EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

Book Staying Connected

Download or read book Staying Connected written by Rudolf Steiner and published by SteinerBooks. This book was released on 1999 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea of maintaining, continuing, and enhancing our relationships with those who have died was a fundamental part of Rudolf Steiner's work. This volume collects a rich harvest of Steiner's thoughts on this subject gathered over many years. Steiner speaks from his own experiences, providing some of the meditation practices and verses that worked for him. We learn of the value of reading to the dead; of using verbs (rather than nouns) when talking with them; of the importance of the sacred moments while falling asleep and awaking for asking questions and receiving answers; of the way our memories of the dead are like art to them; and of key moods we must develop -- community with the world, gratitude, confidence in the current of life.

Book Relating to Rudolf Steiner

Download or read book Relating to Rudolf Steiner written by Sergei O. Prokofieff and published by Temple Lodge Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "It is my personal conviction that the question of our relationship to Rudolf Steiner is fundamental to the life of Anthroposophy itself." -- Sergei O. Prokofieff Even within the Anthroposophical Society and the anthroposophic movement, people's relationship to Rudolf Steiner is weakening and dissipating. This is problematic, says Prokofieff, as the future of both the Society and movement depends on a sufficient number of people aspiring to and realizing a true spiritual connection with the founder of Anthroposophy. Prokofieff deals in detail with this issue and asks, "Can one be an anthroposophist without being Rudolf Steiner's pupil?" In the second part of this book, Prokofieff elaborates on the mysteries surrounding the laying of the spiritual Foundation Stone at the Society's Christmas Meeting that began 1923. That event, he asserts, ensured that a personal relationship with Rudolf Steiner "would not remain within the realm of the generally abstract or intellectual, but would become a real inner deed." Thus, Steiner gave each anthroposophist the possibility of connecting with him through free inner work on the Foundation Stone. Both parts of this book are linked, in the sense that once a relationship with Steiner is established, an inner longing to work with the "new mysteries" will follow. In Prokofieff's words, "The will to take the foundation of the new mysteries seriously leads to a real, inner connection with Rudolf Steiner." Relating to Rudolf Steiner includes an essay on the "problem" of digitally publishing Steiner's most important esoteric texts and the esoteric background of the internet and electronic media in general. In response to readers' questions about how to counteract the harmful consequences of these developments, Prokofieff has expanded and developed his original essay on this subject.

Book Anthroposophy A Z

Download or read book Anthroposophy A Z written by Henk van Oort and published by Rudolf Steiner Press. This book was released on 2013-04-02 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rudolf Steiner's spiritual philosophy is the inspiration for many successful initiatives in the world today, from the international Steiner Waldorf school movement to biodynamic agriculture and its increasingly popular produce. Steiner developed his philosophy in dozens of books and many thousands of lectures. His teaching contains dozens of new concepts and ideas, and as a result he had often to create his own vocabulary. In this practical volume - a companion to his Anthroposophy, A Concise Introduction - Henk van Oort gives concise definitions of many terms and concepts in Steiner's worldview, from the most commonplace to the more obscure. Anthroposophy A-Z can be used as a reference guide, but also as a gateway into Rudolf Steiner's manifold world of spiritual ideas and concepts. Anthroposophy can be seen to be a new language - a language that can lead to the world of the spirit. It was with this awareness that Henk van Oort took the initiative to write this glossary. Ultimately, he has written the sort of inspiring handbook that he wished had existed when he first became acquainted with anthroposophy over 40 years ago. HENK VAN OORT, born in 1943, trained as a primary teacher before taking a Masters degree in English at the Amsterdam University. He has taught for 40 years in primary and secondary education, including class teaching in a Steiner school, teaching English, and running educational courses and seminars for teachers and parents. His interest in literature and poetry has led to his appearance at storytelling and poetry seminars, and his introductory courses to anthroposophy have proved to be highly successful. Based in Bergen N.H. in the Netherlands, Henk van Oort is married and the father of three grown-up children. He is the author of Anthroposophy, A Concise Introduction.

