Links Between the Living and the Dead

In his autobiography, The Course of My Life (chapter 35 and chapter 36), Rudolf Steiner speaks as follows concerning the character and records of lectures and addresses printed originally for private circulation:

‘The contents of this printed matter were intended as oral communications and not for print ...

‘They contain nothing that is not a pure expression of anthroposophical knowledge in its progressive development and growth ... the reader may confidently take them as representing what Anthroposophy has to tell. Therefore it was possible, and moreover without misgivings ... to depart from the accepted custom of circulating these publications only among the membership. But it will have to be remembered that faulty passages occur in the transcripts, which I myself did not revise.

‘It is only reasonable to expect that anyone professing to pass judgment on the contents of this privately printed matter will be acquainted with the premises that were taken for granted when the words were spoken. These premises 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.’