Theosophy

by Rudolf Steiner

Overview

Given his energetic involvement in practical initiatives and extensive lecturing, Rudolf Steiner had very little time to write. Of the books he found time to write, four titles are considered indispensable introductions to his teaching as a whole: How to Know Higher Worlds; An Outline of Esoteric Science; Intuitive Thinking As a Spiritual Path; and Theosophy. With the exception of his Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts and Autobiography, Steiner's writings belong to his earliest work.

In this classic translation of Theosophy, Steiner brings us a psychology based not on the conventional duality of body and mind, but on the more ancient division of body, soul, and spirit. Steiner offers a detailed description of the functions and organs of the three aspects of the human being, as well as the objective realms to which they belong. Just as the physical body originates in and belongs to the material world, so too do the human soul and spirit belong to their specific realms. These are the dimensions through which all human beings travel in the life after death, and in which-after passing the "midnight hour"-we begin to seek our karma and destiny in a new life. Theosophy features one of the most comprehensive and condensed of all Steiner's accounts of these realms, as well as the events our immortal being experiences in passing through them.

The book ends with a chapter on the modern "path of knowledge," in which Steiner describes exercises by means of which everyone can develop the latent powers of perception needed to know the higher worlds.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9791222077901
Publisher:	Passerino
Publication date:	03/09/2023
Sold by:	StreetLib SRL
Format:	eBook
File size:	963 KB

About the Author

Rudolf Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, literary scholar, educator, artist, playwright, social thinker, and esotericist. He was the founder of Anthroposophy, Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophical medicine, and the new artistic form of Eurythmy.
Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual component. He derived his epistemology from Johann Wolfgang Goethe's world view, where "Thinking... is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas.

Read an Excerpt

THEOSOPHY INTRODUCTION When Johann Gottlieb Fichte, in the autumn of 1813, gave to the world his "Introduction to the Science of Knowledge" as the ripe fruit of a life wholly devoted to the service of truth, he said, at the very beginning: "This science presupposes an entirely new inner sense organ or instrument, by means of which there is revealed a new world which does not exist for the ordinary man." And he proceeded to give the following comparison to show how incomprehensible this doctrine of his must be when judged by means of conceptions founded on the ordinary senses: "Think of a world of people born blind, who therefore know only those objects and relations which exist through the sense of touch. Go among them and speak to them of colors and the otherrelations which exist only through light and for the sense of sight. Either you convey nothing to their minds, and this is the more fortunate if they tell you so, for you will in that way quickly notice the mistake and, if unable to open their eyes, will cease the useless speaking. . . ." Now those who speak to people about such things as Fichte deals with in this instance find themselves only too often in a position like that of a man who can see among the born blind. But these are things that refer to man's true being and highest goal, and to believe it necessary "to cease the useless speaking" would amount to despairing of humanity. On the contrary, one should not for one moment doubt the possibility of opening the eyes of everyone to these things, provided that he is in earnest in the matter. On this supposition have all those written and spoken who felt that within themselves the "inner sense- instrument" hadgrown by which they were able to know the true nature and being of man, which is hidden from the outer sens...