Book Rudolf Steiner

Download or read book Rudolf Steiner written by Gary Lachman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-02-01 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first truly popular biography of the influential twentieth-century mystic and educator who-while widely known for founding the Waldorf schools and other educational and humanitarian movements-remains a mystery to many who benefit from his ideas. People everywhere have heard of Waldorf schools, Biodynamic farming, Camphill Villages, and other innovations of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). Indeed, Steiner—as an architect, artist, teacher, and agriculturalist—ranks among the most creative and prolific figures of the early twentieth century, pioneering work in alternative education, holistic health, and environmental research. While his accomplishments are felt all over the world, few people understand this unusual figure. Steiner's own writings and lectures fill several bookcases, intimidating those who would like to know more. Works on Steiner are often dense and "insider" in tone, further deterring the curious. No popular biography, written by a sympathetic but critical outsider, has been available. Gary Lachman's Rudolf Steiner provides this missing introduction. Along with telling Steiner's story and placing Steiner in his historical context, Lachman's book presents Steiner's key ideas in a readable, accessible manner. In particular, Lachman considers the spread of Steiner's most popular projects, which include Waldorf schools-one of the leading forms of alternative education-and Biodynamic farming-a popular precursor to organic farming. He also traces Steiner's beginnings as a young intellectual in the ferment of fin de siécle culture, to his rise as a thought leader within the influential occult movement of Theosophy, to the founding of his own metaphysical teaching called Anthroposophy. Finally, the book illustrates how Steiner's methods are put into practice today, and relates Steiner's insights into cosmology to the work of current thinkers. Rudolf Steiner is a full-bodied portrait of one of the most original philosophical and spiritual luminaries of the last two centuries, and gives those interested in the history of ideas the opportunity to discover one of the most underappreciated figures of the twentieth century.

Book The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner

Download or read book The Life and Work of Rudolf Steiner written by Guenther Wachsmuth and published by SteinerBooks. This book was released on 1995-06 with total page 1037 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zanoni, first published in 1842, was inspired by a dream. Sir Edward, a Rosicrucian, wrote this engaging, well-researched, novel about the eternal conflict between head and heart, between wisdom and love, played out by the Rosicrucians before the dramatic background of the French Revolution. He described his book Zanoni as "a truth for those who can comprehend it, and an extravagance for those who cannot." Following his introduction, the novel is divided into seven parts, whose titles indicate the sevenfold path of spiritual development. The fourth section, "The Dweller of the Threshold," is the book's centerpiece, revealing significant esoteric facts and experiences. A novelist, a dramatist, a scholar, an editor, and an active member of Parliament, Sir Edward was an extremely successful author whose writings were widely read throughout England and Europe. He poured into this esoteric work all of the ancient esoteric wisdom that he felt he could reveal to the public during an age buried deeply in materialism. This work remains one of the great, pioneering landmarks of esoteric writing.

Book Life of the Human Soul

    Book Details:
  • Author : Rudolf Steiner
  • Publisher : Rudolf Steiner Press
  • Release : 2016-11-14
  • ISBN : 1855845296
  • Pages : 208 pages

Download or read book Life of the Human Soul written by Rudolf Steiner and published by Rudolf Steiner Press. This book was released on 2016-11-14 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Book Life Between Death and Rebirth

