By Rudolf Steiner

Revised by Gilbert Church, Stewart C. Easton, and Frédéric Kozlik
Bn 171.1, GA 171

These lectures trace important developments in evolution such as the two-sided attempt to falsely extend the ancient Atlantean mysteries by the luciferic eastern campaigns of Genghis Khan and the ahrimanic western black magic mysteries centered in Mexico. New light is also shed on the fate of the Knights Templar, and Henry VIII, and Sir Thomas Moore. Steiner shows how we must Christianize all our activities and that we need to concern ourselves with four problems: natural urges, birth, death, and evil.

Lectures one through seven and eight from the lecture series entitled, The Inner Human Impulse for Improvement, Goethe and the Crisis in the Nineteenth Century, published in German as, Innere Entwicklungsimpulse der Menschheit. Goethe und die Krisis des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Kosmische und menschliche Geschichte. Band II.

With an introduction by Frédéric Kozlik, this lecture series is presented here with the kind permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland. From Bn 171.1, GA 171.