Marie Steiner -- the wife of Rudolf Steiner and one of his closest colleagues -- made a great contribution to the development of anthroposophy, particularly in her tireless work on the renewal of the performing arts (eurythmy, speech, and drama), and the editing and publishing of Rudolf Steiner's literary, estate. However, as Hans Peter van Manen argues, the anthroposophical movement is like a listing ship in that, as time has gone on, "far more has come to be known about Ita Wegman, in the karmic sense, than about Marie Steiner." In publishing this reworked lecture, van Manen goes some way toward redressing the imbalance, presenting the results of his own carefully considered thoughts on the subject of Marie Steiner's karmic past. In doing so, he links her to a well-known individuality connected with Aristotle in ancient Greece.
From the moment that Marie von Sivers met Rudolf Steiner in 1902, their relationship became key to the development of Anthroposophy. Marie Steiner's immense contribution is well known in the fields of eurythmy, speech, and the arts, as well as in her management and publication of Steiner's literary estate--indeed, she assisted in almost every aspect of Rudolf Steiner's work. So why has she been so neglected by the anthroposophic movement? Driven by this central question, the authors of this penetrating study concluded that the karma and mission of Marie Steiner-von Sivers is vitally important to the present and future spiritual and cultural development of the West. They evaluate not only Marie's twenty-three-year partnership with Rudolf Steiner, but also her three previous incarnations--in the ancient Orphic Mysteries, as the Neoplatonist Hypatia, and as Albertus Magnus. The lives, acts, cultural legacies, and thought of these various personalities are addressed through a series of lucid essays, interspersed with studies on the missions of both Rudolf and Marie Steiner. Supplementing these are short extracts from literature that reverberate with the word, helping to reveal the intimately intertwined karmic missions of Marie Steiner-von Sivers and Rudolf Steiner, her work companion and soul partner.
'It depends on the human being whether he merely conceives of anthroposophy or whether he experiences it.' - Rudolf Steiner During the Christmas period of 1923-4, Rudolf Steiner refounded the Anthroposophical Society at its headquarters in Dornach, Switzerland. This important event, which has come to be known as the Christmas Conference, can be studied on many levels, and its many mysteries have been central to Sergei O. Prokofieff's anthroposophical research over the years. His beginning point has been an enduring question: What did Rudolf Steiner mean when he called the Christmas Conference the 'start of a World-Turning-point of Time'? In this far-reaching work, the author - working from several different viewpoints - guides the reader towards an answer. Prokofieff suggests that the impulse of the Christmas Conference can only be reenlivened today through conscious action by individuals to experience its spiritual essence. Rather than offering dogmatic conclusions, he opens up paths of approaching this goal by throwing light on different aspects of the Conference and what lies at its heart: the Foundation Stone and its Meditation.In particular, Prokofieff explores three key perspectives: the connection of the Christmas Conference with humanity's evolution; the inner relationship of each individual anthroposophist to the Christmas Conference; and the significance of the Conference to Rudolf Steiner himself. Although this is major work of some length, the individual chapters of May Human Beings Hear It! are complete in themselves, and can therefore be studied independently of each other.
Includes Part 1A: Books, Part 1B: Pamphlets, Serials and Contributions to Periodicals and Part 2: Periodicals. (Part 2: Periodicals incorporates Part 2, Volume 41, 1946, New Series)
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."
Finally available in English, Thomas Meyer’s major biography of Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz (1869-1945) offers a panoramic view of an exceptional life. One of Rudolf Steiner’s most valued and independent-minded colleagues, Polzer-Hoditz was born in Prague – in the midst of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – to an aristocratic family with royal connections. Leaving behind the traditions of his background, he was to become a key actor in Steiner’s regenerative ‘threefold’ social impulses, working tirelessly for a genuinely unified and free Europe. Polzer-Hoditz also fought to protect Rudolf Steiner’s esoteric legacy and the integrity of the Anthroposophical Society that had been founded to further his work. Following Steiner’s untimely death, Polzer-Hoditz fostered a broad range of friendships and alliances with key figures such as D.N. Dunlop, Walter Johannes Stein and Ita Wegman. In a bid to avoid further division and conflict, he made significant interventions to alter the tragic course of events that consumed the Anthroposophical Society, although he was unable to stop the major split within the membership that was to follow. In the final decade of his life he concentrated his energies on world issues, seeking to influence events in Europe in particular, lecturing widely and writing a number of books and memoranda. In contrast to the destructive ‘special interests’ of the national and religious groups that craved dominion and power, Polzer-Hoditz sought to build a true understanding between Central and Eastern Europe and to cultivate a spiritual connection with the West. Meyer’s book is a pioneering work in biographical literature, structured in four main sections that reflect the stages of an individual’s personal development. In the concluding section he studies world events up to the present day, practising a method referred to as a ‘symptomatological observation of history’, which Polzer-Hoditz himself sought to develop. Much more than a standard biography, Ludwig Polzer-Hoditz presents a vibrantly living picture of how a spiritual individuality can work in human culture and history – in past, present and future. This first English edition is based on the latest German version and features additional material.
In the autumn of 1912, Rudolf Steiner presented the first eurythmy performance. It marked the revival, in modern form, of the sacred art of dance, which had been used in the ancient Mysteries to express the movements of the stars and the planets. In the years that followed, Steiner and his wife, Marie von Sivers, developed eurythmy further, broadening it beyond the artistic to encompass healing and educational elements as well. One of the pioneers of this new form of movement was the Russian anthroposophist Tatiana Kisseleff, who became a student of Steiner's and later a celebrated eurythmy teache. In this remarkable book, available for the first time in English, Kisseleff describes the spiritual foundations of eurythmy as they were explored in Steiner's lectures and recounts the instruction she received from him. This is both an eyewitness account of the origins of eurythmy and a record of a deeply personal journey of one person's efforts to master it. The book is illustrated throughout with photographs, drawings, facsimile reproductions from notebooks and posters advertising early eurythmy performances, alongside accounts of performances of various pieces including Shakespeare's The Tempest, Goethe's Faust, and Rudolf Steiner's own Mystery Dramas. This is a fascinating account for eurythmists and anyone who wants to delve more deeply into eurythmy's history and development.
It is one of the greatest riddles of all time: Did Anastasia, youngest daughter of the last Russian Czar, survive the massacre of the royal family in 1917? James Blair Lovell's painstaking research proves, beyond a doubt, that Anna Anderson--who claimed until her death in 1984 she was Anastasia--indeed was. "Reads like a detective novel".--Publishers Week.
