Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The newest addition to the Classics in Anthroposophy series, this book is unique among all of Rudolf Steiner's writings. It provides meditations for discovering the true nature of the sense-world around us, and for understanding the spiritual worlds that exist beyond what is sense-perceptible.
In A Way of Self-Knowledge, Steiner guides the reader's awakening soul through eight meditations. Each meditation describes clairvoyance and its development, and provides exercises to help the reader achieve it.
In The Threshold of the Spiritual World, Steiner describes various spiritual experiences, offering continually fresh points of view on the supersensible world. Here again, Steiner gives clear suggestions for the reader's own practice of meditation. Succinct summary chapters are interspersed among longer and more detailed sections, making this a very accessible book.
Synopsis
"I hope that reading this book can become a kind of inner conversation. If this conversation unfolds in such a way that it reveals the hidden inner forces that can be awakened in every soul, then reading this book may lead to genu-ine, inner soul work. As a result you may find yourself gradually impelled to undertake the journey of the soul that truly leads to vision of the spiritual world." --Rudolf Steiner
Part one, "A Way of Self-Knowledge": Eight meditations that take the reader on a journey through human experience. Beginning with ordinary experience, Steiner offers ways to imagine and understand the physical body, the elemental (or etheric) body, the elemental world, the Guardian of the Threshold, the astral body, the I-body (or thought body), the nature of experience in suprasensory worlds, and ways of perceiving previous earthly lives.
Part two, "The Threshold of the Spiritual World": Sixteen short chapters in which Steiner provides aphoristic thoughts on trusting one's thinking, cognition of the spiritual world, karma and reincarnation, the astral body and luciferic beings, how to recognize suprasensory consciousness, the true nature of love, and more.
These two complete books together represent Steiner's most personal statements about his own spiritual path. He speaks directly from experiences of cognitive research and explorations. Each of the meditations and aphorisms arises from his spiritual research and demonstrates how such spiritual research is to be undertaken. The "content" is Steiner's own, but readers can discover their own "content." Steiner's method of awareness--his path of attention to one's own experience--is universal and truly human.
A Way of Self-Knowledge is a true sequel and complement to the classic of inner development, How to Know Higher Worlds. It lays out in a way that is accessible to anyone the road to self-knowledge and to the world of spirit.
This Collected Works edition contains a new introduction, a chronology of Rudolf Steiner's life, and an index.
Front cover image: Meditation by Jennifer Thomson (www.phoenixartsgroup.org)
A Way of Self-Knowledge: And the Threshold of the Spiritual World is a translation of Ein Weg zur Selbsterkenntnis des Menschen: In acht Meditationen (GA 16) and Die Schwelle dre geistigen Welt: Aphoristische Ausfuhrungen (GA 17).
Synopsis
2 written works, 1912 & 1913 (CW 16/17)
Part one, "A Way of Self-Knowledge" Eight meditations that take the reader on a journey through human experience. Beginning with ordinary experience, Steiner offers ways to imagine and understand the physical body, the elemental (or etheric) body, the elemental world, the Guardian of the Threshold, the astral body, the "I"-body (or thought body), the nature of experience in suprasensory worlds, and ways of perceiving previous earthly lives.
Part two, "The Threshold of the Spiritual World" Sixteen short chapters in which Steiner provides aphoristic thoughts on trusting one's thinking, cognition of the spiritual world, karma and reincarnation, the astral body and luciferic beings, how to recognize suprasensory consciousness, the true nature of love, and more.
These two complete books together represent Steiner's most personal statements about his own spiritual path. He speaks directly from experiences of cognitive research and explorations. Each of the meditations and aphorisms arises from his spiritual research and demonstrates how such spiritual research is to be undertaken. The "content" is Steiner's own, but readers can discover their own "content." Steiner's method of awareness--his path of attention to one's own experience--is universal and truly human.
A Way of Self-Knowledge is a true sequel and complement to the classic of inner development, How to Know Higher Worlds. It lays out in a way that is accessible to anyone the road to self-knowledge and to the world of spirit.
CONTENTS
Introduction by Christopher Bamford
Preface by Friedemann Schwarzkopf
PART ONE: A WAY OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE: MEDITATIONS
1. The Physical Body
2. The Elemental (or Etheric) Body
3. Clairvoyant Cognition of the Elemental World
4. The "Guardian of the Threshold"
5. The Astral Body
6. The "I"-Body or Thought-Body
7. The Nature of Experience in Suprasensory Worlds
8. Beholding Your Previous Earthly Lives
PART TWO: THE THRESHOLD OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD: APHORISMS
1. Trust in Thinking. The Nature of the Thinking Soul
2. Cognizing the Spiritual World
3. The Human Etheric Body and the Elemental World
4. Repeated Earthly Lives and Karma
5. The Astral Body and Luciferic Beings.
6. The "Guardian of the Threshold."
7. "I"-Feeling, the Human Soul's Capacity to Love, and Their Relationship to the Elemental World
8. The Boundary between the Sensory and the Supersensory Worlds
9. On the Nature of the Spiritual Worlds
10. Cosmic Beings of the Spiritual Worlds
11. On the First Rudiments of the Physical Body
12. The True "I" of the Human Being
A Way of Self-Knowledge: And the Threshold of the Spiritual Worldis a translation of Ein Weg zur Selbsterkenntnis des Menschen: In acht Meditationen (GA 16) and Die Schwelle dre geistigen Welt: Aphoristische Ausf hrungen (GA 17).
Synopsis
Part one, ?A Way of Self-Knowledge, ? contains eight meditations that take the reader on a journey through human experience. Beginning with ordinary experience, Steiner offers ways to imagine and understand the physical body, the elemental (or etheric) body, the elemental world, the Guardian of the Threshold, the astral body, the I-body (or thought body), the nature of experience in suprasensory worlds, and ways of perceiving previous earthly lives. Part two, ?The Threshold of the Spiritual World, ? contains sixteen short chapters in which Steiner provides aphoristic thoughts on trusting one's thinking? cognition of the spiritual world? karma and reincarnation? the astral body and luciferic beings? how to recognize suprasensory consciousness; the true nature of love; and more.