Download or read book Life Between Death and Rebirth written by Rudolf Steiner and published by SteinerBooks. This book was released on 1975-04 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "He listened extremely attentively, apparently not looking at me at all, but totally devoted to my words." --Franz Kafka "The only love that you can show me is to call me anytime, day or night, when you need me." --Rudolf Steiner (to Friedrich Rittelmeyer) For Peter Selg, if Anthroposophy to be a living reality, we must learn to know and love Rudolf Steiner as he appeared to those who knew and loved him: namely, as a spiritual teacher. To help us do so, he gathered recollections of those of who knew Steiner personally--"historical witnesses to the 'living phenomenon' of the 'figure of the teacher." It is his hope that these firsthand accounts will help readers see and experience the amazing, ever-mysterious person that Rudolf Steiner was--a dynamic, energetic "dual citizen" of both the spiritual and the physical worlds. He moved constantly between these two realities, while his whole life was dedicated in service to the spiritual evolution of humanity. Nonetheless, he was also deeply sociable and a true friend, convivial, cheerful, humorous, and always able to enjoy--and tell--a good joke. He was also austere and painfully serious. In other words, Rudolf Steiner was a paradox. Steiner was "imposing," but it would be difficult to say why. He was slim; there was no heaviness in him. Indeed, what seemed to strike most people first was his lightness. He moved rhythmically, youthfully, artistically, with quick, light steps, his posture erect but fluid, his head seeming to float between Heaven and Earth. Yet he was fully grounded. When he stood, it was as if nothing could move him. When he spoke, his gestures and tone expressed perfectly what he had to say. He was completely one with what he said, so that he changed as the content changed. Those who listened to his lectures found themselves transported to the source of what they were hearing. Sometimes "ten Steiners" would pass before them. To hear a lecture, was a meditation experience. Quite another figure appeared in conversations, which filled his every public moment. One experienced luminous kindness, selfless interest, and intense listening attention. It was as tough one were singled out in the world and having a sense of being allowed complete inner freedom. All who came to him for advice felt Steiner's love. They felt that he saw the best in them and spoke from that point of view, whether it was a matter of life's journey or esoteric training. By his example, then, he sought to exemplify the kind of spiritual community toward which he hoped anthroposophists would strive. For anyone who has wondered what Rudolf Steiner was like, this book will open many windows.

Book The New Essential Steiner

Download or read book The New Essential Steiner written by Rudolf Steiner and published by SteinerBooks. This book was released on 2009-10 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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).

Book Rudolf Steiner

    Book Details:
  • Author : Roy Wilkinson
  • Publisher : Temple Lodge Publishing
  • Release : 2020-12-16
  • ISBN : 1912230674
  • Pages : 258 pages

Download or read book Rudolf Steiner written by Roy Wilkinson and published by Temple Lodge Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-16 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In many ways, Rudolf Steiner is the forgotten genius of recent times. A powerful thinker, who developed an intricate spiritual philosophy based on his ability to research and perceive spiritual dimensions, Steiner is perhaps best known today for his legacy to education, medicine and agriculture. But behind these practical manifestations of his ideas lies a profound teaching, which he called a 'science of the spirit' or 'anthroposophy'. In these wonderfully succinct summaries of Steiner's thought, Roy Wilkinson introduces us to aspects of this spiritual philosophy. The twelve chapters are on the following themes: Rudolf Steiner, herald of a new age; reincarnation and karma; the spiritual nature of the human being; the development of human consciousness; evolution of the world and humanity; relationships between the living and the dead; forces of evil; the modern path of initiation; life between death and rebirth; the spiritual hierarchies; the philosophical approach to the spirit; the mission of Christ.

Book Heart Thinking

    Book Details:
  • Author : Rudolf Steiner
  • Publisher : Rudolf Steiner Press
  • Release : 2017-04-18
  • ISBN : 1855845350
  • Pages : 140 pages

Download or read book Heart Thinking written by Rudolf Steiner and published by Rudolf Steiner Press. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concepts of ‘thinking with the heart’ or ‘emotional intelligence’ are often used today, usually in contrast to intellectual thought. When Rudolf Steiner used the phrase ‘heart thinking’, however, he meant it in a very specific sense. Drawn primarily from his lectures, the compiled texts in this anthology illuminate his perspective – that heart thinking is intimately related to the spiritual faculty of Inspiration. The heart, he says, can become a new organ of thinking through the practice of exercises that work towards the transformation of feeling, shedding its personal and subjective character. The exercise sequences presented here call for two fundamental gestures. Firstly, renunciation, which extends from an extinguishing of images engendered in meditation, through inner silence, to a conscious suppression of sense perception. The second gesture involves the development of new feelings towards natural phenomena as well as to the reports of spiritual-scientific research. By practising these methods, we can attain a kind of thinking that is in harmony with the true nature and reality of what we seek to know. Rudolf Steiner’s texts are collected together by Martina Maria Sam, who contributes a lucid introduction and notes.

