The translations, edited by D. S. Osmond, have been made from shorthand reports unrevised by the lecturer.

The following lectures were given by Rudolf Steiner to audiences familiar with the general background and terminology of his anthroposophical teaching. In his autobiography, The Course of My Life, he emphasises the distinction between his written works on the one hand and, on the other, reports (not revised by him) of lectures which were given as oral communications and were not originally intended for print. It should be borne in mind that certain premises were taken for granted when the lectures were given. “These premises,” Rudolf Steiner writes, “include at the very least, the anthroposophical knowledge of Man and of the Cosmos in its spiritual essence; also what may be called ‘anthroposophical history’, told as an outcome of research into the spiritual world.”

Records exist of some 48 lectures given by Rudolf Steiner between the years 1904 and 1923 on the meaning and significance of the Christmas Festival. The present volume contains the texts of eight of these lectures and another collection on the same theme will eventually be published.

Volumes II, III and IV of this series on The Festivals and their Meaning contain the texts of lectures by Rudolf Steiner on Easter, Ascension and Pentecost, and Michaelmas.

*    *    *

A list of publications in English translation recommended for reading in connection with the following lectures will be found at the end of this volume, also a summarised plan of the Complete Edition of Rudolf Steiner's works in the original German now (1967) in an advanced stage of preparation by the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung.