The Return Of Rudolf Steiner And The Renewal Of Anthroposophy

Author : Ron MacFarlane
Publisher : ISBN Canada (Library and Archives Canada)
Page : 176 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2020-11-07
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0995967423

Get Book

The Return of Rudolf Steiner and the Renewal of Anthroposophy by Ron MacFarlane Pdf

THE PREMATURE DEATH in 1925 of Austrian philosopher and esotericist―Rudolf Steiner―at the age of 64, was a devastating "body-blow" to the newly-constituted General Anthroposophical Society and to its world-wide members.Even though Steiner had been seriously ill, and often bed-ridden for six months prior to his death, everyone expected that this extraordinarily-gifted individual would fully recover. After all, Steiner was widely recognized as a highly-developed Christian initiate with demonstrated supernatural abilities.Besides that, throughout his worsening illness, Steiner himself talked and acted as though he expected to fully recover. Not only had he assumed the presidency of the Society and taken up the leadership of the School of Spiritual Science just nine months before becoming ill; but even after becoming seriously afflicted, he continued to dictate letters, to record new supersensible research, to work on his autobiography, to write weekly essays for the newsletter Das Goetheanum, and to provide personal counseling for a constant flow of members and non-members. Hardly the funerary activities of a man who was preparing to die. The shock, surprise, disbelief and despair that anthroposophists experienced with the death of Rudolf Steiner similarly echoed that of the apostles and disciples of Christ-Jesus immediately after his own premature death at 33 years of age. No one expected that the Messiah, with his demonstrated divine power, would be cruelly put to death by Roman execution (despite his repeated prophetic indications that this would occur). In the case of Christ-Jesus, his unwavering compassion to rescue fallen humanity was placed far above personal concerns for his own physical safety. For this reason, he willingly sacrificed his own physical life despite the enormous spiritual power at his command. Nevertheless, notwithstanding his untimely death, he positively left behind the strong foundation for a future universal church, and the promise that he would one day return to earth.In Rudolf Steiner's case, as a devoted follower of Christ-Jesus, he similarly minimized and disregarded the seriousness of his own physical health in order to compassionately continue to assist those around him, and to help struggling humanity in general. Unfortunately, this too resulted in his own sacrificial death. And similar to Our Saviour, Rudolf Steiner positively left behind the foundation for a world-wide esoteric society; and the indication that he would return to earth in less than a hundred years. Also noteworthy in both cases―with Christ-Jesus and Rudolf Steiner―their predicted return to earth was not what was generally expected to occur; but something that was quite different in fact. While briefly touching on the unique earthly return of Christ-Jesus that occurred in the twentieth century, this publication―The Return of Rudolf Steiner and the Renewal of Anthroposophy―will focus on explaining and understanding the predicted return to earth of Rudolf Steiner that quietly (but profoundly) occurred at the beginning of the twenty-first century; and the positive impact this will have on future anthroposophy.

Author : Rudolf Steiner
Publisher : Steiner Books
Page : 284 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2001-01-01
Category : Anthroposophy
ISBN : 0880104988

Get Book

The Renewal of Education by Rudolf Steiner Pdf

Author : Rudolf Steiner
Publisher : SteinerBooks
Page : 294 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2001-10
Category : Education
ISBN : 9780880108478

