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These lectures are an excellent, inspiring introduction to Waldorf education. With freshness, immediacy, and excitement, Steiner outlines the goals and intentions of the new Free Waldorf School and gives a talk to prospective parents. He explains the school's guiding principles and describes how parents must participate, with understanding and interest, in the awakening of their children's creative forces so that a healthier society can come about. Contents include "The Intent of the Waldorf School", "The Spirit of the Waldorf School", "Spiritual Science and Pedagogy", and an essay "The Pedagogical Objective of the Waldorf School in Stuttgart".

Written in 1894 (CW 4)"The realms of life are many. For each, specific sciences develop. But life itself is a unity, and the more the sciences busily immerse themselves in separate realms, the farther they move away from seeing the living wholeness of the world. There must be a kind of knowing that seeks, in the separate sciences, the elements that lead human beings back to full life again. A scientific specialist wants to become aware of the world and how it works through his or her insights. In this book, the goal is philosophical: science itself is to become organically alive. The separate sciences are preludes to the science attempted here." -- Rudolf Steiner (preface to the 1st edition)Of all of his works, Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path (Die Philosophie der Freiheit) is the one that Steiner himself believed would have the longest life and the greatest spiritual and cultural consequences. It was written as a phenomenological account of the "results of observing the human soul according to the methods of natural science.This seminal work asserts that free spiritual activity--understood as the human ability to think and act independently of physical nature--is the suitable path for human beings today to gain true knowledge of themselves and of the universe. This is not merely a philosophical volume, but rather a warm, heart-oriented guide to the practice and experience of living thinking.Readers will not find abstract philosophy here, but a step-by-step account of how a person may come to experience living, intuitive thinking--"the conscious experience of a purely spiritual content."During the past hundred years since it was written, many have tried to discover this "new thinking" that could help us understand the various spiritual, ecological, social, political, and philosophical issues facing us. But only Rudolf Steiner laid out a path that leads from ordinary thinking to the level of pure spiritual activity--intuitive thinking--in which we become co-creators and co-redeemers of the world."When, with the help of Steiner's book, we recognize that thinking is an essentially spiritual activity, we discover that it can school us. In that sense--Steiner's sense--thinking is a spiritual path." -- Gertrude Reif HughesThis volume is arguably the most essential of Steiner's works. The thoughts in this book establish the foundation for all of Anthroposophy.Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path is a translation from German of Die Philosophie der Freiheit (GA 4).

2 written works, 1912 & 1913 (CW 16/17)Part one, "A Way of Self-Knowledge" Eight meditations that take the reader on a journey through human experience. Beginning with ordinary experience, Steiner offers ways to imagine and understand the physical body, the elemental (or etheric) body, the elemental world, the Guardian of the Threshold, the astral body, the "I"-body (or thought body), the nature of experience in suprasensory worlds, and ways of perceiving previous earthly lives. Part two, "The Threshold of the Spiritual World" Sixteen short chapters in which Steiner provides aphoristic thoughts on trusting one's thinking, cognition of the spiritual world, karma and reincarnation, the astral body and luciferic beings, how to recognize suprasensory consciousness, the true nature of love, and more. These two complete books together represent Steiner's most personal statements about his own spiritual path. He speaks directly from experiences of cognitive research and explorations. Each of the meditations and aphorisms arises from his spiritual research and demonstrates how such spiritual research is to be undertaken. The "content" is Steiner's own, but readers can discover their own "content." Steiner's method of awareness--his path of attention to one's own experience--is universal and truly human. A Way of Self-Knowledge is a true sequel and complement to the classic of inner development, How to Know Higher Worlds. It lays out in a way that is accessible to anyone the road to self-knowledge and to the world of spirit. A Way of Self-Knowledge: And the Threshold of the Spiritual Worldis a translation of «Ein Weg zur Selbsterkenntnis des Menschen: In acht Meditationen» (GA 16) and «Die Schwelle dre geistigen Welt: Aphoristische Ausführungen» (GA 17).

