Rudolf Steiner e.Lib 

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We live in critical, apocalyptic times. In these lectures, given just after the end of the First World War and in the midst of trying to effect the social-political life of his times with the movement for a threefold social order, Rudolf Steiner focuses on the vital task of developing a right orientation toward the spirit: a free spiritual life. With great compassion and understanding he shows, in telling examples, how humanity must walk a conscious middle path between the two "tempting" powers of Lucifer and Ahriman. He tells of the incarnation of Lucifer, in the third millennium BCE, from which flowed not only the wisdom of paganism but also the intellectual consciousness we enjoy today. Ahriman is shown to be approaching humanity through phenomena such as materialism, nationalism, and literalism in preparation for his incarnation in the millennium now opening. It must not be thought, however, that these two powers work apart: on the contrary, they work more and more together. Our task is to hold them in balance, continually permeating the one with the other. Doing this requires a new form of conscious spirituality.

In English translation, this volume has been split into three separate editions:

• Cosmogony, Freedom and Altruism (3 typescript lectures)
• Spiritual Scientific Knowledge and Social Understanding (6 typescript lectures, formerly Bn 192.1)
• The Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman (5 lectures published in several editions)

Contents:

• The Threefold Social Organization;
• Social Understanding through Spiritual Scientific Knowledge;
• Land Consciousness, Earth Consciousness, -or- How the Spiritual Works into the Physical;
• Social Impulses for the Healing of Modern Civilization, -or- Cosmogony, Freedom, Altruism;
• A Different Way of Thinking is Needed to Rescue European Civilization;
• Fundamental Impulses in History, -or- Cosmogony, Freedom, Altruism;
• Fundamentals of the Science of Initiation;
• Spiritual Scientific Knowledge and Social Understanding;
• The Incarnation of Lucifer in Asia in the Third Millenium B.C.;
• The Advance Preparation of Ahriman for His Future Incarnation;
• The Incarnation of Lucifer and Ahriman, -or- Luciferic Past and Ahrimanic Future;
• The Human as a Being of Will;
• Differentation of Primeval Wisdom into East, Middle, West;
• The Luciferic Origin of Ancient Wisdom, Ahrimanization ...

Known Publications:

• Soziales Verständnis aus geisteswissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis. Die geistigen Hintergründe der sozialen Frage, III, German language editions: 1983, 1989. ISBN 978-3-7274-1910-2,
• Cosmogony, Freedom and Altruism, three typescript lectures, copyright 1963 Los Angeles Rudolf Steiner Library, unknown translator, London Reference number Z-8
• Spiritual Scientific Knowledge and Social Understanding, six typescript lectures, unknown translator, London Reference number Z-431 (formerly Bn 192.1)
• The Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman, 5 lectures, copyright 1954 Rudolf Steiner Press, London, translated by D. Osmond
• Lucifer and Ahriman, 5 lectures, copyright 1976 Steiner Book Centre, Canada, translated by D. Osmond
• Lucifer and Ahriman, ISBN 0-91992-400-X, paperback, 5 lectures, copyright 1984 Steiner Book Centre, Canada, translated by D. Osmond
• , ISBN 0-88010-375-2, paperback, 5 lectures, copyright 1993 Anthroposophic Press, New York, translated by D. Osmond