Get Book

The Renewal of Education by Rudolf Steiner Pdf

Written 1902 (CW 8) "As simultaneously mysticism and fact, Christianity is a breakthrough in the historical development of humanity, for which the mysteries, with the results that they brought about, form a prior evolutionary stage." --Rudolf Steiner During the fall and winter of 1901-02, Steiner gave a series of lectures called "Christianity as Mystical Fact" to members of the Theosophical Society. The lectures were rewritten and issued as a book later that year. They mark a watershed in the development of Western esotericism. Steiner wrote of the idea behind his book: "The title Christianity as Mystical Fact was one I gave to this work eight years ago, when I gathered together the content of lectures given in 1902. It was meant to indicate the special approach adopted in the book. Its theme is not just the mystical side of Christianity in a historical presentation. It was meant to show, from the standpoint of a mystical awareness, how Christianity came into being. "Behind this was the idea that spiritual happenings were factors in the emergence of Christianity, which could only be observed from such a point of view. It is for the book itself to demonstrate that, by 'mystical,' I do not in any way imply a vague intuition rather than strict scientific argument. In many circles, mysticism is understood as just that, and therefore it is distinguished from the concerns of all 'genuine' science. "In this book, however, I use the term to mean a 'presentation of spiritual reality'--a reality accessible only to a knowledge drawn from the sources of spiritual life itself. Anyone who denies the possibility of such knowledge in principle will find its contents hard to comprehend; any reader who accepts the idea that mysticism may coexist with the clarity of the natural sciences, may acknowledge that the mystical aspect of Christianity must be described mystically." This is a significant book--for Steiner's own development, that of Western esotericism, and our own understanding of the Christ event. Readers will find the evolutionary development from the ancient Mysteries through the great Greek philosophers to the events portrayed in the Gospels. Included are an informative introduction and annotated notes by Andrew Welburn and an afterword by Michael Debus, a priest of The Christian Community, who summarizes the book and places it in context. This book is a translation from German of Das Christentum als mystische Tatsache und die Mysterien des Altertum (GA 8). Cover image: Photo of Bordeaux Cathedral by James Nicholls.

Author : Rudolf Steiner
Publisher : SteinerBooks
Page : 180 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 1985-09
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781621510062

Get Book

The Renewal of the Social Organism by Rudolf Steiner Pdf

"Reading through this volume is to be taken on a journey. It is to walk with Robert Sardello on his journey as he pushes forward toward new realities. In a sense, each step is not so easy. The thinking often appears dense, the ideas often new and therefore disconcerting. But each individual piece, as the whole, is bathed in an aura--in a way, we may say it is bathed in soul; in love, in generosity, and friendship. Attending to these, we find the ideas and the new possibilities begin to make sense. We are moved to change our lives." -- Christopher Bamford (from his introduction) In these introductions, Robert Sardello introduces us to many people we may not otherwise have met and introduces us to many ways of being and thinking, which we didn't know before. The range of those we meet in these pages is staggering. At the same time, there is a sweet harmony and ever-unfolding deepening of a single theme. Miraculously, it pervades and shapes the entire sequence of those whom he presents, even though he often wrote in response to a request, and not initially on his own initiative. Robert writes of matters with which he has made a deep friendship, and out of that friendship he has received and participated in a communion of ideas. He is able to do this because he has entered the aspiration of those he is introducing at the deepest level, making their insights his own and deepening them in his own way. An introduction conveys a particular soul capacity. For Robert Sardello, "soul capacities" are of the essence of what he calls Spiritual Psychology. Together with the worlds and beings to which they correspond, it is such capacities that make us human and enable us to fulfill our human tasks. Reading these introductions is an astonishing experience. Within their short, individual compasses, they allow us to participate in Robert's own journey: to catch, as it were, the bird in flight and fly with it. That is, they map his journey--at least, that portion of it that began to unfold as his destiny began to crystallize. "Robert Sardello's insights navigate many hazardous abstractions, from the so-called New Age through the perennial philosophies. With Sophia as his muse, the 'current from the future' calls him, carrying its many imaginations as energy, the always-immediate now, and the truly new. Across these authors' writings, his visionary perspective deepens in dialogue with the different works as authored beings. For writings possess their own spirit, or how otherwise do they engender a unique spirit when reborn within our own imagination?" -- Scott R. Scribner (from his introduction)

Author : Rudolf Steiner
Publisher : Rudolf Steiner Press
Page : 150 pages
File Size : 51,9 Mb
Release : 2013-05-17
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781855843028

Get Book

Towards Social Renewal by Rudolf Steiner Pdf

Although this book was first published in 1919, it remains highly relevant to social problems encountered today. Uniquely, Steiner's social thinking is not based on intellectual theory, but on a profound perception of the archetypal spiritual nature of social life. As he suggests in this classic work, society has three distinct realms - the economic, the political (individual human rights), and the cultural (spiritual). While social life as a whole is a unity, the autonomy of these three sectors should be respected if our increasing social problems are to be resolved. Steiner relates the ideals of 'liberty, equality and fraternity' to modern society. Economics calls for fraternity (brotherhood), political rights require equality, while culture should be characterised by liberty (freedom). The slogans of the French Revolution, he suggests, can only become truly manifest if our social thinking is transformed to correspond to the spiritual reality.

