More than 100 years after its founding, the Anthroposophical Society faces serious questions--some of an existential nature--regarding its purpose and tasks today. On March 30, 2012, at the Society's Annual General Meeting in Dornach, Sergei Prokofieff and Peter Selg gave lectures in which they addressed difficult issues related to the General Anthroposophical Society and its global headquarters, the Goetheanum in Switzerland. Their lectures were met with a mixture of enthusiastic support and stern disapproval. They are reproduced here in full, together with supplementary material that helps broaden and deepen their themes, so that every interested individual has access to them.

This collection of lectures contains Steiner's strongest statements on the issues of human relationships within a spiritual community. Occasioned by a scandal involving people influenced by psychoanalysis, these lectures are Steiner's comprehensive assessment of Freud's work and psychoanalysis as a whole. Steiner shows, our physical life, including human sexuality, has spiritual roots; and that looking to sexuality for the explanation of human behavior is therefore looking in the wrong direction. He also makes clear that becoming part of a spiritual community, such as the Anthroposophical Society, entails special responsibilities and a new way of being.

Although the fruits of Anthroposophy --Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, Camphill, anthroposophic medicine, and so on --are relatively well known and moderately successful, their relationship to Anthroposophy and its vehicle for transmission, the General Anthroposophical Society, and the School for Spiritual Science, remains mysterious and unclear; sadly, the same is true of the meaning and purpose of those institutions. Related to this is the fact that, though these offshoots of Anthroposophy are well known, eighty-five years after his death and eighty-seven years after the re-formation of the Anthroposophical Society, what Rudolf Steiner brought into the world, what entered the world through him and what he sought to accomplish --that is, what spiritual science and spiritual-scientific research are and how one practices them --remain virtually unknown. In other words, something essential has been forgotten. Written both in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Rudolf Steiner's birth and in the context of the long-standing, episodically erupting, and ongoing confusion surrounding the mission and task of the Anthroposophical Society, Peter Selg seeks to recover what has perhaps been forgotten or overlooked in Rudolf Steiner's own words and life. He does so by describing, clearly and objectively, the historical background of Steiner's vision of the "civilizational task" of Anthroposophy and how he had hoped it might be accomplished. This book has two parts. First, the author offers a lucid description of the development and gradual sharpening --in the face of the crisis of Western culture epitomized by World War I and its aftermath --of the vision of spiritual science as a truly Michaelic task for the Michael Age. In part two, Peter Selg takes up the events following Rudolf Steiner's death, outlining deftly and subtly the struggles and developments that ensued, commenting tactfully on the questions and perspectives that arose and continue to arise. Rudolf Steiner's Intentions for the Anthroposophical Society is for all those who care about the reality and future of Anthroposophy. Originally published in German as Der Vorstand, die Sektionen und die Gesellschaft. Welche Hochschule wollte Rudolf Steiner? by Ita Wegman Institute for Basic Research into Anthroposophy.

Rudolf Steiner spoke at various times of a period that encompasses the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the new millennium. He described it as a time of great spiritual struggle in which forces of destruction would wage war on benevolent forces, and how the future of culture and civilization would depend on the outcome. In his many statements on this matter, Steiner warned, in particular, members of the Anthroposophical Society and movement - that they would be called on to develop vital spiritual capacities that are becoming increasingly critical for human progress. In these eighteen essays, contributors offer their thoughts on the question of where anthroposophy in its earthly manifestation now stands and to what extent it is fulfilling its tasks. This commentary on the challenges ahead offers us all a chance to reassess, prepare, and wake up. This compilation features eighteen essays by Jesaiah ben-Aharon, Mario Betti, Terry Boardman, Peter Bridgmont, Gilbert Childs, Dor Deverell, Michaela Gl ckler, Sevak Gulbekian, Brien Masters, Thomas Meyer, Bernard Nesfield-Cookson, Sergei O. Prokofieff, Richard Seddon, Nick Thomas, Peter Tradowsky, Hans-peter van Manen, Edward Warren, and Olive Whicher.

For nearly a century, the worldwide anthroposophical movement has been a catalyst for environmental activism, helping to bring to life many modern ecological practices such as organic farming, community-supported agriculture, and green banking. Yet the spiritual practice of anthroposophy remains unknown to most environmentalists. A historical and ethnographic study of the environmental movement, Eco-Alchemy uncovers for the first time the profound influences of anthroposophy and its founder, Rudolf Steiner, whose holistic worldview, rooted in esoteric spirituality, inspired the movement. Dan McKanan shows that environmentalism is itself a complex ecosystem and that it would not be as diverse or transformative without the contributions of anthroposophy.

