During the early seventeenth century, Europe was suddenly embroiled in controversy after the publication of the first Rosicrucian texts. Ever since, Rosicrucianism has been at the center of Western Christian esotericism. Forced underground by the Thirty Years War, it was secretly handed down by alchemists, hermeticists, and Masons to the nineteenth century, when it inspired new spiritual movements such as Theosophy, the Order of Golden Dawn, and Rudolf Steiner's Spiritual Science.

The Secret Stream collects all of Steiner's discussions of the Rosicrucians, answering...

This book presents and explores a little-known example of Rudolf Steiner's efforts to bring, in a practical way, a contemporary embodiment of the wisdom that once lived in the ancient mysteries. In this instance, a sequence of fifteen images of the Madonna, intended originally for contemplation under supervision in a clinical setting as a new form of therapy for those suffering soul wounds.

In a 1908 lecture, Steiner addressed the subterranean spiritual links connecting ancient Egypt and our own time and described certain healing functions of the Isis Mysteries. He connected the Madonna...