Book Study of Man

    Book Details:
  • Author : Rudolf Steiner
  • Publisher : Rudolf Steiner Press
  • Release : 2004
  • ISBN : 1855841878
  • Pages : 193 pages

Download or read book Study of Man written by Rudolf Steiner and published by Rudolf Steiner Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 14 lectures, Stuttgart, August 20 - September 5, 1919 (CW 293) Although these lectures were given to teachers as preparatory material, they are by no means concerned only with education. Study of Man is Steiner's most succinct presentation of his human-centered spiritual psychology, and it is accessible to anyone genuinely interested in the questions of human existence. His approach is unique because it considers not only the influences that affect humanity from the past, but also future states of consciousness and being. Reprinted here in the original "classic" translation by A.C. Harwood and Helen Fox, these lectures were given in 1919 to the teachers of the Waldorf school in Stuttgart--the first to be based on the educational ideas of Rudolf Steiner. After eighty-five years of Waldorf education--and exponential growth around the world--this volume remains the basic study text for teachers in Steiner schools. As well as providing a basis for the work of educators, Study of Man will be of special interest to parents, counselors, psychologists, and students of Rudolf Steiner's philosophy--for whom this volume provides a fundamental picture of the human being according to the anthroposophic understanding of the world. This book is a translation of Allgemeine Menschenkunde als Grundlage der Pädagogik (GA 293), published by Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach.

Book An Outline of Esoteric Science

Download or read book An Outline of Esoteric Science written by Rudolf Steiner and published by SteinerBooks. This book was released on 1997 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As vital and relevant as when it was first published in 1910, this materpiece of esoteric, Rosicrucian cosmology (on which Rudolf Steiner worked and then reworked for many years, making it ever more precise and accurate) remains the most effective presentation to date of the spiritual alternative to contemporary materialist cosmologies and the Darwinian view of human nature and evolution. In this basic work of spiritual science, readers learn how the creation and evolution of humanity is embedded at the heart of the vast, invisible web of interacting cosmic beings through whom the alchemical processes of cosmic evolution unfold. There are also descriptions of the different bodies of the human being and their relation to sleep and death, as well as a detailed practical guide to the methods or exercises, including the "Rose Cross Meditation," by which such initiation knowledge can be attained. Most remarkable and revolutionary of all, perhaps, is the central function that Rudolf Steiner allots to the Christ and to the entrance of Christ into early evolution through the Mystery of Golgotha." -- back cover.

Book Rudolf Steiner

    Book Details:
  • Author : Bo Dahlin
  • Publisher : Springer
  • Release : 2017-06-22
  • ISBN : 3319589075
  • Pages : 143 pages

Download or read book Rudolf Steiner written by Bo Dahlin and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-06-22 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book covers Rudolf Steiner’s biography, presented from an educational point of view and also unfolds the different aspects of Steiner’s educational thought in Waldorf Education. His point of view is unique in that it relates education to a wide horizon of different contexts, such as social, pedagogical, evolutionary and spiritual aspects. His ideas are philosophical (ethical, epistemological, ontological). However, above all, they are based on spiritual understanding of the human being and the world. In many ways, they stand in stark contrast to the views that inform present mainstream educational thought and practice. Nevertheless, there are points where Steiner’s ideas can find a resonance in more recent educational thought. Steiner was in many ways ahead of his time and his educational ideas are still relevant to many present day educational issues and problems.