In an absorbing series of lectures, Rudolf Steiner discloses factors in a person's life on Earth that will influence their experiences in the spiritual world after their death – and conversely, factors in the spiritual world that will affect their next life on Earth. Steiner focuses on the period in the afterlife when the individual has been through kamaloka – the purgatorial place where the soul is purified. Once the soul has been cleansed of its astral sheath, it becomes open to cosmic influences, expanding into the planetary sphere. Now it can begin preparation for reincarnation – for a new human life on Earth. Steiner addresses the vital relationship of the living to the dead – in particular, how those on Earth can influence the souls of the dead. He also speaks on themes of 'Sleep and death', 'The seven-year life cycles of man', and offers a 'Christmas gift' in the form of a lecture on Christian Rosenkreutz and Gautama Buddha. He ends with a mighty picture of the Mystery of Golgotha: Jesus Christ's death on the cross was only seemingly a death; in reality it enabled the momentous birth of the Earth-Soul.Long out-of-print, the freshly-revised text of the ten lectures in this new edition is complemented with an introduction, notes and appendices by Professor Frederick Amrine, and also features an index.

‘Whatever turbulent outward events occur in the world, whatever form is taken by things seeking to work their way out of the depths of human evolution, we only really hearken to the true, underlying nature of these events ... if we observe the world from a spiritual perspective.’ – Rudolf Steiner In seeking to heal the many social crises of our time, Rudolf Steiner urges us to turn away from ‘fixed principles, theories or social dogmas’ and to rediscover the real nature of the human being. This inner reality – that cannot be understood in materialistic or deterministic ways – is the only basis on which society can truly be founded. But it is not sufficient to speak of well-meaning ideas, he says, unless we are also active in working for change; change that begins with each of us. In 1919, a year marked by strong social and political upheavals, Steiner was deeply concerned with questions relating to society. Having published a book on the subject (Towards Social Renewal), he embarked on a major campaign to publicize his ‘threefold’ social ideas. In addition to public lectures, however, Steiner sought to deepen the subject in a series of talks to members of the Anthroposophical Society. These lectures, gathered in this volume, reveal the ‘inner’ or ‘esoteric’ aspects of the social question. They complement Steiner’s very practical efforts to realize threefolding in the historical context of his time. Whilst Steiner’s suggestions for social change may not seem self-evident to pragmatic thinking, they will strike a resonant chord in many who seek deeper answers to the social problems of our times – problems that politicians seem unable to remedy. Amidst the many themes tackled here, Steiner addresses the issue of nationalism as a retrograde tendency; the tasks of Central Europe and Britain in relation to the East; the incarnation of Ahriman in the West, and the historical incarnation of Lucifer in the third millennium BC.

In a series of nine lectures to doctors, pharmacists and students, Rudolf Steiner presents a wealth of medical ideas with numerous therapeutic and diagnostic insights. As with his first series of lectures on medicine held a year previously (Introducing Anthroposophical Medicine), the range, depth and scope of Steiner's subject-matter is breathtaking.

6 lectures at The Hague, April 7-12, 1922; A written report by Rudolf Steiner on the course (CW 82) "There is no contradiction, if you look into the matter correctly, between destiny and freedom. However, in order to be able to present the concept of destiny to the world later on, it was first necessary that the concept of freedom be presented in the book The Philosophy of Freedom." -- Rudolf Steiner (lect. 6) Published here for the first time in English, these six public lectures are among Rudolf Steiner's most inspired --and inspiring --explorations of Anthroposophy as a true science of the spirit. Our age provides abundant explanations of the universe, its nature and evolution. But underlying most scientific modalities is a passive engagement with self and world, a taking-for-granted of the faculty of thinking, and, as a result, an indifferent arranging of phenomena through logical inference. But the question remains: What is thinking? A product of chemical processes in the brain, or a spiritual activity through which we become participants in a spiritual cosmos? This is Steiner's starting point in all his work. He aims to cast off the unnecessary limits imposed on knowledge by a science that fails to examine its most fundamental epistemological premises. The lectures here are a remarkable contribution to this lifelong project --a compelling, eloquent, insightful study and affirmation of our very humanness. Speaking to a youthful academic audience, Steiner does not confine himself to the arbitrary delineations of codified academic disciplines; on the contrary, he breaks down barriers, builds bridges, envisions a future academy in which the paths of knowledge are broadened through a genuine science of initiation to encompass our role as members and, ultimately, co-creators of the physical, soul, and spiritual universe. "Those who seek to prove something show, through the very fact that they seek to prove it, that for them what must be proved is not readily perceptible. We actually seek to prove something whenever we have no direct perception of it.... When in older, instinctive cognition people had a perception of what they called the divine being, they did not need proofs. Historically, the proofs for the existence of God began only when the perception was lost. Evidence is required wherever there is no perception." -- Rudolf Steiner (lect. 6) This volume is a translation from German of Damit der Mensch ganz Mensch werde. Die Bedeutung der Anthroposophieim Geistesleben der Gegenwart (GA 82), 2nd ed., Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland, 1994. Cover image: The Golden Cell by Odilon Redon, 1892. Oil and colored chalks with gold, 30.1 cm x 24.7 cm. The British Museum, London.

A concise, illustrated introduction of Steiner's life and work.