The Evolution of Consciousness

By Rudolf Steiner

Translated by Violet E. Watkin and Charles Davy
GA 227

In these comprehensive lectures, given to an English audience, Rudolf Steiner explains how it is possible to develop higher faculties of consciousness — Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition. A particularly vivid description is given of one's life after death and the progress of the individual through the planetary spheres where tasks and goals for future incarnations are prepared in cooperation with the spiritual beings of the Hierarchies. The lectures culminate in the call for humanity to gradually take in hand its own destiny through the conscious and free development of spiritual capacities.

Evolution of Consciousness consists of thirteen lectures given at Penmaenmawr, Wales in August of 1923. They were published in German as, Initiations-erkenntnis. Die geistige und physische Welt- und menschheitsentwickelung in der Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft vom Geistespunkt der Anthroposophie, and are presented here with the kind permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.