SUMMARY OF CONTENTS
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Berne, 25th January, 1924
Moon and Sun: the
two gates through which the life of man in its totality reaches
beyond the physical world. The Moon endows us with individuality: the
Past. The Sun gives access to the universal-human: the Future.
Necessity and Freedom. In the destiny of two individuals,
Moon-existence and Sun-existence are at work: the connection before
the meeting is determined by the Moon-existence, by Necessity;
happenings after the meeting is determined by the Sun, by Freedom.
After the karmic meeting of two human beings the thread of the karma
reaching back into the Past is woven into the thread stretching into
the Future. New faculties of perception bring knowledge of cosmic
destiny. The esoteric conception of Necessity and Freedom. Impulses
of the Christmas Foundation Meeting.
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Berne, 16th April, 1924
Concerning
the new trend in the Anthroposophical Society. Understanding of the
historical evolution of humanity. The working of karma through personalities.
Natural Science and Arabism. The mysteries of the Father, the Son, the
Spirit, in antiquity. The impulse of Freedom in the evolution of
Christianity. The counter-stream in Mohammedanism. The Court of
Haroun al Raschid. The Pan Sophia of Amos Comenius. Conrad Ferdinand
Meyer and Thomas Becket. Pestalozzi.
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Zurich, 28th January, 1924
Beings in the
heavenly bodies. The Moon Beings keep the records of the past of
humanity and of every individual man. Such records determine karma.
The function of the Angeloi. Differences in the meetings of
individuals. The links between an Initiate and those with whom he
comes into contact. Characteristics of the biographies of Initiates.
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Stuttgart, 6th February, 1924
Moon and Sun: the
two portals into the spiritual world. The primordial wisdom on Earth
imparted by lofty spiritual Beings who went to the Moon after it
separated from the Earth. These Beings record the destinies which
individuals have in common. Change and replacement of physical
substance in heavenly bodies as well as in man. Element of Necessity
and Moon influences. Freedom connected with Sun influences. The
karmic aspect of illness. Experience of union with the Cosmos.
Opposition to Anthroposophy. The Christmas Foundation Meeting.
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Stuttgart, 9th April, 1924
Repeated earthly
lives and Lessing's treatise,
The Education of the Human Race.
Concrete reference to the truths of karma. Avoidance of sensationalism.
Keynotes in certain domains of life are set by particular
personalities; the threads of karma running through their different
incarnations. Haroun al Raschid and the Counsellor at his Court. Lord
Bacon of Verulam and Amos Comenius. Incarnations of earlier Initiates
dependent upon prevailing civilisation. Garibaldi and his tie with
Cavour, Mazzini and King Victor Emmanuel. Metamorphosis of
forces from one incarnation to the next: forces of limb-system to
forces of head-system. Lord Byron and Dr. Steiner's geometry teacher.
The Palladium. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Muawiyah. Woodrow
Wilson. Earnestness essential in the study of destiny.
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Stuttgart, 1st June, 1924
Waking life
and sleep. The Guardian of the Threshold. The backward journey after death
lasts for about one third of the span of earthly life. Negative images of
the life on Earth. Life in the Cosmos after death. Resolutions in the
spiritual world between death and rebirth are potent realities. Passage
through the planetary spheres. The Mercury Mysteries and the healing of
illnesses. The life-epochs as sources of super-sensible vision.
Community with the souls of the dead and the spiritual Hierarchies.
Karma and the different planetary spheres. Examples: Schiller,
Goethe, Heine, Eliphas Lévi.
The
Karma of the Anthroposophical Society and
Content of the Anthroposophical Movement
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Arnhem, 18th July, 1924
Significance
of the Christmas Foundation Meeting for the Anthroposophical Society.
Karma and the predisposition for Anthroposophy. Souls now gathered in the
Anthroposophical Movement were united in spiritual worlds before
descending into the physical world. A super-sensible cult presented in
mighty Imaginations was a preparation in the early years of the
nineteenth century for the Michael stream on Earth. The new
Christianity. Two groups of souls in the Anthroposophical Society and
their earlier incarnations. Heretical movements. Platonism and
Aristotelianism. The School of Chartres and its great teachers.
Brunetto Latini's super-sensible experience of the Goddess
Natura. The Cistercian and Dominican Orders. Episodes in Dr.
Steiner's life in connection with members of the Cistercian Order.
Members of the Anthroposophical Society must become conscious
of their karma. The end of the century.
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Arnhem, 19th July, 1924
On the evolution
of certain spiritual Beings connected with humanity. The Gabriel Age and the
Michael Age The seven successive Archangel rulerships. Michael's rulership
in the age of Alexander the Great and in our own time. Heavenly Intelligence
and ‘self-made’ thinkers. Johannes Scotus Erigena. Arabism and
Mohammedanism. Haroun al Raschid and his Counsellor at the Court in
Baghdad. Their subsequent incarnations. Lord Bacon of Verulam and Amos
Comenius. The School of Chartres and Scholasticism. Preparations in the
spiritual world for the spiritualisation of the Intelligence that had
fallen from the Heavens upon Earth. Nominalism and Realism. Vincenz Knauer.
Goethe's Fairy Tale. Ahrimanic demonic powers striving to take possession
of men. Maurice Maeterlinck's comments on Dr. Steiner. Michael's battle
with the Dragon is waged in the hearts of men since the last third of the
nineteenth century. At the end of the twentieth century mankind will
either stand at the grave of civilisation or at the beginning of the
Age when Michael's battle will be fought out to victory.
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Arnhem, 20th July, 1924
The super-sensible
School of Michael from the fifteenth on into the eighteenth century. The
outcome of this schooling is the urge that brings human beings to
Anthroposophy. The opposing Ahrimanic School in the sub-earthly realm.
Certain souls incarnated on Earth — often quite simple men —
have been aware of the possible sinister situation of the abandonment of
humanity by the Michael rulership and the advent of impulses rising
from below like demonic vapours striving to conquer the Intelligence.
Printing is a power placed by Ahriman in opposition to Michael. What
the attitude of Anthroposophists to printing must be. Ahrimanic
spirits are most potent in attacks against the Age of Michael when a
diminution of consciousness takes place in human beings. This
occurred in many of those who were entangled in events which
led to the outbreak of the War in 1914. Each particular life-period
enables the Initiate to have vision of the individual secrets of
existence. “To behold the secrets of worlds in their
interconnections one must have passed the age of sixty-three.”
Ahriman can possess human beings and appear as an author.
Necessity for alertness to such phenomena. The end of the century.
Notes
List of
relevant publications
Summarised plan
of Complete Edition of Rudolf Steiner's works in the original German
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