Author : Rudolf Steiner
Publisher : SteinerBooks
Page : 450 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2010-11
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781621510222

Get Book

First Steps in Christian Religious Renewal by Rudolf Steiner Pdf

6 lectures and 2 discussions in Stuttgart, June 12-16, 1921 (CW 342) The lectures and discussions presented in First Steps in Christian Religious Renewal make up the first of the five "Priest Courses." They record the first steps of the remarkable journey taken in 1921 by a small group of dedicated souls who, out of their own inner needs and guided by Rudolf Steiner, sought a path to Christian religious renewal. Addressing the group with warm intimacy, Steiner frames their task not primarily in theological terms, but as a need for a renewing "the religious," or "the working of the religious element as such." For this, the sermon (or how we speak) is central, for today we must use language in new ways. We cannot reopen the spiritual worlds by starting from "old conditions." Traditional religious life has become too corrupted, while modern culture has radically changed and become divorced from tradition. In earlier times, people could understand concepts such as "Christ," "grace," and "salvation," but now we need a new starting point, one that begins with the reality that we cannot teach anything we do not believe and have not experienced. When we speak, images and symbols must be experienced as real; we can no longer hold the split view that accepts both modern science as it is and spiritual reality as it is. Next, Steiner turns to the group's stated concerns: ritual, the sermon, community building, and the relationship between these and individual efforts to awaken to the "I." Here, a question arises about the extent to which such matters should become conscious. The question arises: How do we avoid conscious religious content from becoming abstract, intellectual, and cut off from feeling? All too often, intellect is confused with consciousness. Yet Goethe, for one, was certainly conscious and was able to think pictorially and live in images without falling into intellectuality. We, too, must learn to do so. In a sense, however, even this is secondary. Community building, which requires finding "what lives and weaves between human beings," is the key. To bring the community to birth, Steiner advises the group to abandon teaching or exercising power through words and concepts. Instead of focusing on "knowledge of God" (theology), they must find a way to communicate actual "life in God"--experience of the divine within the soul. This means that they must learn to live in a content that is greater and beyond what they can speak. Thus, the importance of ritual, which must remain simple while expressing inner transformation of the human being, or the "en-Christing," imbuing the human being with Christ. Steiner explains, "Human beings are not born imbued with Christ beforehand by way of inheritance; they must find the Christ in themselves." Such transformation, "en-Christing," can be expressed symbolically in many ways through simple, effective, ritual. First Steps in Christian Religious Renewal is a translation from German of Vorträge und Kurse über christlich-religiöses Wirken, Bd.1, Anthroposophische Grundlagen für ein erneuertes christlich-religiöses Wirken (GA 342).

Author : Rudolf Steiner
Publisher : Rudolf Steiner Press
Page : 58 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2008
Category : Second Advent
ISBN : 9781855842076

Get Book

The Second Coming of Christ by Rudolf Steiner Pdf

1 lecture, Stuttgart, March 6, 1910 (CW 118) "The being whom we call Christ once walked the earth in flesh and blood at the beginning of our era. He will never again return in a physical body, for that was a unique event and will not be repeated. But He will come again in an etheric form in the period I have mentioned. People will learn to perceive Christ by virtue of growing towards him through this etheric perception." Many contemporaries of Jesus Christ were unaware of his incarnation on Earth at the beginning of the modern era. Moreover, today, says Rudolf Steiner, many remain ignorant of the most important event of our time: the appearance of Christ in the etheric, life realm of the Earth. Fundamentalists and millennial groups are awaiting the second physical incarnation, whereas atheists and materialists deny spirit altogether. Nevertheless, an incisive transformation is occurring in the human soul that will lead to an emerging clairvoyance. Just as Paul perceived Christ at Damascus, it is appropriate that every human being should experience him today. This lecture is translated from the German book Das Ereignis der Christus-Erscheinung in der ätherischen Welt (GA 118).

