Austrian philosopher, playwright, and artist Rudolf Steiner (1861 1925) is perhaps best known as an educational philosopher and reformer, the founder of Steiner (or Waldorf) schools located around the world. These schools' philosophy represents the priorities Steiner discusses in Theosophy: the development of body, soul, and spirit. Goethe was an important influence on Steiner, and he edited the poet's scientific works (1889 1896). Steiner was an active member and leader of the German branch of Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Society, eventually broke away from theosophy, as he developed his own spiritual philosophy termed 'anthroposophy'; this philosophical movement asserted the potential of realizing a spiritual reality through cognition. This 1910 translation by Elizabeth Douglas Shields is of the book's third German edition; it was first published in 1904. This work will be of particular interest to historians of philosophy, of spiritual movements and of education.

The dance along the artery The circulation on the lymph Are figured in the drift of stars. T. S. Eliot Die Methode ist alles. Carl Ludwig In physiology a spirit of finesse is required. Claude Bernard Armed with modern Doppler instrumentation, scientists can now quantify the red blood cell's "dance along the artery" as well as "the drift of stars. " In disciplines of science and medicine ranging from cardiology to astronomy, the Doppler principle now provides invaluable velo city measurements in the microcosm of capillary beds and in the cosmos. The newest appiication of the ubiquitous Doppler principle, laser-Doppler velocimetry, has been used to measure blood ftow in tissue for just a few years, but we perceived that, like most new techniques, the birth of laser-Doppler blood ftowmetry was not easy, nor was it likely to pass through infancy and reach maturity without difficulty. In physiology and medicine, better techniques for measur ing blood ftow are constantly in demand, but they often exhibit an unfortun ate boom-and-bust cyde: widespread acceptance and uncritical use are soon xiii xiv Preface followed by studies delineating the limits of the method's validity. The technique is then abandoned for the next more fashionable one, thus proving Ludwig's dictum that a given method is everything or nothing depending upon whether one can believe the data it yields."

The dance along the artery The circulation on the lymph Are figured in the drift of stars. T. S. Eliot Die Methode ist alles. Carl Ludwig In physiology a spirit of finesse is required. Claude Bernard Armed with modern Doppler instrumentation, scientists can now quantify the red blood cell's "dance along the artery" as well as "the drift of stars. " In disciplines of science and medicine ranging from cardiology to astronomy, the Doppler principle now provides invaluable velo city measurements in the microcosm of capillary beds and in the cosmos. The newest appiication of the ubiquitous Doppler principle, laser-Doppler velocimetry, has been used to measure blood ftow in tissue for just a few years, but we perceived that, like most new techniques, the birth of laser-Doppler blood ftowmetry was not easy, nor was it likely to pass through infancy and reach maturity without difficulty. In physiology and medicine, better techniques for measur ing blood ftow are constantly in demand, but they often exhibit an unfortun ate boom-and-bust cyde: widespread acceptance and uncritical use are soon xiii xiv Preface followed by studies delineating the limits of the method's validity. The technique is then abandoned for the next more fashionable one, thus proving Ludwig's dictum that a given method is everything or nothing depending upon whether one can believe the data it yields."

Given his energetic involvement in practical initiatives and extensive lecturing, Rudolf Steiner had little time to write books. Of those he did write - belonging almost entirely to the earlier years of his work - four titles form an indispensable introduction to his later teaching: Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, Occult Science, The Philosophy of Freedom and Theosophy. Theosophy focuses on a psychology based not on the usual duality of body and mind, but on the more ancient division of body, soul and spirit. Steiner describes in detail the functions and organs of these three aspects of the human being, and the objective realms to which they belong. Just as the body derives from and belongs to the material world, so do the human soul and spirit belong to their own specific realms. These are the dimensions through which all human beings travel in the life after death, and in which - after passing the 'midnight hour' - we prepare to seek our destiny, or karma, in a new life. Theosophy features one of the most comprehensive and condensed of all Steiner's accounts of these realms, and of the experiences which our immortal being undergoes in passing through them. The book ends with a chapter on the modern 'path of knowledge', in which Steiner describes the exercises through which every person may develop the latent powers of perception which are necessary for a knowledge of metaphysical worlds.

"Every page contains thought at a high level." -British Weekly Rudolf Steiner begins these three lectures by depicting the background of early Christian thought, from which scholastic philosophers arose. He focuses on the "unanswered question" of the scholastic movement: How can human thinking be made Christlike and develop toward a vision of the spiritual world? A study of subsequent European thought, especially that of Kant, leads to the possibility of deepening into spiritual perception the scientific thinking that arose from scholasticism. Steiner explains that, since the beginning of the twentieth century, this is true Christianity.