Rudolf Steiner

Author: Gary Lachman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101154071
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
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.

Start Now!

Author: Rudolf Steiner
Publisher: SteinerBooks
ISBN: 9780880105262
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
Start Now! offers an extensive and representative sample of Steiner's spiritual instructions and meditative practices, including meditation instructions; mantric verses; daily, weekly and monthly practices for the development of soul qualities; karmic exercises and meditations for working with the dead, the angelic hierarchies and our guardian angel.

The Essential Rudolf Steiner

Author: Rudolf Steiner
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1627931872
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 624

Book Description
Collected here in this 5-in-1 omnibus edition are five of Rudolf Steiner's most important works including Theosophy, an Introduction, An Esoteric Cosmology, Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path, An Introduction to Waldorf Education and Other Essays, and how to Know Higher Worlds. Rudolf Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, literary scholar, educator, artist, playwright, social thinker, and esotericist.

The New Essential Steiner

Author: Rudolf Steiner
Publisher: SteinerBooks
ISBN: 1584204788
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 442

Book Description
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).

Rudolf Steiner's Core Mission

Author: T. H. Meyer
Publisher: Temple Lodge Publishing
ISBN: 1906999104
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Book Description
Rudolf Steiner's core mission--repeatedly delayed owing to the a lack of capacity in his colleagues--was to pursue contemporary spiritual-scientific research into the phenomena of reincarnation and karma. This stimulating book describes the winding biographical path of that mission. It focuses in particular on the mystery of Steiner's connection with the influential medieval philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas. Using numerous archival sources and publications, Thomas Meyer reveals many facts related to the core of Steiner's mission, showing the critical roles played by Wilhelm Anton Neumann and Karl Julius Schröer in its genesis and development. Meyer examines how Rudolf Steiner's students responded to his understanding of karma, placing this "most intrinsic mission" in the context of current divisions in the anthroposophic movement. He highlights especially the place of spiritual science in culture and history and shows how Steiner further developed the great scientific ideas of evolution propounded by Darwin by raising them to the plane of individual soul and spiritual development. As Steiner stated in 1903, "Scientific researchers explain the skull forms of higher animals as a transformation of a lower type of skull. In the same way one should explain a soul's biography through the soul biography which the former evolved from."

The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity

Author: Rudolf Steiner
Publisher: SteinerBooks
ISBN: 1621511731
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 261

Book Description
Dr. Ehrenfreied Pfeiffer writes: "Research carried on since 1925 has shown that the formation and arrangement of crystals during the process of crystallization can, under certain conditions, be greatly influenced by the admixture of various substances.... Hence, from these alterations (in form) apriori conclusions can be drawn about the qualities and characteristics of the admixture itself." This is an essential element in his work of analyzing the health and qualities of human blood as an aid in the process of diagnoses.

Rudolf Steiner in Britain

Author: Crispian Villeneuve
Publisher: Temple Lodge Publishing
ISBN: 1906999031
Category : Anthroposophists
Languages : en
Pages : 1265

Book Description
Rudolf Steiner spent some five months of his life in Britain, visiting there ten times between 1902 and 1924. With the exception of German-speaking countries, the longest time Steiner spent abroad was in Britain, a place he clearly considered central to his work.In this extraordinary, thorough study of more than 1,200 pages and dozens of illustrations, Crispian Villeneuve documents those important visits, reproducing letters, articles, records and other archival material, much of it published for the first time. He also studies the interconnected theme of the life and work of D.N. Dunlop, Rudolf Steiner's closest British colleague.

Disease, Karma and Healing

Author: Rudolf Steiner
Publisher: Rudolf Steiner Press
ISBN: 1855843838
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 302

Book Description
Today, illness is almost universally regarded as either a nuisance or a grave misfortune. In contrast to this conventional thinking, Rudolf Steiner places the suffering caused by disease in a broad vista that includes an understanding of karma and personal metamorphosis. Illness comes to expression in the physical body, but mostly does not originate in it, says Steiner, and thus a key part of the physician’s work involves gaining insight into the whole nature of an individual – his essential core being. From this perspective, illness offers us the opportunity for deeper healing. Throughout this volume Rudolf Steiner draws our attention to the greater scope of the smallest phenomena – even a seemingly insignificant headache. He casts vivid light on things we normally take for granted, such as the human capacity to laugh or cry, and in the process broadens our vision of human existence. The apparently mundane human experiences of forgetting and remembering are intrinsic to our humanity, for example, and have unsuspected moral and spiritual dimensions. Steiner’s insights are never merely ‘lofty’ or nebulously ‘spiritual’ but time and again connect with the minutest realities of everyday life. In these 18 lectures, delivered on a weekly basis as part of an ongoing course covering ‘the whole field of spiritual science’, Steiner elaborates in detail on the diverse interplay of the human being’s constituting aspects (physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego or ‘I’) in relation to rhythmic processes, developing consciousness, the history of human evolution, and our connection with the cosmos. Within this broad canvas, some of his themes acquire a very distinctive focus – such as vivid accounts of the ‘intimate history’ of Christianity, ‘creating out of nothing’, the interior of the earth, and health and illness. Other topics include: the nature of pain, suffering, pleasure and bliss; the four human group souls of lion, bull, eagle and man; the significance of the Ten Commandments; the nature of original sin; the deed of Christ and the adversary powers of Lucifer, Ahriman and the Asuras; evolution and involution; the Atlantean period – and even Friedrich Nietzsche’s madness!

Study of Man

Author: Rudolf Steiner
Publisher: Rudolf Steiner Press
ISBN: 1855841878
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Book Description
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.

Mani & Rudolf Steiner

Author: Christine Gruwez
Publisher: SteinerBooks
ISBN: 1621481093
Category : Anthroposophy
Languages : en
Pages : 123

Book Description
For many centuries, the teaching of Mani was hidden behind the distorted picture that had been created by the adversaries of Manichaeism in East and West. In the course of the twentieth century, new light was shed on Manichaeism by the discovery of several Manichaean scriptures. These have shown that Manichaeism was a true, distinct world religion that, in the question of good and evil, for instance, offers insights that complement and deepen Christianity. Also in the twentieth century, Rudolf Steiner brought Anthroposophy, Spiritual Science, which is a continuation of a stream of esoteric Christianity that has run through human history ever since the resurrection of Christ. Anthroposophy is centered on a new, deepened idea of Christianity that, as indicated by Rudolf Steiner, is so great and all-encompassing that it can be understood in its full depth only gradually. In this book, Christine Gruwez explores the essence of Mani’s revelation and then shows what Rudolf Steiner has communicated regarding Mani and his teaching. This generates an image of two spiritual streams that, each from its own beginning, are moving toward a future when a Christianity of the deed shall become reality.