Author : Rudolf Steiner,Robert A. McDermott
Publisher : SteinerBooks
Page : 442 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2009-10
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781584204787

Get Book

The New Essential Steiner by Rudolf Steiner,Robert A. McDermott Pdf

12 lectures, Hamburg, May 5-31, 1908 (CW 103) During Pentecost 1908--seven years after he had given the world his book Christianity As Mystical Fact and the first intimation of the consequences of his Christ experience--Rudolf Steiner began his great work of renewing humanity's understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha and its meaning for human and earthly evolution. Accordingly, he turned to the deepest, most spiritual of the Gospels--that of the initiate St. John. In this lecture course, readers will find that the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Divine Word, or Logos, reveals the mission of the Earth: Love. We learn of the mysteries behind Lazarus' resurrection, the "I AM" sayings, and the seven degrees of initiation. We come to understand that the Gospel of St. John is a continuing spiritual presence--to be recalled, meditated, and permeated with one's own life. In doing so, we realized that our purpose--and that of all humankind--is to become the Virgin Sophia, a receptical for the Holy Spirit. All of Steiner's work, as Marie Steiner writes in her introduction, was "to pave the way to Christ." Indeed, at the conclusion of these lectures, Rudolf Steiner said: It will come to be understood that Christianity is only beginning its influence and will fulfill its real mission only when it is understood in its true, spiritual form.... The more these lectures are understood in this sense, the better they will be understood as they were intended. This volume is essential if one is to truly understand Rudolf Steiner's understanding of esoteric Christianity and its place in the world today and in the future. This volume is a translation of Das Johannes-Evangelium (GA 103).

Author : Rudolf Steiner
Publisher : SteinerBooks
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 1979-02
Category : History
ISBN : 0910142831

Get Book

The Challenge of the Times by Rudolf Steiner Pdf

In these lectures, given just days after the end of World War I, Steiner describes the new developments in mechanics, politics, and economy, as well as new capacities and methods in the West and the East. He reveals their fruitful potentials, but also the dangers of their abuse. He discusses social and antisocial instincts, specters of the Old Testament in the nationalism of the present, and the innate capacities of various nations. Contents: "East and West from a Spiritual Point of View" "The Present from the Viewpoint of the Present" "The Mechanistic, Eugenic, and Hygienic Aspects of the Future" "Social and Antisocial Instincts" "Specters of the Old Testament in the Nationalism of the Present" "The Innate Capacities of the Nations of the World" READ BOBBY MATHERNE'S REVIEW OF THIS BOOK This volume is a translation of Die soziale Grundforderung unserer Zeit (vol. 186 in the Bibliographic Survey).

Author : Rudolf Steiner
Publisher : Rudolf Steiner Press
Page : 191 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 9781855842199

