During the Christmas Conference of 192324 when the Anthroposophical Society was refounded, Rudolf Steiner presented to its members for the first time the Foundation Stone Meditation. On consecutive days during that week, Steiner showed how elements of the Meditation could be rebuilt into new meditations (sometimes referred to as rhythms), which could be inwardly practiced. Zeylmans van Emmichoven was present at that formative meeting and lived intensively with these rhythms for more than 30 years. Initially in the Netherlands, and later during his many journeys around the world, Zeylmans began to make people aware of the germinating forces contained within the Meditation. This volume remains a seminal book that has inspired generations of students of anthroposophy.

The Foundation Stone Meditation holds a central place in the inner life of many students of Rudolf Steiner's work. First presented during the refounding of the Anthroposophical Society at the Christmas Conference of 1923/24, it is a powerful and penetrating meditative text which many consider to be a key to the spiritual mysteries of our time. This version features three alternative translations (by George Adams, Pauline Wehrle and Richard Seddon), together with the original German verses and an introduction by Michael Wilson.

"People who practice esoteric exercises grow spiritually into the future; they experience in themselves what will one day come about, and what they experience in this way is what we know as the higher worlds. These represent future conditions of humankind" (Rudolf Steiner, Munich 1907). Rudolf Steiner spoke the Foundation Stone meditation at the Christmas Conference of the General Anthroposophical Society in 1923, giving it to the Society members for strengthening their forces. The meditation's words contain, as Sergei O. Prokofieff states, "the quintessence of the whole of Anthroposophy." Thus, Rudolf Steiner was bestowing on the members the possibility of dealing resolutely with the specific tasks that awaited them. In this short, potent volume, the author suggests further that "The Foundation Stone Meditation" represents the concerns of every individual of our time, allowing each of us to maintain our humanity in the face of the challenges and catastrophes of both the present and the future. Steiner said that one could hear the words of the meditation "sounding" in one's heart. This process of "hearing" will acquire even more significance and reality in future, and can be of enormous help to anyone who opens themselves to it. It is against this background that Selg has written this introductory book: to promote awareness of the meditation, understanding of its historic place in the catastrophic twentieth century, and its critical but latent contribution to the future.

Meditative reflection--strengthening thinking and feeling through the will--is one of the main methods of experiencing Anthroposophy. Prokofieff writes: "The best path to this goal is inner work with the Foundation Stone Meditation, because this meditation is the quintessence of the whole of Anthroposophy, given in meditatively inspired form by means of earthly words." Rudolf Steiner described the substance of the "Foundation Stone Meditation" as spoken by him "out of the will of the spiritual world," and as "verses heard from the Cosmic Word." Owing to its spiritual and mantric form, the text of this meditation represents an archetype and is thus a key to the most diverse areas of world and human existence. Depending on "which spiritual portal is opened with this key," explains Prokofieff, "one arrives at one result or another, and one and the same line of the meditation becomes a reply to the most varied questions." The author applies this method in this work and, in the process, illuminates and opens up many dimensions of spiritual science. His research embraces, among other aspects, the relationship of the "Foundation Stone Meditation" to the being Anthroposophia, the spiritual hierarchies, human karma, the Rosicrucian, Michaelic and Grail streams, the Mystery of Golgotha, the two Jesus children, the three spiritual sources of Anthroposophy, and even the Constitution of the General Anthroposophical Society.

In the unfolding of a true spiritual mission upon the Earth, the great teachers of humanity work together. An example of this working together to fulfill a spiritual mission for humanity is presented to us in this book. It is a matter in this work of a collaboration between two great spiritual teachers of humanity in the twentieth century: Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) and Valentin Tomberg (1900-1973). Rudolf Steiner's life work culminated in the 'baptismal event' for the Second Coming of Christ expressed in the Foundation Stone of Love and clothed in the words of the Foundation Stone meditation. Valentin Tomberg, after his spiritual awakening in 1932, entered into the Mystery of Christ's Second Coming. His Studies on the Foundation Stone Meditation, published in critical years of world history (1936-1939), were written just a few years after his spiritual awakening. They penetrate into the Mystery of Christ's Second Coming by offering the reader access from within to the Foundation Stone meditation given to humanity by Christ through Rudolf Steiner. Every sentence of these studies - born of living experience undergone by Valentin Tomberg - leads the reader into the sublime mystery of the spirit awakening of humanity through Christ in our time. Understood as a manual for enlightenment, to be worked with meditatively over and over again, this work is one of the great treasures of humanity's spiritual literature - a priceless jewel for every spiritual seeker in our time.

In this selection of thirty of Rudolf Steiner's most important lectures on the Festivals, he identifies and illumines the true meaning behind Christmas, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost, and Michaelmas, emphasizing both their inner-spiritual and outer-cosmic aspects. He shows that the Festivals are not merely the commemoration of mighty historical events or truths within the Christian tradition, but are in themselves - each year - spiritual events, manifesting in seasonal and natural rhythms, which carry a significance that grows and deepens with the developing of human evolution.

Rudolf Steiner gave The Foundation Stone Meditation in 1924. This profound text is designed to help people in their meditative work to make a real, inner connection to the spiritual source of anthroposophy. Dr. Adrian Anderson has made a new, accurate translation of both the verse and the lecture that Steiner gave at this time. The power of the book is in its commentary on the many subtle and deep aspects of the verse.

In 16 concise chapters, Rudolf Steiner reveals how we can look through the material veil of this world and glimpse the world of the spirit. With meditation and concentrated thought we can develop our intuition and clairvoyance and even our powers of ESP. Written "to be of use to those who are really in earnest in seeking knowledge of the spiritual world," this book continues to inspire today. Austrian scholar, philosopher and spiritual researcher RUDOLF STEINER (1861-1925) has written dozens of books, including Philosophy of Freedom, Theosophy, An Outline of Occult Science, and Knowledge of the Higher Worlds.

"Leading thoughts" and letters for members of the Anthroposophical Society (CW 26) "The leading thoughts here given are meant to open up subjects for study and discussion. Points of contact with them will be found in countless places in the anthroposophic books and lecture courses, so that the subjects thus opened up can be enlarged upon and the discussions in the groups centered around them." -- Rudolf Steiner This key volume contains Rudolf Steiner's "leading thoughts," or guiding principles, and related letters to members of the Anthroposophical Society. Using brief, aphoristic statements, Steiner succinctly presents his spiritual science as a modern path of knowledge, accompanied by "letters" that expand and contextualize the guiding thought. These 185 thoughts constitute invaluable, clear summaries of Steiner's fundamental ideas--indeed, they contain the whole of Anthroposophy. They are intended not as doctrine, but to stimulate and focus one's study and discussion of spiritual science. "Anthroposophy is a path of knowledge to guide the Spiritual in the human being to the Spiritual in the universe.... Anthroposophy communicates knowledge that is gained in a spiritual way.... There are those who believe that with the limits of knowledge derived from sense perception the limits of all insight are given. Yet if they would carefully observe howthey become conscious of these limits, they would find in the very consciousness of the limits the faculties to transcend them." -- Rudolf Steiner This volume is a translation of Anthroposophische Leitsätze, Der Erkenntnisweg der Anthroposophie--Das Michael-Mysterium (GA 26).