Topics in these eight lectures include:

• Lecture 1, the first reference to eurhythmy; deals with the fourth mystery play, The Souls' Awakening.
• Lecture 2: Ahriman and Lucifer are both necessary and cannot be driven away, but must be balanced.
• Lecture 3: Elemental world; the first condition is the ability to transform into a foreign being.
• Lecture 4: In ascent from elemental world to spiritual world; everything of the sensory world must be abandoned.
• Lecture 5: Professor Capesius.
• Lecture 6: Roman letter Ahriman.
• ...

"In our long human journey, individual and collective, the journey that science calls evolution, many indeed are the turning points. But they are not so much turning points in outer, material manifestation in the fossils of paleontology, for those fossils are only the shed garments worn by humans in an earlier age, vestments designed by providence to meet the need of a changing human consciousness moving through time. Where the real evolution occurs, for which the necessary outer garments are tailored over time, is in the realm of consciousness as it transitions from spirit to matter and back...

This seminal work asserts that free spiritual activity--understood as the human ability to think and act independently of one's physical nature--is the most appropriate path today for inner development and true self-knowledge. This is not simply a volume of philosophy, but also a friendly guide to practice and the experience of living thinking. Rudolf Steiner provides a step-by-step account of how we can come to experience living, intuitive thinking, the conscious experience of pure spirit.

Since this book was written more than a century ago, many have tried to discover the kind of new...

Rudolf Steiner's four mystery dramas are powerful portrayals of the complex laws of reincarnation and karma. They transport us into a landscape of the human soul and spirit, where suprasensory beings are active.

Through the perception of these hidden worlds, we are given the opportunity to understand the struggles we face in attempting to apply spiritual knowledge to our everyday lives and relationships.

Written between 1910 and 1913 during periods of intense inner and outer work, these dramas are powerful testimonies to Steiner's artistic creativity. By manifesting soul and spirit...

10 lectures in Dusseldorf, April 12-18, 1909; notes by participants from question-and-answer sessions (CW 110)

April 21 - 22, 1909

Ever since nature and consciousness were separated during the late Middle Ages--giving rise to scientific thinking that considers only the physical world and views the mind as merely an epiphenomenon of neural chemistry--the spiritual beings who are the universe have felt abandoned and unable to complete their work, which depends on human collaboration for its suc-cess. Human beings have likewise felt aban-doned and alienated.

In...

5 lectures in Berlin, October 31, 1911-December 5, 1911 (CW 132)

In this most remarkable and in many ways unique course of lectures, Rudolf Steiner describes the inner experience of the states of consciousness known as the Saturn, Sun, Moon, and Earth stages of evolution.

Lecture by lecture, Steiner details the experiences of these states available to one who practices the spiritual scientific path of meditation. By this means, these stages and states gain an unexpected and existential reality: suddenly, we recognize what Steiner is talking about. Most remarkable of...

10 lectures, various cities, 1913-1914 (CW 152)

In February of 1913--a landmark year for Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy--the first General Meeting of the Anthroposophical Society was held. In September, the Foundation Stone for the Goetheanum was laid in Dornach. The ground for Anthroposophy as we know it today was established.

Such is the background for the remarkable lectures contained in this volume. Outwardly, they begin to set the record straight. Inwardly, they seek to establish a right relationship of service to Christ and the spiritual worlds in accord...

12 lectures in various cities, 1922 (CW 211)


"We must understand that if we relate only to dead matter, we ourselves become dead and ahrimanic, but if we have sufficient courage and love for all the beings around us to relate to them directly (not to our dead ideas about them), we discover the Christ in everything and victorious spirit everywhere. When this happens, we may need to speak in ways that seem paradoxical to our contemporaries. We may need to speak about the individual spiritual beings that live in the solid and fluid elements and so forth. As long as we avoid...

13 lectures, Stuttgart, October 3-15, 1922 (CW 217)

"This cycle of lectures 'to the younger generation' speaks of a pathway to a Michaelic harvest for ears that have the goodwill to hear." --Carlo Pietzner

Rudolf Steiner presented these lectures to about a hundred German young people who hoped to bring Waldorf education into the culture of their time and for the future. Steiner stressed upon his listeners the great importance of "self-education" as a prerequisite to all other education. His was an attempt to guide the youth toward understanding themselves within...

Letters, Documents, Ritual Texts, and Lectures from the Cognitive-Ritual Section of the Esoteric School: 1904-1919
Documents of a New Beginning after the First World War: 1921-1924 (CW 265)

To ground his project of founding the new mysteries of Anthroposophy in spiritual history, Rudolf Steiner always sought to unite with and transform where possible the older initiatory streams such as Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism.

In November 1905, both Steiner, who was General Secretary of the German Section of the Theosophical Society and Arch Warden of its Esoteric...