Book Love and Its Meaning in the World

Download or read book Love and Its Meaning in the World written by Rudolf Steiner and published by SteinerBooks. This book was released on 1998 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Steiner did not often speak or write about love explicitly, love is at the very heart of his whole body of work and the foundation of his hopes for humankind and the Earth. Steiner teaches that, without love, nothing is possible; with love, however, we can do everything. Love is always "love of the not-yet." To love is to create; it is to selflessly enter the current of time that flows toward us from the future. Reality, true knowledge of reality, is impossible without love. Only through love can we truly know as we are know, can we encounter the world and its beings in a living way. Without love, knowledge becomes manipulation, domination, control; the world becomes a space of dead things. But, when we know through love, we enter into a pattern of dynamic, potentially redemptive relations and the world becomes a living world of beings working for the good. This collection gathers all of Rudolf Steiner's main lectures and writings related to love. From earthly love to the nature and function of spiritual love, these pieces are essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of humanity and the Earth. Love and Its Meaning in the World is essential reading for anyone who'd like to gain a deeper understanding of our true mission as human beings and the purpose of evolution on Earth. Chapters include: "The Division of the Sexes" "Lucifer and Christ" "The Mission of Reverence" "The Buddha's Teaching of Compassion and Love" "Faith, Love, and Hope" "Love & Its Meaning in the World" "'I'-Feeling, the Soul's Capacity to Love, and Their Relationship to the Elemental World" Love mediated by the senses is the wellspring of creative power, of what is coming into being. Without sense-born love, nothing material would exist in the world; without spiritual love, nothing spiritual can arise in evolution. When we practice love, cultivate love, creative forces pour into the world.... For human beings, love is the most important fruit of experience in the sensory world. Once we really understand the nature of love, or compassion, we will find that love is the way spirit expresses its truth in the world of the senses.... "We may even say that, in love, the spiritual world awakens in the physical. The more truly a soul inhabits the spiritual worlds, the more it experiences lovelessness and lack of compassion as a denial of spirit itself." --Rudolf Steiner

Book Rudolf Steiner and the Founding of the New Mysteries

Download or read book Rudolf Steiner and the Founding of the New Mysteries written by Sergei O. Prokofieff and published by Temple Lodge Publishing. This book was released on 2017-06-21 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this revised and expanded edition of his classic debut, Sergei O. Prokofieff investigates the deepest mysteries of Rudolf Steiner’s life and individuality, from ‘the years of apprenticeship’ and ‘the great Sun period’ to ‘the path of the Teacher of Humanity’ and ‘the birth of the New Mysteries’. He discusses the earthly and supersensible aspects of the first Goetheanum, the implications of the Christmas Conference of 1923-24, and the Foundation Stone meditation that Steiner left as a legacy to members of the Anthroposophical Society. In his very personal Introduction, Prokofieff describes, in moving detail, the events in his life which led to his discovery of anthroposophy whilst living in Communist Russia, and how eventually he came to write this extraordinary study of Rudolf Steiner. The resulting volume – a work of secondary anthroposophical literature unprecedented in its depth and significance – was first published in Germany in 1982, meeting with equal amounts of acclaim, astonishment and controversy. It is published in this paperback edition to mark the 35th anniversary of the original publication.

Book Education as a Social Problem

Download or read book Education as a Social Problem written by Rudolf Steiner and published by SteinerBooks. This book was released on 1984-03-30 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The six lectures in this volume were given one month before the opening of the first Waldorf School in Stuttgart in September 1919, in the context of Germany's post-war social ferment. Steiner points to negative tendencies present in modern social life as inner drowsiness, mechanization, and animalization. Attempts to find a social solution must include not only economics and legal rights, but also the third element of the free cultural life, which has become maya (illusion) for the civilized West. Education is "the most urgent problem of the present time," Steiner announces. He goes on to explain how only a proper nurturing of imitation, reverence, and love in the three periods of child development can prepare adults who are ripe to live the corresponding three virtues of a healthy social structure: cultural freedom, legal equality, and economic brother hood. This picture is then connected to Steiner's threefold ideas of the human soul, economics, and higher knowledge. He urges us to overcome at their roots one-sided intellectual cleverness, lack of inner direction, schematic thinking, and centralized socialism through an inwardly mobile pedagogical thinking able to respond to the inner riddle of each child.

