The Development Of Anthroposophy Since Rudolf Steiners Death

Download or read book The Development of Anthroposophy since Rudolf Steiner's Death written by T.H. Meyer and published by SteinerBooks. This book was released on 2014-11-01 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume begins with Thomas Meyer's assessment of Anthroposophy's evolution since Rudolf Steiner’s death and its future prospects. He offers an overview of the eighty-seven years of the development of the anthroposophic movement and the Anthroposophical Society, the worldwide organization headquartered in Dornach, Switzerland, since the death of its founder. The Society went through a very difficult and controversial period in the ten years following Steiner’s death, which culminated at its Annual Meeting in 1935. The result was the expulsion from the Society of two members appointed by Rudolf Steiner to its Executive Board (Vorstand)—Ita Wegman and Elizabeth Vreede—as well as the British and Dutch branches of the Society and many important anthroposophists who opposed the expulsions. Meyer—whose many books include Rudolf Steiner's Core Mission—reveals the extraordinary concordance of four November 17 dates highly significant in the development of Anthroposophy. On November 17, 1901, the anniversary of the founding of the Theosophical Society in 1875, Marie von Sivers asked Rudolf Steiner to create an esoteric path suited to the Western mind, which set Steiner on his mission. On November 17, 1923, Ita Wegman urged Steiner to establish a new Society, with Steiner himself joining as both a member and its president. Twelve years later, on November 17, 1935, the remaining three individuals of the Executive Board wrote to Adolf Hitler to plea for the Society's continued existence in Germany after being banned in Germany by the Nazi regime. Profound connections underlie these events. Four appendices supplement the present volume. Appendix 1 presents a Chronology that denotes, by year and day, significant episodes in Steiner’s life and in the development of Anthroposophy. The remaining appendices feature, for the first time in English in one volume, significant documents pertinent to the Anthroposophical Society’s Easter 1935 Annual Meeting. Appendix 2 contains the “Memorandum,” written by supporters of Marie Steiner, setting forth a list of grievances in support of the expulsion motions adopted at the 1935 Annual Meeting. Appendix 3 records Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz’s address in response to the 1935 Annual Meeting, counseling against the expulsion measures. Appendix 4 contains the letter (in English and German) written by the Society’s Executive Board to Adolf Hitler. This important book offers profound insights into the struggles for individual freedom and voice during the early years of the Anthroposophical Society. Seeing the dynamics of that struggle can help us today to overcome differences to work toward common purpose, both in the context of our everyday lives and within a spiritually oriented community.

Download or read book The Influence of the Dead on Destiny written by Rudolf Steiner and published by SteinerBooks. This book was released on 2007-12 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 6 lectures, Stuttgart, Dec. 26, 1919 - Jan. 3, 1920 (CW 299) To one who understands the sense of speech The world unveils Its image form. To one who listens to the soul of speech The world unfolds Its true being. To one who lives in the spirit depths of speech The world gives freely Wisdom's strength. To one who lovingly can dwell on speech Speech will accord Its inner might. So I will turn my heart and mind Toward the soul And spirit of words. In love for them I will then feel myself Complete and whole. Rudolf Steiner (Translated by Hans and Ruth Pusch) During the first year of the first Waldorf school, Rudolf Steiner agreed to give a science course to the teachers, which was to be on the nature of light. At the last minute, he was asked to give an additional course on language, which he improvised. "The Genius of Language" is the result. Steiner demonstrates how history and psychology together form the different languages and how ideas, images, and vocabulary travel through time within various cultural streams. He describes how the power to form language has declined, but that we can still recover the seed of language, the penetration of sound by meaning. He also explains how consonants imitate outer phenomena, whereas vowels convey a more inner sense of events; he talks about the differentiation of language as it is influenced by geography; he speaks of the "folk soul" element and the possibility of "wordless thinking"; we hear about the capacity of language to transform us and of its importance to our spiritual lives. This is not just a course on language for those who love words but demonstrates ways to teach children. This little book will prove tremendously valuable to both educators and parents-in fact, to anyone who wants a deeper understanding of language and its significance for our lives. This volume is a translation from German of Geisteswissenschaftlische Sprachbetrachtungen (GA 299).

Download or read book D.N. Dunlop, A Man of Our Time written by T. H. Meyer and published by Temple Lodge Publishing. This book was released on 2014-11-10 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: D.N. Dunlop (1868-1935) combined remarkable practical and organizational abilities in industry and commerce with gifted spiritual and esoteric capacities. A personal friend of W.B. Yeats and Rudolf Steiner, Dunlop was responsible for founding the World Power Conference (today the World Energy Council), and played leading roles in the Theosophical Society and later the Anthroposophical Society. In his business life he pioneered a cooperative approach towards the emerging global economy. Meyer’s compelling narrative of Dunlop’s life begins on the Isle of Arran, where the motherless boy is brought up by his grandfather. In a landscape rich with prehistoric standing stones, the young Dunlop has formative spiritual experiences. When his grandfather dies, he struggles for material survival, but devotedly studies occult literature. The scene moves to Dublin, where Dunlop becomes a friend of W.B. Yeats and the poet-seer A.E., and develops an active interest in Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophy. Arriving in London via New York, Dunlop is now a lecturer, writer and the editor of a monthly journal – but alongside his esoteric interests he rises to a foremost position in the British electrical industry, masterminding the first World Power Conference. Dunlop’s life is to change forever through his meeting with Rudolf Steiner, which ‘...brought instant recognition’. He was immediately convinced that Steiner was ‘...the Knower, the Initiate, the bearer of the Spirit to his age’. Dunlop’s close involvement with anthroposophy, leading to his eventual position as Chair of the British Society, is described in detail: from the momentous conferences in Penmaenmawr and Torquay to his transformative relationships with Eleanor Merry, W.J. Stein, Ita Wegman and Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz. Meyer features important material on the Anthroposophical Society’s tragic split, that allows for a true evaluation of this difficult period in the organization’s history. This second, enlarged edition features substantial additions of new material and an Afterword by Owen Barfield.