12 lectures, Berne, September 1-12, 1910 (CW 123)"If we read [Steiner's] lectures with an open and attentive inner eye, we may be able to see the Christ mystery, not as a collection of dogmas or facts, but as a spiritual impulse that stretches far beyond the limits of Christ's own time and even of the lifespan of Christianity itself. We may even catch a glimpse of the high powers that govern the life of civilizations and of the great entity known as the human race." -- Richard Smoley (from the introduction)For centuries people have been baffled by the varying accounts of Christ's life as presented in the four Gospels and have struggled to reconcile them. In these profound and stimulating lectures, Steiner addresses this conundrum. He shows how each of the Gospels presents a different lens onto Christ's life and message.Here Steiner reveals the Gospel of Matthew as the one that emphasizes Christ's humanity. But he does not stop there; his visionary perspective traces Christ's life and message to spiritual impulses that go back centuries, even millennia, to the legendary civilization of Atlantis, to the mysterious Zarathustra, and to the Jewish sect known as the Essenes.An introduction by Richard Smoley, author of Inner Christianity, puts Steiner's vision into perspective for modern readers. Once you have experienced Steiner's powerful exploration of Matthew, you will never see the Gospels in the same way again.According to Matthew is a translation from German of Das Matthaeus-evangelium. A previous translation was titled The Gospel of St. Matthew (GA 123).

Moral teaching and moral preaching cannot establish morality. It is only by delving into the hidden secrets of life that we can advance not just to moral doctrines but to the moral sources of life -- true moral impulses. At different times, humanity has manifested moral life in different ways. To understand these differences, the evolution of consciousness must be taken into account. Originally morality was a part of human nature, for in their essence human beings are good. But through evolution, there have come errors, deviations, fallings-away. In this small, much-loved cycle of three lectures, Rudolf Steiner indicates the sources for the recovery of a living morality for our time.Rudolf Steiner shows the transformation of the virtues through the evolution of consciousness, and, above all, through the incarnation of the Christ in the Mystery of Golgotha.

14 lectures, Stuttgart, August 21-September 5, 1919 (CW 294) How do Waldorf teachers put their educational ideals into practice in the classroom? How does a teacher connect geography and art and language in a way that enlivens the souls of children? What does a child's respect for the teacher mean for later life? These are only a few practical aspects of this initial course for Waldorf teachers.During an intensive two weeks, Rudolf Steiner gave three simultaneous educational courses to those who would be the first teachers of the original Waldorf school. One course provided the foundational ideas behind Waldorf education (The Foundations of Human Experience); another provided a forum for questions and lively discussions on specific issues in the classroom (Discussions with Teachers). In this course, Steiner takes the middle-path by integrating theory and practice.Here, Steiner spoke of new ways to teach reading, writing, geography, geometry, language, and much more. His approach is tailored to the spiritual and physical needs of the children themselves, not to an arbitrary curriculum based solely on external results.At a time when public education is in a state of crisis, this book describes how children around the world are being guided into adulthood with a fuller sense of themselves and with a creative approach to life and the world around them.German source: Erziehungskunst. Methodisch-Didaktisches (GA 294).

3 selected lectures by Rudolf SteinerThis is one of those books that can change your life. Radical, thought-provoking, and indeed mind-boggling, it leads to a completely new way of looking at what it means to be human--a spiritual being in a universe that itself is not just physical, but psychic and spiritual as well.These three previously untranslated lectures are a masterly introduction to what Rudolf Steiner means by "Anthroposophy." They explain why Steiner describes this path--which means literally "the wisdom of the human being"--as one that "unites what is spiritual in the human being with what is spiritual in the universe." Steiner begins by describing what happens when we die. He shows the relationship between our physical life on Earth and the etheric, astral, and spiritual life of the cosmos. He also explains how physical lives are completely interwoven with cosmic existence, and how the "miss-ing links" in evolution are spiritual in nature. Steiner then demonstrates what he calls the "dilettantism" and "soullessness" of mainstream psychology. He points out that, since the second half of the nineteenth century, the idea of the soul has been lost and that, consequently, understanding of our inner lives is without a sure foundation. A very different view emerges, however, from a truly spiritual perspective. In the third lec-ture, Steiner takes as his guide our three states of being--waking, dreaming, and sleeping. He describes in detail what happens in these three states and how each is bound up with our lives as physical, psychic, and spiritual beings. With the profound insights in this book, the world becomes a much larger, richer, and more exciting place to live.

Rudolf Steiner's course on light, which includes explorations of color, sound, mass, electricity and magnetism, presages the dawn of a new world view in the natural sciences that will stand our notion of the physical world on its head.This "first course" in natural science, given to the teachers of the new Stuttgart Waldorf School as an inspiration for developing the physics curriculum, is based on Goethe's approach to the study of nature. Acknowledging that modern physicists had come to regard Goethe's ideas on physics as a "kind of nonsense", Steiner contrasts the traditional scientific approach, which treats phenomena as evidence of "natural laws", with Goethean science, which rejects the idea of an abstract law behind natural phenomena and instead seeks to be a "rational description of nature". Steiner then corrects the mechanistic reductionism practiced by scientific positivists, emphasizing instead the validity of human experience and pointing toward a revolution in scientific paradigms that would reclaim ground for the subject -- the human being -- in the study of nature.

