“Of all the important thinkers of the twentieth century, Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) is perhaps the most difficult to come to grips with.
For the unprepared reader, his work presents a series of formidable obstacles, from the dauntingly abstract style to the often-bizarre pronouncements on the nature of man and his cosmic destiny.
And yet, Steiner was perhaps the most influential and charismatic occult philosopher of his generation and the movement he launched...
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View full-sizeDownload During Whitsun 1908, seven years after he had given the world the first intimation of the consequences of his turn-of-the-century Christ-experience in Christianity as Mystical Fact, Rudolf Steiner began his great task of renewing humanity's understanding of the true meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha.
Accordingly, he turned to the deepest, most spiritual Gospel: that of the Initiate, St. John.
In this lecture cycle, readers will find that the:
incarnation
death
resurrection
of the Divine Word or Logos reveals the mission of the earth to be Love.
We learn the secret of the raising of Lazarus, of the Seven Degrees of Initiation, of the I AM sayings.
Listening to Rudolf Steiner, we come to understand that the Gospel of St. John is a continuing spiritual presence - to be:
recalled
meditated
permeated
with one's life.
Doing so, we realize that our task - the task of human beings - is to become ourselves Virgin Sophias, receptive to 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."
And he added:
"The more these lectures are understood in this sense, the better they will be understood as they were intended."
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View full-sizeDownload The cycle of lectures now being published for the first time in English has always presented some difficulties because of the two lectures on the Mexican Mysteries, which form an important part of it.
In these lectures Rudolf Steiner provides some historical material that not only cannot be confirmed — like the prehistorical material given in Occult Science and elsewhere — but appears to be even contrary to what is available to conventional archaeologists and historians.
In particular, there are two major areas where at first sight Steiner would seem to have been in error, and there appear also to be some errors in detail about the characteristics of some Mexican deities cited by name.
It is certain therefore that critics of Rudolf Steiner will cite these anomalies and label them errors, in the process attempting to discredit the kind of spiritual investigation engaged in by him.
To the best of my knowledge — which is admittedly not complete — in no other lectures given by Steiner at any time are there any comparable divergences from accepted historical fact.
With regard to the other material taken from the Akasha Chronicle it must be said that much of it is startling and of very great interest.
But this is impossible to check or confirm from the historical and archeological material available to us, but there is also nothing in the historical record that can be said to refute it.
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View full-sizeDownload The Secret Stream was an excellent series of essays on Rosicrucianism and Alchemy, and also the esoteric history of mankind.
To the nominal reader, it may be overwhelming, but to those interested in profundus, the deep rather than the superficial or materialistic wont, and having some experience with the concepts of Alchemy and Rosicrucianism, the book has quality even if it's not taken by faith alone, and I do not believe anything taken on faith alone reflects much on the reader who seeks veritas or truth.
It is a series of essays by Stiener, who is a German Scholar in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and invested great effort in the idea of spiritualism [though under many nomen], or the idea that, matter being a receptive apparent quality that is founded upon a more active essential component and is transcendent or rather transcends the superficial, apparent sensually.
Stiener writes as a scholar, and thinks as a scholar, and one of the themes, as there are many is that, around the late parts of the 13th century, mankind embraced materialism, the separation of science and religion and the devaluing of essential thinking, which had ramifications inwardly, or created a threshold of experience which limited total percipience but fomented the maturation of the facility of reason within man, thus it was necessitated.
In that scheme, Rosicrucianism and ALchemy were fomented actively, intentionally, to develop a modality of integrating love into knowledge or knowledge to the cross respectively, or rather balancing the apathetic tendencies of pure reason with its balance compassion.
It also considers Rosicrucian methodology as Steiner saw it, investigated Goethe and some of the initial documents of Rosicrucianism and its symbology.
A good book, I do not quite do it service it is due, as it's been a month since I finished it.
