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.

ANCIENT MYSTERIES / INCA STUDIES"Cotterell puts up enough evidence to make even the most skeptical take note."London Daily Mail"The Lost Tomb of Viracocha is excellent."--Director General of the Instituto Nacionale de Antropologia e Historia (INAH) in MexicoInca mythology tells of a tall, white leader who wandered along the coast performing miracles, a man they called Viracocha Pachacamac, which means "God of the World." Centuries later another great miracle worker, similar to the first, appeared and wandered the countryside, healing the sick and restoring sight to the blind. He, too, was named Viracocha.These accounts have long baffled scholars, as have the carvings left by the people of Tiahuanaco, Bolivia, who preserved these legends. Now Maurice Cotterell, who cracked the codes hidden in both ancient Maya carvings and the treasures of Tutankhamun, unlocks the secrets concealed within the treasure-filled tombs of Viracocha Pachacamac and Viracocha. His investigation of these tombs, held within the long-lost pyramids of Peru, proves that these two figures were not myth but actually existed 1,500 years ago.The two Viracocha sun-kings had much in common with Lord Pacal of Mexico and Tutankhamun of Egypt and, like them, left the secrets of a solar science encoded in their treasures. Using a method of calculating the duration of long-term magnetic reversals on the sun, Cotterell reveals the intimate connection between the cycles of life and birth on Earth and solar activity such as sunspots. More important, he shows how this science holds the key to reincarnation and human spiritual realization, with answers to the spiritual mysteries of life and death.MAURICE COTTERELL, amathematician and scientist formerly at the Cranfield Institute of Technology, was awarded the Voluntariado Cultural medal in 1992 for his contributions to Mexican culture. He is the author of the international bestseller The Tutankhamun Prophecies and coauthor of The Mayan Prophecies. He lives in Ireland.

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.