In 16 concise chapters, Rudolf Steiner reveals how we can look through the material veil of this world and glimpse the world of the spirit. With meditation and concentrated thought we can develop our intuition and clairvoyance and even our powers of ESP. Written "to be of use to those who are really in earnest in seeking knowledge of the spiritual world," this book continues to inspire today. Austrian scholar, philosopher and spiritual researcher RUDOLF STEINER (1861-1925) has written dozens of books, including Philosophy of Freedom, Theosophy, An Outline of Occult Science, and Knowledge of the Higher Worlds.
Ever since her early days at the Findhorn Community in Scotland, Dorothy Maclean has been helping people attune to nature and connect with their inner divinity. Now, in Choices of Love, she discusses the nature of divine love and how each of us can avail ourselves of its power to enrich any aspect of our lives. The immensity of divine love, how to contact it, the nature of the Divine, blocks to understanding, the nature of good and evil, and the angelic world of nature and of human groupings such as cities, states, and nations, are among the topics Dorothy Maclean addresses. Choices of Love will leave you with a clearer understanding of yourself and of the universal love in which we all participate.
10 lectures, Vienna, June 1-11, 1922 (CW 83) This challenging set of lectures attempts to lift the veil from modern social and spiritual problems as experienced in the contrasts between East and West. By ascribing to human thinking only a shadowy, subjective validity, modern science tries to invalidate the very faculty that gives us our human dignity. At the same time, however, this "unreality" of thought images makes possible an inner freedom that scientific doctrine tends to deny in principle. The need arises from these contradictions to extend the limits of ordinary scientific thinking to new investigative faculties. In part one, "Anthroposophy and the Sciences," Rudolf Steiner esplains that this can be achieved in a healthy way through two kinds of meditative excercises, very different in character from yoga and asceticism and other older paths to higher knowledge. These disciplines lead to the discovery of a paradoxical truth: "If you would know yourself, look into the world. If you would know the world, look into your self." The spiritual-scientific philosophy thus presented provides a framework within which the second half of the book ("Anthroposophy and Sociology") considers how a healthy social life can be understood and shaped. Today the old social instincts of humanity have grown uncertain, and the rational intellect is proving unsuited to comprehend and foster a humane social life. While admitting that we are only beginning to discover the right relationship between individual and community, Steiner describes how a conscious spiritual life is able to give the same social certainties as did the earlier "instictive" life. He then explains how we might find a way from our highly developed sense of personal self into the worldwide social organism. This volume is a translation of Westliche und östliche Weltgegensätzlichkeit - Wege zu ihre Verständigung durch Anthroposophie.
“A Road to Self Knowledge and the Threshold of the Spiritual World” is a vintage self-help book written by Rudolf Steiner and first published in 1918. Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (1861 – 1925) was an Austrian social reformer, philosopher, architect, esotericist and economist. He originally became famous for his literary criticism at the end of the nineteenth century and published philosophical works including “The Philosophy of Freedom”. This volume aims to help the reader with problem solving in day-to-day life, walking them through the best methods for dealing with common problems and offering useful and effective life guidance with reference to spiritualism. Contents include: “In which the Attempt is made to obtain a True Idea of the Physical Body”, “In which the Attempt is made to form a True Conception of the Elemental or Etheric Body”, “In which the Attempt is made to form an Idea of Clairvoyant Cognition of the Elemental World”, “In which the Attempt is made to form a Conception of the Guardian of the Threshold”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with the original text and artwork.
The Third Mystery Drama brings the First and Second to a conclusion in certain respects, and the original viewers saw them as a trilogy. The first steps into an actual seeing of one's Karma were presented in the Second Drama, and now the integration of what was seen has to be brought about. For indeed, seeing into the spiritual world is not like seeing a landscape where it is clearly before one's eyes; rather it is more like seeing into a microscope or space telescope, totally new things appear which one does not know how to categorize or in the case of the spiritual world, to find a relation to. Not only outer visible aspects have to be integrated though, also new feelings, but especially new moral attitudes have to be integrated. Through conscientious hard work, Johannes has created a new book about spiritual knowledge, but just because of this, his own spiritual knowledge has grown and he can now encounter another side of himself not recognized previously. This knowledge now warns him what he is about to do is incorrect, so he turns away from the success he might have had giving out the book. Just this then lets him see what he really lacks in terms of spiritual insight and where this does actually lie for him. So he seeks Theodora's light. That seeking in turn, with Maria's help, brings him to the discovery of his own light. Strader experiences the powerful illuminating nature of Theodora's light directly, and it changes his whole life. But then through the loss of that light, after something new has been established within him, it causes him to seek help from Johannes, following Benedictus's guidance. This in turn brings him into a direct experience of the strongest side of his own inner nature and what he has actually developed in his previous lives. Such an insight gives him his own inner self-confidence in what he has to contribute to the others, to mankind. The Karmic knot that binds these individuals together can be brought to a higher stage of development, a stage where these individuals are prepared to help each other help themselves, and where a social work may be undertaken which will also be in harmony with the spiritual forces in the world.
