During the year 1924, before his illness in September, Rudolf
Steiner gave over eighty lectures, published with the title
Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies,
to Members of the Anthroposophical Society in the following
places: Dornach, Berne, Zurich, Stuttgart, Prague, Paris, Breslau,
Arnhem, Torquay and London. English translations of these lectures
are contained in the following volumes of the series:
Vols. I to IV. Lectures given in Dornach (49).
Vol. V. Lectures given in Prague (4) and Paris (3).
Vol. VI. Lectures given in Berne (2) Zurich (1), Stuttgart (3)
Arnhem (3).
The
present volume (VII) contains the nine lectures given in
Breslau.
The
six lectures that were given in Torquay and London will
eventually be republished. They have previously been
published as:
Cosmic Christianity and the Impulse of Michael.
Karma in the life of individuals and in the evolution of the world
(1953).
Readers familiar with the contents of earlier volumes will find
certain repetitions in the present collection. Such repetitions
were inevitable because Dr. Steiner was speaking to different
audiences on each occasion. All these lectures were given to
members of the Anthroposophical Society only and were intended
to be material for study by those already familiar with the
fundamental principles and terminology of Anthroposophy. The
following extract from the lecture of 22nd June, 1924 (see Vol.
II) calls attention to the need for exactitude when passing on
such contents:
“The study of problems connected with karma is by no
means easy and the discussion of anything that has to do with
the subject entails — or ought at any rate to entail
— a sense of deep responsibility. Such study is in truth
a matter of penetrating into the most profound mysteries of
existence, for within the sphere of karma and the course it
takes lie those processes which are the basis of the other
phenomena of world-existence, even of the phenomena of nature.
... These difficult and weighty matters entail grave
consideration of every word and every sentence spoken here, in
order that the limits within which the statements are made
shall be absolutely clear. ...”
A
brief list of relevant literature will be found at the end of
this volume, together with a summarised plan of the Complete
Edition of Rudolf Steiner's works in the original German.
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