Good and Evil Spirits: and their Influence on Humanity (CW 102) (Volume 102)

Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner #CW 102

by Rudolf Steiner, Anna Meuss (Translation)

13 lectures, Berlin, January 6 – June 11, 1908 (CW 102) “We learn gradually to raise our eyes not only to material existence; instead we discover spiritual entities and their actions wherever we look in the universe.... We get to know the deeds of these spirits. We are alive and active and we are within the spiritual entities and their activities.” ― Rudolf Steiner This classic series of lectures presents systematic knowledge on many different spiritual entities, ranging from the higher hierarchies of angels down to hindering demons. Basing his presentation on spiritual-scientific research, Rudolf Steiner intends to awaken us to the existence of these beings and how they interact with all aspects of our lives. Steiner describes how animals, plants, and minerals have group souls―with even an inert stone having a spiritual counterpart in the invisible world. The various planets in the cosmos are connected to great spiritual beings and hierarchies too, as is the zodiac, which is not a static band of fixed stars but is also evolving. Steiner gives a remarkable picture of how Christ relates to the zodiacal constellations and to our own higher aspects. Spiritual entities are associated with the evolution of Earth and the previous stages of its existence―and here Steiner elaborates relevant chapters of his book An Outline of Esoteric Science , explaining how our task on earth is ultimately to develop love rather than wisdom (which was the goal of earth’s previous stage). From cosmic considerations, Steiner leads to the spirits of the kingdoms of nature―the elemental beings, with their four classes connecting to the four elements―gnomes, undines, sylphs, and salamanders, or earth, water, air and fire spirits. He describes how elemental beings are created by human activities―with coercion of the views of others leading to “demons,” lying leading to “phantoms,” and bad social systems to “specters.” Spirits are also created in the association of humans and animals, while other spiritual entities connect us with the arts. Steiner emphasizes the importance of developing and appreciating the arts―such as music, sculpture, architecture, painting, and poetry―for the sake of humanity’s future evolution. This volume is a translation from German of Das Hereinwirken geistiger Wesenheiten in den Menschen (GA 102)

248 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2014

About the author

Author also wrote under the name Rudolph Steiner.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...


Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published works including The Philosophy of Freedom. At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy. His teachings are influenced by Christian Gnosticism or neognosticism. Many of his ideas are pseudoscientific. He was also prone to pseudohistory.
In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis between science and spirituality. His philosophical work of these years, which he termed "spiritual science", sought to apply what he saw as the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy to spiritual questions,  differentiating this approach from what he considered to be vaguer approaches to mysticism. In a second phase, beginning around 1907, he began working collaboratively in a variety of artistic media, including drama, dance and architecture, culminating in the building of the Goetheanum, a cultural centre to house all the arts. In the third phase of his work, beginning after World War I, Steiner worked on various ostensibly applied projects, including Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, and anthroposophical medicine.
Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual approach. He based his epistemology on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's world view in which "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." A consistent thread that runs through his work is the goal of demonstrating that there are no limits to human knowledge.