Get Book

The Karma of Anthroposophy by Rudolf Steiner Pdf

"If such authentic souls, such honest anthroposophists can be found...then an upward movement and dynamic will arise. If such souls do not appear, then decadence will take its inexorable downward course.... Today humanity stands before a great crisis: either it will see all civilization collapsing into the abyss, or else spirituality will raise civilization up by the power of the Michael impetus, through which the Christ impetus works, thus continuing, enriching and sustaining it." During 1924, the last full year of Rudolf Steiner's life, he gave a series of urgent, sometimes impassioned, talks to members of the Anthroposophical Society about their karma and its relationship to contemporary culture, referring in particular to the vital task of renewing civilization and preserving it from the threat of decline. Steiner's words reveal a great gathering of forces to do spiritual battle for the soul of humanity. He presents a striking panorama in which anthroposophists are compelled to broaden their vision--to see true esoteric and exoteric anthroposophic work as a living yeast that can leaven all culture. To awaken members of the Anthroposophical Society to the significance of their task, Steiner could see that it was essential for them to understand the various karmic threads that form the fabric of the anthroposophic movement. Such recognition--of both difference and unity--offers strength of diversity, which easily leads to division if it remains unconscious and unrecognized. In the lectures and excerpts in The Karma of Anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner speaks of an unprecedented convergence of two specific groups of souls with the anthroposophic movement: the Platonists and the Aristotelians. Thus, a conflict of approaches forms the karmic background, whereas today's task calls for unity based on love and knowledge--to work with the Archangel Michael and Christ in the face of Ahriman, materialism, and the possibility of social collapse and decadence. Given the challenges we face today, it is urgent for those who embrace spiritual science to study, absorb, and take to heart the substance of this critically important material.

Author : Rudolf Steiner
Publisher : SteinerBooks
Page : 641 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2006-03
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 9781621511458

Get Book

Rosicrucianism Renewed by Rudolf Steiner Pdf

"After Rudolf Steiner had left us in the body, the gifts of the spirit that were offered by him in such overflowing measure could not continue. It must now happen that a community of human beings takes over the results of his spiritual research, takes them in such a way that they remain alive in the community. People must come together in anthroposophic work, united in such a way that Anthroposophy comes into its own" (Carl Unger, Oct. 29, 1928). This volume provides perhaps the most comprehensive and profound exegesis of Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy, especially his book titled Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts. That book provides Steiner's final and most complete explanation of his Spiritual Science through brief, aphoristic thoughts, or meditations, on the profound esoteric meaning of the modern spiritual path he called Anthroposophy. In The Language of the Consciousness Soul, Carl Unger unfolds and expands Rudolf Steiner's "leading thoughts" in 78 brief, meditative chapters to help the reader comprehend the deeper meaning behind the Leading Thoughts. Unger helps us see how Steiner created a mandala-like "image" of Anthroposophy, revealing an ever-expanding cosmology and epistemology that goes far beyond mere philosophy or a belief system to a practical path of spiritual investigation and knowledge for modern humankind. Rudolf Steiner had this to say about Carl Unger: "Dr. Carl Unger, for many years past, has always been the most industrious and devoted collaborator in the anthroposophic movement.... At an early date, Dr. Unger saw that Anthroposophy, before all, needs a strong foundation of the theory of knowledge. With a deep understanding he took up what I myself, many years ago, was able to give in my books Goethe's Theory of Knowledge, Truth and Knowledge, and Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path: A Philosophy of Freedom, he developed independently what I had intimated. Supported by mental discernment, his goal was to see through the nature of the human process of knowledge in a clear analysis, and from that to form its true picture. Dr. Unger is not dialectical but an observer of empirical facts. This is why, through the years, he has been able to give results of the highest value, showing how the process of knowledge in ordinary consciousness produces, always and everywhere, out of itself, the impulses to anthroposophic investigation. Moreover, Dr. Unger's method of thinking, trained through technical problems, is free from subjective vagueness, and thus his scientific collaboration in Anthroposophy is the most important that we can have." The Language of the Consciousness Soul is an indispensable guidebook for group study and for individuals who wish to penetrate the depths of Anthroposophy and apply its principles both inwardly and to daily life. This volume is an edited translation by Effie Grace Wilson of Aus der Sprache der Bewusstseinsseele: Unter Zugrundelegung der Leitsätze Rudolf Steiners.

