 Karmic
Relationships – Volume III
Esoteric Studies
11 lectures by Rudolf Steiner
In Volume III of Rudolf Steiner’s
8-volume series on Karmic Relationships he puts special attention on
the karmic streams of humanity which are woven into the
anthroposophical movement and specifically the Anthroposophical
Society. He describes the broad characteristics and history of two
types of souls, their evolutionary background from a long-past
antiquity and their experiences both incarnate and excarnate in
recent centuries.
There are those who in the very distant
times of ancient Lemuria when the Moon and Earth were still one
body, departed to cosmic realms and could only return in a later
epoch when the substantiality of the earth and especially of the
human body were suitable to them. (See:
An Outline of Esoteric Science for an in-depth
account of the early evolutionary history of the world and of
humanity.) These have had few incarnations compared with the second
stream who remained with the earth and experienced its long history
of changes. These two “breeds” of soul approach anthroposophy quite
differently and bring markedly different forces into its cultivation
and development.
Steiner also describes very significant
human experiences and events since the Mystery of Golgotha which
were fundamentally important for the souls who incarnated in the 19th
and 20th centuries seeking, consciously or unconsciously,
to find Anthroposophy. Impulses which could be experienced in the
early Christian centuries, developments in the 12th and
13th Centuries in the Scholastic schools of Chartres, the
struggles of the Dominicans against Arabic spiritual concepts,
powerful events which took place in the spiritual realms, especially
in the early 19th Century which were experienced
profoundly by Anthroposophical souls approaching a new birth, all of
these and more are described to show the spiritual preparations for
the advent of the anthroposophical spiritual movement which has been
inaugurated under the guiding auspices of Michael.
This is an important read for
anthroposophists who are seeking a greater understanding of the
development of Anthroposophy as a generative spiritual movement in
the declining world of materialism. More personally it is also
important for the understanding of our own experiences and
orientation within the anthroposophical movement as well as for an
understanding of others whose methods and manner are seen to be
different from our own.
Trans. G. Adams & D. S. Osmond
11 lectures, Dornach, 1 July – 8 Aug 1924, GA 237
Rudolf Steiner Press
184pp; paperback
ISBN: 978-1-85584-216-8
Prompt
delivery within the United Kingdom and overseas.
Copyright © 2003 Skylark Books
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