Book The Gospel St  John and Its Relation to the Other Gospels

Download or read book The Gospel St John and Its Relation to the Other Gospels written by Rudolf Steiner and published by Rudolf Steiner Press. This book was released on 1982 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning at the turn of the century, Rudolf Steiner began to express a passionate interest in Christianity. For him, the event he called the "Mystery of Golgotha" is more than the central event of Christianity; it is, in fact, the turning point in time for all human and earthly evolution. In his Autobiography, Steiner clarified his views on Christianity: Some of what I said and wrote during that period [1890s] seems to contradict the way I described Christianity later on. This is because, when I wrote the word Christianity, I was referring to the teachings of a "world beyond" that was active in all Christian doctrines at the time. The whole meaning of religious experiences pointed to a world of spirit, one that was supposed to be unattainable by human intellect. Whatever religion might have to say and whatever precepts for moral life it might offer arise from what is revealed to human beings from outside. My own direct, inner perception of spirit objected to this; it wanted to experience the worlds of both spirit and the physical in perceptions of the human being and nature. And my ethical individualism objected to this. It rejected the external support of commandments for morality; such support came instead as the result of spiritual soul development within the human being, where divinity lives. That was a trying time for my soul as I looked at Christianity. This period lasted from the time I left the Weimar work until I wrote my book Christianity as Mystical Fact. These kinds of tests are obstacles, placed in one's path by destiny (or karma), and they must be overcome through spiritual development. In these talks, Rudolf Steiner offers his profound insights into the essential truths behind the Christ event, as well as the historic and prehistoric events--on Earth and in the spiritual worlds--leading up to the turning point in time. He shows that the ancient mysteries of the East, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the streams behind those impulses--going back to Atlantis and Lemuria--all lead to the event of Christ's incarnation and the Mystery of Golgotha, through which the Earth became the body of Christ. Further, Steiner talks about what those events mean for the future of humanity and the Earth. The Gospel of St. John and Its Relation to the Other Gospels is an essential document in the literature of Christology and for understanding the central place of esoteric Christianity in Anthroposophy. The essential topics discussed in these lectures: The Christians of St. John; the rebirth of the higher "I" in individuals and in humanity The living spiritual history; the leaders of humanity; the creative Word The transformation of Earth; the prototypes of created types; the servants of the Word The hierarchies of our solar system and the kingdoms of the Earth Human development during the incarnations of our Earth; the kingdom of the luciferic and ahrimanic spirits and the kingdom of the divine spiritual beings The Atlantean oracles; post-Atlantean sanctuaries of initiation; the baptism by John The baptism with water and the baptism with fire and spirit The Mysteries of initiation; rebirth through Jesus Christ The artistic composition of the Gospel of St. John; the climax of power in the signs and miracles Events at the baptism by John; Christ's mastery over the laws of the skeletal structure and the conquest of death The establishment of harmony in the inner forces of human beings through the Christ impulse; the connection between the ancient mysteries and the Gospels The decline of the ancient wisdom and its renewal through the Christ impulse; the significance of the Mystery of Golgotha for human evolution on Earth The cosmic significance of the Mystery of Golgotha; the conquest of death through the expulsion of the luciferic and ahrimanic influence; death as the bringer of life; the Earth becomes a new sun; the effects of the Christ light and its reflection in the Earth's periphery as a spiritual sphere; the Holy Spirit The Earth as the body of Christ and as a new center of light; the Last Supper as a preparation for mystical union with Christ; Paul, the apostle of the spiritually living Christ; the seven stages of Christian initiation; death as the seed of eternal "I" being; spirit knowledge is the fire of life The Gospel of St. John and Its Relation to the Other Gospels is a translation of Das Johannes-Evangelium im Verhältnis zu den drei anderen Evangelien, besonders zu dem Lukas-Evangelium (GA 112).