Rudolf Steiner at Powell's

Publisher Comments
Includes bibliographical references (p. 301-304) and index.

Synopsis
Steiner here lays the foundation for a new Christology out of his insights into the Gospel of St. John. He says it is not a book of instruction but a force that can become active within our souls. As Marie Steiner says in her introduction, "With this book we penetrate into the innermost structure of Rudolf Steiner's activities. For all his endeavors had this one goal -- to pave for the world the way to Christ."

Publisher Comments
A revised and updated edition of the book, first published in the Eighties, that still remains the main critical work written from outside the movement. This engaging introduction to Anthroposophy is written from the unique point of view of the English-speaking outside world. Employing Anthroposophical and external sources alike, Ahern offers an unbiased look into one of the world's most interesting mystical societies. Sun at Midnight guides the reader through Anthroposophy's beginnings as an offshoot of Theosophy, the life of its founder, Rudolph Steiner, and the movement's place in Western esoteric history while offering an accessible and incisive look into its deeper esoteric beliefs. Waldorf schools and bio-dynamics are woven together with the hardening of spirit into matter to create a fascinating image of Anthroposophy in all its facets.

Synopsis
3 lectures, Dornach, December 17-19, 1920 (CW 202)

Rudolf Steiner addresses the following topics in these lectures:

1. Soul-and-Spirit in Man's Physical Constitution: The physical organism of man is considered today to consist of more or less solid-fluid substances; but as well as his solid, physical body, man has within him as definite organisms, a fluid body, an air-body and a warmth-body. -- The connections of these organisms with the members of man's whole being and with the different Ethers. -- Thought and Tone; Ego and circulating Blood. -- Man in the sleeping state. -- Man's relation to the universal Spirituality. -- Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition. -- The circumscribed view of the human organism prevailing today is unable to build any bridge between the physical body and the soul-and-spirit.
2. The Moral as the Source of World-Creative Power: Recapitulation of previous lecture. -- Connection of the moral world-order with the physical world-order. -- The moral world-order has no place in the natural scientific thinking of today. -- The positive effect of moral ideals and ideas and the negative effect of theoretical ideas on the four organisms in man. -- The materialistic conception of the imperishability of matter and energy. -- Matter and energy die away to nullity; but man's moral thinking imbues life into substance and will. -- The natural world dies away in man; in the realm of the moral a new natural world comes into being; thus are the moral order and the natural order connected. -- Absence of spirituality in the modern picture of the world which is based on the Copernican system. -- Kepler and Newton. -- We need a spiritual view of the universe. -- The sun is not a globe of burning gas but the reflection of a spiritual reality revealed in the physical. -- The moral power developed by man rays out and is reflected as the spiritual Sun. -- Julian the Apostate. -- The connection of the spiritual Sun with the physical sun is the Christ-Secret.
3. The Path to Freedom and Love and Their Significance in World-Events: Man as a being of Thinking, Action and Feeling. -- The connection of the life of thought with the will. -- Pure thinking: irradiation of the life of thought by will. -- This leads to Freedom. -- Irradiation of the life of will by thoughts leads to Love. -- The meaning of the ancient expressions: Semblance, Power, Wisdom. -- To speak of the imperishability of matter and energy annuls Love. -- The significance of Freedom and Love in world-happenings.

Publisher Comments
This is one of the most important works about the inner esoteric meaning of anthroposophy. Prokofieff, a Russian, and relative of the famous composer, completed this remarkable work before his 28th birthday. Students of anthroposophy will be especially interested in Prokofieff's profound and thorough discussion of the Christmas Foundation Meeting.

Synopsis
This important volume reconstructs from the Akasha Record events between the origin of the earth and the beginning of recorded history. Steiner gives an overview of the Atlantean and Lemurian civilizations, their origins, achievements, and fates. These remarkable "lost" root races developed the first concepts of good and evil, manipulated forces of nature, laid the groundwork of all legal and ethical systems, and defined and nurtured the distinctive yet complementary powers of men and women that brought humankind to its highest artistic, intellectual, and spiritual attainments.

Publisher Comments
This work, essentially Steiner's doctoral dissertation, subtitled "Introduction to the Philosophy of Freedom, " is just that: an essential work in the foundations of anthroposophy in which the epistemological foundations of spiritual cognition are clearly and logically laid forth.

Publisher Comments
At the young age of twenty-one, Rudolf Steiner was chosen to edit Goethe's scientific writings for the principle Goethe edition of his time. Goethe's literary genius was universally acknowledged; it was Steiner's task to understand and comment on Goethe's scientific achievements. Steiner recognized the significance of Goethe's work with nature and his epistemology, and here began Steiner's own training in epistemology and spiritual science. This collection of Steiner's introductions to Goethe's works re-visions the meaning of knowledge and how we attain it. Goethe had discovered how thinking could be applied to organic nature and that this experience requires not just rational concepts but a whole new way of perceiving. In an age when science and technology have been linked to great catastrophes, many are looking for new ways to interact with nature. With a fundamental declaration of the interpenetration of our consciousness and the world around us, Steiner shows how Goethe's approach points the way to a more compassionate and intimate involvement with nature.