The Cycle of the Year as a Path of Initiation
Leading to an Experience of the Christ Being
An Esoteric Study of the Festivals
Sergei O. Prokofieff
Translated from Russian by Simon Blaxland de Lange

In ancient times humanity possessed an innate knowledge of the spiritual foundations of existence. Such knowledge could be acquired through inwardly accompanying the cycle of the year and the great seasonal festivals connected to it. But this instinctive knowledge had to be lost in order that human beings could discover individual freedom. In our time, as Prokofieff demonstrates in this comprehensive work, ‘this knowledge must be found anew through the free, light-filled consciousness of the fully developed human personality’.

By following the spiritual path of the cycle of the year, Prokofieff penetrates to the deeper esoteric realities of the seven Christian festivals of Michaelmas, Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, Whitsun, and St John's Tide. Basing his research on the work of the twentieth-century initiate Rudolf Steiner, he shows that these festivals are spiritual facts which exist independently of religious traditions and cultural customs.

Working with the festivals in an esoteric sense can provide a true path of initiation, enabling the individual ultimately to experience the Being of the earth, Christ. Thus, the journey of study through this book can lead the reader to an experience of the modern Christian-Rosicrucian path, along which it is possible to take the first steps towards life in partnership with the course of cosmic existence.'

‘This study will endure as an esoteric classic well into the next century . . . .’
                                                                                                      – Anthroposophy Today
(from the book jacket)

Temple Lodge Publishing
485pp; hardback
ISBN: 0 904693 70 8

Other books by the author:

• The Case of Valentin Tomberg - Anthroposophy or Jesuitism?
• The Cycle of the Seasons and the Seven Liberal Arts
• The East in the Light of the West - Two Eastern Streams of the Twentieth Century in the Light of Christian Esotericism
• The Encounter with Evil - and its Overcoming through Spiritual Science
• Eternal Individuality - Towards a Karmic Biography of Novalis
• The Heavenly Sophia and the Being Anthroposophia
• May Human Beings Hear It!
• The Occult Significance of Forgiveness
• Prophecy of the Russian Epic: 'How the Holy Mountains Released the Mighty Russian Heroes from their Rocky Caves'
• Rudolf Steiner and the Founding of the New Mysteries
• Rudolf Steiner's Research into Karma and the Mission of the Anthroposophical Society
• The Spiritual Origins of Eastern Europe and the Future Mysteries of the Holy Grail
• The Twelve Holy Nights and the Spiritual Hierarchies

 Copyright © 2003 Skylark Books