Man and the World of Stars

In his autobiography, THE COURSE OF MY LIFE (chapters 35 and 36), Rudolf Steiner speaks as follows concerning the character of this privately printed matter:

“The content of this printed matter was intended as oral communications, not to be printed. ...

“Nothing has ever been said that is not in utmost degree the purest result of the developing Anthroposophy. ... Whoever reads this privately printed material can take it in the fullest sense as containing what Anthroposophy has to say. Therefore, it was possible without hesitation ... to depart from the plan of circulating this printed matter among members alone. Only, it will be necessary to put up with the fact that erroneous matter is included in the lecture reports which I did not revise.

“The right to a judgment about the content of such privately printed material can naturally be conceded only to one who knows what is taken for granted as the prerequisite basis of this judgment. And for most of this printed matter prerequisite will be at least the Anthroposophical knowledge of the human being, and of the cosmos, to the extent that their nature is set forth in Anthroposophy, and of what exists in the form of ‘Anthroposophical history’ in the communications from the world of spirit.”

These twelve lectures were given in the main auditorium of the first Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. As Rudolf Steiner was writing the two verses of the last lecture on the blackboard, on December 31, 1922, a fire was already smoldering in the south wing of the building between the double wooden walls. A few hours later the Goetheanum had burned to the ground.