Download or read book Anthroposophy (A Fragment) written by Rudolf Steiner and published by SteinerBooks. This book was released on 1996-04 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published in 1904 (CW 10) "Not everyone can immediately achieve spiritual vision; but the discoveries of those who have it can be health-giving life nourishment for all. The results of supersensible knowledge, when properly employed in life, prove to be not impractical, but rather, practical in the highest sense.... The acquisition of higher knowledge is not the end, but the means to an end; the end consists in the attainment, thanks to this knowledge, of greater and truer self-confidence, a higher degree of courage, and a magnanimity and perseverance such as cannot, as a rule, be acquired in the lower world." This is the classic account of the modern Western esoteric path of initiation made public by Steiner in 1904. He begins with the premise that "the capacities by which we can gain insights into the higher worlds lie dormant within each one of us." Steiner carefully and precisely leads the reader from the cultivation of the fundamental soul attitudes of reverence and inner tranquility to the development of inner life through the stages of preparation, illumination, and initiation. Steiner provides practical exercises of inner and outer observation and moral development. By patiently and persistently following his guidelines, new "organs" of soul and spirit begin to form, which reveal the contours of the higher worlds thus far concealed from us. Steiner in this important work becomes a teacher, a counselor, and a friend whose advice is practical, clear, and effective. The challenges we face in life require increasingly deeper levels of understanding, and Steiner's text helps readers to cultivate the capacities for such insights and places them at the service of humanity. This is Steiner's most essential guide to the modern path of initiation he advocated throughout his life. It has been translated into many languages and has inspired hundreds of thousands of readers around the world. How to Know Higher Worlds has been admired by some of the most brilliant minds of our time. "The methods by which a student is prepared for the reception of higher knowledge are minutely prescribed. The direction he is to take is traced with unfading, everlasting letters in the worlds of the spirit where the initiates guard the higher secrets. In ancient times, anterior to our history, the temples of the spirit were also outwardly visible; today, because our life has become so unspiritual, they are not to be found in the world visible to external sight; yet they are present spiritually everywhere, and all who seek may find them." Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment is a translation from German of the written work Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten? (GA 10).

Download or read book Milestones written by T. H. Meyer and published by Temple Lodge Publishing. This book was released on 2015-10-26 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why was the act of arson that destroyed the first Goetheanum so devastatingly successful in its malicious intent? What was the nature of the poisoning that Rudolf Steiner suffered in 1923? What was the significance of Steiner’s encounter with an unknown Master in 1879, and his later meeting with Friedrich Nietzsche on his sickbed? Rather than presenting an accumulation of data, Meyer takes a symptomatological approach to the evolution of Rudolf Steiner’s thinking, pinpointing specific moments in his biography, whilst making numerous links to contemporary issues. Seemingly unimportant details are significant – such as Steiner’s boyhood habit of smashing dishes, or the droplet of water that adorned Steiner’s forehead at his funeral. The often overlooked language of such images is evaluated within the scope and grandeur of Rudolf Steiner’s life’s work. An incisive theme running through Milestones is the dual nature of time – ‘involution’ and ‘evolution’ – and how it affects the Anthroposophical Society and movement. Following Steiner’s death, a one-sided involution process has been evident in the overemphasis on the Christmas Foundation Meeting, as well as Steiner’s supposedly ‘indissoluble’ connection with the Society. This is coupled with distorted evolution processes, as seen in the urge to enter the public domain by jettisoning anthroposophy altogether. Such disharmonies can only be healed, says Meyer, by seeing the reality. This book serves as an essential guide to understanding the task of anthroposophy in the modern world.

Download or read book Light for the New Millennium written by Rudolf Steiner and published by Rudolf Steiner Press. This book was released on 2014-06-04 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Containing a wealth of material on a variety of subjects, Light for the New Millennium tells the story of the meeting of two great men and their continuing relationship beyond the threshold of death: Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925)--the seer, scientist of the spirit, and cultural innovator--and Helmuth von Moltke (1848-1916)--a renowned military man, Chief of the General Staff of the German army during the outbreak of World War I. In 1914, following disagreements with the Kaiser, Moltke was dismissed from his post. This led to a great inner crisis in the General, that in turn drew him closer to Steiner. When Moltke died two years later, Steiner maintained contact with his excarnated soul, receiving communications that he passed on to Moltke's wife, Eliza. These remarkable and unique messages are reproduced here in full, together with relevant letters from the General to his wife. The various additional commentaries, essays and documents give insights to themes of continuing significance for our time, including the workings of evil; karma and reincarnation; life after death; the new millennium and the end of the last century; the hidden causes of World War I; the destiny of Europe, and the future of Rudolf Steiner's science of the spirit. Also included are Moltke's private reflections on the causes of the Great War ("the document that could have changed world history"), a key interview with Steiner for Le Matin, an introduction and notes by T. H. Meyer, and studies by Jürgen von Grone, Jens Heisterkamp and Johannes Tautz.

Download or read book Between Death and Rebirth written by Rudolf Steiner and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These lectures show the factors in life on earth that will influence one's experiences during life after death, as well as elements of the spiritual world that will affect one's future life on earth. Steiner also speaks of the influence the living may have on the souls of the dead.