Author : Rudolf Steiner
Publisher : Rudolf Steiner Press
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2016-11-14
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781855845299

Get Book

Life of the Human Soul by Rudolf Steiner Pdf

How are we connected to the world around us? This question, says Rudolf Steiner, is one that lives subliminally, drawing us into the depths of the psyche. There, our candle of consciousness tends to flicker and go out. But spiritual schooling can relight it, so that we learn to perceive realms of our being beyond the restricted self. Whilst Steiner was undertaking major lecture tours of Germany and England, he took time to address his followers at the world centre of anthroposophy in Dornach, Switzerland. He speaks here on three major topics: ‘The Life of the Human Soul’, ‘Spiritual Striving in Relation to Earth’s Evolution’ and ‘The Contrast Between East and West’. The common theme, however, is our mutual responsibility for what the human being and the world will eventually become – which, according to Steiner, is far from a foregone conclusion. Even the way we think can change and affect the future: the degree, for example, to which we concentrate our picturing in meditation, infusing head thinking with warmth of heart. Rudolf Steiner reveals a hugely complex picture of interrelationships between humanity and the cosmos. Our head, heart, lungs and limbs all reveal subtly different qualities of connection with the invisible realities that continue to sustain us. Our eyes, for instance, only gradually evolved into organs of sight and were once vital organs, as our lungs are now. The lungs, in turn, will similarly evolve to provide us with another form of perception. As is usually the case, Steiner addresses a wide variety of topics in addition to those above. Included in this volume are thoughts on the significance of the cinema; the nature of the halo; technology as the ‘true foundation’ of the modern worldview; asceticism in the Middle Ages; the world of machines and the world of rite and worship; yoga and modern meditation exercises; pain as an awakener of knowledge; the emergence of the belief in ghosts; and the connection between stomach acid and soul qualities.

Author : Rudolf Steiner
Publisher : Rudolf Steiner Press
Page : 314 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2014
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781855844087

Get Book

Spirit as Sculptor of the Human Organism by Rudolf Steiner Pdf

‘Let us be courageous and not draw back in fear when realities of the world of spirit that play into human life are unveiled. You see, the future of humanity depends on us learning to live with the world of spirit in the same way that we live with the physical world here on earth.’ – Rudolf Steiner In a wide-ranging series of lectures, Rudolf Steiner demonstrates the integral nature of spirit and matter and their manifold connections. Speaking to audiences in London, Holland, Germany and Switzerland, Steiner explains how, through a process of evolving consciousness, humanity lost its knowledge and direct experience of the spiritual sources of existence, but now needs to reconnect with them. Spirit is the essence and power of life which, in Steiner’s vivid image, ‘strikes a match in our whole being’ when we allow it to inform us fully. Our world cannot be understood only in physical terms but is inseparable from the divine realities continually creating and sustaining it. Reconnecting with the spirit calls upon us to heal the fractures between everyday consciousness and the metaphysical realms in which we are already embedded. In Steiner’s descriptions, there is no end to the numerous reconnections possible: between our past, present and future; between the active, individualizing principle of the ‘I’ and the physical human body it works upon and shapes; between our physical actions and limb movements in one life and the forming or sculpting of our head in a future one; and above all, between the moral actions and insights we develop whilst alive on earth and our developing ‘eye’ for spiritual reality in the life after death, with all that this can mean for the future of human evolution. Taking a truly holistic approach, Rudolf Steiner tackles an eclectic series of subjects throughout these sixteen lectures – all united by the common theme of rediscovering how spirit pervades life. Apart from a focus on education in several lectures, he discusses: experiences during sleep; the human spirit and soul between death and a new birth; how spirit ‘sculpts’ the human organism; Christ from the perspective of anthroposophy; the battle for human nature between luciferic and ahrimanic beings; karma and the creation of conditions for our return to a new life on earth; human experience of the etheric cosmos; and the human being’s faculties of hearing, speaking, singing, walking, and thinking. Together, these lectures offer a cornucopia of spiritual insights and wisdom for the present day.