Highly recommended account by a class teacher of what actually goes on inside the classroom of a Waldorf school.

Now what kind of approach by the reader did THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY count on? It had to assume a special way of reading. It expected the reader, as he read, to undergo the sort of inner experience that, in an external sense, is really just waking up out of sleep in the morning. The feeling one should have about it is such as to make one say, "My relationship to the world in passive thoughts was, on a higher level, that of a person who lies asleep. Now I am waking up." It is like knowing, at the moment of awakening, that one has been lying passively in bed, letting nature have her way with one's body. But then one begins to be inwardly active. One relates one's senses actively to what is going on in the color permeated, sounding world about one. One links one's own bodily activity to one's intentions. The reader of The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity should experience something very like this waking moment of transition from passivity to activity, though of course on a higher level. He should be able to say, "Yes, I have certainly thought thoughts before. But my thinking took the form of just letting thoughts flow and carry me along. Now, little by little, I am beginning to be inwardly active in them." - from Rudolf Steiner's AWAKENING TO COMMUNITY

In recent years a chasm has opened between many of our leaders and those who work for them.We have witnessed the sacrifices of airline workers and the unconscionable compensation of top executives, the ideals of Olympic Games and the conduct of certain committee members, the sacrament of religion and the priests who abused the sanctity of the human body, the needed services of United Way and their extravagant executive "perks," and the hopes of fairness through democracy versus the presidential election of 2000.The values of hard work, inalienable rights, fairness and public service held by most Americans is often lacking in our leaders. An ethical chasm has opened up in our midst, and unless we do something, our future will fall victim to our inadequacies. Our standing in the world in years to come will depend less on our military might, and more on our moral strength.We need to begin a united search for ethical leadership. Taking Torin's journey of discovery with him, we examine the roots of this loss of ethical leadership, and we begin to see a way out of this situation by applying the spiritual principles of Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy. The Search for Ethical Leadership is grounded in practical tools that offer us real hope for the future of ethical leadership.

Outline of the processes of cosmic evolution, including detailed exercises for attaining higher conscious states.

This edition brings together an ordered sequence of statements by Steiner on the development of higher, suprasensory knowing -- imagination, inspiration, and intuition. Ten chapters take the reader from the idea of inner development, through the cultural and evolutioary need for higher knowing, to examples of the practices and inner gestures this work requires. Steiner unfolds the necessary steps and stages, always insisting on the free, individual, and cognitive character of anthroposophic spiritual research.

15 discussions with teachers of the Stuttgart Waldorf School, Aug. 21 - Sept. 6, 1919; 3 lectures on the curriculum, Sept. 6, 1919 (CW 295)"In spiritual science we divide the human being into 'I'-being, astral body, etheric body, and physical body. In an ideal human being, the harmony predestined by the cosmic plan would naturally predominate among these four human principles. But in reality, this is not so with any individual. Thus, it can be seen that the human being, when given over to the physical plane, is not yet really complete; education and teaching, however, should serve to make the human being complete. One of the four elements rules in each child, and education and teaching must harmonize these four principles." -- Rudolf SteinerFor two weeks, prior to the opening of the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart, Rudolf Steiner intensively prepared the individuals he had chosen to become the first Waldorf teachers. At 9:00 a.m. each day, he gave the course now translated as Foundations of Human Experience; at 11:00 a.m., Practical Advice to Teachers; and then, after lunch, from 3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., he held the informal "discussions" published in this book.The tone is spontaneous and relaxed. Steiner does not prescribe specific methods but introduces topics and situations, offering guidelines and allocating practical assignments that are taken up and discussed in the next session. The discussions are filled with insights and suggestions in many different areas of teaching--history, geography, botany, zoology, form drawing, mathematics, and more.Speech exercises are included. This edition also includes, for the first time in English, three important lectures on the curriculum, given the day just before the school opened.These fifteen discussions constitute an essential part of the basic training material for Waldorf teachers.Discussions with Teachers is a translation from German of Erziehungskunst. Seminarbesprechungen und Lehrplanvorträge (vol. 295 in the Bibliographical Survey, published by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland, 1961).