In March 2020, Are Thoresen contracted Covid-19. Whilst convalescing from the disease and suffering great exhaustion, he experienced a breakthrough in his daily meditation. Although he has always been able to ‘see’ into the spiritual world, now deeper, unknown realms appeared to his inner vision. In the soapstone surround of the fireplace in his Norwegian home, he perceived the elemental beings and forces that make up the mineral at an atomic level. A few days later, an even deeper dimension revealed itself, in the form of a void or vacuum. Here, astonishingly, was an open portal to the entire cosmos… In Travels on the Northern Path of Initiation, Thoresen shares the results of his latest spiritual investigations, including a moving, life-changing encounter with ‘the Light of the World’. He details the teachings he receives from the beings Vidar and Balder – who stand as guardians to the threshold of the outer etheric world – and characterizes the Northern way of initiation, which is based on merging, or ‘fading’, into nature. Thoresen documents Rudolf Steiner’s descriptions of this path and shows how it is reflected in the Old Norse Poetic Edda, the Kalevala and von Eschenbach’s Parzival. Based on painstaking research, he describes the individual qualities of the three elemental realms, and how the adversarial forces – seeking to corrupt human senses – hinder spiritual observation of them. Thoresen’s book is a powerful personal testimony to the human potential for spiritual knowledge and experience in our time.
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.
Knowledge Of the Higher Worlds And Its Attainment By Rudolf Steiner Originally published in 1938. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Obscure Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. Contents include: How is Knowledge of the Higher World Attained? - The Stages of Initiation - Some Practical Aspects - The conditions of Esoteric Training - Some Results of Initiation - The Transformation of Dream Life, The Continuity of Consciousness - The Partition of Human Personality During Spiritual Training - The Guardian of the Threshold, The Great or Second Guardian of the Threshold
Although Steiner did not often speak or write about love explicitly, love is at the very heart of his whole body of work and the foundation of his hopes for humankind and the Earth. Steiner teaches that, without love, nothing is possible; with love, however, we can do everything. Love is always "love of the not-yet." To love is to create; it is to selflessly enter the current of time that flows toward us from the future. Reality, true knowledge of reality, is impossible without love. Only through love can we truly know as we are know, can we encounter the world and its beings in a living way. Without love, knowledge becomes manipulation, domination, control; the world becomes a space of dead things. But, when we know through love, we enter into a pattern of dynamic, potentially redemptive relations and the world becomes a living world of beings working for the good. This collection gathers all of Rudolf Steiner's main lectures and writings related to love. From earthly love to the nature and function of spiritual love, these pieces are essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of humanity and the Earth. Love and Its Meaning in the World is essential reading for anyone who'd like to gain a deeper understanding of our true mission as human beings and the purpose of evolution on Earth. Chapters include: "The Division of the Sexes" "Lucifer and Christ" "The Mission of Reverence" "The Buddha's Teaching of Compassion and Love" "Faith, Love, and Hope" "Love & Its Meaning in the World" "'I'-Feeling, the Soul's Capacity to Love, and Their Relationship to the Elemental World" Love mediated by the senses is the wellspring of creative power, of what is coming into being. Without sense-born love, nothing material would exist in the world; without spiritual love, nothing spiritual can arise in evolution. When we practice love, cultivate love, creative forces pour into the world.... For human beings, love is the most important fruit of experience in the sensory world. Once we really understand the nature of love, or compassion, we will find that love is the way spirit expresses its truth in the world of the senses.... "We may even say that, in love, the spiritual world awakens in the physical. The more truly a soul inhabits the spiritual worlds, the more it experiences lovelessness and lack of compassion as a denial of spirit itself." --Rudolf Steiner
Deep, personal pain is very real for men. So is the power to transform it. In one of the opening meditations of this book, male spirituality expert Richard Rohr writes, “We need to fail, to fall, to jump into the central mystery of our own existence, or we’ll have no way of finding our true path.” Those words serve as the starting point for a potentially transformative experience, one in which men come to grips with the fact that some form of suffering or letting go is essential to achieving wholeness, holiness, and happiness. With nearly every man dealing with some form of hurt in his life, On the Threshold of Transformation acknowledges the pain and deals with it directly and redemptively. While much of our culture today would have us believe that failure and suffering are inherently bad, Fr. Rohr helps men see that pain—in whatever form it takes—is a primary doorway through which they can pass to reach their authentic, best selves, which is where they will truly encounter God. Ultimately, this book of 366 daily meditations helps men learn how to transform their pain so they don’t pass it on. With Fr. Rohr as their guide, the path to male spiritual transformation can be found and followed.