Author : Henry Barnes
Publisher : SteinerBooks
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 1997
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0880103957

Get Book

A Life for the Spirit by Henry Barnes Pdf

"Whether or not Steiner's insights are valid is for each of us to determine. His work is not easy, and he challenges our usual thinking every step of the way. The insights are radical, in the original meaning of that word: they go to the roots. We are forced more and more to realize that only through such thinking can actions arise that are truly healing and constructive." --Henry Barnes (from the introduction) Few people today recognize Rudolf Steiner's name, yet those who are aware of him know that his presence pervades every forward-looking aspect of contemporary life. Nearly all fields of life have been fructified by his insights--not abstractly or theoretically, but in a concrete way that changes lives. No wonder, then, that Steiner has been called "the best kept secret of the twentieth century." Born in 1861 in Kraljvec, Austria, Steiner showed evidence early on of the most varied gifts--a precise and probing scientific mind combined with a natural clairvoyant ability to see into the spiritual world, a determined need to think things through for himself, and a profound reverence for the divine. He first made his mark as a philosopher and the editor of Goethe's scientific writings. He also recognized the revolutionary spirit in Nietzsche. But Steiner's destiny led him in a different direction. Profound cognitive experiences determined that his task would lie in service to the spirit. While recognizing the integrity of modern science's phenomenological empiricism, he also knew that the time had come to extend the field of science to include investigation of the supersensible. Working at first within the Theosophical Society, but always speaking and writing out of his own experience, Steiner developed the foundations for a thoroughly modern spiritual-scientific discipline that would transform spiritual and cultural life. Until his death in 1925, in countless lectures and books, Steiner created the body of knowledge and practice known as "anthroposophy," which not only challenged and extended the underlying methods of modern knowledge, but stimulated many practical cultural initiatives such as: Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, the art of eurythmy, the movement for a threefold social order, and anthroposophical medicine. Henry Barnes--the author of Into the Heart's Land: A Century of Rudolf Steiner's Work in North America--recounts the dynamic life of this remarkable man. He does so by placing Steiner in the crosscurrents of history and showing him not as a spectator or ivory-tower philosopher, but as a leading actor in the drama, one whose entire being was given in service to humanity and to the spirit. Contents: Foreword by Robert McDermott Introduction: In Search of a New Thinking The Twentieth Century: Battleground for Human Individuality Child of Middle Europe: Biographical Foundations The Weimar Years: Nietzsche, Steiner, and the Redemption of Thinking The Years of Inner Testing: Berlin The Work Unfolds The Building Rises Insight Becomes Life: The Three fold Movement for Social Reform The First Waldorf School and the Independence of Education The Healing Arts Religious Renewal Out of Fire Renewal from Within: The Christmas Foundation Months of Grace Afterword: The Battle Continues--What Can I Do?

Author : Rudolf Steiner
Publisher : SteinerBooks
Page : 156 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 1991
Category : Education
ISBN : 9780880109789

Get Book

Social Issues by Rudolf Steiner Pdf

5 lectures at The Hague, November 13-18, 1923 (CW 231) What is our relationship to the planets we see in the night sky? Does the cosmos have any affect on our individual lives? Modern science tells us that we are an insignificant accident in a vast, indifferent universe. Rudolf Steiner maintains that we are intimately enmeshed with the whole cosmos, right down to the very structure of our physical bodies. In these talks, Steiner explores our relationship as individuals to the spiritual cosmos--where we will all become cosmonauts one day. The key to being at home in the universe is to comprehend the significance of our individual, physical lives on Earth and what happens when we leave our physical bodies behind. Steiner describes his view of our journey after death and our subsequent return to Earth and a new life. He describes the "planetary" spheres through which we pass and how they affect our future life. He shows us how our character and actions on Earth affects us after we die, and how those experiences in turn shape our next physical life. This is not just more information to add to our already overloaded store of abstract concepts; Steiner gives imaginative exercises that help us explore our suprasensory, spiritual nature. We can begin right now to act more consciously by recognizing the concrete nature of morality and the real consequences of our present lives. The introduction and comprehensive afterword by Paul Margulies explain and contextualize Steiner's text, revealing a message that is more vital and relevant than ever in our frenzied, materialistic times. This book can help us experience more meaning in life and become more at home as spiritual citizens of the universe. Title of the original German edition: Der übersinnliche Mensch, anthroposophisch erfaßt. This volume is a thoroughly revised edition of the book Supersensible Man. Read Bobby Matherne's review of this book