
'conscience of humanity' flowed from hidden mystery centres in
Hibernia, to the eastern Slavic peoples. As a result, qualities of
'compassion, patience and willingness for sacrifice' developed in
their souls, creating a truly Christian 'Grail mood'. Despite
incalculable suffering - from the persecutions of the Mongol hordes
to the Bolshevik experiment of the last century - this quality has
become an unconquerable force. Will humanity be able to use the
present opportunity granted by this sacrifice to fulfil the primary
purposes of the present cultural epoch? Can the future mysteries of
the Holy Grail be fulfilled? In this momentous work, breathtaking
in its scope and detail, the author attempts a truly esoteric
approach, penetrating to the spiritual wellsprings of Eastern
Europe in the light of Rudolf Steiner's research.
Great differences exist between the "Know yourself" of the ancient
mystery centers and that injunction today. What used to be achieved
after death is now achieved in life. To reach higher stages of
development after death we must become fully human in earthly life.
This was not always so; there has been a change. For in the center
of human evolution is the Christ event: in our time we must
experience the Christ in ourselves as light, life, and love.
Adopting the appropriate cognitive path, we become citizens of
the universe, rather than hermits of the earth.
Rudolf Steiner shows convincingly that the methods and findings of
anthroposophical spiritual science may be seen as a vital
contribution to the spheres of the academic sciences. One of
anthroposophy's central aims is to enhance human powers of
perception beyond the limits set by purely intellectual thinking.
This is of vital importance for the scientists of today and the
problems they face. In fact, given recent developments in gene
technology etc., it could be argued that his words are more
significant today than ever before. This volume includes two series
of public lectures given at the request of young anthroposophists
connected with the university in Zurich.
Now what kind of approach by the reader did THE PHILOSOPHY OF
SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY count on? It had to assume a special way of
reading. It expected the reader, as he read, to undergo the sort of
inner experience that, in an external sense, is really just waking
up out of sleep in the morning. The feeling one should have about
it is such as to make one say, "My relationship to the world in
passive thoughts was, on a higher level, that of a person who lies
asleep. Now I am waking up." It is like knowing, at the moment of
awakening, that one has been lying passively in bed, letting nature
have her way with one's body. But then one begins to be inwardly
active. One relates one's senses actively to what is going on in
the color permeated, sounding world about one. One links one's own
bodily activity to one's intentions. The reader of The Philosophy
of Spiritual Activity should experience something very like this
waking moment of transition from passivity to activity, though of
course on a higher level. He should be able to say, "Yes, I have
certainly thought thoughts before. But my thinking took the form of
just letting thoughts flow and carry me along. Now, little by
little, I am beginning to be inwardly active in them." - from
Rudolf Steiner's AWAKENING TO COMMUNITY
Ernst Marti devoted his life to researching the 'etheric realm' - a
subtle area that exists between the physical and spiritual. Taking
the numerous statements and references by Rudolf Steiner as his
starting point, Marti develops our understanding of the etheric
world in various fields - from the theory of knowledge to the
natural world, through to music, the realm of colours, eurythmy and
medicine. In doing so, he proposes exciting bridges from the
ancient and medieval worldview to the present and future of natural
and spiritual science.The Etheric explores the fourfold realm of
the ethers. Giving an overview of their cosmic origins in the
evolution of the earth, Dr Marti shows how the ethers work in
phenomena of warmth, light, sound and organic life. He brings a
contemporary understanding and insight to the classical elements -
fire, air, water and earth - as the media through which ethericity
manifests and works in the world. Four physical forces are also
explored which, as opposites to the ethers, have a constant
tendency to break down and annul what life-giving ether creates.Dr
Marti then studies the shadow aspects of the ethers connected to
what he terms the 'sub-natural' forces of electricity, magnetism
and nuclear force. Given that the author was unable to complete
this book in his lifetime, his pupil and colleague Irmgard Rossmann
edited the final version in the spirit of her teacher. It is
published here in two volumes, with this first focusing on 'The
World of the Ethers' and the forthcoming volume on 'The World of
Formative Forces'.
The main subjects of analysis in the present book are the stages of
initiation in the grand scheme of Theosophical evolution. These
initiatory steps are connected to an idea of evolutionary
self-development by means of a set of virtues that are relative to
the individual's position on the path of evolution. The central
thesis is that these stages were translated from the "Hindu"
tradition to the "Theosophical" tradition through multifaceted
"hybridization processes" in which several Indian members of the
Theosophical Society partook. Starting with Annie Besant's early
Theosophy, the stages of initiation are traced through Blavatsky's
work to Manilal Dvivedi and T. Subba Row, both Indian members of
the Theosophical Society, and then on to the Sanatana Dharma Text
Books. In 1898, the English Theosophist Annie Besant and the Indian
Theosophist Bhagavan Das together founded the Central Hindu
College, Benares, which became the nucleus around which the Benares
Hindu University was instituted in 1915. In this context the
Sanatana Dharma Text Books were published. Muhlematter shows that
the stages of initiation were the blueprint for Annie Besant's
pedagogy, which she implemented in the Central Hindu College in
Benares. In doing so, he succeeds in making intelligible how
"esoteric" knowledge was transferred to public institutions and how
a broader public could be reached as a result. The dissertation has
been awarded the ESSWE PhD Thesis prize 2022 by the European
Society for the Study of Western Esotericism.
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